Tainted Love

He had been visiting his brother, Endeavour, for the week, when he heard it. A heated argument between him and his wife, never a good sign... He winced as he heard banging from the other end of the door. Hisashi only hoped that she wasn't being hurt... by his own brother, my god...

"You can't do this, Enji! He's too young!"

"What are you saying, that you don't want him to excel? Shouto will surpass everyone, whatever it takes..."

"And you think complete isolation and hazing will make him excel? This treatment of your- no, our children... This isn't what heroes do, Endeavour."

"SHUT UP!!!"

The slam that followed the scream made him jump, embers jutting out of his nostrils as he exhaled sharply, hoping to keep the worst of the flames at bay. How could he do this? He needed to stop this, now...

'Heroes don't just sit idly by in the face of danger!'

The door to Endeavor's room swung open, revealing the furious figure of his brother standing over a cowering Rei. No obvious signs of bruises or burns, thank god, but she nonetheless sped past Hisashi in a desperate attempt to get away from her husband. "Wh... What was that?" , he questioned, cursing himself for sounding so unconfident in the face of such a man. "Don't mind her, Hisashi. She was simply getting riled up over nothing," Endeavour claimed, his expression stone cold and unapologetic.

"If it was nothing, then what was that talk about isolation and hazing and... Endeavour, you two share responsibility over your kids, it couldn't have been nothing!" , he insisted. "Enji... What, exactly, are you doing? Don't lie to me, please..."

Enji's eyebrows pricked at his insistence, but his expression remained stony. "She's upset over some strict training, that's it. I'm doing nothing wrong, I simply need these children to be the best they can be," he explained.

"The best they can be, Endeavour? But...they're just children, aren't they? They only recently learned how to speak simple words, how is any kind of "training" necessary?"

"The best heroes don't wait for greatness, and you know this as well as I do, Spitfire. My children must start early, otherwise they'll never surpass All Might..."

The statement made Hisashi's blood curl, eyes watering as the smoke streaming from his nostrils pricked at them. 'He only wants them for their potential "Best Hero" title..' The revelation hit him like a ton of bricks. His brother had always had an obsession with surpassing All Might, but projecting it onto his own family was something he'd never expected. His shock quickly turned into anger, a telltale burning at the back of his throat accompanying his emotions.

"Is that what this is, Endeavor? Is this just another attempt at becoming the "best"?"

"It has to happen someday. I've been stuck at second underneath that pompous douche for too long now-"

"Is that all that your family means to you?!"

The entire room went still at Spitfire's challenging declaration, words hanging in the air as Endeavour stared him down like he had just committed murder. Hisashi remained strong, however, and kept talking.

"If you treat these kids as simple gateways to your own success, then you might as well think of me in that way. If you see your own family as tools...then clearly, family means nothing to you."

Endeavour said nothing.

"If you continue to... "help" your family in this way... Then you've completely lost sight of what made us brothers."