You could feel your heart dropping to your stomach.
The sight of the smoke slowly growing in magnitude was filling your child body with fear as your tiny legs carried you to the mountain.
The closer you got, the more smoke you saw and by the time you reached it, you could already see what was happening. Large flames licked the very tops of the trees, covering them with their luminous red and orange hues. The smell of burning wood was as evident as ever, and you could feel your heart beating so loudly that you were afraid it might just jump out of your throat.
The heroes came in your view the closer you got to Sekoto Peak. All of them stood in horror, unable to do anything as the flames grew more and more.
But one of the said heroes, managed to catch your eye.
It was a hero you didn't expect to see... Endeavor.
He had a look of pure horror and fear on his face as he stared ahead, the flames slowly consuming the place he remembered as a child and in it...
Was his own son.
"T-Touya... My son. My son's in there!" You heard him yell, but a group of three other heroes had to hold him down, preventing him from rushing in and probably dying of asphyxiation.
The moment you heard those words, your mind turned off.
Touya... was in there...
Oh, God... He was in there!!
Fuck, fuck, fuck!!
You immediately rushed over, not even thinking about anything but you were immediately held back by another pro-hero.
"TOUYA!!" A scream tore through your lips as your eyes were widened in horror, unshed tears glistening from the light of the fire.
Enji turned his head to you and gasped, "[N-Name]!! What the-What the hell are you doing here?! Get away!!" He yelled, his attention now on you as he rushed to you, "[Name], you have to get away! You'll get hurt!"
You didn't even listen to what he was saying.
Touya was in there!
Your brother-a child was in there!! He was going to die!!
You didn't even realize when your tears began to spill out of your eyes. That child.... was Touya...
You ignored all those that were holding you back, not letting you jump in the growing fire all by yourself. They were still waiting for the fire trucks and the water based heroes to rush over. But that would take too long... By the time the trucks would arrive... Touya would have already burned to death!!
All of sudden, you felt strange. At first, you brushed it off as the horror that was slowly consuming you... but then a familiar feeling courses through your veins.
A feeling that you knew all too well.
You looked down at your arm, before flexing your hand and staring at it in shock. Then, you raised your head to meet Enji's blue eyes staring at you in desperation.
Realising that you didn't have time left to spare, you brought your hands together in a praying position and closed your eyes to focus on your surrounding.
Come on... I've done this over a million times before, I can do it again.
As you opened your eyes, you were met with surprised looks as everyone began to get pushed away from you. It had happened...
You had finally regained your quirk.
With that thought in mind, you began to push everyone away who tried to stop you and rushed towards the rapidly growing flames, "[NAME], NO!! PLEASE!!" Enji's cries fell on deaf ears as you finally reached the fire.
Now, this part might be trickier.
As you focused on your surroundings again, you had to keep complete focus while trudging through the burning forest. You ripped a piece off your shirt's sleeve and tied it around your face to filter out the smoke as much as you could. Finally, you returned your focus and as soon as you stepped closer, all the fire at a 2 meter distance from you, immediately died down in all directions.
So your limit had been reduced to 2 meters? That's sad.
But you ignored that and focused on looking for Touya. You could feel your heart hammering against your chest as you finally rushed in. As you ran, it was almost like a 2 meter big, bubble had formed around you. Fire surrounded the entire forest, but didn't touch you with a distance of 2 meters.
You, however, focused solely on your quirk at the moment, and mindlessly searched for Touya.
Where is he?!
You knew Touya wasn't that stupid. You may call him that, but he isn't. So keeping that in mind, where would he most likely train to blow off steam? Because during the time you accompanied him, he constantly changed his training areas, saying that he just needed a change of scenery.
So you had to narrow the areas down if you wanted to find him.
Where could he be?! Alright, take a deep breathe!
You had no other choice, it was now or never. With the weight of the situation forcing you to make a decision, you realised that this was your all or nothing gamble. You could either get it right or lose your brother forever.
So for now... You're placing your bet on the area near the lake. If Touya really was angry then he would have trained where there was enough water for him to cool himself down. Because no matter how much he was obsessed with using his quirk, he wasn't the biggest fan of pain.
Your feet carried you to the lake, your mind still focusing on keeping the fire at bay. At first, when you arrived there, you didn't see anything. Everything and anything was being consumed by the rapidly growing fire, but then... you saw it.
Or more specifically, him.
His body was also being consumed by the fire, but half of him was strewn in the river. Like he had tried to jump in to save himself but he lost consciousness midway. You didn't even realise when you began to run in his direction, only when you screamed his name did you understand.
"TOUYA!"
He didn't move.
Finally... you reached him. As soon as he came in the two meter distance from you, the fire on him also extinguished. Your body stumbled to his side, tears slowly dripping down your cheeks as your tiny hands tried to hold onto his now charred body.
He was cover in second and first degree burns. It was so bad you could see the muscle slowly peeking out of his skin, looking all charred. His face had a handful of second degree burns, but most of them were on his chest and arms.
