Chapter Text
For a moment, Touya entertains the idea that it's all a dream, those dreams that seem realistic, only for the alarm clock to go off five minutes from getting to the best part -the best part being, that he, in all his immense generosity, kicks Enji's shin like one would kick a ball.
He blinks again, and again, and again, and again, until Enji's stupid face is no longer in his peripheral view, unfortunately, the world doesn't want to cooperate, and Enji -unfortunately- is still there, because sure enough, his dream wants to fuck him by showing him the face of the MHA character he hates the most, but something in his memory seems to object, because memories that are and are not his flash into his mind.
The version of Enji he sees, is... different, those vestiges of the man -the monster he will be- are still there, but it is essentially different, where the Enji he recognizes is a man in his full right, sharp at the edges, with flames that have peaked to their potential, this Enji is soft, as if he is still defining whether he wants his edges to be sharp or lightly sanded, eyes that are more... soft, proud, and though he's loathe to admit, happy.
Not that miserable look, carrying the filthy weight of violence, hatred and madness, this Enji is different.
But back to the memories, Touya -is he even Touya now?- is told that this is his father, the man for whom he feels that unbearable sense of wanting to please, like a child, seeking his father's praise, and Enji is that father.
It is hard not to compare this Enji Todoroki he sees here in front of him, as the man he will be, who is destined to be, one who in pursuit of power, took everything with him, who destroyed a child and led him down a path of nothing but absolute madness, who left a woman who was his wife on the verge of absolute insanity, who irreparably damaged two children who lived knowing they were nothing more than experiments in pursuit of a position as absurd as being number one, and Touya doesn't want to think about Shoto, his little brother -wasn't he born yet?- Touya doesn't know, but he hopes not yet.
He remembers those panels, where a boy with white hair, once vibrant, reddish as flames, thought attacking a baby would make him feel better, and then, of a man, who, to get revenge on a world that spat in his face, preferred to burn himself if it meant that for a moment, the man who made him that way, might suffer at least for a second, that he meticulously created a revenge like a puppeteer pulls the strings of his puppets, to in the end, end up as a corpse, like the name with which he baptized his birth, as Dabi -cremation-, where the child died and from there, from those ashes, a monster was born, one that eventually ended the way it began, with fire.
And it all started because of this man his scrambled memory recognizes as a father, this man who taught him how to create flames, to then help him feed them, but never taught him how to extinguish them.
“What's wrong with you today.” Enji -his father?. asks, and Touya feels his throat tighten, feels the acid in his throat, because his mind refuses to let it be, he sees those panels of the boy and then the man, of the man -the monster- which this boy would become by this man who looks worried, Touya knows he doesn't look, because this Enji is worried, and a part of him wants to laugh, because how much will he be worried about?, he doesn't want to know.
But he feels that tug on his body, like a phantom touch that almost obsessively commands him to accept, to embrace that worry, because no matter who he was, he now knows, from the slender limbs, soft body and subtle childlike scent, that this boy, he wants his father's approval, that he needs it like a thirsty man needs water, that he needs his praise.
(The want that Enji will trample on like the tactless idiot he is, the want that will transform the child into a madman, a monster)
Then, Touya smiles, and he doesn't know why, he is prideful, but inside it feels like a can of soda that someone has shaken a thousand times, it wants to explode, but strangely, it doesn't. That cocky nature that only a child with a father as the second best, as a child with a powerful quirk, as a child brimming with pride, as if the world owes him everything just because it's him.
“I feel tired, I don't think I can use my flames anymore without feeling like I'm going to die, give me a break, dad.” Touya said, before letting out a small pout, it's not entirely a lie, he can almost feel the pull on his body, exhausted from all the training, even if he knows, bitterly, it won't be half as hard as the training little Shoto would have.
It's almost too disrupting, the way his father, looks worried, and accepts even more readily to let him go and rest, -it's even more so when he knows he wouldn't give Shoto that same kindness, and there's something, very depressing about that, even so, Enji is not at all different from how he will be, because he promises more severe training to make up for today, and Touya doesn't know how to feel when those words, seem to fuel a fire in his gut, it's thrill, he tells himself, his body remembers the urge, the urge to excel, to train, and Touya feels almost bad for feeling thrilled by that new sensation.
