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Chapter Text

Before the twins were born, there were three Todoroki children.

Fuyumi, the second oldest, knows that every one of them share a dream of leaving the household. They are different, the three of them. Natsuo smiles brightly, warmer than everyone in the house, innocent in his youth. Touya is older, subdued and reserved in a different way that scares Fuyumi sometimes. Fuyumi's more silent, more shy, but her heart bleeds for her brothers and mother.

All three of them are, undoubtedly, deemed failures in Todoroki Enji's eyes. It's a bitter pill to swallow for more than one reason. Before, it was because of expectations that piled up. But now it's because seeing her younger brother go through the same thing she did, if not more, hurts her twice as much. Fuyumi also knows her mother is pregnant, and silently, futilely, she despairs and hopes for her siblings.

Todoroki Rei gives birth to twins.

The first, a boy with red and white hair split in the middle and the most curious eyes. Rei names him Shouto. This is one thing Enji cannot take away from her; each and every one of her children are hers more than they would ever be their father's. Enji might forge and sharpen them as weapons but Rei was the iron and steel they were made of. Shouto isn't exempt from that. Rei feels her eyes tear up as Shouto cries and cries, like he knows how rough his fate would be.

The second, a girl with pink hair and quiet disposition. Rei names her Sakura. Her hair was a mild surprise - the red and white was expected, but the mix that gave way to pink was unprecedented in her family. Enji scoffs at her pink hair when he bothered to look at her, like the shade was a washed out version of the red crown of the hero's. But Rei falls in love with Sakura's hair as quickly as she falls in love with Shouto's eyes.

She holds them close to her heart. Shouto cries and cries until Sakura reaches out, small pudgy fingers finding Shouto's hand, curling ever so softly. 

The first word Sakura speaks is a quiet "-to" in the middle of a very tense family dinner. Enji, in a rare moment of familial affection, puffs up in pride until Sakura repeats the word loudly, "Sh'to," and babbles in Shouto's direction, making it very clear that she was referring to her brother.

Fuyumi chokes quietly as Natsuo grins, cooing over his sister. Rei smiles, a small thing that she does not dare show Enji. Meanwhile, Shouto bangs his fist in response to his twin's calls.

"Enough," orders Enji, and Natsuo straightens up. Rei loses her smile as Fuyumi timidly picks up her cup of water. She catches Touya's eyes and there is the lurking darkness in her brother's eyes, a deep fire that burns and scorches. Touya has always been the intense one. Each one of them fear Enji but it's Touya who's brave enough to despise him.

Enji looks at Rei. "Learn to discipline them better." Or I will, was the unsaid. He throws a cutting look at Shouto's non-stop banging hand.

Touya reaches out, gently stopping Shouto's motions. Sakura whips her tiny head and narrows her eyes at Enji. If Fuyumi didn't know any better, she would say Sakura's glaring at him, but eventually her sister loses interest and snootily - something Fuyumi never thought she'd say about her baby sister - ignores their father. Blessedly, Enji does not see this and continues eating.

Shouto grins at Sakura, his baby teeth showing. Sakura pats his twin's cheek. "Sh'to," she repeats once again, smiling back.

Sakura and Shouto are barely two years old when they stumble upon the Training Room.

Even though none of them are considered Enji's heirs (heirs to what, Touya once scoffed, to his bullshit?), all three Todoroki siblings who showed Quirks are trained once a week by Endeavor. They know their purpose. Or lack thereof, in their father's eyes. It's no surprise that there's approximately three to four years of gap in their ages - Natsuo is six, Fuyumi is nine, and Touya is twelve. Enji discarded them when they didn't show what he wanted them to.

In the Training Room, it is Endeavor who trains them, not Enji. Because while Enji is a terrible father and husband, Endeavor is on another level. When the twins peek inside a hole in the sliding door, they see Natsuo and Fuyumi sitting side by side as Endeavor and Touya fight.

It's less of a fight and more of a beating; Endeavor repeatedly brings Touya to his knees. Natsuo is stiff as a board. Fuyumi, her own hands shaking, reaches out discreetly and clutches Natsuo's shirt.

Shouto does not understand what's going on but he does not like seeing his siblings hurt. He turns wide-eyes towards his sister. Sakura is trembling, her eyes watering, and Shouto's heart squeezes tightly.

"Sakura?" whispers Shouto.

Sakura briefly looks at him and she smiles, patting his head. "Stay."

Then she barges in the room with all the grace of a two-year old, running in front of Touya. She spreads her arms and bares her teeth, saying, "No." so fiercely that even with tears in her eyes, Endeavor is taken aback.

"No," she repeats, glaring at her father.

"No?" Indignant, Endeavor asks her, "You dare?"

"I dare." For a long time, they look at each other, not breaking eye contact. It makes for an interesting dichotomy - a small pink-headed child against the towering, burning form of her father's. Yet Sakura stays undaunted even in the face of the pro-Hero, who stares down (and does more) villains as an every-day job.

(A very, very small part of Enji, a part which he will never admit, feels a shiver of.. something he does not want to name. His daughter is only two years old, ridiculous pink-hair and soft green eyes, and yet. She looks at him with a burning fire that he's only ever seen from other heroes and the worst villains. It makes him think, then, who is this child?)

Endeavor's eyes narrow. His gaze shifts from Sakura to Touya, lying on the ground with his head down, to Natsuo and Fuyumi sitting on the other side of the room, to Shouto whose wide eyes stare at the scene, and finally back to Sakura. Sakura has shifted from open arms to a stance that he isn't familiar with, but recognizes as one with intent to attack. His daughter lifts her chin. It should be a comical sight but it's not - for a moment, Endeavor sees a spectre of the woman his daughter will grow into.

For a man whose family does not rank very high in his life, Endeavor - no, Enji feels a tiny pocket of triumph in his chest. Touya might have the spark but Sakura has what it takes to burn indiscriminately.

"For today, you are excused." Without warning, Endeavor lifts a hand and strikes Sakura's cheek. Only his hand does not connect - Sakura's tiny arm blocks it, the loud smack ringing hollowly in the cold silence of the room.

Sakura stares incredulously. Then, throwing a last glare at Endeavor, she turns to Touya and says in a high-pitched voice, "Let's go, nii-san." She tugs him up and drags Natsuo and Fuyumi outside, too. Shouto follows, hesitantly looking back at his father.

Shouto doesn't know it yet, but he will think and realize it is the start of everything.

Endeavor looks at Sakura contemplatively.

In another world, it is Shouto alone who will bear the brunt of his father's machinations and expectations.

