Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Looking up at the dark sky with its overcast clouds and distanced threat of thunder beyond the tall buildings, it seemed that a storm was coming. A big one.

Sighing, I picked up the pace as I hurried down the street, satchel clutched close to my side as a fair few people walked past and along side me. A few weeks ago, a woman being robbed in broad daylight around here was unheard of, but after recent events, you’d be lucky if being robbed was all that happened.

After the day I’d had, I definitely didn’t need to add anything that bad.

Despite the issue having had nothing to do with me, it was apparently my fault that the interview scheduled this afternoon with the current number two hero had been cancelled because of all of the commotion last week. Whilst my manager hadn’t said this to me in as many words, they’d been in a bad mood ever since I clocked in, patronising me and giving me a lot of harder and much longer tasks to do today. They didn’t even acknowledge the two hour overtime I’d worked today, let alone the other extra hours I’d already done this week to help with all of the extra news coverage, which meant today was another two hours of my life I’d wasted and wouldn’t get paid for.

I really needed to start saying ‘no’ more.

All I wanted to do now was get back to my cheap little apartment on the other side of town, get into my pyjamas and have some warm food. I also wanted to work on the article I’d been writing for my online blog about the recent revelations regarding the current number one hero, Endeavour.

After everything that had come to light recently, I didn’t see him staying number one very long. Even a scandal such as this would have ruined All Might’s career, and in most people’s eyes that man could do no wrong. Then you had the undercover situation involving Hawks, the very many who had cancelled this morning. Popular heroes were becoming everything but popular.

Just as I was just about to step out into the road to cross over, I was suddenly tackled to the ground, winding me. Screeching, I panic shut my eyes in fear as the person who’d grabbed me wrapped their arms around me protectively to shield me as we crashed hard into the pavement. Despite the person’s protective efforts, the force of hitting such a sturdy surface was painful, and the sudden impact didn’t allow my quirk enough time to alert my body to transform. We were still for a moment, the initial pain and whiplash beginning to settle, when I opened my eyes. I was being held by a blonde haired teenager in what seemed to be a white and blue hero costume with a cape.

I instantly recognised the kid as a student from UA, and to be even more precise, one of the students who had interned at the Nighteye Agency.

He’d also been involved in the fight last week.

What was he doing here?

“Please!” He said, getting to his feet and pulling me up to mine quickly. He put his hands on the outsides of my arms and looked up at me with a serious expression. “Please get yourself to safety and call the authorities when you can!”

Speechless, I stared at the boy in confusion, blinking at him in disbelief. Then I lifted my gaze and focused on the commotion now occurring behind him. Explosions, fire, ice, and smoke were erupting in waves as various people engaged in quite violent hand to hand combat. Like the boy in front of me, I recognised some of the people as more students from UA, but at the same time also recognised some of the people they were fighting as some of the villains who’d had warrants released for their arrests.

Oh shit.

“Miss, please!”

I snapped my attention back to the boy, this time nodding in understanding. He nodded back only once but waited until I turned on my heels running before returning to the fight behind him.

I ran as fast as I could, the noise behind me only getting louder even though I was running away from it all. Almost falling a few times due to my small kitten heels, I bent down to pull them off and ran full speed in my tights, the sound of my feet slapping against the concrete. Other people were now running too, clearly aware of the fight brewing. People were screaming, crying and some were even frozen in place as if unable to move. I almost stopped to help someone before remembering why I had chosen not to become a hero and kept on running.

Before, a fight like this was treated almost like street entertainment, however with everything that had happened in the last month, safety wasn’t a certainty, and a lot of people’s faith in heroes had been thoroughly shaken.

“AH!” Someone screamed near me, snapping my attention to them just in time to notice a car being hurdled our way. The person jumped out of the way of the flying vehicle, but from where I was, I knew I wouldn’t be able to jump far enough out of the crash zone. Thankful for the person’s scream giving me a moment’s notice, I braced my position with my arms crossed in front of my head as I felt my body harden instantly into tungsten. The person screamed again, this time in fear for my life, but I bared my ground and my body took the full impact of the car. It was sliced into two around me, the two parts crashing either side of me.

Looking up, my blazer and shirt were now torn and shredded, my hair dishevelled, but my body remained unharmed as it returned to its regular human state. The woman who’d screamed looked at me in horror before running away. I rolled my eyes. 

I tried seeking out what had caused the car to fly, but no one stood in the origin direction. Regardless, I needed to get out of here before it was too late.

It seemed that the direction opposite of the fight- which was now in full swing- wasn’t safe either if cars were being thrown around, so I quickly ran down an alleyway beside a now empty café and hid behind the large dumpsters, sinking to the ground beside it to best hide myself. Here I could catch my breath, figure out my next plan of action, and also try and call someone to get assistance like the boy had told me to. Just because he was a kid didn’t mean I’d ignore him- he risked his life protecting me, regardless of his age.

I pulled my satchel around my side and dug into it for my phone, however when my fingers came across a shattered screen, my hopes sunk. I may have been indestructible against a car, but a smartphone was not.

No phone- now what?

“Please, leave me alone!”

Heavy and fast footsteps began nearing my secret location, alongside extreme panting. A man running then came into my view, his face struck with horror as he looked back behind him in fear. When he saw this alleyway lead to a dead-end, he screamed and turned back around, looking at someone approaching him.

“Please, don’t hurt me!” the terrified man pleaded, dropping to his knees and begging. He hadn’t noticed me yet due to being so frantic, but from where I was, I could clearly see him. He was crying now. “You have the wrong guy!”

Another set of footsteps grew closer, and then a new figure appeared. Tall and lean, with white hair and some sort of ripped trench coat. No, not ripped- scorched, like it had been recently burnt.

The new figure chucked and raised his hand, blue flames illuminating the shadows of the dark alleyway.

If my gut feeling was correct, I needed to get out of here- now!

The man had now started crying and begging to be spared whilst the villain started muttering something at him. I’d stopped paying attention to them and was trying to figure out how to escape before they noticed me, because staying here, whilst it may have worked, was still too risky. Even running wasn’t secure, but at least I’d die trying.

Just as I was about to leg it, the begging man let out a blood curdling scream. I turned instinctively to the sound, immediately regretting it as I watched the man become encased in blue flames, melting his skin, and causing a revolting smell to fill my nostrils. Before I could stop myself, I retched from the revolting smell of burning flesh.

The villain now spun round to look directly at me with his vivid turquoise eyes, almost surprised he hadn’t sensed me earlier. His eyes narrowed as the flames of the burning body illuminated his features, confirming my fears when I saw the patchwork stapled purple skin covering the villains lower face and neck.