Touya looks at the ceiling of his room, it's almost comforting, how the pain in his muscles almost feels like a blanket, he almost feels excited, and then he feels terrible, because he knows that someone in the future wouldn't feel like this, Shoto would feel like a prisoner, and he's here, waiting to train as if the future doesn't weigh on him, even when it doesn't even happen yet.
So... Touya thinks, and... denies, denies, and denies, because seriously, he almost can't stand it -even when it proves that he can- because until a few hours ago, certainly his world wasn't like this, where the newest magic trick was one carefully created to trick the eye for the purpose of entertainment, and not, surely having the ability to create fire out of thin air, or turn back time.... or any other quirk believed to be dangerous enough to society, on top of that, he's happy to pretend he's not Touya Todoroki, aka Dabi, future villain and no, he's not in MHA, nu-hu!
But the world seems to give him a middle finger when he looks to the side, and in front of him, is a full-length mirror, with a young Touya of perhaps 7 years old, if his memory serves him right -with six years before his death- of Touya Todoroki's death, of Dabi's rise.
With one hand he tentatively touches his hair, red, like blood, like flames, and it felt soft -real, and he doesn't know which is worse, that he can't deny it now that he is touching his hair, that he knows it wasn't like that before, or the fact that he can notice some small short strands of a white shade, like snow. Then, he has that feeling of his sanity slipping away, because he wants to be furious, because fucking Touya Todoroki, a seven year old kid, has fucking gray hair, where does a kid have gray hair at that age?
The manga portrays that he started at 10, or so the panels show it, but the world he lives in, it is not a manga, it is not panels in a printed magazine, it is here now, and he doesn't know how to take it, that Touya at 7 years old has gray hair, or that no one seems to have noticed, because it was painfully easy to see it if one looked closely, the white stands out like a sore thumb on the red, he never said anything?, his parents never saw this?
He doesn't want to know the answer.
And that is where he feels it, that immense sorrow, that compassion for a child who nobody knows where he went, because now he is here, who is not a child, but also among memories that slip away like sand through his fingers, who was not an adult either, young?, maybe, adult, not yet. So he closes his eyes, and accepts it, because he doesn't think he's smart enough to think himself a way out, nor does he think he really can, not for now. Because now, at this moment, he has something more important on his hands; thinking about What the hell is he going to do?
Touya Todoroki is destined to be a villain, one of the many that the world failed, but he doesn't have to be, Touya's delusional desire for love and approval is no longer his, he still feels it, but he's better at controlling it than Touya would be, he could be a hero, Of course, he could never use his flames to their full potential, because he knows Touya will be more than Enji ever could, with stronger flames, that he could cremate everything if he tried hard enough -he doesn't think he's out of that equation, because he's not-
Maybe not even a hero, he could be anything -if canon doesn't want to bite him in the ass because he didn't fulfill his destiny as a monster- also, he could be what he is meant to be, a villain, he knows he is not as moral as he would like, he could be the kind of villain who only attacks other villains, a villain who did what he wanted, but was benign to society, but evil to other villains, but there are no villains like that in MHA, you are either white or you are black. And in the hypothetical case that he was a villain to the letter, there's not much to choose from either, because all of his options are crap.
Meta Liberation Army is a no in his book, while a quirk is kind of cool and all, he knows that over time, these quirks did nothing but power up, increase, become more and more fantastical, an example being characters like Eri, All Might and Star and Stripe, who can twist the time, change the weather in one hit and bend reality as if the laws of nature were simple laws that you ignore whenever you agree to the requirements when you create an account. He definitely does not want to see a world where less sane - and far malicious - versions of these three are running around using quirks as if they were shopping for groceries.
Humarise... doesn't have much to offer, just a version of the conspiracy theorists only these have data to stand on, if the above three disasters of nature aren't proof enough that one day, somewhere, a baby with the ability to create atomic bombs with a sneeze might be born, because it might.
Creature Rejection Clan, he doesn't like it, because Enji will be worse than any non-human citizen there could ever be, plus like the fanboy he is, Mirko is awesome, no one can take that fact away from him, he will incinerate anyone who denies it, Nedzu is adorable in all that Machiavellian face he has hidden, Spinner is awesome, he'll be awesome -He totally doesn't say that because a twisted part of him, even without being Dabi still considers Spinner as one of his own, like his family- not to mention that anyway, it's a barely breathing organization at this point.