In this world, Shouto has Sakura. It doesn't change everything but it changes something.

Chapter Text

Sakura is three when she realizes there's something more to her than she knows, than she understands.

Something indescribable sits at the back of her mind. She is vaguely aware that her development was advanced for her age, even when she was barely a year old. Genius, she thinks, the word strange and unknown but she knows it's not good.

Then, there are dreams. Flashes of people whose faces elude her - when she wakes up, her hand reaches for nothing as tears sting her eyes. Knowledge she shouldn't know, much less understand. Rules that don't make sense sometimes. It's all very confusing, but Sakura takes it in stride.

It is when she is three that she finds out about Quirks in particular.

She's known it in the offhanded way kids do about their environment; the sky is blue, the grass is green, her mother can make ice with her fingers, and her father's moustache burns when he sneezes. Natsuo is cooler than the average person, Touya has pretty white flames, and Fuyumi can make snow.

(But none of them can walk on trees or walls or water and it's.. disconcerting. They don't need to make weird symbols with their fingers to use their power. There is something that their bodies lack, that Sakura's body lacks.)

She asks her mother, once, why and how she can make ice. Rei had smiled at her, saying, "These are called Quirks, Sakura-chan," while creating a magnificent sculpture of a ballerina. "A lot of people have them, but some of them don't."

"What do they do?"

"Well, it depends on the person. It's like a really special gift. What you get can be similar to your family, or even to other people, but Quirks are unique to you."

Unique to you. Sakura mulishly thinks it over. When her mother said those words, imprints of red eyes, spinning dots - trees grown with a single sign - shadows that stretch and devour - pupil-less eyes that see through everything pricks at her mind's eye. She shakes her head but it continues, punches that can level mountains, the fine, no, finest control, glowing green hands and a heart she grips and pumps -

" -- wanna have one like kaa-san!" Beside her, Shouto declares excitedly, mismatched eyes glowing. Sakura likes that about Shouto; he's the only one she knows that has such a lovely set of kind eyes.

"What about Sakura, hmm? What kind of Quirk do you want?"

"I want," starts Sakura, tasting hesitancy in her tongue. What does she want? She wants - understanding. More information. Reasons why her heart goes extremely doki-doki after waking up from a nightmare, why she occasionally imagines Fuyumi-nee with long black hair, why she dislikes her father so much she feels like bursting, why Shouto makes her calm. She wants reasons why she dreams, what she dreams of.

Sakura wants to understand the people she sees. She wants to know why she dreams of running on top of water, of punching white hair and feeling immense satisfaction, of too fast finger (hand?) signs.

Most importantly, she wants to understand why she thinks of two figures in front of her, walking away. Of her looking behind her and seeing a faint image of a village, the feeling of frustration, helplessness, must protect, must be--

"I wanna be strong," she answers shyly. "I wanna protect Shouto and kaa-san and Fuyumi-nee and Natsu-nii and Touya-nii--"

"Me too! Me too!" volunteers Shouto.

Sakura hears her mother inhale sharply before she says, in a shaky voice, "That's good. That's very good, Sakura-chan, Shouto-kun."

Rei leans forward and looks at both of them, face solemn. "Whatever happens, you have to look out for each other. Protect each other. Promise me, okay?"

Sakura and Shouto share a look. At three, they're each other's best friends. They cannot fathom one being absent where the other is; Shouto is Sakura's and Sakura is Shouto's.

(What Sakura doesn't know is:

Shouto understands, in the way kids only do, that there's something different about his sister. She wakes up from nightmares at nights, incoherent with tears in her eyes. Shouto has only had three nightmares before but they're all scary - for Sakura to have them a lot of times means she's suffering twice. She doesn't like to talk about them in them in the morning, giving him confused looks, so Shouto just lets it go. At three, he understands what it means to respect people's spaces even if he cannot verbalize it. Shouto doesn't need a promise to protect his sister; in his mind, he is already doing just that.)

 "We promise."

Sakura likes Shouto the most, but that's kind of a given. Her mother explained what twins are to them; essentially, she and Shouto grew up from tiny babies (even tinier than when she was young!) together until Rei gave birth to them. Being twins mean being two parts of a whole. They look similar, except for the hair and eyes. Sakura's eyes are more green than turquoise, but it's still close enough to Shouto's left eye. The hair, now, was an entirely different thing.

Natsuo once teased Sakura about her hair before Fuyumi put a stop to it, but privately, Sakura likes her hair. All of her siblings have red and white, some more white than red. However, Sakura can't see herself with either red, white or both. It just doesn't suit her. Pink hair, though. Pink hair's perfect.

Even though Natsuo likes to tease Sakura, it's playful and he often makes her laugh. Sakura likes Shouto the most but the rest of her siblings can't be quantified. She likes them equally. Touya often reads with her when Shouto doesn't want to, and he helps her out with big words she can't read yet. Fuyumi paints her nails with glitter-y pink, and when asked, she does Shouto's too. Natsuo is just a super fun brother - he's the closest to the twins, and he likes to take photos. Sakura has a tiny book of photographs gifted by him.

She's decidedly decorating the photo book in one of their many rooms when Touya approaches her.

"Sakura?"

"Hmmm?"

Touya doesn't answer for a long time, so Sakura looks up and finds him squinting at her. He squats down until he's eye level with Sakura who was lying down on the tatami, stomach down and feet swinging up in the air. "Why did you do that?"

"Do what, nii-san?"

A sigh. "The training room, little blossom."

More reason to like Touya: he calls her little blossom, which is really cute. Sakura approves.

"What training room?"

"Last year." Touya takes some butterfly stickers and puts them on a page of her photo book. There's now a pretty purple butterfly flying near a picture of her and Shouto. "Do you remember when we were training, and you stopped him?"

"Well," says Sakura, who does remember and who also doesn't see a problem with what she did. "He was bullying you! I don't like bullying."

"How did you even know what bullying is? You're three."

"Read it!" Proud, Sakura grins. Then she remembers what the topic of discussion was, and scowls. "Fathers aren't s'pposed to bully children. That's bad."

"I know, but you shouldn't have done it."

"Why not?"

Another sigh. "Weren't you scared when you disobeyed him, Sakura?"

Was she? Scared, that is. Sakura thinks of what happened. It was almost a year ago but her memory knows it vividly. She imagines Enji standing before her, furious. She remembers the split second of shock she feels when she saw him kicking down Touya before white-hot anger washes over her. Sakura's never actually felt anger before, but she's certain that's what she felt. Enji had loomed over her threateningly - had tried to hit her before her body reacted and she blocked it. Was she scared?

