Burnt to Ashes - Kenichi Todoroki

Scopophobia

Kenichi's POV:

Everyday preparing for the sports festival was another day of pure hell.

I knew I was bound to win. There was no way I wouldn't. But it was coming up far too fast, and the days leading up, I felt more and more paranoid.

People staring, burning into my skin. But nobody was there. It was just me. I was just me, right?

I took out my hero costume from my locker, and–

"Kenichi!" I could hear Seiryo's voice. "You've been standing there forever, man, you alright?"

Was I alright? Nothing particular happened, I don't have much of a reason to be not alright. But some gut feeling made me feel as if I wasn't alright.

"Hello?" He called out again.

"Yeah," I muttered, "I'm alright."

I changed into my hero costume and realized how ridiculously tight it was to the skin. I knew most costumes were like that, but I was used to the bagginess of my gang uniform. And my clothes in general. It felt like I was exposed.

I embarrassingly walked out to Toronto's biggest training field, my arms wrapped around myself in an effort to cover up. I walked up to Ryker, Milo, Seiryo, and Astaroth.

"Your hero costume is sick, dude!" Seiryo told me.

I shrugged, "My dad had it made for me."

Ryker walked over to me and pulled part of the fabric. "Stretchy, but skintight. Must've been expensive."

"Not your style, though," Milo commented.

"I know," I said. "But I'm sure if I had anything baggy like that I'd burn or get in my way. I guess my dad was right about this one."

I removed my arms from my stomach and observed my friend's hero costumes. Seiryo's looked like a suit of armor, but light, and bandages wrapped around him for some reason. Milo's was primarily black with red and green aspects to it, I mean, what did they really need with their versatile quirk? And Ryker had some kind of short cloak with pouches.

In all, they all seemed pretty happy with their costumes. I guess I should be too.

Ablaze set us free to work on our quirks before she gave a more guided lesson in an hour. This gave me time to spar.

I wanted someone who had a quirk up to par with mine, someone who I couldn't just easily burn through. I observed my peers until my eyes were set on Sasha.

I knew she was still pissed about the Gold Vipers thing, and I would never forgive her for joining an enemy gang, however maybe the rage she felt towards me would make her eager to say yes. Maybe if I challenged her, she'd see it as a chance to seek revenge. I did get a glimpse of how she fought when she fought Akihito. She lost, but Akihito is quite strong when it comes to life or death.

I walked up to her and her eyes pierced into me before I could even open my mouth. "The hell do you want?" she asked.

"How would you feel about sparring?" I asked her. "Up for it?"

"I've got my own training to be doing, not for you to kill me," she snapped.

I narrowed my eyes, "Scared?"

"As if," she hissed. "We're sparring."

I could see her cousin Draven narrowing his eyes. What was his deal?

I didn't have to roll up my sleeves like I was used to since my costume had short sleeves. I activated my molten rock and lava and got into a defensive stance. Sasha got into her own defensive stance, and I could see the patches on her face, hands and the ones on the rest of her body glow a bright white.