"...Tōya," the somber face his father wore sent him over the edge.
"—Well, aren't I popular? You've decided to finally show yourself!" He couldn't help himself, Tōya propped himself up by his arms. "What took you so long?" The sneer he wore rose up on his face, creasing the faint scars on his cheeks.
He wasn't going to continue speaking to the man unless he was standing, he'd eaten enough to manage this.
One of Endeavor's hands rose at the bite in Tōya's voice. "I—My… presence was more harmful for your mother's recovery, I didn't want to interrupt your reunion with your siblings." Enji was looking at the faint scars on Tōya's exposed arms even as his son stood on shaky legs. "...I was also tying up some loose ends at my agency." The man was all lumbering and awkward as he looked for any excuse he could find, and it made Tōya sick to his stomach.
"I'm sure you were." Tōya flexed his fingers as he let go of the railing. "What… were you gonna do? Give us some space, give me a little taste before you send mom back to the insane asylum! How kind of you!"
" —You're only going to hide Shoto away again anyway! Your little precious masterpiece! Huh!" Tōya's fist clenched, the blood in his veins felt on fire, he was shouting now. "Did you think I'd find this little courtesy enough? I'm sure Fuyumi and Natsuo would appreciate it if you never showed your face again. It's not like you haven't already been doing that." His eyes were bleary as he looked at the older man. Enji's face was shadowed by the harsh hospital lightning, the sun had already fallen making the flickering lights above even harsher.
"It's not like that, Tōya…" Even then Tōya bulldozed past the calm words of his father.
"Look around you. Nothing's changed, Shoto's a timid mute, Fuyumi's a placid wreck, and Natsuo's a ball of bottled anger. Mother's a broken tragedy, I see it in her eyes! She's still scared of me! You beat her when all I wanted was for you to see me!" Tōya whipped his arm behind him as a gout of flames exploded outward. "Why come here when I mean nothing to you!"
"I looked everywhere for you!" His father yelled over him, Tōya's eyes were wide, but as soon as they were, they thinned out into slits.
"I looked for you, Tōya. I didn't sleep for weeks, I scoured that cursed peak until my feet gave out." His father clasped his hands together, unwilling to look Tōya in the eye, his face still shadowed. "I always believed you were alive, even as I was told the opposite." His father started to explain but his son interrupted him with three dead calm words.
"Did you stop…"
Enji looked at him as if he didnt register his question, "what?"
"Did you stop training Shoto to defeat All Might?" Tōya's eyes were blazing under his downturned brows, his last steps put him a foot away from his hunched over father. "Did you truly believe me alive, or was my death a convenient excuse for you to continue with your self obsession?" It was a petty question when he already knew the answer to it. But he'd been waiting, oh so long to finally unload on the bastard.
The silence that followed was music to his ears.
"No… not until you were found, a month ago." Enji answered, finally… visibly ashamed.
"Hah! That's how it is?!" Tōya barked out and he couldn't help but scoff, what a load of crap. "So what… have you given up now? Now that I'm here? Don't tell me you've gotten all sentimental on me old man, not when you've ignored me most of my life!" His grin threatened to split his face.
"Did you think that you could take it all back!" At this point Tōya couldn't even see straight. Was it the rage or the stinging in his eyes?
"I've made mistakes, Tōya… It's taken me some time to reevaluate my…" Endeavor looked away from Tōya's piercing eyes. " —To figure out what truly matters to me."
Tōya's face was unmoving, the disbelieving grin was still plastered.
"Was it really that easy for me to finally get your attention!? All I needed to do was to die and come back from the dead for you to finally look at me?" Tōya whispered as he roughly grasped at Enji's large arm for him to finally snap his gaze back at him.
"Look at me!" he roared, his arms combusted into a flashfire.
"I'm looking at you! —Stop! Tōya… It's all I've been doing for as long as you've been in a coma." His father gasped out. For the first time in this entire conversation, did Tōya finally look up at his trembling father's face. Now visible because of the spatterings of the blue flames, as Enji desperately patted at his arms. "Every minute as I prayed at your shrine. Even as I visited you after hours in this very room. After Rei left when they closed for the night. I've kept myself worried sick, working myself up over the thought that you'll never wake up!"
What…
Heavy salty droplets cascaded down and fell to Tōya's scarred teenage face, the man's frame shook.
…He's crying.