"Yes," agrees Sakura. "It was more scary. But I wanna protect Touya-nii."

 "Scarier, you mean."

"I said that. And I wasn't disobeying him!" added Sakura.

"You were."

"No I wasn't."

Yet another sigh. Sakura wonders if Touya is alright or if he's having breathing problems. "Alright, you weren't. But Sakura.." He pauses from adding a flower on Natsuo's face. "Have you thought of the consequences your actions brought forth?"

"Huh?"

"Err, have you thought of what would happen afterwards?"

Sakura blinks at him questioningly.

"Of course you won't," says Touya, shaking his head. "Hmm. How to put it best? Ah, okay. Think of it as a game, little blossom. Imagine you're eating umeboshi."

"I love umeboshi!"

"I know. You're eating umeboshi, then someone tells you to stop eating umeboshi."

Sakura shakes her head. "I won't! I don't want to."

"Right?" says Touya. "But the one who told you was very angry. And they took away your umeboshi. You'll feel angry, right?"

Nodding, Sakura wonders where this is going.

"But then, the next day, your umeboshi is in your table again. The angry person isn't there but you know they'll come back later.. So what do you do?"

"I'll eat the umeboshi!" yells Sakura excitedly. "I'd eat it so much until my tummy hurts." She thinks for a while and adds, "Then I'm gonna hide the rest after!"

Touya gives her a tiny smile. "Yes, exactly. Now think of it this way: father was you, and.. training us was his way of eating umeboshi. You are the angry person who took away his umeboshi. What do you think father did?"

Sakura thinks it over. If Enji was her.. and she took away his training.. Her hands freeze in mid-air as she was about to take off a star sticker. Horrified, Sakura understands what Touya was trying to say.

"So you mean.." she starts, tears prickling her eyes. "He trained you more and more the next day?"

"And the days afterward."

"He hurt you more?" Sakura's voice cracked in the middle as the tears finally fall down her face, blurring her sight. Touya's face distorts, but she thinks she can see soft pity.

"That's enough." Fuyumi's voice cuts in, sharp. Sakura startles, not noticing her sister enter the room. "Nii-san, what did you do?"

"I didn't mean to make her cry. I just wanted to make her understand the consequences of her actions," says Touya.

Fuyumi gathers a crying Sakura in her arms. Her hands are pleasantly cool as she she strokes Sakura's back.

"I'm s-sorry Touya-nii! Fuyumi-nee! I just didn't want him to h-hurt you, so I did it! I'm sorry!"

"It's okay, Sakura-chan," comforts Fuyumi.

"No it's not! It's not fair! He was hurting you!"

"Sakura, look at me."

Sniffing, Sakura looks at Touya. His turquoise eyes are warm and kind. "It wasn't your fault. It's Enji's choice to hurt us and your choice to protect us. You had good intentions, and for that, I thank you, little sister.

"But I wanted you to understand. Because the world isn't fair nor is it kind. Because people like our father have the power to hurt us and get away with it. You have to think about what would happen afterward for every decision you choose, for every action you make. Especially if you're going to be a hero," he finishes lightly.

"Huh?"

"Ah. Well, I'm sure every child had a dream of being a hero. Now, dry your tears."

Sakura scrubs her eyes and asks, "What do you want to be, nii-san?"

Touya shares a look with Fuyumi, heavy with words unspoken.

Vividly, an image of a black-haired boy - one whose choices were taken away from him, so twisted that all he was left to do is follow the path to destruction and revenge and all bad things - overlaps with her view of red-haired Touya. She doesn't know the boy but just the sense - it's similar to her siblings. Her heart aches.

Her brother's eyes are wry, but somehow sad, when he answers, "Sometimes we don't get to choose, Sakura."

Her world continues. Sakura eats, plays with Shouto and her mom, and sneaks fun-time with her siblings. There's a nagging feeling that doesn't leave, and a sense of vulnerability she can't shake off. Not from Touya's lesson, but from her dreams. It eats at her but she tries not to let it show.

Her world continues. Shouto gains his quirk at four years of age: control over fire and ice. Or at least, the potential for it. He'd burned the blanket Sakura was using that day, panicking when the flames nearly capture the entire thing. They're both awed when he produced enough ice to stop the fire. The blanket was unsalvageable, but it was a small price to pay.

Sakura is ecstatic for her brother, but when they tell their mother, her smile slips away. Rei has an ugly look in her eyes even though her mouth is curved upwards.

"Kaa-san?" asks Sakura hesitantly. Shouto has started appily drawing himself with some crayons, red blurbs of color on his left hand, blue blurbs on the right. Rei is staring at Shouto hollowly. "Are you alright?"

That startles Rei. Her hands flutter to her cheeks as she pats them, as if she's checking for dirt, which doesn't make sense because Sakura has never seen her mother dirty. "Of course I'm alright, sweetheart. Why wouldn't I be?"

The answer to that question is something Sakura finds out later.

Enji comes home after a day of heroics. It's less 'people-saving' and more 'villain-defeating', in Endeavor's case. Sakura has seen him in action exactly once, in a television, and she.. was not impressed. Endeavor bulldozes his opponents with fire with little respect for his surroundings. It's eye-catching and it gets the job done, but his lack of care about the people he's saving doesn't sit well with Sakura. And that's judging his hero persona.

As a father, Enji is, frankly put, a bull-hot-shit of a father. (She heard Touya-nii refer to him as that.)

Sakura knows what a father should be and Enji is nowhere near that.

This is evidenced when Enji comes home and catches sight of Shouto's doodles. His eyes snap to Rei, questioning silently. Rei inclines her head, eyes downcast.

Slowly, a smile unfurls on his face as an almost manic look of glee sparks in his eyes. Without warning, Enji bursts into flames, triumph oozing from his form as he towers over Shouto.

"Show me your Quirk, boy," he says, looking at Shouto with those disturbing eyes. 

Shouto casts a worried look at Sakura, then his mother. Sakura eyes Enji with suspicion. As much as she disliked Enji, it is only he who can evoke the something out of Sakura that makes her feel a different but also similar person. So Sakura tolerates being around the man if only to try to comprehend the feeling that shakes her inner core when she's angry.

Right now, it's a mess; it's like a big swirl of hot water is furiously pumping inside her stomach, which she knows because she accidentally splashed hot tea on her hand once, except this time it's inside and lots and definitely hotter. Sakura doesn't know what this is, or why this is, but whenever she feels like this she knows it's wrong.

Rei says softly, with a defeated tone, "It's alright, Shouto. You can do it, right?"

