Hallo,

To understand this story, you don't need to read my first MAH-fic: Enji's Endeavor. Demons of the Past can stand completely on its own as long as you know the Manga Canon all the way to Chapter 192 / The Todoroki Family.

For everybody who's read Enji's Endeavor: This story can be seen as a sort of sequel. There is one (small) difference though: while Touya's 'death' in Enji's Endeavor happened when he was still a young child, here it happened much later, when he was already seventeen.

For now, I've scheduled the next chapter in two weeks. If I haven't uploaded by Sunday the 17th you can just annoy me via pm :D Then I have probably forgotten it. I hope that later I can speed up the uploading Schedule a bit, but for now, that has to do.

Trigger Warnings and Ratings: For Now I go with Teen and up Audiences. There is some Graphic Depiction of Violence but it should mostly be comparable to the Manga.

Greetings, Ceies

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This Story is Beta-Read by The Kindly One. Thank you so much for all your hard work!

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The Todoroki Family

"Natsuo?" Enji knocked softly at his son's door. He waited anxiously, but there was no reaction from the other side. Enji knew Natsuo was in there though, he could hear him behind the door. Angry for being ignored, he moved to slide the door open, then he suddenly stopped, his hand against the wood. He was…afraid? Natsuo had shouted and raged against him earlier, now Enji desperately needed to talk to him. Make things right…somehow. But he couldn't just burst in.

He knocked again, more forcefully.

If Natsuo could just listen for a moment, let him explain, allow him to apologize. Enji silently begged the door to open. If his son denied him that chance…he'd go back to university tomorrow, back to his dorm, away from Enji, perhaps for good.

Still no answer. Should he just enter? It was his house, after all! Was it cowardice that stopped him? "I would like to speak to you, Natsuo." Nothing. And there were no sounds from the inside that would indicate that the boy was even contemplating opening the door.

Enji closed his eyes, leaned with his forehead against the door, waiting, then he sighed in what felt like defeat. "Come out, when you're willing to talk," suggested Enji. "I'll be here." He left the door and the young man behind it as it was.

Back in the dining room, he found Fuyumi cleaning the table. "Is Shoto already gone?" asked Enji as he took some of the bowls and followed her into the kitchen where he helped her put them away into the dishwasher. He was aware of her wondering glances at him, as he normally didn't do much work in the house. He had a tight schedule and earned enough to hire a maid for most things.

"He could only stay for dinner, really," she explained after a moment. Then she laughed lightly. "And he couldn't really let that teacher of his wait for too long."

That was true, Enji assumed, remembering the hero he had seen when he had arrived here. Still, he'd hoped to have more time.

When he finished putting the dishes away, he straightened and turned around only to see Fuyumi staring at him. "They'll come around," said the young woman suddenly as if to reassure him. "I can see you mean it and that means a lot to me. They'll see it too and …"

She didn't finish the sentence and after a moment of just looking at each other she shrugged helplessly. "Shoto will," she finally declared.

With Natsuo, he knew himself, that even should his middle child realize that his intentions were true, he might not be willing to look past Enji's prior transgressions. He'd have to live with that if that were the case.

"Tea?" asked Fuyumi after a moment of silence and ten minutes later they found themselves sitting in front of the TV with steaming cups of green tea in front of them.

They watched the first few minutes of the news, but when his battle with the Nomu came up and he watched himself battle with the dark beast for the first time on TV, he noticed Fuyumi looked a bit pale. He himself hadn't seen the TV -footage yet, and watching his own face getting ripped open like this made him physically uncomfortable. Still, he'd have to scrutinize that fight soon, to iron out some performance issues and mistakes that were made during the battle. Enji found himself watching intently, even if it wasn't a nice sight. The cameras were far enough away that he couldn't see too much detail, but it was enough to get an idea of how bad it had been.

"Can you …?" Fuyumi mumble next to him and as he glanced over at her, he realized she looked almost worse than he felt remembering those injuries. She was obviously uncomfortable.

