MHA : Shoto Todoroki - Modern-day Terrorist

Enji ate, and he didn't consider that it could be his last meal.

He slept, and he made no fuss about the poor quality of the bed.

He rose before dawn, showered with icy cold water to make sure he'd be fully awake.

He stretched, and then he ate breakfast.

Kaneki shared his meal. They were both silent, though Kaneki glanced at him from time to time.

There was a book propped up on Enji's knee, and Kaneki thought he'd seen pictures on the pages but hadn't been quick enough to see what it entailed.

Enji closed the book, pushed it aside, and focused on his meal.

He was fully focused on the fight ahead, reviewing every scenario he'd planned with every ability of All for One accounted for.

"You don't have to do it"

Enji didn't look up from his plate. Kaneki insisted.

"I don't know what you're trying to prove, but-"

"It's not about proving a point", said Enji evenly

He'd only come back yesterday evening from who knows where, and since then he'd been so aloof, so collected and focused that it chilled Kaneki to the bones.

Enji looked like a man willingly walking to the gallows.

"Then why ?"

He didn't answer.

Kaneki's lips thinned.

He'd been on the run because of Enji and yet he didn't deserve a proper answer.

Finding the girl had been hard and took longer than they'd both expected, but in some way, it had been a boon because it had enabled Enji to prepare better to deal accordingly with All for One.

Kaneki feared that if they'd found him quickly, Enji would've jumped on the opportunity of a fight without another thought.

At least now he was prepared – or as prepared as he could be.

"Listen, I-"

The door to the next bedroom slammed open.

A teenage girl with messy hair walked out, yawning loudly.

She grabbed a chair and sat at the table with them, helping herself to breakfast as she eyed Enji.

"Cake ?", she asked, pushing white locks away from her face. "Didn't know it was the kind of food you had to eat before a fight"

He grunted as an answer and kept eating his chocolate cake.

She didn't mind because they weren't close and she didn't give a shit about what would happen to him.

In a few minutes, she'd be as free as possible, with a new identity and so much money she wouldn't know what to do with it.

She'd go to school like everybody else. She wondered if Yuei's festival was as great as she'd heard.

They finished eating.

Kaneki stopped pestering Enji : nothing and no one would stop him.

The teen raised her hand expectantly to Enji, one hip cocked.

He gave her the blood vial. She frowned, disgusted.

"I'm never gonna get used to it", she muttered as she opened the lid. "Piece of dead skin or even teeth, I don't mind, but that is just gross..."

As soon as her fingers grazed the red liquid her eyes turned fully white, her hair floating above her face.

Enji smoothed the city's map and neurotically held the corners down as if any of this would help.

She'd tracked All for One every day since they'd gotten a hold of her, and this was just a last confirmation about his whereabouts before Enji got to work.

"Here"

Her nail stopped on a side street of Nemuro, in Hokkaido. They were in the same city.

He had barely moved since yesterday evening.

Enji checked if he had properly put on his gear, and if everything was where it should be.

The girl had already left in a cab for Tokyo. Kaneki hovered nearby, watching Enji helplessly.

"You should get going", he said. "It's gonna get ugly"

*

At the other end of the world, Shoto and Teka were having dinner.

It was a warm evening and they'd decided to eat on the terrace. The sun was setting, stars like white dots in the sky.

Teka sliced her bloody steak.

"Starving won't bring back your father faster"

She took a bite.

Shoto rested against his chair, arms crossed, a black, short-sleeved top showing a dark red flame tattooed on his left shoulder. Red was exclusively for their family.

"I've got a bad feeling about this", he said

Teka brought her wine glass to her lips. She quirked a brow.

"Then do something about it"

He frowned.

"You won't stop me ?"

She took a sip.

"Of course not. You are to be our next patriarch. Your word will be law. If you want to follow your father and see what he is up to, that is your choice"

It would ease her mind, too, to know there it would be the two of them against him.

One couldn't live so long without having a few tricks up his sleeve, and she was worried for her son.