Shouto holds up both of his hands. He closes his eyes and soon enough, there are tiny ice crystals forming along his right hand. It stretches from his pinky finger until he manages to cover up to wrist. On his other hand, a small fire grows, gradually increasing until there's a ball of fire. Shouto grins, waving his hands around. The fire doesn't sputter; the ice stays frozen.

"Finally."

Enji nods, a cold look of satisfaction in his face upon seeing Shouto's Quirk. "You will be the best, Shouto. And I will make sure of that. Your training starts tomorrow." He turns around to walk away, flames dying to nothing as he deactivates his own Quirk.

"What?" asks Rei. Her hands are shaking, her face white, but there is anger in her face that Sakura's never seen before. "You can't do that - we agreed - they won't start until they're seven -"

"And who are you to argue my decision?"

"I'm your wife!"

"I am his father, need I remind you," says Enji lowly. "And I am the one who makes the final decisions in this house."

Rei blanches but continues. "He's only four, Enji."

"He is already four."

"But -"

"Enough!"

And Enji's arm is suddenly raised behind him, flying towards Rei. Sakura sees it all in slow motion; the snap of Enji's arms, gradual and almost sluggish as he whips it back, aiming towards her mother; Rei's eyes widening as she sees the arm but doesn't - can't - do anything about it; Shouto's hands as the fire and ice goes out while he looks in horror; and Sakura's own body, moving forward to intercept her father.

(Her world stops.)

Todoroki Enji is a hero. He's strong, and fast, and is quickly becoming known as an undefeatable hero. People admire him; kids look up to him. He's powerful, even without the heroics. So powerful that he was able to pressure his wife's family in marrying him, for the perfect match that will allow him to surpass All Might. This is not the first time he's raised a hand to his wife, but to the twins, it is the first time they witness this.

His hand does not connect to Rei's face.

Instead -

(Her world continues. Haruno Sakura breathes. She is Todoroki Sakura - they are one and the same, and even without chakra there is strength inside Sakura that cannot be taken away. Strength comes in many forms, but none more powerful than that which comes from the need to protect.

That is what blooms inside her. Sakura's first instinct will always be to protect - unhesitating, even faced with missing-nins and enemy-nins, with nothing but a kunai to her trembling hand. Because Sakura might be scared, might be wounded, might be crying but she protects.

And protect she does.)

Sakura punches her father's thigh, the nearest place she can reach, and he goes flying, crashing to the wall on the other side of the room. There's a loud sound of something breaking and his body slides down, an extremely shocked look occupying his face before his expression switches to excruciatingly pained. The wall is visibly cracked.

All four are silent. Touya's words of actions and consequences echo in her head, but Enji is lying unconscious and her mother is not, so she thinks it worth it. She thinks of people she's punched and defeated and Enji is just one of them. Regret doesn't fill her - only a sense of satisfaction that her mother is safe. 

Shannaro, she thinks, her hand throbbing with the pain of the punch.

Chapter Text

They meet with a Quirk-specialist four days after the incident.

For Shouto, it's just confirmation than anything, really. Sakura learns about the different types of Quirk. Emitter types which require conscious effort to activate - Shouto's Quirk, tentatively named Fire & Ice, belongs to this type. Then there are Transformation types that allow the user to temporary alter or transform certain parts of the body, and Mutant types that seemed like a permanent version of Transformation type in order to effectively use their abilities.

To Sakura, who's still reeling from the sudden influx of memories (she is still Sakura, four, sister to Shouto, more than she is Sakura, seventeen, jounin) the incident has given her, soaks this in. The sudden thirst for information consumes her - what is a Quirk, how did it evolve or mutate, are there triggers, how different is biology, what happens to those who do not have a Quirk, how much does a Quirk affect a human body - and she lets it. She peppers the doctor (she was one too - dare she be one again? ) with countless of questions until her mother chastises her manners.

Aihara-sensei, the Quirk-specialist, chuckles and good-naturedly hands Sakura a bunch of flyers with links to internet websites.

Pleased, Sakura reads them until it's her turn to be evaluated.

Nobody outright refers to what she did, and she can't decide if it's more of a polite thing or an outright taboo. Aihara-sensei doesn't know the exact details but knows that Sakura punched hard enough to crack the wall.

It's an outlier. Sakura should have, through her parents, inherited one or both or an amalgamation of the two. Super-strength or a personal variation of it was the first evaluation, but Aihara-sensei explicitly tells them that rare cases like hers are observed through a long period of time. She gives them her contact details and asks them to email her for even the smallest progress or breakthrough. However, she does caution Sakura personally not to experiment without supervision.

Sakura gives her an impish smile and promises nothing.

When they reach home, Sakura pesters Natsuo who was deemed responsible and knowledgeable enough to be left alone with a computer (he really isn't, he's just seven but he's good with computers, oddly enough), to look up the websites in the brochures. He does, monitoring Sakura’s reading contents for the first hour before leaving her to her own devices once it was evident she had no plans of stopping until she’s satisfied.

The young girl, unknowing of her brother’s thoughts, was simply transfixed at the wealth of information available in the world wide web. The sheer amount of websites she could access with just a few simple words was staggering - no wonder she has seen a lot of people transfixed on their phones.

(In the world she left, information was hounded like prized jutsu and guarded like priceless treasure.)

The articles given to her were informative but Sakura wants more. So she looks and searches, inhaling the information given to her, parsing through personal studies and professional researches. She stumbles upon a trove of medical articles and she wants to cry, because Sakura had been one of the leading medical researchers once upon a time, but that was then and this is now - world-wide discoveries that can only be improved. She discovers Quirks that heal in many different ways and thinks what if.

At one point, Shouto bugs her to spend time with him and she reluctantly agrees, rubbing her tired eyes. Her mind’s running through different ideas about medicine and Quirks and genetic mutations, but then her brother whacks her with a pillow when he notices her inattention. It stuns Sakura. Shrieking, she runs after Shouto who is giggling, pillow on her hand as she tries to hit him.

Their cries of joy echo down the hallway, one of the small moments that she treasures.

Enji comes back fully healed. The household goes silent, shoulders tensed and words carefully chosen.

Nothing different about it, except he starts training Shouto and Sakura. Their father ignores his other children, discarded and cast away like the failures he thought they would be. They don’t mind - it gives them time and space to themselves, away from the overpowering figure of their father.

Sakura understands their relief. Shouto does, too. They see their siblings happier and though one may feel resentment for the freedom they are guaranteed, they are alright with it. At the end of the day, their older siblings come to them and patch up their wounds, silently providing support.