He quickly changed the channel at random until he was sure they were at a channel without any coverage of his battle. It was a bad soap opera, but Fuyumi seemed to feel better immediately with the sappy romance and cheap humor, so he left it on.

When he felt her touch his arm after a moment, gripping his sleeve, he turned to her again, surprised at the sudden contact, but she was looking at the TV-screen. "I thought you would die," explained Fuyumi after another moment. "We all did, I think."

Enji didn't know what to say to that. There had been a point in the battle when he himself had thought he would die, but that was probably not what she wanted to hear now. He put his hand on hers still grasping onto his sleeve. "I'm fine."

She laughed hoarsely. "Yeah? You don't really look …" He knew she was speaking of his scar, and maybe it was a good thing she couldn't see the other scars most prominently on his left arm. The beast had pretty much flayed his skin there. "I … Natsuo and Shoto were worried, too," she said after hesitating for just a moment. "I know it. Natsuo got really angry, whe-…"

Suddenly, they got interrupted by loud steps hurrying across the corridor behind them.

"Natsuo?" Enji asked , turning around, but he hadn't even turned completely when he heard the front door open and forcefully shut again.

Enji wanted to stand up and follow him, but Fuyumi didn't let go of his sleeve. She didn't say anything, didn't explain whether she wanted him to leave Natsuo alone or just give him some time or whether she wanted her father to stay with her for a bit longer. He didn't ask her about it and just sat back down silently.

That evening he waited until late into the night, long after Fuyumi had already gone to bed, for Natsuo to come home. Sometime in the early morning he fell asleep for a few minutes and then decided to retreat to his bedroom. He still felt a bit sore from the fight and needed the rest.

"Did Natsuo come back again?" he asked Fuyumi when he met her for breakfast.

"No. He went back to his dorm, I think." She looked at her smartphone then back at him, but she didn't tell him what he had written exactly. "I think he just needs a bit alone time."

Enji nodded. They ate in quiet conversation. It was a bit awkward. He tried not to talk about his work, which didn't leave him with much to talk about, so he let her do the talking for the most part.

"And Ikkaku finally learn ed to control his quirk," she told him happily. "I've told you about him."

"The flower-kid," Enji remembered. She had told him the story about how a kid who had the ability to make flowers grow faster, had lost control over his ability in class leading to the lone indoor plant that had adorned Fuyumi's classroom to take over the entire window front.

"Don't call him that," reprimanded Fuyumi with a frown. "I told you he doesn't like it."

He raised a hand apologetically. "Alright. I'm sorry, I forgot. So, what did he do?"

Fuyumi explained to him how the boy had grown a few beautiful Forget-me-nots. Fuyumi even rushed into her room to show Enji the bundle of flowers and a piece of art a different kid had gifted her. Enji didn't really care that much for the quirks and hobbies of his daughter's students, but he had realized a long time ago that she liked talking about them a lot.

He had taken this day and the next one off after his battle to recuperate and rest. So they spent the day together for the most part, until Fuyumi had a call from one of the parents of her students leaving her occupied for a few hours.

It was an altogether uneventful but nice Saturday. In the evening he checked his phone, found no new message and called Natsuo for the third time that day. As always it went straight to voicemail. Natsuo apparently had his number blocked. He didn't even know why he kept calling, when it was obvious that this was to no avail.

He wanted to ask Fuyumi whether he could have her phone but let the idea slide after short contemplation. He called Shoto instead.

Shoto let it ring three times before he picked up. "Father?" he asked into the phone, then hesitating for a moment. "Dad, what's up?"

Enji didn't even know what to talk about. "Hey, yeah, it's me. Nothing, really." There was an awkward pause. "I just wanted to know how you're doing."

There was a short moment of silence. "Dad …" started Shoto in a tone as if to tell him off, that he had no time to talk if there was nothing important. But then he seemed to decide differently. There was an obvious shift in tone. "Yeah, I'm fine. How about you?"

