Shouto Todoroki

**Shouto Todoroki**, also known as the **Duality Hero: Polarize**, is a character from **My Hero Academia.** He is a pro hero in training at the prestigious U.A. High School, where he is a member of Class 1-A.

## Appearance

Shouto is rather tall and has a somewhat thin build. His most prominent feature is the large red scar across the left of his face, reaching from his hairline to his jaw, which has left him mostly blind in that eye. He has heterochromia, causing his left eye to be light blue and his right to be grey. His hair also has this split appearance, with the left side being a bright red, and the right side being white. His hair is typically styled in a messy fashion, reaching down below his jawline, and occasionally tied up out of the way. His skin tone also appears split, with his left side being slightly tanner than his right. He has a particularly thin and angular face with a few moles, and is regularly described by his peers as 'handsome'.

## Personality

To most, Shouto perfectly embodies the traits of his fire-and-ice Quirk; while he appears cold, stoic, and emotionless on the surface, he is an extremely passionate and impulsive, if reckless individual with a strong drive to become a hero. He has an extremely strong sense of justice, even going directly against law enforcement to do what he thinks is right, and is exceedingly determined in all that he does. He is courageous and very hard to intimidate or force into submission. He also has a very sharp intellect, though he can appear dense due to his sheltered upbringing and lack of socialisation: he sometimes struggles to catch on to certain figures of speech and phrases. He has begun opening up a bit more, and is more likely to smile and laugh along with others, since he is slowly figuring out how to feel his emotions without guilt, but still struggles with fully expressing himself.

Though he can come off as unobtrusive because of his quiet demeanour, he has a habit of being quite rude and incredibly blunt, though this is usually unintentional since he's poor at picking up on social cues and has little brain-to-mouth filter. Despite this, Shouto is kind to a fault and always willing to extend a helping hand; he strongly believes that a hero should be reassuring and put those around them at ease, so he follows the same philosophy, though he occasionally falls flat due to his difficulty in showing emotions. He also has a habit of oversharing at inopportune times and being somewhat aggressive and forward when he tries to talk sense into people, which can make him come off as a bit intense when coupled with his immense power.

He holds a strong bitterness towards his father, the high ranking pro hero Endeavour, due to the fact that he was subject to his abuse for almost the entirety of his life, which also caused the neglect of his siblings. It isn't odd to hear Shouto calling the Flame Hero his ‘shitty old man’. He has mixed feelings on Endeavour's attempts to make amends with his family, unsure whether or not he is, or ever will be, ready to forgive. He is incredibly protective over his family, mostly his mother Rei, but also his siblings; if they are put in peril, he will do anything possible to bring them to safety. He is also similarly protective over his friends, which has led him to quite literally break the law on more than one occasion to protect them. All in all, despite his occasional coldness and sometimes overly serious attitude, Shouto is a person who has learned to be incredibly kind despite the trauma he has experienced, and retains a good heart and indomitable will.

## History

**Content warning: child abuse & death, self-immolation, domestic abuse.**

Shouto is the youngest child of Rei and Enji Todoroki. His father, also known as the pro hero Endeavour, had grown an obsession with becoming greater than All Might, and, after his Quirk marriage to Rei, had multiple children before Shouto's birth in order to produce a 'perfect heir' to carry on his legacy. He considered Shouto to be his 'masterpiece' due to the rarity and power of his Quirk, which perfectly combined the strengths of both Enji's and Rei's Quirks. Due to this, Shouto's eldest brother, Touya, who had previously been training under their father, became resentful of Shouto for replacing him, and, when he was young, attacked him, which led to Shouto being separated from his siblings for the majority of his childhood.

Refused a normal childhood, Shouto was kept from playing with other children, even his own siblings, and rigorously trained by Enji from the age of five. Endeavour's training methods were harsh, causing Shouto to fall ill and be injured often. His mother, Rei, would attempt to stop her husband, only for him to beat her in front of their son. Shouto grew to resent his father for the trauma he put him and his mother through, and grew protective of his mother, trying to defend her in front of his father. Rei was the only person who nurtured Shouto and saw him as a defenseless child, and not an extension of his father. Watching an All Might TV show together, she reaffirmed to him that he could become a hero regardless of his bloodline.