That support is what gives Sakura strength to go through Endeavor’s training. Sakura has gone through training, and Sakura, doctor-medic-child-soldier-shinobi, understands the limits of how much stress a child can undergo before breaking. She knows how much she should push and what things she cannot do as a child.

Endeavor does not.

But she is four and she should not know it. So three days after their training start, on a warm sunny day of precious freedom, Sakura sneaks out.

She asks Shouto to keep quiet about it. Her twin protests but Sakura firmly asks him to stay put, resulting in a pout but with grudging acceptance.

She goes to a library. It’s easy to find, especially after asking some well-meaning strangers about directions. They coo over her, murmuring about how cute she is and how determined she looks like on her first errand. Sakura doesn’t know what that means but she is grateful that children in Japan are, apparently, introduced to responsibility at the same age as kids in Konoha are.

The library is cool and quiet, seemingly detached and silenced the way only libraries can be. Sakura, hands clasped behind her back, approaches the librarian and asks for directions on medical books.

The teenager smiles down at her, getting up and showing her the way. She thanks him and gathers books, frowning when she can’t reach it. With a laugh, the librarian helps her, asking what she’s looking for.

Sakura tells him and he says, bemusedly, “Wouldn’t it be easier to look for it on the internet?”

Oh, thinks Sakura to herself. A bit embarassed, Sakura answers, “I.. forgot.”

It’s one of the things that doesn’t come first nature to her. Advanced technology like the world wide web, automobiles, even some forms of electronic devices. When Sakura planned to research, she thought scrolls and books.

Kindly, the librarian helps her and she before she knew it, she’s got stacks of paper printed. Much more easier than copying things down, that’s for sure. Sakura solemnly pays for the printed pages of educational research proving how too much muscle training can stunt growth and other detrimental factors, as well as the limits to how much a child’s body can handle. She leaves the library, giving a wave to the helpful librarian.

Her thoughts turn to Enji as she goes home as quickly as she can.

She wants to punch him badly. But she can’t, because she hasn’t been able to access her Quirk, and her limbs are underdeveloped, muscle memories missing. Idly, though, she thinks she can kill him. Sakura wasn’t a shinobi in terms of deep subterfuge and assassinations - she’d been more of a front-liner and med-nin, with experience in diplomacy and political handling as the Hokage’s apprentice.

But Sakura is four. Her stomach turns at the thought of slashing Enji’s throat in the middle of his sleep not because she is afraid of the act, but because he is still the father of her siblings (not hers, never hers) and.. she is not sure if she wants to kill again.

It took her a long time to reconcile the warrior and the healer within her. Death and life exists side by side, but Sakura wields both. It’s a balance she must maintain.

Without her medical prowess, she is only left with the role of warrior and she doesn’t like the imbalance. Sakura is, admittedly, scared that killing Enji (and Endeavor - there’s always a disconnect whenever she thinks of him) will have greater repercussions than she can handle.

In the meantime, she leaves the medical reports on his study and waits.

The next training session, Endeavor gives them inscrutable eyes and dismisses them earlier than the usual.

Well, thinks Sakura, a tiny, satisfied smile on her face. At least he has the sense to listen.

They experiment with their Quirks.

Or, more accurately, Shouto experiments a lot with his Quirk while Sakura supervises. She tries to use her own but her intimate knowledge of channeling chakra into every part of her body prevents her from accessing her Quirk. She still doesn’t believe that hers is a Quirk mutation - variations of Super-strength are typically body-augment Quirks. Hers isn’t like that. She had felt something bubbling inside her, some energy coursing through her veins. Four year old Sakura aptly names it not-chakra.

It is when Shouto causes a small explosion when he clapped his Quirk-activated hands together that Sakura gets an idea. She remembers careful manipulation of water and fire, of titanic chakra-manipulated bodies of water meeting with wild, all-consuming fire and exploding. The blast of hot steam, hissing and scalding and infinitely more perilous to heal than ordinary burns. The impact between such connections that leave craters, that decimates solid earth. Much like her kicks and punches except - smaller.

“Oh,” she says, a hypothesis forming in her mind.

“Whoa!” exclaims Shouto, mistaking her glee for excitement. “That hurt, but whoa.”

“Gimme a second!”

Sakura runs to Natsuo who’s lounging on his bed, her footsteps thundering in the wooden halls. “Nii-san!”

“Yes?” asks Natsuo.

“Borrow your laptop! Please?”

“Heeh. What do you want it for?”

Wide-eyed, Sakura tries to explain, “I need to learn how to make water and fire go boom!” A small, very small, jounin-at-seventeen-small part of her despairs over her vocabulary. “Shouto clapped his hands and the fire and cold water exploded!” There, that’s better.

“And.. why is Shouto using his Quirk alone?”

“He’s practicing with me.”

“You're gonna me in trouble! Kaa-san said no practicing if Fuyu-nee or Touya-nii aren't here.”

"But you're here aren't you, nii-san? You're strong enough to protect us!" 

"Well.." A look of pleased pride stretches on Natsuo's face. Sakura giggles - he's so easy! "I guess you're right. But no more practicing!"

Natsuo stands and ruffles around his study desk until he reaches his laptop, buried under a stack of coding textbooks. He turns it on himself, sitting back down on the back. “Tell Shouto to come here. I’m not telling kaa-san you were using Quirks stay with me for the whole day. And if you ask nee-san or nii-san to watch over you next time.”

Nodding, Sakura does that, and shortly she and Shouto are settled comfortably on Natsuo’s sides. Her older brother types in a vague question but the search engine is trustworthy. Verified articles come up and Sakura is hungrily devouring words and words of theoretical physics and engineering. Some of the words are unfamiliar so she asks Natsuo to explain them.

Soon, it is a repeat of her Quirk-research session. Natsuo leaves her to play with Shouto, who, while interested in the subject, trusted his sister to tell him about it later.

Sakura skims over some concepts that do not seem relevant until her eyes catch on the words water hammer, which leads to steam explosion, exactly the idea she had been looking for. She reads and reads - the Academy taught a version of physics, not specifically this but somehow similar.

Videos of online explanations - and weren’t those surprising! - are soon watched.

Steam explosion is an explosion caused by violent boiling or flashing of water into steam, occurring when water is either superheated or rapidly heated. The more difference in temperature, the more explosive. Shouto’s sub-zero manipulation of ice came in contact with fire, causing the miniature explosion. It’s crude and kind of basic, but it’s a weapon to think about.

Sakura thinks about the not-chakra. The fluidness of it, not unlike chakra in feeling but different in temperature. It was cold, she recalls, and hot at the same time.

