Suicidal Todoroki x Midoriya | What it Means to Love

4 | Burn the Truth

Shoto Todoroki

It was painfully complicated for my mind to process Midoriya's invigorated speech. How could someone who strongly disliked me the prior day to the event of my plans suddenly reverse his way of thinking in an attempt to assist in pursuing my own ideology? The roaring questions set my mind ablaze while I converted questions to answers and gradually connected the dots. In spite of the inspirational spiel Midoriya spoke for me, I refused to accept it as true.

I'd thanked Midoriya and given him my praise, but not once had I definitively declared what I had been referring to. My estimation was that he interpreted my words as if they'd been directed at his platitudinous speech. However, I simply rewarded his diligent efforts to even have the idea of defending me against my father. At least, that's what I told myself.

Perhaps I'm oblivious and matter-of-factly, but I trust in my deductions, I'd thought when Midoriya's fast grip on my shoulder tightened. You'll see this as humor, won't you? How predictable.

Now staring down at the fallen Midoriya, whose limbs are spread out and eyes are bulging, I remember to be concerned about his well-being. "Are you all right?" I lean forwards and look him over briefly for any bruises. "Midoriya?"

With waning patience that I play off as if I'm surrounded by it, I crouch beside Midoriya and wave my hand before his eyes.

No response.

This is quite unlike him, I think while tamping down on my unearthed deductions. Ah, I see. Could it be that? With minimal knowledge on the topic I've seized in my fingertips, I work with what I have.

The fingers of my left hand start to heat up with small flickering flames. Tch. I don't have nearly as much control over my old man's quirk as I do with my mother's. Like a hot pot of steaming water, my isolated hatred begins to bubble and come to a boil. It figures that this would be the only thing I have the slightest notion of feeling. Although the pot has never erupted into a mass of foamy bubbles spilling over and onto the stovetop, I have to wonder what I would feel and think then if it were to occur.

Although skeptical, I shoot my mind down with a single bullet of flame. The murky remnants of the flammable world encompassing its vast complexity combusts in an instant. Searing spirals of fire tear through the air like ocean waves, branching out until they tap the confinements of my head.

Now with a lucid mind to function, I release my grasp on everything but my left hand. In my mind blossoms a dying flame, waggling in the wind like the tail of an exuberant animal. With unbiased conviction, I begin to feed the insatiable flame with my own wills. As its bright orange petals bloom into a scorching bird of fire, I find myself standing before its ravenous yellow eyes.

"I suppose," is all I mutter, stepping forth into the hellfire inferno I've spun. Reaching my hand out inside myself, I offer my fading, subconscious self to the striking bird. It lets out a piercing shriek, and the deed is done.

Ripping lines of fire envelop my left hand as I lower it to Midoriya's fluffy green hair. My blue eye is illuminated with incandescent crimson as the searing flames engulf his forest of hair. It looks as if I'm about to set his body ablaze with a fiery tomb of death, and my stone-cold expression doesn't help with that fact. However, the flames cease to cause any harm to him from my newfound dominance over my recalcitrant quirk.

Having somewhat of a grasp on Midoriya's way of thinking, I feel as if I know what he would think if he were to awaken mid-performance. H-Huh? Todoroki-kun! Fire? Y-You're trying to kill me! I think to myself, finding it rather perplexing that I'm capable of forcing my mind to function like someone else's. After all, I am only one person with a single mind and a single heart.