The flames on his forearms died out, Tōya's eyes were wide and hollow. The pain of his new burns didn't even register at this point, he felt numb to it all. His anger petered out, he felt a hollow sensation in the pit of his stomach, this was it? All that yelling for this? Tōya jerkily stepped backwards away from his crying father's grasp, he couldn't bear to look at him anymore.
Why did I come back? I already knew that this was what was going to happen. The old man in the wheelchair grovelled just the same. I felt nothing from that… So why did I think that getting the same result from a younger man would bring me any more satisfaction than that?
Tōya blindly reached out with his arm from behind on the hospital bed's railing as he backed up to it.
"That I'll never be able to apologize to you. I'm so s-sorry Tōya, I can't— even begin to apologize for what I've done t-to you..." His father continued in the silence he left. "...I've ruined your lives over my obsession."
All this for a heartfelt apology, for him to suffer and I don't even feel anything. What… the fuck have I been doing with my life?
Tōya tripped on his own two feet, and his butt landed on the mattress. He looked at his shaky fingers on his lap listlessly. He was sure that if anyone opened a window right now, that he would go tumbling down into the ground solely from the gust of wind… His father was on his knees begging and sobbing and at this point Tōya wasn't even sure if he could even understand him now.
—Why did I come back if it wasn't for this? Would killing Endeavor finally satisfy me? I—I…
His eyesight was getting spotty and his vision was going dark.
"I'll be spending the rest of my life atoning for what I've done. I swear to you, the men who stole you away will be put to justice." At that Tōya's eyes shot up in recognition of what the snivelling man was spouting off. It was the only thing he could grasp onto before he passed out, a lifeline. Anything to distract him from the hollow sensation he was feeling. No matter how insignificant.
At that a knock on the door and a voice on the other side let them know that they weren't alone, Tōya's head whipped to the source.
"Endeavor, Detective Tanuma has finally made it." Both Todoroki's head shot up at the intrusion, Tōya then locked eyes with Enji, but he tore his gaze away after looking at his father's crestfallen face, silent tears streaming.
In no time at all, Endeavor composed himself as he wiped his face. He stood up, then and there his blazing mask went up and Tōya was sure that the traces of the sobbing mess were gone. Instead a tall recognizable hero and a sleazy looking man in a newsboy cap made their entrance into his cramped room. Tōya was silently sitting on the mattress hunched over, but his eyes were shifting between both men. His father was facing away from them towards the window behind Tōya.
The tall one broke the silence first, "allow me to re-introduce myself. My name is Sir Nighteye. It's been a bit over a month ago since we've last spoken, Tōya. Back in those streets in the Minato ward." All Might's sidekick presented the other man. "This is our liaison from the police department, Detective Eizo Tanuma." At that, the middle-aged man in a vest tipped his hat at Tōya and then to Endeavor before speaking.
"We know it's on short notice, and so shortly after you have woken up. But if possible, is it alright if we speak to you while the details are fresh regarding the night of your escape from the Sunnyside Haven House, Tōya?" The man began as he lit up a cigarette and then revealed a tape recorder, flipping the switch to it on.
Tōya had been expecting this, when he first woke up. As he turned his eyes to Endeavor he got the feeling that the man had more than likely come to him regarding this. And not that apologetic spiel he was now unwilling to hear.
"...Tōya," was all his father could manage, still not looking at him.
"Whatever— I can do that." Tōya removed the charred bandage from his hand, chucking the thing into the trashcan next to him. "Where should I start?"
"From the very beginning. If possible, be as descriptive as you can." The detective answered as he took a long drag of his smoke. Endeavor didn't look very pleased at that, but he kept that thought to himself as he opened a window.
Nighteye interjected before Tōya could open his mouth. " —Actually, would it be possible if you could give us a recounting of the night before your supposed death?" Enji's head whipped to the taller man. "There's a gap there that I would like to fill."
"Tsk, alright." Tōya clicked his tongue as he drummed his fingers on the mattress, he closed his eyes to think it over.
"The night when I snuck out to Sekoto Peak, I created a makeshift dummy earlier in the day so my younger brother Natsuo wouldn't notice if I was gone too long. He sometimes wakes up in the middle of the night, and I wasn't sure if I would be out as late as I was. After we got home from school, I took the hallway for the bathroom in the house that the family rarely uses. We usually have a nanny who looks over us while my dad is away for the night shift. And after leaving through the exit out into the courtyards. I jumped the fence and walked out to Sekoto Peak by five in the afternoon. It was later in the evening and I was alone. I was expecting my father to come visit earlier in the day so that I could show him my newfound firepower but… maybe he forgot."