Shoto rose as if he'd only waited for her approval to do something.

"I can get another of our planes ready in an hour or so"

Shoto's lips quirked upwards.

He had taken off his mask like he used to each time they ate together, and she always made sure no one else was there during their meals. He didn't bother putting it back on.

"We were worried you'd try to keep us here..."

She frowned.

"You're not Shoto, are you ?"

This time he downright smiled.

"The original left this morning"

*

Shoto was on a commercial plane above China.

He had neither passport nor ID with him – not as if it would've changed a thing – and had worked his way there through astute use of Genjutsu.

He'd stolen somebody's bag to look ordinary and had boarded the first flight he could find after Dad had left.

The sun was barely rising, and the horizon lit up as if it would catch fire. He'd be there in an hour or so.

He closed his eyes, smiling when his clone back home with Teka popped, the memories flooding his mind.

*

He was resting on the beach, looking at the rising sun with wonder, sipping a cocktail peacefully.

The upside about this whole ordeal was that he'd gotten vacation for the first time in, what, two decades ? Lazing on the sand was great, especially when you had nothing better to do.

He'd kept healing, stole money from unaware locals and blended in the crowd with the face of an ordinary young man that wouldn't attract attention.

He'd started reading again, too. He'd been an avid reader half a century ago but lost the habit with time. It was something he needed to pick up again, because books were food for the brain – that, and Quirks enhancing intelligence.

He'd been reading 'The God of Rain', a book about a war child forced by circumstances to cultivate a monstrous power to avenge his fellow countrymen disposed of like cattle by foreign nations who saw their territory as nothing more but a playground where they waged wars.

If he-

His senses went haywire.

He jumped to his feet, cocktail falling from his hand and splashing his ankles, book burying itself in the sand, trying to pinpoint the threat-

Something smashed his head from above, scorching fire burning up from the tip of his hair to his scalp.

He flew across the beach like a rag doll, skipping over dunes like a ricocheting rock.

He twisted and managed to spin mid-air, feet leaving deep trails in the sand as he came to a stop.

He-

The earth rumbled, a deep sound similar to a gurgle.

All for One threw himself as far away as he could ; a geyser of lava erupted from the ground right where he'd been, drops hitting his back, burning his clothes and cooking his skin.

All for One swallowed heavily.

He only knew of two people who could do that.

He skipped around as lava spurted kept spurting from the ground indiscriminately.

A shadow covered his face : All for One looked up.

High in the sky, hovering among the clouds like a wrathful god, was Enji Todoroki, his skin as transparent as glass, his blue eyes glowing ominously.

He fell as if his wings had suddenly been cut, a bird shot down from the sky.

His eyes lost the eerie hue, his organs faded from view behind a skin that grew thick and opaque.

Regardless of his Quirk being neutralized, he landed without a problem, gaze strained on his opponent.

The ground was hot, lava was pooling on the sand, hisses and vapor coming from where it met the sea.

All for One, while assessing Enji, frowned, trying to pinpoint the location of the other Todoroki.

Both he and his father felt like beams of light that you couldn't extinguish, so bright that he always knew when any of them was close.

He could feel no one else besides the father and even his presence was faint, hidden behind the overwhelming heat oozing off the boiling ground.

He raised his hands in surrender, floating above the ground, not willing to start something he couldn't end :

"I do not wish to fight"

Enji stilled.

Regardless of Shoto's presence, fighting Enji was as good as a death sentence : one, his body was so broken he wasn't sure he could win.

Two, if he did 'win' his son would hunt him down and kill him in the most painful, excruciating way possible.

Backing down was his only option.

"Too bad that I do"

All for One didn't show anything but he was growing increasingly more frustrated.

"Whoever tasked you with getting rid of me", he drawled. "They want you dead. Neither of us will win anything by fighting"

All for One wasn't used to talking people down from fighting him : usually, he was the one who listened to the pleas and decided he didn't care.