Shie Hassakai is off limits, enough with all the shitty adults MHA has, he doesn't need to go to a place where a maniacal toucan will torture a little girl day and night, because he thinks he's right that quirks are a disease (when the bastard uses his quirk, the hypocrite) is the right one.
Maybe, he can be a vigilante, he doesn't need the laws, permission to use his quirk, be flashy, because by Nedzu he knows he doesn't want the fame, the last thing he wants is someone calling him Enji's son, ew. Maybe, it can work, he's sure he'll do it right, though he's not sure he won't burn Kai Chisaki and make roasted toucan, sure the vigilantes will understand?
Then he remembers Eraserhead and his idea seems not as good as before, as much as he admires the man, he doesn't think he'll live after getting his ass kicked, he'll probably die of embarrassment and humiliation.
And there it comes, more of those feelings he knows he doesn't really wants on his head, but with no subjects to fool himself with, they come up anyway, because he loves MHA as much as he hates it, because he remembers the kids, they who were either born lucky or born doomed.
Like Toga Himiko, who could have been so much, to in the end be all the worse, who could be an excellent spy, vigilante, even a damn actress, could have been everything, but only if her parents had done more -had done it right. If they hadn't thought that a quirk having to do with something as natural as blood was not synonymous to villain, like Bakugo Katsuki who could blow someone's face off if he wasn't a good kid, and that for Touya is much worse than drinking a few drops of blood, but no, the villain was a little girl with an inconvenient quirk.
How many blood banks were out there in Musutafu, because no one would tell Touya that out there wasn't some citizen with a vampiric quirk - and if one wanted to be specific, there was Vlad King, someone who controlled blood, and yet, he was loved, acclaimed, but no... it was easier, mentally and physically abusing a little girl because that serves to create model citizens and not cold-blooded killers.
Touya doesn't blame her, because he saw her story, he saw that before she was that? she was something else, still young, still with that childish glow, because the damn 'Emotional Rebound' is something that yes, exists, because he's sure without being a connoisseur of the subject, he can see it, that like Toga was denied everything she was, absolutely every part of her, when she finally could be, she did it in a terrible way, but that maybe, if she had been allowed to be, just a little bit, maybe she would never reach the extreme she reached, all because she felt good, loved, accepted, because Toga was a child before being a monster, and as the child she was, she only wanted one thing, to be loved.
There was Jin Bubaigawara, an adolescent who had to grow up too soon, who was born with bad luck, an orphan with nothing but a fragmented mind, who tried to function with the pieces he had at hand, pieces that cut his hands so badly, that one day he no longer knew if his hands were bleeding or not, someone who needed help, but who instead received rejection, loneliness, the same loneliness he filled with himself, with copies of himself, only to have the world spit him out again, leaving him with a trauma that only at the end of his life could he resolve - is he real?, or is he not?- who found a family in a jigsaw puzzle with pieces put together, pieces that broken individuals made to fit somewhere.
Atsuhiro Sako, while he was different, in the end he was the same as everyone else, certainly, if one is born a beggar it is almost certain to remain so, perhaps he was the same, with a criminal legacy like that, there was no other way but that -what else would he be? if not what his predecessors were, the predecessors of those predecessors, ¿what else would he be if not the same?- Touya does not feel as much for him as for the others, because in the end, he was the same, not mentally unstable like Twice, nor incapable of protecting himself until much later than Toga, but Touya could still put him into a very bad luck, to have been born with bad cards in his hand, what happens when one is born with bad cards? He can only make bad moves.
Suichi Iguchi was another example of how MHA and its society only created more villains than it saved, a young man who at the lowest moment of his life, where he should have been listened to, guided, instead was carried along by the current, who at the wrong time, the wrong day, the wrong life, heard someone call heroes fake, heroes that everyone revered, and he thought that if he was going to follow anyone, he would follow the one person who made him feel validated without knowing it - where heroes never saved him, where society cast him aside - then they were fake, and he, was real, as Stain said, and in that moment, Spinner was born, and the rest is history.
