A Heart Beats Fast || A Todoroki Shoto x Reader Story

Chapter 8: Every UA Student Needs A Tragic Backstory

Warnings: tragic backstory, word vomit,

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Todoroki's POV

"Fine, if you want to hear me talk about my shit, I'll start at the beginning and you're going to hear it all. Do not interrupt me. You got that?" They say, trying to act irritated, though their voice still quivers.

"I'm not going anywhere until you finish, I promise." 

A small smile on their lips betrays them, but they suppress it before beginning.

"Alright then, my turn for a tragic backstory, heh. I was born with my quirk. Not in the way people are usually born with a mutant type quirk or where it manifests a few years after birth; I was born with it having already manifested. Statistically, it was a one in eight million chance that this would happen, but rather than see the situation as luck, authorities saw it as a threat. They only allowed my parents to keep me under the condition that I was raised away from other civilians.

"My parents bought a shack on a coastline that was far away from civilization. My mom left her job to take care of me and the house, while my dad worked some office job that was an hour away to pay for everything. When it came time for me to go to school, the authorities still didn't trust me around other children, so I was homeschooled. Up until fourth grade, when my parents begged the government to let me go to a public school to develop social skills, I had never seen another human being aside from my parents.

"To send me to a school, we moved to a small village that was still along the coast, so that I wouldn't be too jarred by all of the change. Not yet tainted by the world, I was still a bubbly ball of energy and a perfect ray of sunshine. That personality didn't sit well with the other kids who already knew everyone in such a small settlement, especially since my quirk was far more developed than theirs. At the end of my first day of public learning, my classmates decided that I was not welcome. They ganged up on me and pushed me around until I had enough. I remember lying on the ground, just trembling and taking it, but everyone has a breaking point I suppose.

"My quirk caught up with my mess of emotions and I sent as much force into the ground as I could. It knocked everyone off their feet and made them cry, alerting some teachers. As I saw them coming over, I panicked and sent another larger burst into the ground before running off. I ran up the mountain range that bordered the town and ended up passing out from exhaustion at the top.

"It had passed noon by the time I woke up the next day, and the forest around me, as well as my clothes, looked as if it had rained overnight. I wanted to go home, so I walked back down the hill. Instead of the town, I was greeted by wreckage. I wandered around, alone and in shock. Most of the buildings had collapsed and were torn to scattered shreds. Eventually, I found an arm sticking out from underneath some collapsed building and tried desperately to pull the person out; however, there was no body attached to the arm and I fell backwards from lack of resistance. I screamed, threw the arm aside, and cried for probably hours until helicopters and emergency services made it to the secluded town.

"I learned later that because of my quirk, I ended up triggering an earthquake along the seabed, causing a tsunami to crush the town the following morning. 681 people. I killed 681 people, 159 children, and my 2 parents in one day – at the tender age of 9.

"After that, I never wanted to use my quirk again. I was put into containment for almost a year until my aunt agreed to take custody of me despite having never met me, nor had she seen her brother, my dad, in almost a decade. She was only able to house me in the city with her because I refused to allow myself to use my quirk and I was going to be enrolled in online schooling.