Uproar // Villain Deku // Book 2

Chapter 22: Damned Heroes.

Shoto Todoroki's P.O.V

Trust. You can't trust everyone. I don't know how to look at faith, or trust, or belief. How would you know whether or not you're trusting the right person or taking the right avenue? People could lie to you; they could twist your view of subtle things slightly and remake your entire belief system if you choose the wrong friends to believe in. Maybe, in some ways, it's better not to trust at all. The more people you let in or believe in, the more chances you have to get hurt.

Trust.

You can't trust everyone, but then again, you can't really trust anyone.

My mouth was dry, and my mind was blank. I could hardly move; I could hardly speak; I could hardly breathe. He was standing right there, and he was everywhere. His face; his vision; his tone; his voice; his smell; his touch — it all invaded my senses as if I'd known him my whole life, and I did. He was smiling, but it wasn't a happy smile. It was a deranged vision of twisting evil and malice accompanied by his eyes. His eyes — they were terrifying. He spoke with resentment clear in his voice; although, I could hardly distinguish to whom he was speaking.

Me?

Maybe.

I was reminded of our every memory — the few there were. I don't think we had ever been happy together. I had never seen him smile properly, maybe he didn't know how to. Maybe he did smile a lot. We had pictures of him, but my earliest memory of him and I together was of his rage; his anger; his resentment.

"It couldn't be..." I heard my voice speak; however, I don't think it was truly me who had said those words — more like an autopiloted response.

I didn't want to believe it was really him, but I could feel it. Him, I mean. I could feel it in my veins; I could feel it in my blood; I could feel it in my mind — I could just feel it. My whole body screamed out to me that it was truly him — that this man standing all around me was truly him — but I wanted to think it wasn't true. After all of these years, he's been alive. After all of these years, he was so close. After all of these years, he was now a villain. I could have reached out to touch him all this time — to grab him. I could have apologized for being born — dad only stopped training him because of me, or at least, that was what I had been told.

It was times like these that I wondered whether or not things would have been different if I had never been born. Times where I see the impact of every action I had ever made, I mean. Izuku was an example. The deaths of all those that Izuku had killed were examples.

"Surprise," His voice spoke from behind me. "Brother."

Touya was an example.

He was behind me, he was everywhere. On every screen, on every phone — he was everywhere. There was no escape from his vision; there was no escape from his voice; there was no escape from his eyes — there was no escape from him. He was everywhere.

Everywhere.

I felt sick. I felt as if at any moment I would throw up as I looked at the screens. He was exposing every lie our family had ever told; he was exposing every secret our family had been covering up with our wealth, power, and status; he was exposing everything that he, our mother, and I had been through; he was exposing everything — they were exposing everything.

Everything.

Being taken out of my trance-like state, I felt an intensive pain erupt from my side — breaking my focus and pulling me into the cold, harsh grasp of reality's unkind fingertips. I needed to focus — no one would wait for me to finish processing the fact that my brother was still alive. No one would wait for me to finish processing the fact that the boy who had attempted to take my life as a child was standing before me — fighting pro heroes with a sickening and twisted smile spread across his face. No one would wait for me to process the terror that had been shooting throughout my brain — because this was the real world.