This was the first time I’d seen this villain in person, but I recognised him from the recent ground-breaking broadcast. Endeavour’s seemingly dead son, Touya Todoroki, was here. The blue fire cremation villain Dabi was staring directly at me.

Chapter Text

They say when you stare death in the face, time feels like its standing still.

I can now say that is completely true.

It honestly felt like hours that I crouched beside that dumpster, staring at the wearer of that dark blue scuffed coat hanging around his frame, the dirt marked white V-neck shirt, and muddy black boots. However, I think I stared most at his skin.

It was even worse in person.

Wrinkled and on the precipice of rotting, attached to living skin with actual staples, it was hard to look at Dabi and not acknowledge that he was essentially a living zombie.

How was he even alive?

Yet saying that, how was any of this really possible?

Heroes, villains, quirks? This used to be a work of fiction at one point in history, and now it was my very real life.

I was frozen in place, unable to move even as he took a warning step towards me, almost as if to test what my next actions would be and assess me. When I didn’t move, he rolled his heavy hooded eyelids.

“And here I thought you were going to be fun,” he smirked, just before lowering his gaze to the part of the floor I was occupying. His hands become doused with his blue violent flames, fear causing my body to become even more cemented in place.

I was going to die.

“It’s nothing personal,” Dabi said to me, shrugging as his flames swiftly ran down his arms to his body, legs and to the floor, then steadily spreading towards me. “But I was ordered to leave no witnesses.”

The fire reached my feet in less than a second as I screamed, raising my hands to shield my face. The flames began igniting my shoes, tights, and scorching my checked skirt and blazer. Dabi smiled sinisterly as his fire began consuming my being, clothes turning to ash, bag disintegrating.

That was until the flames stopped.

“Well,” he mused, shifting his weight to rest his hands on his hips. “I wasn’t expecting that.”

Lowering my arms, tatters of burnt clothes fell from my titanium arms to the ground, burning away completely before hitting the concrete. There I was, unscathed, untouched, unharmed. Even I looked at myself in disbelief- I hadn’t trained in so long I didn’t think my quirk would have been able to react so fast to his attack, and nonetheless with such a high-powered transformation.

“Titanium,” Dabi announced, reaching his hands behind his head as he watched me slowly get to my feet and stand. “One of the few metals that can withstand the heat of my flames.”

Thankfully, he’d stopped his flames instead of letting them burn up all the flammable materials on my body, since my bra and most of my shorts I’d been wearing underneath my skirt above my tights were still intact. I clenched my fists and stared at the villain straight on.

“Every quirk has its weakness,” I told him confidently, narrowing my eyes. I knew I had a small chance of getting out of here alive, so I needed to make sure I came across as a strong-willed opponent to fend him off. I knew my quirk wouldn’t be able to withstand many more high energy transformations, especially against someone extremely powerful like Dabi. Not having trained properly in years meant I was rusty, but he wasn’t aware of that. As long as I came across confident, he’d suspect nothing less.

“I’ve not seen you before,” he said after a few moments, pressing his thumb and forefinger to his temples and rubbing them.  “But dressed like that, or at least before I burnt most of your attire off, I assume you aren’t some hero?”

I didn’t answer him. He was currently unable to assess how hard the situation before him was, and whilst I knew that he would be able to kill me with no more than 3 similar moves like before, he was still ignorant to this.

I just needed to stall enough to get away. That, or distract him.

“Touya!”

Bingo!

Dabi’s attention shifted angrily to the shrill voice calling to him from the entrance of the alleyway for a split second, enough for me to dash for it. He reached his hands out to grab me, but with my head start I evaded his grasp and ran down towards where Himoko Toga stood pouting, knife clutched in her hand by her thigh. She saw me running towards her, Dabi’s flames not far behind, and reached out to cut me. Instinctively I ducked, her blade slicing only inches above my head and cutting a few lose strands of hair right off. That could have been my neck if I wasn’t somewhat trained in close combat.

Before Toga could make her next move, I crouched and sprung for the brick wall, my body transforming into rubber on impact. I immediately bounced at a high speed right off the wall right around Toga’s attack, the spring sound ricocheting in the alleyway as my body transformed back to normal in time for me to land and begin sprinting. Without looking back to the two villains chasing me, I speeded down the street as fast as I could away from them and the still ongoing fight.

I could hear them shouting after me but the adrenaline just kept running, the sounds of my feet slapping against the concrete so loud I knew they’d be bleeding by the time I reached safety. I kept running and running, not stopping for anyone, even as I began to find safety and reach normality where people were going on about their daily business. I’d run for so long and so far, I’d completely outrun the fight scene that the people here weren’t even aware of anything remotely wrong. Even the storm that had been threatening to break earlier was gone, only clear skies to be seen.

I didn’t know how long I’d been running for, but I didn’t really recognise this part of town. The buildings were clean, everyone was well dressed, and it looked really modern. Regardless, it seemed safe enough that I slowed to a stop, immediately wishing I hadn’t when pain shot up from my feet through my calves and lower abdomen.

If only my quirk worked on self-inflicted pains.

I doubled over as I finally took some time to catch my breath, holding onto a streetlamp pole for support. I heaved as if I’d never had oxygen before. I didn’t even have the strength to move when a hand unexpectedly touched on my shoulder.

“Are you okay?”

Taking one last deep breath, I lifted my head to be met with tanned slacks, a black shirt and red feathers. Then my eyes rested on the person’s face, one I knew not just from recent TV or the news, but from my own bedroom wall’s posters.

Hawks… more recently revealed to be named Keigo Takami.

“Hawks,” I breathed, looking bewildered at the very hero who’d cancelled his interview this morning, resulting in the beginning of a so far very bad day. Not only that, but as well as holding the title of Number 2 Hero, he was also being branded as a ‘traitor’ and ‘murderer’.

What else was today going to throw at me.

However, in that moment, the news headlines didn’t bother me. I smacked his arm then folded mine across my chest.

“You cancelled on my boss this morning!” I told him fiercely.

He cocked his head to the side slightly, concern over his face despite his slight smile. Those around use were beginning to take notice of us, more Hawks than me, but I think some were shocked by my outfit or lack of. Some people were even beginning to take photos. I instinctively raised my arms to cover myself. Hawks took note of this and quickly his feathers began to surround me, forming into a blanket that I was able to wrap around my almost naked body.

“Sorry, do I know you?” He asked, holding his hand to shield his face from some of the smartphones pointed in his direction. Before he ate public attention up, whereas now it was a completely different story.

Realising even to him I must be coming across a bit crazy; I shook my head. I then pointed the way I’d come.

“I had a run in with some villains,” I breathed, holding my hand up to ask him to allow me to explain further. “It’s mostly the lesser wanted villains from the Paranormal Liberation Front, and they’re fighting with some of the kids from UA. However, Dabi and Toga were there, and he burnt a man alive.”