But something cannot be hot and cold at the same time. Not unless they are separate forms. Or they change far too quickly for the human brain to receive the neurons dedicated to feeling.

Sakura remembers the hot, churning sensation she felt in her stomach. She’d thought it was because of nerves or anger - now, she suspects it’s because of hot, physical liquid.

Out of all the Todoroki children, only she has pink hair, an actual combination of her mother’s white and her father’s red.

It may not mean anything significant, but.

Nobody has ever gotten a mix of Quirks either - Shouto has both but not a combination of them. They’d discovered his ice is solely for his right and fire for his right. It’s side by side, not mixed as one.

Fire and ice finds common ground in either water or steam. Later she’ll read about molecular and atomic configurations, about the conversion of energies needed to change phases from liquid to gaseous and vice versa, but for now, she closes her eyes and brings up the vortex of hot water, as she’d now realized.

It’s there, bubbling. Less alive than chakra but it’s spread throughout her body. Sakura was once a med-nin who could trust her heart to keep pumping without blood, who could separate her white blood cells to encourage healing, who could open her pores and tenketsu points when necessary. Sakura is not that person now - there is no chakra to aid her.

But Sakura knows how to trust her body and search deep inside her. It is hard, to look for something that isn’t physically perceived, because for all of Sakura’s memories she is more Todoroki than Haruno. But she is still Sakura enough to pinpoint that there are many, many pathways inside her, running through her body, thinner than even some of her veins. She grasps the thread of hot-cold and finds out foci in her knuckles and palms, her elbows and knees, and the balls of her feet.

Points where she can, if her thoughts are correct, make steam explosion from.

However, she remembers punching Enji and there were no explosions - so what is she missing?

Sakura goes back to reading. Backtracks. There.

Water hammer is the phenomenon that occurs when a pipe is closed too quickly. On a small scale, it’s nothing really dangerous. But often occurrences can lead to pipe damages, and, with enough force, an explosion.

There is no need for a change of temperature. Only velocity and container space and air pockets.

The video she watches tells her that running water is akin to a truck running at full speed; the sudden closing off of a valve is like putting a brick wall in front of the train. The sudden stop in momentum makes it so the force has nowhere to go except stop - pressure is exerted, the brick wall shatters.

Smaller container space equals more damage, and the faster the force, the higher the impact. Suddenly her tiny water-pathways make sense.

“Oh,” she says for the second time that day.

It’s not steam explosion that occurred as she previously thought. It’s water hammer, or a Quirk-version of it. Maybe Sakura can produce steam explosions but what she did, the raw power that punched Enji, the power she thought so similar to her before, it’s merely applied physics enhanced by natural, Quirk-induced strengths.

It strikes her then.

She’d thought - hoped -  that even without chakra, she retained the strength and abilities she had. The techniques she’s mastered. Proof that Haruno Sakura existed aside from her pink hair and green eyes, those which aren’t even the exact same features.

Her hair was considerably messier than it previously was; jaggedly-chopped hair was one thing, naturally messy hair that stuck out on odd ends even when properly cut was another. Green eyes that are a touch lighter and brighter, closer to Shouto’s turquoise than to her previous’ emerald. The softness of her jaw; the shape of her eyes; her lips. Everything was just slightly off. Enough to give the impression that she’s Sakura and she’s not.

She died and she is now alone, in a world without her people.

Naruto with his blindingly bright smiles and uncontested determination. Kakashi with his eye-creases and silent support. Tsunade-shishou with her drunken laughter and sage advices, sweet-smelling Ino and the fond bitchiness. Her parents’ never-ending quarrels and displays of affection. Sai and Yamato and Shizune and even Sasuke, with his distant shows of camaraderie. Lee and his unending challenges; Tenten and Neji, Shikamaru and Chouji. Hinata and Shino and Kiba-and-Akamaru.

And the people beyond them, the ones who make Konoha and the rest of the world a bit brighter than usual.

Her heart aches.

A small sob tears out of her, a pitiful thing that sounds so weak in the empty silence of the room. Sakura’s upper lip wobbles and then the tears come. Her sight is blurred and she feels awful. Slowly, her sobs rise in volume until she’s full on bawling with occasional hiccups in between.

“Sakura!” And that is Shouto. Dear, sweet Shouto who’s her other half but not. Shouto who comforts her in the night when the nightmare comes, Shouto whose shy smiles and excited eyes remind her of no one because he’s only Shouto. “Are you okay?! What’s wrong?”

Her heart is aching and she feels so, so empty and lost, so she doesn’t answer.

Because how does she even begin to explain that she’s mourning for those that she did not have? 

Even as she continues crying on Shouto's shoulders, she knows: she cannot let go. Not yet. Sakura doesn’t know if she ever will. Probably never, knowing her.

But love and affection cannot be quantified nor contained. It's about finding a balance between utter grievance for her personal ghosts and fierce protectiveness over her people of the now. And Sakura's good at finding just the perfect balance.

Sakura’s heart is big enough to hold those she lost and those she have right now.

It’s enough.

Chapter Text

Sakura never thought she’d go back to formal education again, but then again, she never thought she’d be reborn in a new life, either.

It’s a bit exciting. Nerve-wracking for Shouto, but to her, who had already gone to school once, it feels nostalgic in a way. She knows it will probably be nothing like Academy. Civilian schools are, of course, dedicated for civilians. That means no lectures on how to profile an enemy or how to camp in various different scenarios.

Probably.

Still, she would take this, a little breath of fresh air from the house. Sakura’s no expert on psychology but she does know that socialization is important for kids and adults alike. Being confined in one place with nothing but family and household helpers wouldn’t really help them in the long run.

To her side, Shouto is fidgeting in his outfit, clinging to their mother. He looks so cute, thinks Sakura proudly, looking at Shouto in his uniform and, best of all, a cap. His eyes are blown wide as he switches between observing the place as much as he can and hiding behind Rei’s skirt.

It’s like watching a baby discover its surroundings for the first time.

Adorable, honestly.

Wait, she thinks. It is like watching a baby discover its surroundings for the first time because it’s his first time out of the house.

Scrunching her nose at her revelation, Sakura grabs his attention by saying, “Ne, ne, Shouto, don’t I look pretty?” She even twirls around for him to flare her skirt, the only difference in their outfits.

“Very pretty,” agrees Shouto solemnly. “You look like kaa-san!”

Sakura beams. “I do?”

“Un! If kaa-san had pink hair,” says her brother. Sakura’s smile grows bigger before she hugs him quickly.

