The flames of my fire

Part 3: Scars

As the night before the exams rolled around, the two boys agreed to spend the last night together studying and chatting at Izuku's house, the two boys have matured a lot from their humble beginnings and have become best friends through spars, studying and many hours with the other. As the two boys sat in Izuku's room chatting about menial things, Todoroki popped the big question,

"Hey Izu, what are you going to do in later life, y'know like after we finish at a UA?"

"I honestly don't know Todo, I just want to help as many people as I can." Todoroki inwardly smiled at this, despite his cold exterior, ironic considering his quirk, he did just want to protect others.

"I'm probably just going to try to climb as high in the hero rankings as I humanly can before I go out in a blaze of glory at the hands of some villain." Todoroki snickered and countered

"That's a very morbid ambition for a 15-year-old boy don't you think?" izuku just shrugged and replied

"I pay most people no mind, they usually get in the way of me working," Todoroki knew better than this, he just tried to reject people because he didn't want them to get close to him so that he could lose them, that incident had scarred him for life.

A few years ago

Izuku and Todoroki had been walking down the street and saw villain with a gigantification quirk wreaking havoc near the train station. When it was clear he was outmatched he shrank quickly back into his normal size before running down an alley, being the reckless kids they were, Todoroki and izuku gave chase. The boys managed to corner the large man before he turned and roared at them as he began to enlarge himself only slightly, but still enough to be intimidating as he took a large swing at the two boys, punching a hole through the wall as he did. As the two boys were running away with the villain in close pursuit, and a thick border of clouds appeared between the two parties and the villain was quickly subdued by three heroes. As one glared at him he shrank, giving his impression he couldn't use his quirk, and another screamed at him using a directional speaker and amplified voice the three soon had him on the ground knocked out.

One turned to them, he had long black matted hair and a scarf around his neck with goggles over his eyes.

"What the hell were you two thinking! That was immature and reckless! You could have gotten yourselves killed!"

One with light blue hair and a permanent smile turned to him, he as the one who had put up the cloud barrier to sperate the villain.

"Chill out Shota, they just wanted to help, and I'm sure they could of if we'd given them a chance." He flashed a megawatt smile at the two of them "My hero Names loud cloud, the grumpy ones called Eraserhead, and the loud ones called present mic." He offered his hand to the two of them and they shook it, gradually becoming more at ease with the fact that they had just gotten themselves caught up in a villain attack, well, endeavour was going to lynch them for trying to fight off a villain, but at least they were safe for the moment. After they had thanked the three heroes, they had made their way home. Endeavour was shocking less furious with them than they expected claiming that they 'needed to experience the fear of a real villain attack' to be true heroes.

A few weeks after the giant villain incident, a major clash between all might and a very powerful villain occurred and endeavour and Hisashi were called in as re-enforcements while they were out with their wives and kids. Natsuo and Touya wanted to go and help evacuations. Natsuo had earned a provisional licence from hero studies and Touya had graduated and was working part-time as the hero saph-fire.

Fuyumi tried to keep izuku and Todoroki safe but there was no restraining them and they soon ran off after the other two. It was as they were running through the mass of destroyed buildings and fire, they saw several familiar faces, it was the three heroes that had saved them before desperately trying to fight the flames. Izuku slightly chuckled at this before absorbing all the flames around him through his hands and feet. Loud cloud turned and smiled at Eraserhead with an I-told-you-so look. He rolled his eyes and him and present mic ran over to the four boys to check on their condition.

it was as the two were walking over that the building the Cloud hero was standing in the shadow of had something thrown through it that and the top five floors began to fall and they had to scatter to avoid the falling piece of concrete the size of a small house that was bearing down on them with rapid pace. As it hit a deafening crash could be heard and a large dust cloud ringed out around them. as they looked around, they saw that only one was missing

Loud cloud

They searched the rubble and found his body; the poor guy didn't stand a chance.

Izuku hated himself; if he had just been strong enough to break a piece of concrete, loud cloud, also know as Oboro shirakumo could have been spared,

If he had just been stronger, WHY COULDN'T HE HAVE BEEN STRONGER!

Over the next few days during their training sessions, izuku was quiet and distant. Another major change in the young boy was his quirk, as if some unknown force was spurring him to a new height of untapped power. To be frank it was terrifying. He developed a new technique a few days after the incident which he dubbed cloud-style, he would set nearby burnable objects on fire and manipulate the smoke to distract and separate opponents before picking them off. They had attended his funeral as they had been invited as even though they had only met briefly, they had liked him a lot. he was one of the most optimistic, positive, and kind people they had ever had the pleasure of meeting, and they said so, to anyone who would listen after the incident. They wanted to spread the word of this amazing hero and inspire others to be like him. But one thought always crossed his mind as he thought of the hero's face

you could have saved him

if only you weren't too scared to act