Hawks’ face immediately darkened. He pulled his phone from his pocket, pressed on the screen a few times before lifting it to his ear.

“I know where he is, but I need you to go ahead, and I’ll join you there. Okay, I’ll text you the location.”

He ended the call, typed out a text and hit send, then pocketed his phone before turning his attention to me.

“Can I take you to a hospital at all?”

Chapter Text

When Hawks had offered to take me to a hospital, I hadn’t expected him to pick me up with his one arm around my shoulders and the other under my knees, then launch himself into the air at full speed. I instantly threw my arms around him panicked, worried that he’d drop me. The feathers that had been my blanket before had now returned to his wings in full, their furious red colour stretching out from his shoulder blades in all their glory. It was quite beautiful in person. Even the further we got from the ground, the more I didn’t feel as scared. Watching the ground get further and further away wasn’t as frightening as I thought it would be, and once we were in the sky, it was even peaceful. I knew he wouldn’t drop me.

He paused for a moment in mid air hovering, clearly amused by the O shape my lips were forming. The view from up here was incredible.

“Do you see this every day?” I asked him, tightening my arms a little around his neck when the wind blew. Hawks laughed before he nodded.

“I do, but it’s not often I share it with such a pretty woman in my arms.”

His words made me instantly blush, and I turned my gaze away from him in embarrassment. Sure, Hawks was totally my celebrity crush, and I had posters of him in my bedroom that I’d had for years now, but hearing those kinds of things from anyone, let a lone a hero heartthrob, was still embarrassing.

He laughed again and we began to fly.

*****

The flight was very short since it turned out we were only a few blocks away from the closest hospital, and after checking me in at the reception, Hawks asked if it would be okay to pass my details onto the detectives that would be involved in this case whilst we waited for a doctor to come and see me.

I nodded, but he continued to stare at me as if waiting for something. When I looked back at him confused, he laughed.

“I kinda need a name, yakow, to give them to contact you?” he joked, scratching the back of his head. Realisation smacked me in the face and I immediately apologised.

“It’s Kurosawa, Ren Kurosawa,” I informed him, bowing slightly in apology.

A doctor began approaching us, greeting Hawks like old friends, and then turned to me to ask my name. Hawks answered for me before I could, my voice catching in my breath as he looked at me with a cheeky grin.

I couldn’t stop myself from smiling shyly back.

A vibrating sound began, faint at first, then growing in sound. Hawks reached into his pocket and pulled his phone back out, looking at it and closing his eyes and sighing.

“Shit, I gotta go,” he said, pocketing his phone and looking back at me and the doctor. He raised his hand to touch the side of my bare arm, the gesture comforting. “I’ll be in touch Ren Kurosawa.”

Before I could reply, he was already halfway out of the hospital main doors, and once his near surroundings were clear, he fully extended his red wings and took off, the force causing the doors to swing back open and a gust of wind to blow through the lobby, breezing through my hair.

The doctor only rolled his eyes and laughed before asking me to follow him for a check-up.

I thanked the taxi driver as I got out of the car, offering again to pay him for the journey.  He insisted again he’d already been paid generously by the winged hero and smiled in assurance. Hawks had most likely asked the hospital to arrange my transportation home.

The doctor, as expected, said if it hadn’t been for the state of my clothes, he wouldn’t have believed I’d had a run in with one of the more recently infamous villains in Japan. Even now as I stood in front of my apartment block in a mix match outfit consisting of apparel from the hospital’s lost and found, I didn’t believe it either. The doctor couldn’t believe I was still alive, and the only damage I’d taken was from the running on my bare feet. Some ointment and a nurse’s advanced quirk easily repaired them, well enough that I could walk and talk with the detectives on the case. When I dropped by for questioning, they were even more impressed with my quirk and ability to avoid being harmed at all against Dabi and Toga.

They’d been so surprised that I wasn’t shocked when one of them asked me if I’d gone to UA, and had was confused when after a pause, I replied a cautious no.

The taxi drove off and I began making my way towards the apartment block entrance, letting myself in with my code and starting to ascend the stairs. The building itself was rather plain, no decorations or such to give it any character. It was a standard build with the only purpose to it being to give people like me with a low income somewhere secure to stay. Even with my savings, this place wasn’t as cheap as it could have been, but it did the job. Some of the cheaper places had me wondering how their landlords were even allowed to legally let them, given some of the conditions they were in.

Reaching floor 3, I wasn’t surprised to see Mrs Nomura watering the plants she had placed around her apartment door, shuffling between them all and cooing to herself about how well they were handing the recent heatwave. She was the only resident in this block that had allowed her good-natured personality to grow beyond the inside of her apartment, and I knew the landlord didn’t have the heart to tell her to move them because of how sweet she was.

She heard me approaching as I walked down the corridor to my apartment door, number 306, and smiled at me, her eyes gleaming from behind her round glasses frames.

“Oh Ren, what an adorable shirt you have on today,” the small elderly lady beamed, stretching the wise wrinkles on her face. I looked down to see what she meant and saw a photo of a cartoon bee with the phrase ‘Bee Nice’ below it on the bright pink fabric. I laughed and thanked her.

“How have you been Mrs Nomura?” I asked, bowing slightly in greeting. She continued to water her plants whilst I went over to her and picked up the spare watering can from the windowsill, and following her lead assisted her.

“I’ve been fine, thank you very much for asking my dear,” she said, bending down to reach one of her lower plants. I quickly grabbed it and raised it for her, and she smiled at me in thanks. “I just want to make sure all of my babies are well watered before the storm tonight.”

After I finished helping her watering her plants, she waved goodbye to me as she retreated into her apartment alone. I felt bad for her being by herself, so whenever I saw her, I always tried to make sure she was aware I was always happy to spend time with her. She told me once her husband had been the ultimate love of her life that together they felt like they could do anything, but ten years ago he’d been walking home and got caught in the crossfire of a fight between and hero and villain. Debris had been sent flying his way, and unfortunately, he didn’t survive.

She'd been alone ever since, just her and her many plants. And her cat, Cheshire, however he was always off exploring so wasn't much of a companion, despite how fiercely she loved that furball.

I reached above my apartment door frame for the spare key I hid above it in the dent in the wall, noting I’d need to have a new spare made to replace the one that was melted today.

I let myself in, stepping over the threshold into my personal space and sighed.

Home. Finally. It only took me 6 hours.

Taking the oversized sneakers off to switch to my house slippers, I tiredly trudged towards my small kitchen where the pile of dirty dishes from yesterday still stood untouched, my snake plant dropping almost dead behind it.

