….
"Eldest... brother?" Shoto's expression didn't change, but his pupils dilated until the colors of his eyes were almost swallowed by black. "I don't understand-"
"We don't have time for this!" Rumi cut in, her voice tight with barely restrained emotion. "Listen to me, Dabi is Toya, your older brother. He didn't die at Sekoto Peak, he's been alive this entire time, and right now he's in critical condition. We need Todoroki's match to save him. Do you understand now? Do you?"
Shoto stood frozen, the foundations of his reality splintering as a decade of grief was rewritten in a single sentence.
He struggled to reconcile the image of the cynical, lazily brilliant teacher who had been mentoring Class 1-A…. Was actually his brother he thought had burned to ash.
"I..." He stopped, his voice felt like it was coming from miles away. "You are saying the man who has been at U.A. for the past month is–"
"Your eldest brother, yes." All Might said, his voice a low, soothing hum designed to ground the boy. "Young Todoroki, I know this is sudden news for you, but we are out of seconds. Can you call your siblings? Please?"
From inside the medical ward, the scream ripped through the door again, louder now, jagged and desperate, less human than something being physically torn apart.
Todoroki's hand was already moving, pulling his phone from his pocket with a mechanical, shock-induced efficiency. "I will call them."
The moment he stepped away, the professional mask on Recovery Girl's face faltered.
"I need to get back in there." she said, steadying herself. "But Sorahiko, Rumi… Call it a doctor's instinct, because I don't fully understand what's happening to his body, but I believe he will make it through this. So don't worry too much."
The screaming inside intensified, hitting a fever pitch before cutting off with a sickening, wet gagging sound.
Recovery Girl didn't wait for a response before hurrying back inside.
Rumi remained where she stood, ears trembling as a faint sense of relief softened her expression.
Gran Torino rested a hand on her shoulder. "We both know how this goes, give it time and he'll be back on his feet, dragging himself up like he always does."
Across the hall, Shoto finished his calls and he walked back toward the inner circle, his face a porcelain mask of stoicism that fooled no one.
"My sister Fuyumi is on her way - she's AB+, and she should be here in twenty minutes." he said, pausing briefly. "I also texted my father… he's coming."
"Endeavor?" Aizawa's eyes widened, his mind immediately calculating the political and emotional fallout. "You called–"
"He is AB+ as well." Shoto said flatly. "I thought... more blood might give him more time."
The implications of that hung in the air.
Shoto glanced at the adults. "Was that a mistake?"
Aizawa exhaled slowly. "No. You handled it well."
But the atmosphere had changed.
Endeavor - the Number Two Hero - was currently racing toward U.A. to find out that the son he had mourned and blamed himself for was alive, had become an Underground Hero, and was currently dying in a ward he wasn't even authorized to enter.
"This is going to be a disaster." Aizawa muttered.
"We will deal with it." Gran Torino said firmly.
From the medical ward, the sounds of struggle continued.
Recovery Girl's voice could be heard giving urgent instructions to herself, working alone to save a life that was slipping through her fingers.
And in the hallway, a daughter sat with students who had watched her father nearly die protecting them, while a girlfriend tried not to fall apart, and a family that thought they had buried their son years ago rushed to the hospital to confront an impossible truth.
The aftermath of the USJ incident was just beginning.
….
Shoto Todoroki sat among his classmates in the uneasy quiet that had settled over the room.
Moments earlier he had been taken inside so the medical staff could draw his blood.
But the nurse had sent him back almost immediately.
Blood compatibility, it turned out, did not end with ABO and Rh factors. A rapid crossmatch was still required because patients could carry antibodies against lesser-known red-cell antigens, especially if they had received transfusions before.
The test had revealed the problem quickly.
Dabi's blood contained antibodies against one of those minor antigens - and Shoto's red cells carried it. If his blood were transfused, Dabi's immune system would attack the donor cells and destroy them inside his bloodstream.
While the explanation was being given, Shoto remained in a faint daze.
The revelation that Dabi was his eldest brother, Toya, had landed like a physical strike, though his face remained perfectly composed. Years of growing up under Endeavor had trained him to control every expression, to reveal neither confusion nor vulnerability.
Inside, however, his thoughts were in complete disarray.
"Todoroki." Kirishima said. He was trying for his usual manly optimism, but his voice wavered. "I... I had no idea Dabi-sensei was your older brother, man. You have got such a manly brother! Seriously, he is a beast."
The words hung awkwardly in the air.
"I didn't know either." Shoto said flatly.
A ripple of confusion went through the students.
Bakugo's eyes narrowed, while Midoriya looked up too.
"My brother died in an accident when he was twelve years old." Shoto continued. He didn't know why he was talking, only that the silence felt more dangerous than the truth.
"The official report said the heat was so intense they couldn't even recover a body, we held a funeral over an empty casket."
