Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

If someone had asked Michael before his first death whether he would rather be burned or have his organs ripped from his body as his end, he probably would have chosen the burning to ash. Now, years later, his answer was still: actually, burn. Burning didn’t even feel that bad — with his body, he couldn’t feel much anyway, couldn’t really do much at all.In a way it was positive thing to not need to eat tho ,atleast he never had any unnecessary reason to go out in public with his appearance.

Back to his current situation: yes, burning had never been his preferred death, but that was before he had already died once. Now, the flames on his body barely felt painful. Michael wondered if dying could count as sleeping — theoretically, it would be his first real sleep in thirty years.He smiled at the thought of being able to sleep again.

Smiling while dying made it sound as if he weren’t entirely right in his head. Michael shook his head stopping that thought.
“No, I’m probably not right in the head,” Michael thought, with a slight smirk.being a rotting zombie wasnt good for the mind.

The smoke from the fire had already filled the entire room when he broke out of his thought, engulfing Michael more and more as he sat in the chair. Michael let his last thoughts, as someone not quite alive, drift back to his family. He could barely remember what his mother looked like,when He was Younger he mostly imaginded her as an older Elizabeth.

The brown-haired one couldn’t help but wonder how she was doing. He hadn’t seen her in years, and she was the last living member of the family — though Michael could hardly prove that. Thinking about his father, Michael could only hope that he was burning in the farthest corner of hell.

And Elizabeth they had argued a lot when they were alive about how he treated Evan and how he acted around William. If Michael concentrated, he might remember a time when they had actually spoken to each other before he started bullying Evan. Thinking about the boy now, Michael wondered if he could still apologize to Evan. Unlike with Elizabeth, Michael couldn’t truly remember having reconciled with him properly. It would be selfish to wish for Evan’s forgiveness if he might not even see him after death.

A flame flickered, and dying really didn’t feel exactly like sleeping — but it was close.

____

It was kind of funny, Michael thought, as he stared at his very not-purple, very not-dead-looking hands. Apparently, dying normally just wasn’t in Michael’s genes.

At least he wasn’t a zombie anymore.

He was starting to grow truly bitter at the gods who had cursed his family. No it was proparly William’s entire existence that was cursed. Becouse No, Michael couldn’t properly face his siblings after more than thirty years. He couldn’t apologize to Evan, and he would never know if his father had truly rotted in the farthest corner of hell. Michael wondered if the real question was,If with all of his murders,whether not going to hell was even possible, though maybe his father had just risen from the ashes. With a father like his, you could never be sure.

Back to what happend it was actually a easy Thing to explain:

Reincarnated.

If ghosts existed, Michael shouldn’t have been surprised that this did too. Which deity had decided he needed a second chance, or even wanted it? Honestly, death could just fall over.

Michael kicked the ball that lay in front of him. No, he wasn’t going to be a baby who couldn’t even walk properly. And no, he didn’t want to know whose life he had stolen.

The ball barely rolled forward. Michael would never admit that he had somehow developed actual beef with a ball as he failed again to kick it properly.

___

Michael took it back. He didn’t just want the deity who had decided he should be reincarnated dead, no. He wanted that deity right beside his father in hell.

No, Michael wasn’t exaggerating. I mean, reincarnation was supposed to be a simple concept, right? But of course, Michael’s shitty luck decided otherwise. If he had to die, he would be reborn in the next best comic… or manga, considering everyone spoke Japanese and it was written everywhere.

Let Michael start from the beginning.

His name was Touya Todoroki. In Japan, the family name came first, then the given name — so much for understanding that at a single pediatric appointment his mother had dragged him to. He was three, almost four, and the best of the best: the son of a superhero with fire powers, who, seventy percent of the time, was never around. And no, his father was no exception. Pretty much everyone had a superpower, like something out of the next fantasy novel. If ghosts and reincarnation existed, then superpowers were just another unexplainable thing.

Also, Michael had a baby sister. A few weeks old. He must have missed her birth by a few days.

Michael didn’t need thirty years of hindsight to know he was already screwing up the big brother role. Some things never changed. He could already smell the mess of this family: his father always staring unhappily at the floor, arguing every few days with his mother — very one-sided arguments — and Michael barely understanding a word of Japanese. On top of all that, he now had red hair. Natural red, not dyed — not the worst thing, considering his sister’s hair was an unnatural mix of white and red.

Michael sighed as another picture book was shoved into his hands. Do they really expect me to read this out loud? Probably the trip to the doctor had something to do with it or rather, with Touya not saying a word for the past few days. If Michael was lucky, his child brain would work properly, and he’d actually learn faster.

He listened, bored, as his caretaker explained everything in detail. She spoke in a overly sweet high voice Like she was talking to a child. Maybe, he thought, she would run off if he insulted her in English.

Chapter Text

Being a kid came with an entire list of things Michael already despised. For example: he had basically no privacy. Which, to be fair, was probably a good thing when it came to children, but not when you were the child.

His current situation had plenty of problems. Number one: Michael couldn’t speak a word of Japanese. Okay, he could take that back — in the past few weeks he had at least learned the absolute basics. But that didn’t change the fact that he didn’t talk to anyone, and that he couldn’t understand them either.

And the not-talking thing had turned into a very big problem. Just this week alone, Michael had been dragged to eight different doctors.

To Michael’s credit, he was trying to learn. And at least no one seemed to suspect that he was a reincarnated soul trapped in a toddler’s body. Michael wanted to keep it that way. He might not want to be a kid, but he definitely didn’t want to find out what would happen if he told anyone the truth.

So yes, he had to actually learn the language. Which wasn’t as hard as he thought, considering he was surrounded by picture books, teachers, and caretakers who were all trying to teach him anyway. Once Michael could talk well enough, he could just blame his silence on one of the countless superpowers everyone had. Apparently, they were called quirks.

Speaking of quirks, Michael had already noticed something else: his parents’ quirks fit together awfully well. Maybe that was coincidence. Maybe not. Either way, his parents didn’t seem to get along, and Michael was starting to think his father was a strict, controlling type… but hey, at least not a serial killer. Improvement.

As for quirks in general, at one of his many doctor’s appointments he had seen a walking tree. A literal walking tree. Okay sure, his dad could shoot fire out of his hands — very practical, he guessed — but how did a walking tree even exist? Michael really didn’t want to know how birth worked for that one.

He just hoped that when his own quirk showed up, it wouldn’t be something that hurt him in some horrible way.

___

Michael sat in front of yet another doctor, and after only catching a word every few minutes, he was starting to give up.

The trip itself had taken forever, and it wasn’t even worth it. If they wanted him to talk, maybe they should just let him keep the damn books instead of dragging him to an office full of strangers.

The whole room was blinding white and smelled like disinfectant. His father — who, shockingly, was actually present for once — seemed to grow angrier with every word the doctor said. If only Michael could understand what the conversation was about.

He felt like he was missing the punchline to some inside joke that everyone else understood. So he sat on the chair, nodding every now and then, pretending he followed along.

___

By the time they were finally home again, Michael had the sinking feeling that he’d missed something important. His teachers were giving him pitying looks, and everyone seemed to treat him like fragile glass.

Whatever the doctor had told his parents, it couldn’t have been good. Especially since the number of specialists he was suddenly being sent to had doubled.

Not for the first time, Michael wished he actually spoke Japanese.