Enji couldn't help but laugh at the awkwardness of the phone call. He sat down on the couch and stared blankly at the wall. "I'm pretty horrible at this, huh?" He paused shortly, but Shoto didn't say anything. "No, I'm fine too. How is school?"

"Nothing eventful happened." There was another longer pause, in which Shoto apparently waited for Enji to say something, but Enji remained silent. A sigh came through the line. "Aizawa-sensei had us run laps around the training field. And Sato helped me bake a cake for Eri-chan."

"Eri-chan?" he asked. He didn't really know Sato either, knew hardly any of Shoto's classmate s unless they'd stood out during the Sports Festival or made the news through some other event. But he should probably not ask about too many people in Shoto's life, to not make it obvious how little he actually knew.

"Oh … She's Aizawa-sensei's foster child … or something. He takes care of her. So, she's going to live with us. She had it really rough, I heard, but I don't ... I really only know what Midoriya told me."

That was probably that kid, Sir Nighteye, Eraserhead and the other heroes had saved a few weeks ago. He wasn't really privy to the details, but he knew that they had saved a girl that had remained in quarantine in the hospital for quite a while because of something to do with her quirk. He'd heard that Eraserhead had taken over guardianship.

Whatever had happened there, much of it was classified to such a degree that even he didn't have access to the full report of that mission, despite the League of Villains being involved. The League of Villains … "Be careful," he heard himself mutter. He didn't know. Maybe the League was interested in this Eri-chan and if that was so, it would draw another target on UA.

"Midoriya?" he repeated the name, because it was probably not legal or safe for them to talk about classified information on their private phones. Talking about it with Shoto – who still had no security clearance or connection to the case in the first place – wasn't allowed anyway, even with what little information Enji had. Talking about another of Shoto's classmates was a safe topic he guessed. He at least thought he remembered this Midoriya. "That's this All Might-Wannabe, right?" He remembered him from the tournament mostly.

"Father …" Shoto's voice was somewhere between exasperated, uneasy and defensive.

Enji suddenly realized it probably wasn't a wise choice mentioning All Might in front of his son just yet. Just hearing Enji talk about him probably gave Shoto flashbacks to his harsh training with his father.

"He's the one you fought against during the tournament," added Enji hurriedly to distract from his prior comment.

He heard Shoto breathe audibly. "Yeah," came the answer in a calm voice. "He is a lot like All Might, I guess. He admires him," relented Shoto after a moment.

"Shoto," started Enji a bit helplessly. "I know I'm … We don't have to talk about All Might."

"It's probably better," agreed Shoto.

"Yes." He waited for a moment. "Look, I know, I … I made a lot of mistakes. I'm sorry, you know?" There was an unintelligible answer from the other side of the line. "We don't have to talk about it now. Or ever, if you don't want to. I just want you to know."

"I know," said Shoto after a while.

"Good. I'm glad you like it at school." He looked at the clock. It was getting late. "You probably want to … Anyway, it was nice of you to visit yesterday."

"It was good," came a quiet response. Enji waited for more, but nothing else came. He was a bit disappointed at the lack of response.

"Have you heard from Natsuo?" He asked after a moment.

"He's back at his dorm. He sent a message … early today." Shoto didn't offer any new information. Again, there was an awkward pause.

Enji nodded stupidly – Shoto wouldn't be able to see it. "Alright. I guess I'll leave you be, then. Bet, you don't want to spend your entire evening … Well, nice talking to you."

"Likewise." There was another pause and Enji was about to end the call when he heard Shoto's voice again. "Dad? I … I mean it. I mean, I told you I couldn't forgive you so easily …" Enji nodded blankly at the wall, once more. "But I do appreciate…this."

Enji smiled wistfully. That was a first step, he assumed. "Take care," answered Enji. Then he hesitated again. "And Shoto? I hope you know you can call me, right? When you need… when you have a problem."

The silence was a bit longer than it probably should be. "Yeah," said Shoto, finally, but Enji didn't know if he really meant it.