Sir Nighteye raised an eyebrow at that. "This late night escapade, was this a regular occurrence between you two?"
"More my own than his, he never had the time, since he was too busy chasing after All Might's position on the Hero Billboards. If not, then I'd train alone before I snuck back home." Tōya answered, leaving out the fact that Endeavor never took him up on his offer after they barred him from ever training again.
"But you expected him to come, regardless." Detective Tanuma noted.
"...Yeah."
"What happened then?"
"I waited for a few hours in the forest where we used to train, but when my father was a no-show… My quirk activated without meaning to." Tōya ground out with eyes closed, refusing to look at them.
"It activated, without your consent? Could you expand on that?" Nighteye cut in.
"My… quirk, it responds to my emotions. The more intense they get, the more my quirk feeds off from the reserves I have, for a higher output." His eyes looked at Endeavor's still feet. "I wasn't accounting for my quirk to do that… my bottled up emotions got too much to handle while I was sitting by the training dummies."
"Pardon me… but what caused that emotional outburst?" Detective Tanuma asked for clarification, he moved the recorder closer to his face.
Is this guy dense? Read the room.
"...Just a lot of things going on in my life… school work, girls… my mom getting institutionalized." The look he gave detective Tanuma was unimpressed, his bad mood leaking into his answers. Sir Nighteye was rapidly filling in the details in his small notebook with his observations. "I was too far from the riverbank, and when my quirk activated near the bushes around me. I felt my flames burning off my skin as I ran to the river."
"I couldn't make it in time and I fell to the ground, I was sure I was dead and I lost consciousness from the pain." He flipped his hand to look at his palm. "From there, I woke up at the Sunnyside Haven House."
"The sound of the heart rate monitor was the first thing I heard. I saw a crudely written note on a tablet wishing for me to get better." His chuckle was dry. "I didn't know how long I was out for, until I crossed through the hallways into one of the only non-empty classrooms. It was filled with up to fifteen kids. From there a heteromorph with the stupidly obvious name, Mr. Sunny made his appearance, I think his real name was Haruaki."
"From what we've gathered Tōya, the institution you found yourself in was legitimate, save for some startling buried details we've managed to uncover." Nighteye added.
"Yeah, I bet." Tōya's slitted eyes turned to Endeavor's face and they crossed back to the other side of the room. "The heteromorph told me that I'd been asleep for three years, I suggested leaving the place to get to my father because I was sure that my family was worried about me, but I was told by Mr. Sunny that it wouldn't be possible." A creak could be heard from Enji's clenched hands. "Mr. Sunny told me that there was a man who was eager to meet me and without any other option. I followed him to a small office space at the end of the hall. This new man based on his deep voice, he spoke through a desktop monitor… There wasn't any video on the web call, and he suggested that I stay… to join his little family. That they would find some way to fix me up, that I'd be able to become the number one pro hero with their help if I took him up on his offer."
"This new individual, did you manage to get his name?" Tanuma asked as he paced a few steps to look at Nighteye's notes.
"He told me that he went by Sensei."
"Hmm, I see…" Nighteye's gaze was hidden by his glasses.
"His spiel was a load of bull, you don't get anything without a price tag. I knew then and there that I needed to escape. The next chance I got, a few minutes later… I started a fire and I rushed back to the other kids still in the classroom to warn them while they were distracted." It was going to get difficult to keep his details solid. "By then a moon-faced staff member was in the classroom with an ice quirk, trying to keep them safe."
This was the difficult part, if any of the kids say differently, then I'm dead to rights. Need to be truthful while keeping my intentions vague.
"...But my quirk… I'm not sure if it was sensory overload after using it for a long time. The bottled up quirk factor burst out and I… was knocked out after I entered the classroom to warn them. The next thing I know, I'm being carried away by one of the other kids. While the building went up in flames. Apparently, I hurt the heteromorph female staff member and the children had to leave her behind."
No one questioned Tōya and he was grateful for that, but he could hear the grinding of Endeavor's teeth.