“I’ll do those tomorrow,” I told myself, even though I knew subconsciously I’d most likely leave them for at least another 3 days, or at least until the pile was double in size. I grabbed a soda from the fridge and walked into the adjacent seating room, flopping my body onto the sofa, sinking into the fabric.

According to the media’s reports of the fights being aired in the patient room I had been in, the fight had started as I was walking home, and had only finished just before I left the hospital, meaning in total it had taken me six hours to get home. Thankfully, I didn’t live with anyone else, so it wasn’t like anyone was worried about my coming home extremely late. Maybe it was sad that no one other than my elderly neighbour would notice me missing, but I saw it as a relief. No one was desperately relying on me, and that was the way I liked it.

Not long after lying on the sofa I fell asleep, blissfully unaware that the crazy events from today were far from finished.

Chapter Text

The whistling of my traditional kettle on the stove sounding loudly woke me up from my deep sleep.

Yawning, I stretched out my limbs sluggishly, suddenly confused by the itchiness of the fabric against my thighs. Looking down I tried to figure out why I was wearing what seemed to be a pair of green men’s trousers and a pink bee shirt, not being able to recall having ever purchased something like those before. Then the memories of the day’s earlier events flooded back as I recalled the fight, the fire, and then the flight.

The kettle continued to whistle so I got up and sleepily walked over to my kitchen where I switched the gas for the hob off and moved the kettle to a cooler part of the stove, groggily trying to figure out how long I’d been asleep. I didn’t remember boiling water, but then I was so drained from everything that I wouldn’t even be shocked if I’d sleepwalked and put it on. I was really thirsty.

Noticing a seemingly clean cup left out on the side, I quickly rinsed it then filled it with water, taking a long drink. I filled the cup again and downed another lot before wiping my mouth with the back of my hand and seeing the glass down in the empty sink.

Wait.

I turned back around on my heel and stared at the empty sink in bewilderment, positive that when I’d walked in earlier the sink had been full of dishes. Now, those same dishes were washed and left to dry neatly in the drying rack. They didn’t seem wet at all, which meant they’d been done a while ago.

Did I sleep clean?

I caught a glimpse of the clock above my wall calendar- 3:35am. It was already the next day, which meant I’d been sleeping for a few hours, remembering it had been getting dark when I arrived home earlier. Outside, it seemed the storm had finally begun, the rain bashing against my small kitchen window as lightning cracked in strikes in the distance, the thunder sounding shortly after. I probably wouldn’t get any more sleep if this continued- I’d never been able to sleep properly through storms.

Stretching, I headed to my bedroom, the balls of my feet padding against the wood. I needed to have a shower and get out of these clothes, but first I’d send an email to my boss and let her know I wouldn’t be in for a few days whilst I dealt with everything from today. She’d understand, especially if I included a detailed explanation she could report as an insider scoop.

As long as I gave her a good story, she would be more than happy to give me a few days off to recover.

*****

Stepping out of the shower, I grabbed the white towel I’d hung over the railing and pulled it around my wet body. Droplets dripped from my hair and splashed onto the steamy tiles around my feet as I ran my fingers through it. Looking in the oval mirror hung on the wall in front of me, it was clear I needed a haircut. My long burgundy locks hung around my face in a disorganised mess, choppy and evident of a lack of care. I had too many split ends to count at this rate. My eyes had dark circles below them from all the long days and late nights I’d been having, making my green eyes seem even more lifeless than normal. If it hadn’t been for make-up I wouldn’t have been shocked if more than one person had asked me if I was okay.

I looked a state.

Mentally I promised myself to use the rest of the week to take some more care of myself, especially since my boss had been really happy with my story. She was more than happy for me to stay off if it meant she could use my experience for her piece in tomorrow’s news story. It was rare that someone went against villains like that and lived to tell the tale.

The man who Dabi burnt wasn’t so lucky.

I stopped myself from remembering the smell, but not before I covered my mouth to stop myself from almost throwing up. I wouldn’t have been able to save him and live, I just had to keep remembering that.

Taking a deep breath, I brushed my teeth and applied deodorant then exited the bathroom. Everything was quiet, meaning the storm must have calmed down now. I made sure to switch the bathroom light off then walked to my bedroom, swinging the door wide open.

I went to scream, but Dabi was too fast.

“Are you one of those Hawks fangirls?” he asked me, lips to my ears as he had one hand covering my mouth and the other wrapped around my waist as I went completely rigid against his chest. To most that wouldn’t be a very threatening position but given that he could burn me in a moment’s notice, and I didn’t have enough energy to fully defend myself, it kept me from struggling against him. “I counted thirteen posters, and I personally think that’s too much, especially now he’s more of a murderer than a hero.”

I had a lot of posters of Hawks, and of course meeting him in person was a dream even with the current circumstances, but now I stood here with a notorious villain holding me hostage, no hero around to help.

Dabi was pressed right up against my back, his tall frame towering over my five-foot six body easily. Even if I’d wanted to fight in that moment, I was lacking in a lot of areas.

Dabi chuckled.

“I bet you’re wondering how I found you, huh?” he asked, his hand momentarily leaving my waist to reach behind me into his pockets and pull out a steel card holder. My steel card holder. Clicking it open he revealed my bank card, work ID card, student ID and of course, my citizen card.

“It’s extremely easy to find someone when you’ve got all of their ID cards, especially the one with your address,” he said coyly, so much so I knew he was smirking behind me. I might have won the battle earlier, but from where we were standing now, he was about to win the war. He pocketed the card holder and returned his hand to pull me tight against him again.

“Now I think you can agree it would be wise if you came with me so we can have a little chat, huh?” he said, starting to move backwards and pulling me along with him. We backed out of my bedroom where he pushed me towards the seating room, only to find Toga sitting comfortably on my sofa where I’d been sleeping not that long ago.

How the hell did they get in?

“Finally!” Toga said, jumping to her feet with a creepy smile on her face. “I was so bored waiting for her to finish her shower, and all you wanted to do was clean!”

Dabi stiffened behind me as Toga double over and laughed, clearly revelling in annoying the older Todoroki sibling. Had he been the one to wash my dishes? Why? And if so, how long had they been here?

As if reading my thoughts, Toga’s laugh died down and she came right up to my face smiling, pointing her knife towards my cheek. Her eyes held no flicker of sanity at all.

“We were already in here when you came back you see,” she said, making my eyes widen. She ran her finger along the blade, just hard enough to briefly cut herself but not very deep. She licked the drops of blood that began to pool from the severed skin. “It was quite lucky you didn’t look around much, because when you came in, I was on your computer and I don’t think Shigaraki would have approved me killing you this early.”

What the hell?!

