"Welcome to your new home, Sora." Ryuko gently opens the door to her second floor apartment, revealing the rather modest living conditions of the heroine. Wooden floor, kitchen big enough to fit two people at most, a single bathroom and two bedrooms. "It's...cozy?" Sora states his thoughts while trying to be polite, not fully understanding what he's meant to say in this situation. "I know it's not much but it's home. It's a place to come back to after a long day." Sora shifts his attention to the woman, genuinely interested in what she said. "Why don't we check out your room?" "Okay." Sora responds submissively, remembering what happened the last time he got mad. He has no intention of getting on the bad side of a dragon lady. Not yet, at least.
The two new roommates saunter towards the closed door that holds Sora's new room behind it. Ryuko smiles at the boy and motions for him to be the one to open it. The boy complies, carefully opening the door. Sora's eyes widen when he sees what lies within. It's an ordinary room. Nothing too strange or extravagant. A single bed with a bedside table and a small storage device for his night terror lightning next to it, an average sized closet for any clothes he may receive in the future, a wooden desk with shelves above it for studying and a single, comfortable-looking chair tucked into the desk. "Well? What do you think?" Ryuko looks down at the boy, hopeful for his answer. "It looks...bright."
The choice of words confuses Ryuko. Sure, the light shining through the single window at the back is illuminating the room but the look on the boy's face seems to indicate he meant something more. "Bright?" The woman couldn't hold back her curiosity. "Yeah. I spent eight years in a dark lab. I don't know how else to describe it except, 'Bright'." Ryuko lets a solemn smile form on her face as she ends down to the boy's height. She slowly, cautiously reaches out her hand as if she were trying to show a frightened animal that she means no harm. When Sora notices this but does nothing, she completes her action, placing her hand on his shoulder. "This is your room. Fill the shelves with things you want, the closet with clothes you choose and the walls with posters and pictures of things you like. Maybe you'll even start to think of this place as home."
Sora doesn't look back to his caretaker; more interested in what she said, he tries to visualise it. Thinking back to the hazy, scattered memories of his childhood, he recalls his former room. Toys, a large poster of All Might behind his bed, things he had lost all feeling for. His parent's room; filled with knick-knacks of varying sizes and shapes, large wooden drawers, jewellery boxes, adult things, mostly. Again, he holds no interest for such things. As if noticing the boy's failure to visualise anything, Ryuko chimes in. "Hey, I've got this week off so how about we go down to the shops and grab you some things this weekend?"
Sora looks to the woman, curious about her intentions. "You'll need notebooks anyways for study so why not see if you can find anything you like down there?" At her offer, Sora is slightly taken aback but still contemplates the offer. "Okay." Though the boy keeps an emotionless expression, his eyes seem to brighten ever so slightly. A light that doesn't escape Ryuko as she turns and saunters towards the small kitchen. "Why don't you go have a shower and get changed while I make some food? You look famished." She motions towards the open door leading into the bathroom. Sora nods and makes his way into the modest bathroom, not realising he should close the door behind him.
With what little he remembers, the boy strips down to nothing and, after turning on the water, gets into the shower without worrying about the heat. It burns slightly but the pain is negligible to the boy, barely noticeable. Still, he turns down the heat and begins scrubbing. As he finishes up, a sweet smell emanates from the kitchen. Unfinished but delectably appetising, the boy begins to salivate. Noticing this as he exits the shower, he quickly wipes the saliva away with his hand. He saunters towards the towel rack, intent on drying himself off when his eye catches a strange image in the mirror. Him, obviously. The unkempt white hair that reaches his shoulders, red eyes that seem to exude a sense of anger and loneliness while his malnourished body drips, lacking any sign of the horrors he had gone through. Not a single scar. This unnerves the boy. The thought that he had simply imagined everything had crossed his mind but the memories are too vivid, too real, for that to be the case. The feeling of his hand carving through his mother's heart; too horrific. Having finished drying himself off, he walks away to get changed, having left his clothing in his room. As the boy leaves the room, his reflection does not follow. Its solemn expression slowly morphs into one of pure, conniving, maliciousness.
YOU ARE READING
My Hero Academia: Split Path
ФанфикThis is the story of a boy who dreamt of being a hero like Allmight, as many other children have before him. This however, is not the story of how he became the number 1 hero. That is not his story. Fear, hatred, anger, sadness, pain, loneliness. On...