"From there we debated on our next step, I suggested Might Tower since it was the only recognizable landmark in the area. Part way there, after one of the girls with a flight quirk was egged on to fly on ahead to warn All Might. We were ambushed by a bunch of thugs, before we could make sense of it. We retaliated, by then, Sir Nighteye had managed to swoop in to save us before things got worse." The tall man kept himself quiet despite that praise, ignoring it to focus on his note taking. "I told All Might's sidekick the same thing about that man… Sensei behind the monitor, and then we were interrupted by a gigantic villain. One of the short heteromorph kids mentioned that it was one of the staff members at the foster home… Mr. Saturn. I can't verify if he was or not, you'd have to ask them." Tōya looked to Nighteye who nodded at the name.
"Are the other kids okay?" Tōya asked, which surprised the adults around him at the unexpected sidetrack. Perhaps they didn't take him for the caring type. But he'd be damned if he went through all that effort for nothing.
"I've located all fifteen of them barring the reports of a single missing individual who joined you after we parted ways. Please, go on from where you left off Tōya." Sir Nighteye answered.
" —Oh okay, that's good." Tōya nodded, he couldn't really ask if they were taken back to their parents or were confiscated by the HPSC, so he had to keep his mouth shut for now.
"Right… we took the route that Nighteye gave us to Might Tower, from there a black haired teenager with gold eyes came out from the alleyway and he used a… quirk to knock out the children. He was affiliated with Sensei from what the teenager told me. He apparently was one of the children who had been pulled out. Maybe he was adopted or he aged out, your guess is as good as mine. By then I was the last one awake and I shouted at Nomura to turn off his quirk before we got into a scuffle… I managed to knock him out and then I scaled the roof of the storefront. I saw what I believed to be two heroes, I didn't have any other choice either way if I was wrong. I took that chance and called out to them. It was Mirko and Hound Dog who called in the rest of the police force after a few minutes once they patched me up, maybe ten minutes at most."
"Once the police arrived, a… specific police officer caught my attention in the back. He… felt wrong, the feeling I was getting from being next to him sent me on edge. He was disguised and he introduced himself as the same Sensei from the foster home." Despite himself, Tōya shuddered at the memory. "I told him that I was never going to go back there, but he laughed at me and told me that I meant nothing to him. It was the other children he was after."
Tōya clenched his teeth when he looked at Sir Nighteye, "I wasn't going to let him, and so I yelled for help and revealed his identity. Things went badly from there…"
The evening dragged on as Tōya explained the rest of the details from that night.
Barring any other questions for him to expand on, his explanation went smoothly. Except for when it came to his decision to assist Mirko with stalling All For One.
"Do you want to be a hero? You're pretty adept at fighting from what we've seen, especially considering the footage gathered while you supported Mirko, Hound Dog, and Snatch." At that Endeavor's gaze dug holes in Tōya's skull, but he ignored it as he locked eyes with detective Tanuma who continued to speak. "They gave us nothing but high praise for you when we interviewed them, albeit with Hound Dog's grumbling for your spur of the moment decisions."
"One could even say that you'd more than likely be a shoe-in for UA's practical exam. How did you manage that without your father, to teach you how to fight?"
"...Because he stopped training me after he learned that my quirk was injuring me." Tōya ground out. "I was training in secret despite my father's protests, but what could he do when he was never around? I studied the clips that fans and passersby recorded when Endeavor was out on patrol." He lifted up his arm to show off the new burn, detective Tanuma hummed at that. "It was enough for me to get by."
Nighteye lifted his glasses to rub his eyes, before dropping the bombshell that Tōya knew would come to bite him in the ass. "The doctors found an incredibly large dosage of Trigger in your system, do you believe that the staff at the Sunnyside Haven House were using it on the children as they were you?"
Tōya's eyes went blank at the question.
—I caught the Trigger from the broken case that fell out of Hound Dog's mane. The dog hero was barely lucid when I caught up to him. The rest of those small vials must have hit ground zero at terminal velocity. Was evidence of my self administration buried under the lack of eyewitnesses?
"Were they being experimented on?" Tōya quickly asked instead. "There were a few things that felt off about the children. It might have been the teenager Nomura and his quirk, but before then they were having issues with remembering some things that had to do with class. Their quirks were just as good as mine or better… But when I fought with them, it was like a switch was flipped."
I don't think Nighteye got a good look at my tongue when I first spoke to him.
Before long their conversation ended with the last topic that he had trouble explaining. The second half of his fight with All For One.