Just then a purple portal opened in the middle of my living room. The two villains looked at it calmly, whilst I inside was having a panic attack- this was Warp Gate, Kurogiri’s quirk- which meant they were about to kidnap me! Had he been broken out of Tartarus with the other escapees?

Dabi pushed me forcefully towards the purple fog despite my struggling whilst Toga began to hum to herself, but all three of us stopped when a knock at my door sounded, follow by the voice of sweet Mrs Nomura calling my name.

Toga and Dabi exchanged a concerned look, Toga narrowing her eyes at me before walking to my apartment door, knife in hand. The knocking continued, and Toga got more and more ready to kill the closer she got to the apartment entrance. My eyes widened in panic as I tried to pull away from Dabi who held me against him tightly, hand still covering my mouth despite my now audible protests. His hand on my waist began to heat up in warning, but I didn’t care if he burnt me, I had to stop Toga from hurting Mrs Nomura.

I focused my quirk on my face until I could feel my lips beginning to go numb from the ice. When Dabi finally flinched away from me, his hand partly frozen, I knew turning just my mouth to ice had worked and ran towards Toga to grab the sleeve of her sweatshirt. Without hesitation she went to stab me but stopped before the blade reached my stomach when she saw the pleading in my face.

“Please,” I asked, my hands still holding her jumper softly. “Just let me see what she wants, and she’ll leave us, and I’ll go with you, just don’t hurt her please!”

Toga took a moment to think to herself whilst Mrs Nomura continued to call my name from outside of my apartment door. Regardless of the time, if Mrs Nomura wanted your attention, she’d make sure she’d get it, despite her sweet old lady persona. I couldn’t let them hurt her because of me.

“Let her find out what the hag wants,” Dabi said from behind me, causing me to look back at him. He was warming his hand with his own flames, but he looked pissed off, eyes narrowed at me from beneath the white locks of hair draped over his face. “If she warns her then we kill the girl and torture the woman.” He smiled at me then, running his fingers through his hair. “For fun.”

Toga lowered her blade and stood to the side of the door, ready to strike if needed. Dabi didn’t go to move, standing in view of the door as I braced myself and went to open it.

Mrs Nomura was standing in her nightgown, robe and home slippers, hair already tied into a bun for bed. I couldn’t work out if she’d just woken up for the day, or was about to get ready to tap out for the night.

“Oh Ren,” she beamed, reaching her hand to take mine and squeeze it endearingly. She noticed I was still in the towel from my shower, the focused on what was behind me and clearly seeing Dabi loitering in the hallway. I watched her eyes widen from behind her oversized glasses, followed by a sly grin, the assumptions she was making in her mind evident by her facial expressions.

“I’m so sorry to disturb your fun evening you two, but I think Cheshire climbed up onto your balcony during the storm. Would you mind if I came in and got him, you know what he’s like when anyone else tries to pick him up?”

It took me a moment to realise she meant her cat, and I instantly nodded in understanding. That cat was not a people person, and whilst I would have loved to watch the face-off between Dabi and that cat, now wasn’t the time. I looked back at Dabi who was leisurely leant against the wall, raising my eyebrows at him for an answer. He just nodded.

I opened the door wider and gestured for her to come in, to which she shuffled her way in and into the seating room towards my balcony door. The portal was gone now thankfully since I didn’t know how we’d be able to explain that without Toga killing her. Dabi had also followed us in here, most likely to keep an eye on me and ensure I didn’t try and warn the elderly woman or try and escape. I unlocked the door to the balcony for her where of course, Cheshire was sitting licking his ass as cats did. Mrs Nomura smiled at the fearless feline, cooing at him as he allowed her to take him into her arms and stroke his head lovingly. “Aren’t you a naughty kitty for coming over to Ren’s balcony again!”

Mrs Nomura thanked me again, then went over and thanked Dabi too for letting her ‘interrupt his time with me’. I almost gagged.

“You young people make sure you’re being safe” she winked at me as we returned to the front door, but still loud enough for Dabi to hear. “I know you guys are all about the fun, but not about the baby that comes afterwards!”

I was utterly speechless.

“Don’t worry Mrs Nomura,” Dabi suddenly said from right beside me, snaking his arm around my waist as he spoke at the small woman in front of us. “I plan to take very good care of Ren here.”

Mrs Nomura reached out and took Dabi’s hand, the one not on my waist, similarly to how she’d taken mine not minutes before. She squeezed it and smiled at him. To her, Dabi’s actions towards me were endearing, but I knew he was losing his patience before he gave in and murdered her. I went along with it all for her sake.

“Please make sure you do, she’s a good person and deserves someone she can truly rely on, especially with everything going on right now.”

A breath caught in my throat at her words, whilst Dabi bid her farewell as she retreated back to her apartment. He closed my door, then took a firm grasp of my arm.

“Anything else before we can go?” He asked sternly, looking down at me. “Toga has gone ahead, so as long as you don’t have any more neighbours with misplaced pets, we can get going.”

Even though he’d spoken sarcastically, his expression softened when he saw the tears beginning to fall from my eyes, ones I reached up to quickly wipe away to not let him see. He was one of the reasons I was crying, having taken me hostage in my own home, but I think even he knew he wasn’t the main one. He leant his head to the side, then unexpectedly lifted his other hand to my face to wipe away a tear I’d missed. I looked at him in confusion as his expression warped to match mine, shocked at his own actions.

But as quickly as it had happened, it disappeared just as fast. He looked further down my body, specifically at the towel I was still holding tight to my bare body that had slipped a little lower than was appropriate between two strangers, especially a villain and their hostage.

“Can I trust you to get some clothes without trying to freeze my hand off again?” he asked seriously, laced with a hint of irony.

Taken back by the sudden thoughtfulness, I nodded, and he pulled me towards my bedroom and towards my wardrobe. There he let go of me and went to lie down on my now made bed- most likely his doing- with his legs hanging off of the side to avoid putting his boots on my sheets. I stood there awkwardly, unsure what he was expecting me to do.

Impatiently he gestured to the wardrobe. When I didn’t make a move, he sighed.

“I’m not taking my eyes off of you. You’re too much of a risk with that quirk of yours, so if you want to get changed, figure out a way that won’t force me to kill you.”

At this, I gulped.

Swallowing my pride, I turned my back to him and opened the wardrobe doors, scanning through all of the clothes hung up. I pulled a few things down and off of their hangers and began to put one on over my towel to keep myself decent. The t-shirt dress was long enough that I was able to drop the towel without Dabi seeing anything private, so I grabbed a pair of underwear and slipped them on, along with some socks and some shorts for under my dress. I looked back at Dabi curiously when my gym bag landed beside my feet.

“Maybe pack a few days’ worth of clothes,” he said, no longer watching me but more interested by the small flames he was watching dance along his fingertips. “You won’t be back for a while.”

