Aniki // bnha x Bakugou!twin reader// ‼️Ended ‼️

38- resonance

During the fight, admist the flame

This onslaught of heat was what Todoroki had dreaded since the beginning of the tournament.

It meant he had belittled himself, as if kneeling before his father whom stood with an Emperor's stance- crossed arms, puffed out chest, flaring nostrils and the grin of a devil with whom a deal had been made. 

It dirtied his fate, he believed, to reduce himself attacking his opponent like his father would. Each wave that struck from his left side drove him further into that man's shadow, painted him over with a new layer on the family portrait.

Like father like son, they reign over what they fear to control with fire. Relentless, breath-taking power. Onlookers gasped in awe at the display of raw, surging flames that rose like slapping hands and licked the walls, like a sloshing bowl of chilli oil.

Their exclamations were like those of a crowd bundled in coats and scarves watching a fireworks arrangement- but the only pretty colours were blood red and harsh, burnt orange.

It angered Shoto- to hear the delighted squeals, the remarks of adoration, the references made to the man that dared call himself 'Father.'

So maybe that was why Mic and many others feared his relentlessness. How it never seemed to stop. The flames, fuelled by all those mocking sounds slipping down his ear, just kept pouring out of him.

Maybe, he thought, by the end of this, Bakugou M/n's body would need intensive care. Maybe he'd be charred beyond recognition, and no-one would have to hear the shorter one complaining about having facial-ID hacked on his phone constantly by his mischievous doppelgänger. 

Maybe, Bakugou M/n would leave the arena, fallen. A re-enactment of Pompeii.

Maybe he'd leave in a body bag.

Who knows. But what Todoroki did know, was the more he thought along this tangled wire of depreciation, the flames just wouldn't stop. They just wouldn't cease, and he kept looking almighty.

No matter the angle- TV crowded by a devastated family, through his classmate's eyes, the eyes of every hero here (he gulped, thinking what Bakugou M/n's mother must be feeling at this very moment)- he looked like a God. The boy blessed with two quirks. Who could do no wrong. Only win.

Hope, for Shoto Todoroki, came in as many forms he could count on one hand. A gentle smile from his sister, a reassuring (one-sided) phone call from Natsuo, and the soft figure of his mother resting at the window of her hospital room.
Her silhouette draped before white, lacy curtains, and white fluffy clouds shifting in the sky. And she would turn to him, a smile that only existed for him would upturn her kind face, and she would say-

"Shoto. Hey douchebag- listen to me. Shoto?"

He gasped, the illusion of his mother drifting away like an essence as a thick and calloused hand swept through the flames like wiping a dirty mirror.

"Keep these flames going, I know it hurts, bud, I know, but I need you to keep going so I can talk to you. Can I talk to you, Shoto?"

Todoroki's frame began to tremble as he silently continued this soft person's wishes. Only a hand extending out to him was visible.

"You're doing so good, Sho, but can you look at me?"

The only people that ever spoke this softly to him were the nurses assigned specifically on his mom's ward, that cooed at his clean school uniform and drooping bouquet of flowers, or his wasting-away, silhouette of a mother.

The gentle voice spoke again, as the tips of yellow-glowing fingers graced his chin, wiping the tears with their thumb.

Bakugou M/n's eyes shone fresh as his lips moved with words, and in a blink, he snapped out of his hurt-hurling daze.