You moved to check his pulse, and thankfully he was still breathing. You could feel yourself getting teary eyed, thankful that there was still time to save him. Ripping off another of your sleeves, you used that to cover Touya's mouth and nose, not letting him inhale anymore smoke. But this wouldn't filter much for him... You needed to wet the sleeve...
Suddenly, you remembered the bottle of water you had stuffed in your bag before leaving. Taking it out, you immediately poured the water onto the the sleeve and then tied it around Touya's face, letting it filter the smoke so he could breath better.
"Hang in there, Touya! Stay with me!" You cried out as you looked around to take your chances. Should you jump in the river and risk getting drowned? Because the fish from the lake had also ended up getting caught on fire and the fat from their burning had spilled all over the lake's surface, making the upper surface of the lake also catch on fire. This meant that if you jumped in now, you wouldn't be able to get back up without getting burned.
If you tried to freeze the water, you'd just die of hypothermia because the weather is cold enough as it is.
This only really left the option of you slowly carrying Touya out of this forest. But knowing your tiny figure, it would be painstakingly slow and Touya needed his burns treated immediately.
But still, it was better than getting drowned.
Gathering all your energy, you focused on keeping the fire at bay and hauled Touya's bigger body over your smaller one. Curse your tiny figure! Dragging your feet forward, you began to slowly walk in the direction you remembered coming from.
It was hard, especially with carrying Touya and simultaneously maintaining the area around you as to not burn. With your body working in overdrive, your mind was only thinking of one thing.
Save Touya.
"Hang in there, kid... I'm definitely getting you out of here, even if it's the last thing I'll do..." You muttered to his unconscious form, not caring if he could listen to you or not. All you wanted to say was you were going to make sure he lived, even if you had to lay down your own life in the process.
Suddenly, you felt slight movement. Like the rustling of a limb. It was quickly followed by a soft whimper as your eyes widened, "T-Touya?" He groaned upon hearing his name, but didn't raise his head, "[Name]..." He called out, and you had to physically stop yourself from crying. Hearing the pain in his voice just broke your heart.
You may have been practically a murderer before, but watching children suffer always hurted you more than your own injuries.
"I'm here... I'm right here, buddy..." He didn't reply, just kept hanging limply off your shoulders, "Why...?" He murmured and you barely heard it as you kept on moving back to outside the forest.
"Why... are... you... here...?"
"Why else? I'm not gonna let you die..." He slowly opened his eyes, not really seeing much except for the bright yellow and red that blared through his crappy vision. But his ears still managed to recognize your familar voice, "Get away... You'll... You'll burn... please..."
"Like hell I'll leave you, damn it! You're-You're my brother! If you're in here, I'll burn with you! I don't care about myself, kid! I've done enough shit to know... that if a horrible person like me dies, it wouldn't be unfair! But... if it's an innocent kid like you..." You stopped your sentence midway, not wanting to finish it or even continue the thought.
You knew life was unfair. It was all you've ever known ever since you were a kid. Even as a child, you knew that life would never be kind to anyone just because they were a nice person.
In life, if you were strong, that meant your morality didn't matter. You could be someone as cruel as All For One and it still wouldn't matter. But if you were weak, even the most kindest people would suffer.
That's just how life was.
But for once, you decided to abandon this ideology. You wanted to believe in something, anything that could be relevant to Touya's survival. You didn't care if you had to pray to God or grovel and eat dirt, for all you truly cared for, was Touya's life.
Your body tumbled down under the weight of Touya, the sudden fatigue hitting you like a train. You don't understand. Why can't you get up? It was then that it dawned upon you... You just awakened your quirk, and you had already begun to use the techniques you used to use when you had already trained your quirk. For you to use such advanced techniques with such little training, it was only natural that the fatigue would hit you.
You never believed in God.
After all that shit you went through, you stopped believing that an all powerful deity was watching over you, yet it never as much as stopped all the havoc that All for One caused.
But for once, just this once... you finally begged him.
As your body laid on the ground, with you trying to cover Touya as much as you could, the fire still was 2 meters away from you. You could feel yourself slowly slipping in and out of consciousness. And so, you finally let out a soft cry, "I don't know if there's a God up there... but if you exist... then please... please save him. I don't care what happens to me. I don't care if I die today, again. But all that matters is that he lives... So please... I'm begging you."
Your tears dripped down your cheeks, and fell on Touya's hair. You were hugging him in such a way that his body was being covered by your tiny hands. You don't think you could cover much, but you still tried.
You tried... And you hoped that it would be enough.
You laid your chin on the crown of his head, and slowly began to pet his charred hair.
My second life was even shorter than my first one... But so long as Touya lives, I don't think I will have any regrets... All that I will regret, is leaving Shoto alone to suffer Enji's abuse... I hope Fuyumi and Natsuo step in after I'm dead... And I hope they all grow up strong and healthy... I hope Rei gets better, and I hope they can live happily.
You could feel yourself finally slipping into the darkness. And a single smile formed on your lips as you finally passed out, the flames immediately rushing to consume you too.
Guess this is the end... It was a short life, but I'm grateful I got to spend time... with my family...