Deep down I had been dreading hearing this out loud. Toga said they’d been here since before I even got back, and if it were simply a mission to kidnap me, they’d have done it the moment I walked through the door. But instead, they allowed me to sleep, to ask for time off work, help Mrs Nomura. According to Toga, Dabi had even washed my dishes and cleaned my apartment up a little. If I now disappeared for a few days, it wouldn’t look at all suspicious, especially if Mrs Nomura told anyone about the guy I’d been with- they would probably think I was using the time off to spend a weekend away with my boyfriend after what I’d done through.

No one was going to miss me.

I did as Dabi said and begun folding clothes into the bag, t-shirts and leggings, pyjamas, underwear, and socks, and even some gym gear. I didn’t know why they wanted me, but it seemed their leader Shigaraki had plans for me which I didn’t think involved a cosy tea and chat, so it was probably better to come prepared than not.

When I was done, I zipped the bag up and grabbed a pair of trainers and began putting them on.

Dabi finally got up from his resting position on my bed and slung the gym bag over his shoulder, then looked at me with a warning look when I finished tying my laces.

“Do I need to force you with me this time, or will you come on your own?”

I shook my head and the purple portal from before appeared, this time in my room in front of us. Dabi gestured for me to go to it, so taking a deep breath I moved forward until the flog completely consumed me.  

Chapter Text

I emerged from the fog first, however Dabi wasn’t that far behind because the moment my foot stepped onto the dark oak wood floor of the room we’d portaled into, I felt his fingers grasp the back of my dress, as if to stop me from running off.

Or keep me close to him.

I looked back at him confused, but he didn’t even meet my gaze and instantly let go of be before he breezed right past me for the room door. My eyes trailed after his long black coat.

Quickly looking around, I realised we were in a bedroom, one with very little character and just enough furniture to even earn the title of bedroom; all that was here was a small wardrobe, bedside table with a little lamp, and surprisingly a double bed.

Dabi dropped my bag onto the bed then reached for the door handle. When I went to follow, be he turned his head he shot me a stern glare.

“Stay here. I’ll be back in a bit,” he warned, opening the door to give me a peek of what lay beyond this room. I only managed to catch a glimpse of it, but the walls outside seemed to be made of large cobblestone with dim lighting. Where the hell were we?

“Don’t bother escaping, you won’t get very far.”

With that, he shut the door behind him, followed by the sound of locking it afterwards.

Fuck’s sake.

I was still for a moment, waiting to hear his footsteps retreat to make sure he wasn’t simply testing my eagerness.

However, when the began to fade away, I immediately sprang into action. I didn’t even bother trying the door, too obvious, and went straight to the wall the door was on, knocking along it to find weak spots in the infrastructure. When Dabi had held the door open momentarily, it looked to be made of a thicker wood than that of regular Japanese doors, so trying to damage that would have cost more energy that I had to spare right now. After freezing Dabi’s hand earlier, I’d exhausted the energy I’d recovered from sleeping and didn’t have enough for more than two more transformations. It had been a long time since I’d needed to transform so many times in one day, and the lack of training was putting me at a major disadvantage now.

Maybe I shouldn’t have given up on my training when I did.

I shook my head. I didn’t have time to be having regrets or doubts- I had no idea I’d be in such a predicament now, and no matter if I’d continued training or not, I was here and had to make use of what I had.

I kept knocking along the wall until I found a spot where it sounded louder than the rest, just behind the wardrobe. I went to work quickly pulling it away from the wall whilst being as quiet as I could just in case anyone was keeping guard outside. With it being cheap, it wasn’t very hard to budge it. When I pulled it away, I was relieved to find a sealed-up fireplace, meaning this part of the wall would be easy to bust through given that it was only two thin layers.

I pushed the locks of hair that were in my face behind me and braced myself, mustering up the energy I needed for not only this transformation, but the force needed to make it effective against the wall.

“You are tough,” I told myself, shifting my weight between my feet. I took a deep breath and remembered what my Dad had always told me.

“You can be anything you want to be, Ren.”

When I looked down and saw my arms had turned into steel, I grinned. I steadied myself, working out the best angle and then crouched.

I had one shot at this, not really knowing what I’d be going into. I had to be quick.

Pushing myself from the floor, I lunged at the wall, shoulder hitting the surface first as I crashed straight through it, plummeting out the other side and onto the corridor ground below with a loud smash, bits of debris falling around me loudly.

Looking down, I wasn’t surprised to see I was bleeding.

I’d managed to keep my form whilst crashing through the wall, however after the initial impact my form had lessened, and only sections of my skin had remained as steel. The parts that had reverted were bruised, scraped, and some bleeding a slight bit.

Grunting, I reluctantly got to my feet and assessed my surroundings, noting that strangely, no one was around. My skin had now fully returned to normal, slight pain beginning to nag on my shoulder too. Clearly, I hadn’t prepared myself enough for that stunt. Hopefully, I wouldn’t have to pull another one similar again.

I did make a mental note of where I was though, seeing that the room I was in was one of many along this corridor, like some sort of medieval inn… or dungeon. How many others had Dabi brought here? Was I not the first?

There were no windows on any of the doors to check if the rooms behind them were occupied, and for all I knew, this could have been where Dabi himself lived, meaning other villains could be lurking behind them.

Best not to mess with the unknown and get back to what I did know- escaping.

Hurriedly I looked down both ends of the low-lit hallway to see a door to my right, my only option to move forward since the other direction was a dead end. This door also had a window, so that was something at least.

I half limped half ran towards it, keeping as light on my feet as I could, and peeked through the small, barred window. Beyond it seemed to be a spiral stone staircase that only lead up. As much as I didn’t like the idea of not knowing what might be above me, I was out of other ideas. As calmly as I could, I pulled the heavy door open and began to climb the stairs.

The slightly damp smell that had been present lower down began to vanish the higher I got, and after about 50 steps I finally reached an arched doorway with another heavy door before me, this time with no window to look through. Soft scents of a fresh and almost floral aroma greeted me however, and whilst I didn’t like to assume things about people, I hadn’t taken Dabi as someone who’d put out potpourri.

Where the hell had he brought me?

I began to push the door open, the sudden exposure to light blinding me a little.

Once my eyes had adjusted, I saw a surprisingly sophisticated Japanese style meeting room with wooden beams supporting the roofing whilst also adding style, alongside beige and cream-coloured embossed walls to give the room a very rich but relaxing feel. There was a lower table in the middle with seating around it, alongside artificial plants and even what seemed to be a bowl full of sweets, and believe it or not, actual potpourri.

The whole décor did not scream ‘villain hide out’ to me, and it even made me second guess if I wasn’t dreaming everything up until now.