"No one tasked me with anything" He pulled a long knife from his front pouch. "This is between you and me"

He was truly grating on his nerves, yet he knew Enji Todoroki – out of all people on earth – was the only one out of limits.

Messing up the smallest strand of hair on his infuriating head was as good as a death wish.

So All for One did the second best thing he could do and that wasn't murdering his opponent : he ran away.

He spun on his feet with the might of a tornado, a whirlpool of sand shooting up because of his sudden gesture, energy gathering in his body :

"Swap"

And he swapped with a sand grain a hundred meters away, his energy getting sapped faster than it should've.

"Swap"

The wind hissed in his ears as he high-tailed the fuck out of there. His auto-regeneration only started kicking in, his burnt back healing slowly, his scalp getting smoother.

"Sw-"

A lava wall shot from the ground between two dunes, and All for One abruptly stopped, feet screeching on sand-turned glass.

Lava veins covered the ground around him, pulsating as if they were alive.

It effectively cut him off from going to the city, too. His only path was either backtracking or the sea, and going anywhere near water when your opponent was someone who could boil your organs was not viable.

All for One inhaled slowly, resigned, turning to face Enji Todoroki.

He wouldn't kill him, but-

Where was he ?

The ground cracked between All for One's feet and he was forced to move back, now sandwiched between two lava walls way too close to each other.

It was hard to breathe. His eyes were dry, and he felt the urge to blink.

Trying to pinpoint Enji's location was nearly impossible as the man had the presence of a volcano but was effectively hidden by the lava.

All for One's feet left the ground, his toes grazing glass as he floated.

Flying was energy-consuming but if he-

An arm shot through the lava wall.

Steel reflected in All for One's wide-opened eyes.

He moved his head sideways, the threat of the lava walls hindering his movements, feet effectively leaving the ground exactly as something awfully heavy wrapped around his ankles, dragging him down.

The blade grazed his right eyebrow.

His protection field was finally activated.

The blade was repelled, flying off the hand that had held it and through the lava curtain.

The ground cracked between All for One's feet, chunks of sand and glass falling into a growing pit.

All for One's eyes snapped to the previously extended hand. It had disappeared.

Above him, the tip of the lava curtains collapsed, hitting each other as intensely as two tsunamis colliding.

He tore off the wire wrapped around his ankles, two large disks that, for all reason, shouldn't be that heavy, at the end of it.

He burned his hand when he touched them, gritting his teeth to bear the pain.

He shot one glance upwards and jumped in the crevasse as the lava filled everything between the two curtain walls.

It followed him in the crack, falling too fast to be fully avoided : bits of his melted flesh fell like wax all around him.

The lower he got, the hotter it was, and the harder it would be to safely get back to the surface.

All for One's feet grazed a rock : it was half molten.

He sprang up diagonally to the crack he'd been falling in previously, creating a new path in the malleable ground. His shoes caught fire.

His forearms covered his face.

The molten rocks were as much a blessing as a curse : it cooked his skin yet the ground was supple enough that he could break through it easily enough.

All for One broke ground level, shooting out from the lava floor like a loose canon ball.

Fresh air hit his bloody skin – or what was left of it – with the might of a thousand needles.

He fled higher and higher, no matter how energy-consuming it was.

It was either healing properly or flying away, and healing meant he'd soon get new scars and that he'd spent energy for naught.

He stilled and spun, gauging the destruction brought by a madman.

His breath caught.

For miles in every direction, the beach was nothing but boiling lava speckled with glass and black rocks where it met the sea.

The vapor was so thick it looked like fog, hovering over the water, a heavy curtain above the sand and slowly drifting towards the coastal city.

Bubbles were bursting at the surface of the sea. Cracks were spreading throughout the side streets leading to the beach, lava bubbling in the pits.

All for One's red eyes roamed over the destruction with fascination.

They'd barely fought – in a measly three minutes, Enji Todoroki had turned upside down the landscape.

Greed lit up his eyes, despite his instincts telling him that it was an awful idea.

He wanted that Quirk for himself.