Cyclone - Shoto Todoroki

Chapter Four

But how many times will you have to sleep to be able to forget?

Todoroki Fuyumi has been having the worst week of her life.

This feeling was one that seemed to be recurring throughout her life, as if she was being poked and prodded, a test to see how much she could take before she reached a final breaking point.

Her father and her always had a somewhat strained relationship, with the man having no time to spend with her, between his hero work and taking care of Shoto.

And yet she just couldn't seem to muster up the same resentment as Natsuo. The limited memories she had of her father were good, made up of the times when he would ask how her day had been, or when he would get her coffee on the way back from his patrol.

Even if they didn't spend much time together, and even if she could count the times he had acknowledged her as a child on one hand, he was still her father, and she still loved him.

And so when she had knocked on his bedroom door, mug of steaming black coffee in hand, nothing could have prepared her for the sight that would meet her behind those doors.

Her father had never been late, his routine was unfaltering, consistent and never changing throughout the years.

He would wake up early, take care of Shoto, have his coffee and then head off to his agency.

So when he hadn't made an appearance from his room after a few hours, she had to calm her beating heart and convince herself that he was surely just sleeping in after a long patrol.

And yet, when she thinks back to that moment, she had known something was wrong long before stepping foot in his room.

She had known when she saw the bloody footsteps on the floorboards, and when she had noted the absence of Shotos single pair of shoes in the genkan.

She had known what Shoto would do, when he had yelled at father the day before. Maybe she had known, somewhere deep inside of her mind, that things would end this way from the moment Shoto was born.

Father probably knew it too. There had been no mistaking the bloodlust, a sure sign of what would soon occur, that had radiated from the small boy.

''I will kill you.'' He had yelled, voice devoid of emotion yet the intensity that burned behind such words was resolute.

His words had haunted her for days, clawing at the very back of her mind, an itch she couldn't quite scratch.

But she had never been one who could face things straight on, when push came to shove she would always choose to turn away and run.

She could recall discovering her fathers body with horrifying clarity, the blood seeping into his futon and dripping onto the tatami mats. The stained knife laying beside him, glinting in the rays of the sun.

The events that followed afterwards are still a blur, a haze of interviews and mind numbing panic that settled deep into her bones, the kind of shock that would never truly leave.

A colleague from work that she had grown close with had offered her a place to stay, and Fuyumi accepted gratefully. Her job was the only part of her life that continued on uninterrupted, and she revelled in the normalcy of it all.

And so when she had just arrived home to her friend's apartment, and her phone began buzzing, announcing a call, the voice she heard through the speaker was one she was prepared to never hear again.

''Fuyumi? It's me... it's Shoto.''

—

Shotos hair was still wet from his shower, water droplets streaking unpleasantly down his neck and into the collar of his shirt.