Beyond the table and seats, I noticed a double door entrance. With nothing appearing out of the ordinary under the current circumstances, I instantly made headway for it.

“You’re right, that was fast,” a voice called out from above.

My breath hitched as I momentarily froze, having been caught off guard. I quickly spun on my heel with arms raised up ready to fight as I noticed the second floor I’d failed to see before. On it looking down at me was a lizard like being who had pink hair in an air blown style and was wearing combat gear. The red scarf around his neck covered his lower face, so I couldn’t read his facial expressions, nor see his lips moving.

“Just wait until she uses her quirk, it’s so mesmerising!” a higher pitched voice squealed from the other side of the second floor. Following the voice, I saw Toga leaning over the railing looking right at me with a psychotic smile plastered across her face. Despite the school uniform attire giving her an innocent looking appearance, even from a distance her crazed eyes and determined expression was quite unnerving.

However, my attention was instantly removed from her when I felt a presence appear instantaneously behind me, no build up or even a hint of something getting closer, like it had materialised out of thin air. The excess warmth from their body told me immediately who it was.

“I only bring the ones who show actual promise back, why would this one be any different?” Dabi said, his mouth right by my ear as he spoke, breathing warm air down my neck. The smell of recently lit tobacco and his cologne hit me at full force, but despite their strong smells, nothing covered the smell of burning flesh, something that had been present each time I encountered the blue flamed villain.  

Already it was way too many times, and it hadn’t even been a full 24 hours yet.

This time I felt his arm move as if to strike, causing me to lunge away from him as I turned to meet his gaze. My eyes widened when he didn’t look phased at all, and continued to stare me down with smug grin, hands pocketed in his trench coat.

Had I imagined the movement? Was I being paranoid? Or was I getting too tired now?

“Didn’t expect you to break through the wall, but I will admit it was entertaining,” he chucked, stepping towards me. Like in the alleyway, I didn’t move, however my lack of moment this time wasn’t because of fear, but instead because of anger. “Definitely the method I’ve enjoyed watching the most.”

“Are you telling me this was a test?” I seethed, balling my fists up ready to fight. “You wanted me to escape?”

Dabi shrugged and looked up at nothing in particular, seemingly completely disinterested in me. He didn’t answer my question, which only made me angrier.

“I deserve an explanation!” I shouted, this time taking a warning step towards him. This caught his attention, him raising his eyebrow as if shocked by my challenging. Still, unlike before he wasn’t slick enough to conceal that he actually secured his footing to cement his stance. I might not have been using my quirk in that moment, but it was good to see that Dabi recognised I was still a worthy opponent because I could fight just as well without it.

“Whilst I don’t doubt that she’ll take him on easily,” a voice said behind me as it approached. Turning slightly to look behind me, the Lizard was now on the same floor as us, walking towards us with a very large and misshapen sword in his hand. I did not fancy trying my luck against that. “I doubt she’ll be able to take all three of us on at once.”

Toga laughed from the second floor as she leapt onto the railing and jumped down, landing quite gracefully just behind the lizard with her knife in hand. This time she had some sort of tank strapped to her like a backpack with a mask lying around her neck that was connected to the tank via various tubes. In her other hand was some sort of oversized syringe.

What was her quirk again? Had that been made public information yet?

Fuck. I was struggling to keep my thoughts in order as the three villains surrounded me.

“You really going to try and fight all three of us, Ren?” Dabi asked, raising his hands as his blue flames ignited in his palms. They danced along his skin, the blue hue lighting the room and drawing me to stare at him, completely forgetting about the two behind me for a second.

Just a second though.

Toga thought she would be able to land a blow on me whilst I was distracted, but having anticipated she’d try and go on the attack as her first move, I’d already hardened the skin on my back to steel again.

As long as I didn’t make any full body transformations, I could use my quirk at a minimum, at least until I could get out of here!

The ‘clang’ the sound of the two metals colliding together made a horrid sound echo throughout the room, whilst the ripping of my dress snapped me from Dabi’s flames to the lizard man charging at me with his sword.

I dropped down, his blade only slicing strands of my hair that floated down past my eyes to the ground. He didn’t stop there though, stabbing the point straight down to where I was to impale me. I forced my body to roll out of the impact area and pushed on my arms to push myself to crouching. The flash of blue coming at me hand me backflip just out of Dabi’s way, landing crouching again but this time with some force in my thighs and metal in my fingers. I lunged towards him, steel fist first as I landed a hit to the side of his face causing a crack to ring out, close combat clearly not being his fighting style with such a wide range quirk. He grunted as his flames died down for a little, only to erupt around him when he snapped his glare back at me, blood dripping from where my punch had ripped some of his staples form his skin.

The blue of his eyes was extremely vibrant now.

“That’s gotta hurt!” Toga squealed, dropping down above me with her knife and syringe both aimed for my shoulders. She landed on my back with her arms around my neck as she held her knife to my throat with her needle ready to hit my arm. Unable to get out of her hold, I jumped and threw us both backwards, our bodies smacking the hard wooden floor with a thud. Her hold loosened enough for me to get out of it, but now she laughed as sliced her knife towards my face. I didn’t have time to block this so tried to dodge, jumping out of the way, only for her to grab my ankle and drag be back. She raised her syringe to stab me, but as she plummeted it down to stab my calf, I transformed the impact area into wood. This time the syringe imbedded itself in the first few layers of my skin, not enough to piece my wooden skin, but enough to wedge itself trapped in it.

Toga looked at me with a confused expression, only to be completely caught off guard when my other leg came flying round as I kicked her right in the face.

Her body crashed into the wall, the pack on her back only increasing the pain as she was forced against it, Toga slumping down, visibly exhausted.

Lizard man growled at my left, swinging his sword in my direction, clearly angered by my treatment of the young female villain. “Did you think I’d go easy on her just because she’s a teenager?” I shouted, repeatedly dodging his advances. I kept side-stepping further and further back to avoid the blade, lizard man angrily attacking from my front and Toga still out of action to my right against the wall.

Wait- where was Dabi?

Realisation dawned on me as soon as I stepped back into a hard surface, not a wall, but someone’s chest. Fear consumed me when burnt arms wrapped around my arms and body, trapping me, the hands attached to those arms wielding a furious looking blue fire.

Dabi held me tight against his chest as I struggled at his hold, bringing his lips to my ear as he held his burning hand close to my face.

“Still think you can take the three of us on?”

Chapter Text

I growled as I pulled against Dabi’s grip around my arms and torso, uncomfortably aware of how close his flames were to my cheek. Perspiration began to drip from my forehead, despite how small the blue fire was, the heat was immense. Whilst I could have afforded another transformation, I knew I wouldn’t be able to hold it for long, especially not long enough to be able to escape in on piece.