"Oh." Kirishima deflated instantly, his shoulders sagging. "That's... I mean... I am sorry, man. I didn't mean to–"
He was clearly trying to help but making it worse.
"I didn't know Dabi-sensei had such a cute daughter, either." Asui interrupted, her blunt honesty cutting through Kirishima's fumbling better than forced enthusiasm.
"She is adopted." Midoriya added quietly.
That, at least, made sense, it fit what they knew of their assistant teacher.
Todoroki fell silent again as his classmates struggled to process everything: the villain attack, watching their teacher nearly die protecting them, and now the revelation that he was supposedly Todoroki's dead brother.
It was too much for one day.
….
Twenty minutes later–
Fuyumi Todoroki rushed through. Her white-and-red hair was disheveled, and she was still in her elementary school teaching attire.
"I am here! Shoto called and said it was a life-or-death emergency–"
Gran Torino intercepted her with the speed of a man half his age. "No time for explanations, we need your blood now. Someone's life is measured in minutes. Are you AB+?"
"Yes, but–"
"Follow me. Now."
The sheer authority in the veteran's voice stifled her protests. Rumi appeared at her side, her red eyes rimmed with a desperation so profound that Fuyumi's instinct to help overrode her confusion.
"Please," Rumi whispered, and that single word, from one of the fiercest heroes in Japan, was all Fuyumi needed.
"Okay. Yes. Whatever you need."
They ushered her into the sterile white glare of the ward without explanation or introductions, and Recovery Girl already had the equipment ready before Fuyumi even settled onto the mattress.
"Lie down." Recovery Girl instructed. "This is going to be a heavy draw."
Fuyumi complied, rolling up her sleeve, the needle went in smoothly and she watched her blood flow through the tube toward another patient.
For the first time, she looked at the patient receiving her blood.
He was a wreckage of humanity. Bandages covered the majority of his frame; his skin, where visible, was a map of fresh burns and old, jagged scars.
His face was partially hidden by an oxygen mask, but she could see the sharp, aristocratic line of his jaw and the shock of stark white hair.
Something in Fuyumi's chest tightened - a phantom resonance, like a melody she hadn't heard in a decade.
"Who...?" she started.
"Don't talk." Recovery Girl said gently. "Save your strength, we might need more than one donation."
So Fuyumi lay there in silence, watching her blood flow into a stranger who somehow didn't feel like a stranger at all.
….
An hour later, Natsuo Todoroki arrived.
At nineteen, he was a university student training to become a doctor, but the moment Shoto's message came through during an exam, he left without hesitation.
"What's going on?" he demanded, bursting into the hallway. "Shoto said it was an emergency. Is it the old man? Did he finally–"
"We need a blood donation." Gran Torino said bluntly. "AB positive - is your blood group right?"
"I am, but I need to know why–"
"Then move your ass!"
Natsuo looked at Aizawa, then at the students, and finally at the closed door where he could hear his sister's call.
Without another word, he followed the old man inside.
Thirty minutes passed.
Dabi's condition remained unknown, but at least the screaming had stopped.
In the medical world, silence could be a mercy or a death sentence - for the people in the hallway, they chose to believe it was the former.
….
Outside, the students finally left.
Principal Nezu had made it clear:
What happened at the USJ was classified. The students were instructed, firmly, not to discuss the details with anyone outside U.A. until the official report was released.
Most of them left reluctantly.
They wanted to stay and make sure their teacher would be okay, but their parents were calling, and it was getting late.
Only the Todoroki siblings had remained
Eri had finally fallen asleep, curled up in one of the waiting room chairs with Rumi's jacket as a blanket.
That's when Gran Torino emerged from the medical ward.
He looked… tired.
"He is stable… for now" the veteran announced, his voice a dry rasp.
The collective exhale of relief was audible.
Gran Torino continued. "I suppose you want explanations."
He told them.
Toya Todoroki hadn't perished at Sekoto Peak; instead he had been left a broken thing, rebuilt by hands that cared nothing for his soul, and had somehow clawed his way back from the edge of villainy only to collapse on Gran Torino's doorstep.
He explained the name 'Dabi' - a name taken to bury a past that was too painful to carry.
And his choice to never contact his family.
"He is... he is really Toya?" Fuyumi's voice was a fragile whisper, her face shimmering with tears. "My big brother is alive?"
"He was alive this whole time?" Natsuo's hands were shaking. "Ten years? And he never–"
"Why?" Fuyumi asked, her heart breaking. "Why didn't he come home?"
Gran Torino's expression was hard. "That's a question Dabi has to answer himself, when he wakes up."
He paused, his gaze softening as it settled on the siblings. "But you might already know the answer, deep down, all of you know why the boy never looked back at the house that broke him."
The siblings fell silent, they knew, of course they did.
Endeavor - their father.
The relentless training, consuming obsession, and pressure placed on Toya until he finally shattered.
Gran Torino walked away, leaving them to process.
.
….
[To be continued…]
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