The Wise Child (BNHA x OC)

16. Through Blood and Bone

I could hear the sound of my brother training echo through the house. I watched his form through a sliver in the door. 

My father came home hours ago, and he hadn’t left the training room since. 

During the daylight hours my father felt different than those stolen moments of him during late nights when exhaustion had eaten away at his reserves. But at least it was still him when he came home. 

We hadn’t talked to one another in nearly a week. But I would watch him train Shoto. Watch him yell. 

I hated when he yelled.

But sometimes the silence in his absence was so wrong, so foul, that I couldn’t breathe. I welcomed his yelling like a gift, something to cry about instead of sitting in my room hiding away in books and realizing every few minutes that my voice was unneeded and that slowly but surely the silence would consume me. 

Yelling became my home. 

So I stared through the crack in the door, and watched as my brother fought, and sweat and cried. And for the strangest moments, I wished I was him. 

“What are you doing?” I looked up at the rough voice, sharp and cruel. My father stood over me, having noticed my presence even though I barely dared to breathe too loudly.

I gulped, unsure of what to say. I begged for words to come, but they never did. Not when I needed them. As the seconds ticked by his temper grew hotter, and I could feel the room grow to resemble the inside of a furnace. 

“I asked you a question.” He ground out. 

“I-I was just-I-” Think. Think. “I just wanted to watch. I’m sorry.”

He looked down, calculating. It was hard to find where to look so I settled on the ground, hoping that he would say something. Anything. And dreading it too.

“Why?” He demanded.

Words. Anything. Something. “I-well-” I saw my brother looking over at me, his regular glare softened only slightly in curiosity. Gulping, I looked back at my father. “I want you to train me. Like you do Shoto.”

The room was silent, silent like the last week, no like the last few months. I hated it. I hated it so much. It was horrible, sickening, I just needed it to stop. 

“I’ll do anything- anything. I’ll work as much as you want, I won’t complain. I promise, I won’t. And I’ll get strong. Like you.” It wasn’t enough. I could see the boredom growing in his eyes. “Like All Might! I’ll do it! Please!” 

His eyes narrowed. 

“Through blood and bone?” 

“Through blood and bone.”

My feet pounded against concrete as I shoved my way through the crowd of students. A race. Of course. I was glad for the hours I had spent running around the same four streets in preparation for this event. 

In the first few seconds I had already taken one of the beginning spots. Moving through the crowd of students crammed into a tunnel like structure.

But the relative peace in the beginning was quickly ruined by a sudden layer of ice covering all of the contestant’s feet.

I looked up to see my brother, the culprit, eyes making direct contact with me before he sprinted off into the lead. 

I didn’t give myself time to panic, instead sending a large amount of acidic ice of my own to melt his. It burned, eating at my shoes, but I didn’t care. I didn’t have that luxury. Pain was a necessity for victory, and sure enough I followed close behind, gaining in seconds.