Touya's continued Quirk training eventually led to him climbing Mount Sakata, a peak where he and Enji would often train. Awakening his Quirk to allow him to burn his flames hotter than ever, he lost control and burned to death, destroying Shouto's already fractured family even more. Because of his own rage and despair at the death of his son, Enji's training and treatment of Shouto worsened. The incident broke Rei's mental state even more, until one day, she suffered a psychotic break; becoming triggered by her own son's face, and the red hair that reminded her of her husband, she threw a kettle of boiling water at his face, severely burning him. She panicked and used her Quirk to attempt to heal his burn, but to no avail. Afterwards, Enji had her hospitalised, and Shouto's resentment grew towards him, as he blamed his father for taking his mother away. Over time, his own repression due to repeated trauma made him forget his mother's kind words of the past.

Shouto became a child fueled by nothing but the hatred of his father, and the desire to reject him. He attended Korusan Middle School, a prestigious school known for producing many hero students. Becoming cold and distant, he refused any sort of friendship, even getting into fights in middle school with those who would try to befriend him out of fear, gaining him a reputation for being cruel and odd. His own undiagnosed autism and complex PTSD compounded and caused him to become a social outcast, his own tunnel vision, home situation and lack of social ability keeping him from being a 'normal' teenager. After middle school, he attended the U.A. Recommendation Student Exam on recommendations from his father. He achieved second place, allowing him to be enrolled into U.A. High School as a part of Class 1-A.

## Mental Illnesses & Disabilities

Shouto suffers from complex PTSD due to the fact that he was abused by his father for most of his childhood, as well as the fact that he was permanently scarred at five years old by his mother. Due to this, he often suffers night terrors, flashbacks, and bouts of dissociation. He also has trouble sleeping, but tends to oversleep at the same time due to suffering from narcolepsy. Due to being scarred by scalding water, he is also triggered by the sound of tea kettles and refuses to use them himself.

Shouto still struggles to come to terms with the state of his family and his father’s attempts to make amends. He also takes some of the blame on himself for the neglect of his siblings and his brother Touya’s eventual turn to villainy, despite the fact that there was no way he could have prevented either of these, considering he was a child throughout all of it.

He is also autistic, but has never been diagnosed and is unaware of this fact. A lot of his struggles with socialisation are compounded by his undiagnosed autism, though he tends to believe it is all a result of his trauma. He struggles a lot with showing and wording his emotions, and tends to stammer a lot more and trip over his words when trying to explain them, which is incredibly frustrating for him. He stims by flexing his fingers and bouncing his leg. He also dislikes change and instability. Most of the time his breakdowns are turned inwards, and he tends to isolate himself rather than lean on others for help.

## Relationships

* **Ochako Uraraka** - a listener needs a listener too :)

## Headcanons

* He likes weird-looking mascot characters, especially those that are particularly ugly. He also owns a giant blobfish plushie named Frank, which was a gift from his sister Fuyumi.
* He is very bad at naming things; he secretly looked after a stray cat as a child and only ever called her Cat, but she disappeared after Touya's death.
* He is not very good at looking after animals. However, he is somewhat of a magnet for cats, thanks to his warm side.
* He prefers being on first-name basis with others if they're close, not liking to be called by his last name if he can help it. He's slowly getting more used to being called by it, however, despite wanting to go by his mother's maiden name of Himura for a time.
* He has a bad habit of forgetting his own stats, such as his birthday, height, blood type, etc.
* He meditates and practices yoga as part of his training.
* He has a large fanclub, mainly of girls his own age, but isn't really a fan of the attention, due to the fact that he is self-conscious about his facial scar.
* Due to the fact that he was raised isolated from a lot of outside forms of media, like television and the Internet, he is rather technology illiterate, only knowing how to use a phone out of necessity.
* Hawks' debut was his gay awakening.
* He has a love for gardening which he bonds with his mother Rei over. He has a tendency to attract butterflies for some reason.
* He really likes physical affection, but is awkward and stiff with it, since he isn't used to it. He likes when people play with his hair or hug him, but he's bad at reciprocating it.