Kurogiri-no, Oboro Shirakumo, who died and saw his dreams snatched away by the whims of an old man who does nothing, but when he decides to do so, he destroys everything he touches, because he is the incarnation of chaos, who one day saw Aizawa Shota and thought he wanted his quirk because it is not enough with the thousands he has -it never is, never will, but since he didn't get it, he settled with him, he disfigured his corpse to create a chimera, a mockery of the dreams of an adolescent to do good, and transformed him into a nomu, a victim of circumstances, with too much bad luck to be there at that moment, and who died because of that bad luck.
Touya then remembers the Shimura Massacre, which has not yet passed, and remembers that he is 7 years old, that Tenko Shimura -not Shigaraki Tomura- is at this moment 4, and that Oboro is still 16 years old, with dreams and hopes -still with his friends, perhaps they are playing with Sushi, as children should, and not dead, crushed in rubble, while a young Shota -who is grumpy, not bitter, not yet- looks at his friend, the blood that fills the ground, and the smell of metal, of despair. And he is thankful that it is not yet over, that still the wheel of fate is being polite.
And then, the last of the tragedies comes, and Touya feels so much, too much, for Shimura Tenko, who never was, who never had a choice, was born and died for a reason, for a monster who decided that his reason for living would be to torture a child, only to feel the satisfaction that in some twisted side of his mind, his nemesis, would be wallowing in his regret, because there is nothing she can do for the child with whom she shares blood, because a monster wanted a doll for his hell he calls a dollhouse, and Touya loathed him, scorned him-
Shimura Tenko, a child who was born cursed, without a father who loved him -who was not consumed by that crackling hatred- who was taken away something that may or may not have been his, a quirk, if he had one, and instead, was given something that was no different than a parasite, a parasitic quirk, because that's what it was, a child who was raised to embody hatred and nothing more, where there were no dreams, no afternoons playing with the corgi that Touya doesn't bother to remember, where the damn old lady instead of saying; 'Hey, there's a fucking kid in an alley, why instead of telling him to wait for a hero didn't I call the police like the fucking adult I am? ' left a kid to his fate, because heroes did it all, because they were all useless, so useless, so useless, so much as to leave a black haired kid in the street, a black haired one, not blue, with shredded skin and hands on his body, a sick requiem, an ode to those who were something, and who then were just proof of who he was now.
Touya comes to a painful truth, that sometimes when he was someone else he thought, when he was foolish, that he wanted to save those that no one saved, he thinks and thinks, and in the end, he doesn't really know what he wants, whether to cry, to laugh at his absurd thought or just throw himself out the window, because doing that is less stupid than he knows he wants to do -than he will do.
Because no matter if he curses the adults, the damn old lady, anyone, the truth is the same, Shimura Tenko is the most unfortunate of all, because he's perfect, enough so that among thousands of candidates, he's All for One favorite, because even if somehow, Tenko is saved, the police help, a hero saves him, All for One will find him, sooner or later, and he won't hesitate to kill his adoptive family if he gets one, fill Japan with blood if necessary, take everything from Tenko again, and again, and again, and again, because monsters are just that, predators that never let go once they bite.
And him, what can he do? He's a brat, he can't go and kidnap a four year old, not when surely All For One would be looking at Tenko like the sick project he thinks he is, maybe when he leaves him to his fate, when Tenko in his grief runs away from there and hides in an alley, where no one helped, where the world helped the devil to prove to a child that no one is going to save him.
All Might can't be contacted, not by him, who is a lanky brat, and not when his father is Endeavor, who looks stupid, but surely he'll figure it out if his son, his pride -the one he still is, but not for long- decides he wants to talk to his father's number one enemy.
So he can only wait, because he is weak, he is infinitely weak, but he will make up for it, in a year, he will make up for it-. He promises, he promises - he promises at least that, to fight for Tenko tooth and nail, for all of them, because he knows that when he was not Touya, and he was in a hospital bed, dying, they were his comfort, because they were alone, like him, because there was that feeling of kinship, and understanding, and because the weight of knowing, and yet doing nothing, is something he could not bear, so he would fight for all of them, but especially, for Touya, the boy who was lost in flames that he was never taught to extinguish.
But to do that, first he has to learn, how to die, because Touya Todoroki had to die, maybe not at thirteen, when he was destined, but much earlier.