“Straighten up,” orders Enij. He’s standing next to Rei in a tailored suit, his arm crossed. Sakura and Shouto untangle themselves from each other and, when Sakura is she he can’t see them, she sticks her tongue out at Enji.

Shouto quivers from silent giggles.

“Ah, I think it’s time,” says Rei. Sakura thinks she looks very pretty today in her outfit. It’s obvious she made an effort even though she’s just accompanying them for the first day of school.

“Todoroki-san, Todoroki-san, we are accepting the children in rooms now.” A pleasant looking figure informs them politely, one whom Sakura recognizes as the person her mother was talking to earlier. “These are Shouto-kun and Sakura-kun, right? Nice to meet you! I’m Hatari-sensei.”

“Hatari-sensei is your homeroom advisor, Shouto, Sakura,” says Rei. She kneels down slight, just enough to give both of them a kiss on the forehead. “That means you have to listen to her, okay?”

They both nod obligingly.

“Don’t get in trouble,” says Enji. He looks straight at Hatari-sensei. To Sakura’s amazement, he bows briefly, stiff and shallow, but a bow nonetheless. “Take care of them.”

Rei follows suit, her bow deeper, and echoes him. “Please take care of them.” To Sakura and Shouto, she says, “Have fun!”

They watch them go before Hatari-sensi tugs on their attention by saying, “Well, please follow me!”

School, for a lack of better word, sucks.

Sakura scowls from the time-out corner, huffily crossing her arms. She can feel Shouto’s burning - metaphorically, not literally - aura from the other side of the room, glowering at the kids surrounding him.

She let out another dramatic sigh, earning her an amused glance from Hatari-sensei.

“Sakura-kun,” he says, “Don’t pout too much, you only have eight minutes left.”

“But that’s forever!” exclaims Sakura. “And I’m Sakura- chan, you know?”

“Eight minutes isn’t forever. It’s just.. eight minutes. Then you can go to your brother afterwards.”

Sakura asks, “Why am I in time-out, sensei? I didn’t do anything wrong!”

This time, it is Hatari-sensei who sighs. “Sakura-chan, you pushed three kids during recess time.”

“Well, they were crowding Shouto.”

“Did you ask them to go away politely?”

“Uh-uh! I even said please.”

“That’s good, but you still pushed Ken-kun, Nami-chan, and Toshi-kun. They could have been hurt really badly.”

“They weren’t.”

“They could have been.”

“The weak are the meat, the strong eat,” says Sakura sagely, quoting Fuyumi’s words to Touya when they once played a western-issued game called Monopoly. It had been a fiercely competitive game, she recalls.

“The weak are -” says Hatari-sensei, dumbfounded. “Sakura-chan, that doesn’t even apply here.”

A cry pierces the hubbub of kindergarteners and Hatari-sensei’s attention drifts away from Sakura. Hurriedly, he goes to the child snottily crying, but not before Sakura hears “ kami, help me, ” from him.

Sakura giggles once more.

School is actually kind of fun.

“Again.”

Huffing, Sakura grits her teeth as she wipes her sweaty eyebrows. Her short legs are visibly trembling from exhaustion. Beside her, Shouto is panting heavily, hunched back from the effort of standing up. Endeavor is a few feet away from them with his arms crossed.

Sakura glances once at Shouto. They do not nod nor indicate any of their understanding. Without warning, Sakura darts forward, overcoming the distance between her and Endeavour. Her arm lashes out in precisely the exact spot she’s aiming for but Endeavor blocks it, retaliating with a punch of his own.

She drops down, evading his swipe and sweeps out her legs. Her leg does not connect but it was only a distraction, because Shouto is suddenly above her, attacking.

It continues, a constant switch of back and forth between her and Shouto as they try to push Endeavor back. Small as they are, they gain ground but then Endeavour crosses his arms and releases them, releasing a wave of fire.

Sakura jumps back quicker than Shouto, grabbing his shirt and pulling him. Meanwhile, Shouto answers Endeavor’s fire with his ice but it’s only enough to barely cover him and Sakura. After the onslaught of fire, Shouto collapses his ice.

Sakura speaks first. “You said we won’t use Quirks.”

“Preparation and adaptability is a necessity to survive being a hero,” says Endeavor. “I wanted to test your skills.” He eyes their singed clothes, hems and cuffs that weren’t covered properly by Shouto’s ice. “You need to improve. At this rate, you’re nothing but mere prey.”

It’s a valid point, which pisses Sakura. Endeavor is a shit person but he has some good fighting sense and, something she doesn’t like to admit, his training is good for her. Her treasure chest full of memories about fighting are still only memories. Theoretically, she knows how to apply it, but oftentimes she’d find herself stumbling due to miscalculated kicks or she would fail to execute a series of punch because of lack of muscle memories. She needs spars, repeated evasions, constant kicks and punches and move sequences in order to gain back her previous expertise.

Even if being kicked in the ass is what she gets, that’s fine. Sakura refuses to forget who she is as a fighter.

Plus, like hell she’d leave Shouto alone in this.

“Ice those bruises and fix yourselves. Dismissed,” says Endeavor, turning around and walking outside of the room. Sakura and Shouto bows shallowly, waiting around for a few minutes before leaving the room as well.

“Ice?” asks Shouto, hand outstretched and prepared to make ice. His bruises are comparatively less than hers, which makes sense considering that Shouto is gunning to be a medium-to-long distance fighter and Sakura as a close one. “I can make some.”

Sakura nods. “Please.” Eyeing his own bruises, she adds, “Make some for yourself too.”

“Yeah.” He pauses in making his ice, then adds, “Natsu-nii used the med kit yesterday, right?”

“Uh-uh. But that’s fine, I still have some stuff we can use.”

Shaking his head, Shouto just says, “No, I’ll get it.” He turns around and leaves Sakura, intent on going to the bathroom for the medicine kit.

Sakura continues on her way to her room, wrapping the ice in cloth and pressing it on her biggest bruise. The coolness stings a bit at first but it gives way to numbing relief. Wincing at the ache on her muscles, she sits down, closes her eyes and leans back on the wall.

She slips into meditation as easily as she did back then. There are no chakra reserves to increase, only a peace of mind to be gained. Her muscles and bones are singing to her. She can’t figure out if her outworldly awareness of what’s going on in her body is a side effect of her Quirk or a remnant of her past. Her mind drifts, conscious of everything and nothing at the same time. She imagines her own chakra instinctively healing her own cuts and bruises.

Sakura opens her eyes and there is nothing healed.

