Burnt to Ashes - Kenichi Todoroki

A Beast to Come

Zay's POV:

"It's settled then," Ichirou announced over a long stretched table. Along with his two biological brothers and his parents, I sat in one of the seats. "We are starting a war with Toronto. We will end Kenichi at all costs."

Keiji took a long drag on his cigarette. "Fine by me."

"And most importantly, we will take his quirk," Ichirou continued. "We will let his lava quirk reside along us, rather than against us."

That was three days ago. Now, I sit chained to the wall inside my cell that I had spent eleven years in until I got released. But I'm back. Back as the lab rat.

I barely remember my death to him. I barely remember anything at all. But I know I hate him. I hate Kenichi Todoroki, and I will help the Shirokages end him.

"You are a user of all the unused Shirokage power," Saburo explained to me through my cell. "A vessel of quirks we barely understand ourselves. But now, you'll be our driving force in this war. All with a little bit of.. help."

Maxwell sat by my cell. He was all I had left as of now, ever since I was put in hiding, but he was distant. I knew he had joined a hero school, and he knew I was furious about it. Maybe that was why. But I'd never forget all the times he'd tell me stories through my cage, and how amazing it was past the boundaries of where I was confined.

"Zaybot.ai," Maxwell said, "an accumulation of all your greatest strengths, mixed in with a bit of robotic coding. It's not impossible, but it's dangerous and eroding. It could destroy your body in a couple of seconds, but the war is important, so you have been beckoned."

His rhyming sent a chill down my spine, and I narrowed my eyes. I felt vulnerable every time I was chained like this. But I knew the moment I was upgraded and released to Toronto, I could kill.

"Maxwell," Saburo mumbled. All Maxwell did was nod, turn to me, and open the cage with a key.

"The war will begin tomorrow."

Draven's POV:

Tension, tension, anxiety, anxiety...

Five things I could see, four things I could...hear? Feel?

I couldn't think.

I pushed my glasses up where it sat on my nose bridge, and impulsively shot out of the storage room. Sasha and Anxo ran right beside me, but we ran the wrong way. Or maybe we were right, and the entire class was wrong, but usually I was the one wrong. Always me.

Sasha always told me I was stuck in my own head, and it definitely felt like that now. But my head was my safe place, and anything was better than being stuck in a warzone. Toronto, warzone... same amount of letters. This was bound to happen.

"Where's the rest of the class?" Anxo questioned.

"Clearly not with us," Sasha snapped.

"Well what do we do?" Anxo turned to me, as if I had any clue, as if I wasn't panicking as much or more than both of them combined.

"I..." I frantically looked around, then the direction of Richmond Hill, where my house was. "We should go hide out in my cellar. That's the safest place for us."

"Okay, then let's go," Sasha said, "we're gonna be killed if we stay here."

"Wait–" I grabbed her shoulder. "We need to get some food. My parents probably left and took everything with them, so we'll need it."

"Are you crazy?" She hissed. "Oh, yeah, let's go roam the streets of Toronto looking for food as if that won't make us easy targets."

"It's better than starving.." I muttered.