"When Mirko and Snatch went down. I planned on flying away even if it would kill me in the process, at this point I was gassed from using my father's signature moves. But the villain was either pissed at me or he wanted to punish me. Because he cornered me in a residential complex, after I made my exit through an abandoned police station."
"...The last thing I remember was climbing to the roof of an apartment before I was choked out, I can't remember much after that…"
This was it, the one thing that would turn things on its head.
"But before that… The villain's arm glowed green, not like the attacks that he would hurl at us. But something entirely different, it felt it too. He told me that he would dig into my head, and that I would die in the process." At that, the three men around him zeroed in on the comment.
"Do you believe that his quirk was capable of such a thing?" Sir Nighteye asked.
"I… Yes, because he did. He entered my mind I'm sure of it. I remember a flash of my memories in chronological order with that man beside me. Even when I didn't want him to. That flash of memories ended just before I woke up in the infirmary bed at Sunnyside Haven House." Endeavor was growling now. "After that my head felt scrambled, I remember some things that I don't think are mine. Does a Quirk Singularity mean anything to you?" Tōya asked the men in front of him.
"The Doomsday theory?" Endeavor questioned, and wasn't that a surprise. His father finally decided to stop playing mute.
Tōya shrugged his shoulders and pulled at his face with the palm of his hand. "Other than that I remember some more snippets of information, The doctor who fixed me up was a man by the name of Garaki Kyudai, he had—has? a lab under Jaku General Hospital." Endeavor's eyes sharpened. "A black skinned man… creature was suspended in a tube filled with purple liquid. The top of his head was missing and his skull was exposed to show off its brain."
Tanuma looked at Tōya, "do you know why this Sensei wanted to look into your memories?"
"...Because I called him All For One." At that the temperature in the room went cold.
"Why did you call him that?" Endeavor croaked out after a long moment.
"That's his name… You're probably not going to believe me but —I don't remember much while I was in coma or sometime shortly after I was burned. But what I do faintly remember hearing is two men speaking over me, it was Sensei's smug voice. I'm sure of it, I couldn't put a face to the other voice until after All For One used his quirk to dig into my head. That short man with glasses referred to the villain as "All For One." Tōya kept his head down, if he looked up and he met their skeptical looks then the charade would truly be over.
"What else did you learn from him digging into your mind?" Nighteye asked as he flipped through another page in his notebook, Tōya wasn't sure what the solid tone in the hero's voice meant.
"I— a name… of a boy, Shimura Tenko." A migraine had been building up in his head, wasn't a nurse supposed to bring him his evening meal? He was feeling lightheaded. "His quirk was —is decay I believe… anything he touches disintegrates into dust. All For One was planning on taking him in, to succeed him."
"...What?" The unintelligent word that left Sir Nighteye's lips surprised Endeavor and Tanuma.
"That's all I remember right now, can I get something to eat? I'm feeling lightheaded." Tōya pleaded to the room.
I'm not going to be able to keep this up, if they look over this conversation. I'm screwed in some way or another. But for now this is the best I can do.
"Of course Tōya, thank you for your time." Tanuma jabbed the end of the cigarette onto the windowsill to put it out. He looked to Endeavor and Sir Nighteye as he shut off his recorder, Nighteye slowly nodded as if he were trying to recover his bearings. But even then it didn't look like he was successful.
The two men opened the door and bid the young patient a farewell before they were chewed out by a heteromorph nurse with a duck head who was further away standing next to the central desk with Tōya's unappetizing evening meal. The door closed behind them, leaving Endeavor and Tōya alone.
"Tōya I won't ask for your forgiveness, I don't deserve it… But if there is ever anything I can do for you, even as you look at me with righteous fury. Don't hesitate to give me a call." With that the flame hero turned around to walk away with heavy steps.
Tōya would have left it at that but his head was killing him, the shitty hospital food he saw was going to ruin his night. He knew he was going to regret this…
"...Wait, please."
At that Endeavor froze mid-step, his hand hovering over the door handle. Enji took a tepid glance at his exhausted son. The boy looked truly like a recovering malnourished sixteen year old and not the young man that sent his fight instincts into a frenzy. He waited with bated breath for his son's next words.
"I— can you order some Yakitori…? I don't care what the doctors are saying. I'm really not in the right state of mind for their hospital slop."
The simple question caused Endeavor to turn to him fully, the flame hero stood frozen and Tōya almost wondered if the man even heard him.
"From that restaurant on the Asakusa line?" Enji finally asked.