Stupid, she thinks as she moves the makeshift ice pack to another one of her bruises.

She’s about to close her eyes again when she hears it: a scream, one she’d heard so many times before but not in this world. It’s the scream of patients before getting injected with anesthesia, of civilians being attacked, or in some cases, of shinobi overwhelmed with injuries.

But it’s small and high-pitched, the voice familiar. Shouto.

Sakura tosses the ice pack away and runs towards the sound of the scream. She finds Shouto just outside the kitchen, crumpled on the floor and helplessly making wounded cries. Her vision tunnels and she yells, “Shouto!” just as she registers thunderous footsteps behind her.

“Look at me,” she says, gently touching the hands pressed to his face.

“It hurts, it hurts,” sobs Shouto. Sakura’s mind short-circuits as she sees the damage: blistering red skin and an eye closed. Second, almost third, degree burns. His red hair is plastered on some of his skin, some boiling hot water clinging to the burned parts of his face. Scalding is dangerous enough to leave burns.

Almost instinctively, Sakura hovers a hand on his eyes but belatedly she remembers she cannot heal.

“No no no no,” whispers Sakura.

Why can’t she do anything? Why is she so useless?

“S-Shouto, oh, stand up, we have to put ice on y--”

“No!” Sakura cuts off Fuyumi, slapping her hands away. She doesn’t have medical jutsus but Sakura has treated civilians before, people with non-active chakra systems that needed the traditional ways. “He needs lukewarm water, not ice. ” She tugs Shouto helplessly before turning her imploring eyes on her sister. “Call 119!”

“What is going on in here?!” thunders Enji. She pays him no mind.

Absently, her mind takes note of everything that’s going around her; Natsuo’s wide eyes and Touya behind him, panting; Fuyumi’s stuttered instructions to her phone; Enji’s eyes zeroing in on his wife; Rei, standing to one side with a kettle. But Sakura focuses on moving Shouto to the sink with the tap water running lukewarm.

She coaxes him gently and he follows, lips turning white. Shock. He’s going into shock.

Almost deliriously, Sakura adds to herself, I think I’m going into shock too.

Before she knows it, the ambulance comes and they take away Shouto. Sakura tries to protest but Natsuo tugs her away.

“He’s gonna be okay, right?” demands Natsuo to one of the response personnel.

The woman plasters on a small smile and reassures him, “We’ve got him.”

That doesn’t answer the question. Sakura sees her hand shaking and almost wants to cry.

Then furious anger overtakes her as she remembers the scene she found earlier. She rounds on Rei, still standing to one side.

“Why?” Her hands are now shaking for a different reason. “You’re our mother. ”

Rei flinches. Sakura continues. “You were supposed to be better! Better than him!” She bites back the rest of what she wants to say because her emotions are going haywire and she feels the water inside her churning, begging to be released.

Without giving Rei the chance to answer, Sakura heads to the training room. She blocks out everything on her mind as she decimates the training room.

When all that’s left around her is either broken or in shambles, Sakura lays down on the floor. Her whole body hurts. She’s got the body of a child and sometimes the mind, too. But more importantly is that she is back to who she was before Tsunade-shishou. The words weak and useless and more importantly, powerless sound dangerously close to how she is now.

She doesn’t cry.

Shouto comes back with a bandage on his eyes, quieter than he’d ever been. His hands start fidgeting so Sakura takes one and holds it tightly. Shouto clings to her grip desperately, squeezing it.

Not a day later, Enji takes Rei out and he comes back alone.

“Where’s kaa-san?” asks Natsuo. But he already knows the answer when Enji just looks at him blankly. Natsuo’s face crumples and he runs to his room, choking on tears.

Touya is glaring at Enji as the man heads to his office. The flicker of white flames edge around his fingers, small and contained. Some, Sakura notices, are on the verge of bluish-white.

The next day, Shouto and Sakura are introduced to new tutors, one for their physical training and one for academics. Similarly, the household caretakers take a more active role, specifically when it comes to their older siblings. It’s almost as if they’re trying to take up for the glaring presence of Rei.

Shouto doesn’t train for a long time under the doctor’s orders, his left eye still bandaged. As such, the twins are more focused on learning under their academic tutors.

“I don’t like this,” declares Shouto one day after finishing his math homework. Sakura peers at his paper and checks her answer, finding it the same.

“Yeah, math is sucky,” says Sakura, nodding along with him.

“I wish we can do something else,” says Shouto. Then, out of the blue, “I wish kaa-san was here.”

Sakura looks at Shouto in surprise. It’s the first time they’ve acknowledge it outside of Enji’s remarks about how Rei has ruined things for him and how she should have never been trusted with the kids. The whole Todoroki household teeters in a strange sort of balance.

“It  wasn’t kaa-san’s fault.” Decisively, Shouto puts down his pen. “It was that old man’s fault.”

“Shouto--”

“He was bullying her and it’s all his fault! He keeps saying she did this, but, b-but--” Tears prickle on Shouto’s eye and he chokes down on sobs. “-but it’s gotta be his fault, right? Cause if it’s not his fault then that means kaa-san--”

Then that means kaa-san wanted to hurt me.

Face crumpling, Sakura opens her arms and her brother goes in, clinging to her. He cries; almost pitifully, his mewls like that of a kitten’s, and Sakura’s blinking tears out of her eyes when she realizes:

Shouto, for all his young age (or maybe because of it), had been able to see the truth of the matter.

She blamed her mother when Rei was only another victim in the cycle of abuse that Enji has wrought in their family.

Her last words to her mother might as well have been it was your fault, when it wasn’t. It wasn’t and she is so, so stupid. The ache in her chest blooms. Shouto’s cries slowly subsides, hiccups small but to her ears, it was magnified. Sakura remembers her mother’s face when Rei heard Sakura’s words.

I am so sorry, okaa-san.

“She won’t c-come back, would she? I know Fuyu-nee says she’s coming back but I know she.. she isn’t. I want her to come back. ”

The words stay trapped in her lips. What is she to do? Lie, and tell Shouto that of course she’s coming back, even when Sakura knows the truth to be otherwise? Whisper platitudes? So in the end she stays silent, hugging Shouto harder, taking care not to bother his eye.

In the end she stays silent and soon, Shouto does too.

Okaa-san,

Kaa-san,

I’m so sorry.

Kaa-san,

You do not deserve my words, nor your situation. I’m sorry. Please forgive me. I love you. We love you, and we miss you.

Sakura

With no address to send it to, Sakura tucks the note in a book in her room and keeps it a secret.

Months pass and the letters accumulate.

She still cannot send a single one.