“You’re a feisty one,” Dabi chuckled, tightening his hold so I was completely flush against his chest to the point I could feel the staples along his torso digging into my back through our clothes. “I’m going to enjoy having you around.”

“I like her,” Toga announced, having now regained consciousness. She rubbed her head, getting to her feet and stretching, as if she’d only been napping and hadn’t been thrown into a wall and knocked out. I looked at her in bewilderment.

“So she can fight,” the lizard man stated, throwing his sword over his shoulder into its sheath. Toga skipped over to us, knife no where to be seen now. The lizard man ran his claws through his pink hair. “However, she’s only going to be useful if she isn’t causing trouble, otherwise she’ll be too much hassle to bother keeping alive.”

Toga giggled, raising her hand to her face as she blushed. “I don’t think she cares very much if she dies or not, she seems like the type to ‘die trying’, which despite the outcome, would still be very interesting to watch!”

Toga looked at me with an intense smile.

“That’s why we threaten her with someone else’s life, one she wouldn’t dare endanger,” Dabi proposed, his words sending a shiver down my spine since I could almost sense the malicious grin he was probably sporting behind me. I tensed up when his lips came close to my right ear again, speaking only loud enough so I could hear. “I’m sure your lovely neighbour wouldn’t mind me paying her a visit, do you think? I think she liked me.”

I gasped, horrified. How dare he threaten Mrs Tomura’s life! I wouldn’t let him lay a finger on her!

Angry, I tried throwing my weight to break Dabi’s hold, ready to fight til the death if it meant they’d leave Mrs Tomura alone.

But much to my displeasure, Dabi only grunted at my effort, my strength and resistance not phasing him at all now he had a good grip on me. I suddenly felt the hand that was on my arm begin to burn up, the tingling sensation acting like a warning.

A warning I quickly took heed to.

I gulped.

As much as I wanted to get out of here, protect my neighbour and get away from these villains, there was nothing stopping them going after her regardless of if I was alive or not. They were unpredictable, ruthless, and would probably go after her for the fun of it if I got myself killed trying to escape.

Noticing the change in my behaviour, Dabi lowered the heat in both hands, allowing me to let go of the breath I’d been holding. Maintaining his grip, he stood a little straighter, me still pulled against him with no room for movement. The smell of tobacco, cologne and burnt flesh had completely surrounded my senses.

“So, Ren, you aren’t going to try and escape now, are you?” Dabi asked, this time loud enough for the other two villains to hear. His tone was almost patronising, and I had to bite my tongue to stop myself from speaking out of turn to avoid pissing him off anymore.

I clamped my jaw but nodded reluctantly.

“I’ll need your words, doll face,” he said, hands getting warm again.

Doll face?

Was he being serious?!

Regardless, I compled.

“I won’t try and escape again,” I agreed through gritted teeth, however when neither Toga nor Lizard man looked all too convinced, I added, “I promise. As long as no harm comes to anyone I know, you have my word that I’ll cooperate and do what you want and tell you what you need.”

Dabi chucked. “Wasn’t so hard now, was it?” He asked rhetorically with a tone of mischief.

Satisfied, he finally released his hold on me, his arms dropping away from my frame. He still remained close behind me, the heat naturally radiating from his body telling me as much, but finally I could breathe a little easier.

Toga cocked her head to the side as she looked at us, her expression hard to read. Was there something wrong?

The lizard man growled impatiently. “Is there actually any information we need from her at all?”

He leant against one of the pillars near us, eyes watching me closely. “Sure, she can fight, but I don’t think you brought her the whole way here for some sparring. Or is it that she someone’s plaything?”

I inhaled sharply; the thought never having crossed my mind. Other than Toga, I was sure everyone else in the League, former and current, was older than me, and having some sort of team lackey or as the lizard man had put it… plaything, wasn’t such a stretch. Being used in that way, forced into it… the thought made my skin crawl.

“She’s my choice for recruiting,” Dabi told him, not only shocking me, but clearly the lizard man too. He narrowed his eyes at Dabi who remained behind me. I turned to look at Dabi as well, but he simply wore a bored expression, as if he couldn’t understand why he was having to explain himself.

“I’m shocked, you finally found someone to recruit- I’m surprised you didn’t just burn her alive like all of the other potential candidates,” lizard man mused.

Toga laughed at this. “Well, he did try, but her quirk makes her immune to his.”

Spinner’s eyes widened at this. Despite having just seen my quirk in action, he hadn’t seemed all that impressed by it compared to my fighting skills, so the new information seemed to add to his impression of what I could do.

Or so I thought.

“You think he will want someone like her?” the lizard man scoffed. “Her quirk isn’t even attack based, and its only defensive in short range combat!”

He? Did he mean Shigaraki?

Actually, where was Shigaraki?

“Spinner,” Toga addressed him, me turning to see her looking at the now named Spinner with a smile plastered across her face. “I don’t remember why quirks need to be attack only, I mean, being a lizard does nothing really for you now, does it?”

Despite her sweet tone, it was laced with something more sinister. Was Toga actually defending my quirk?

I furrowed my brows.

Spinner growled again, turning his attention to Dabi again. “I assume you’ll keep an eye on her then?”

Dabi chuckled, swinging his arm around my shoulder as he came to stand beside me. I looked up at him, only to be met with a grin and a pair of fiery blue eyes gazing down at me.

“Of course, I won’t my eyes off of her,” he mused, the hand on my shoulder reaching up to twirl a lock of my hair around his index finger. I watched from the side as my burgundy locks wrapped around his pale skin, falling against his purple skin, the two colours almost matching one another.

“She’s mine.”

*****

Spinner had left shortly after Dabi had staked his claim on me, Toga giggling and leaving right after, but not before she gave me another look up and down, as if to assess me. Something about the way she’d taken me in had unnerved me, like she was looking at her next meal or something.

“I can’t trust you to be alone, so you can stay with me,” Dabi told me, using his finger to gesture for me to follow him. With no other obvious or favourable options, I took a big inhale of breath before following him, unsure of what to expect- stay with him? What did that mean?

He didn’t say anything else as I followed him back down the stone staircase, the same one I’d climbed up earlier when trying to escape. We descended in silence, the only sounds being our breathing and footsteps as we spiralled back down to the corridor I’d crashed out of my room into.

Yet the mess from earlier was gone, and more surprisingly, it looked completely different.

The corridor wasn’t as long and as medieval as it had been before, and instead looked more like a traditional Japanese hallway, short, wide, with only 6 doors, 3 on either side. The décor from upstairs had continued down here, looking more like a hotel than the dungeon it had resembled before.

Dabi caught my confused expression.

“One of the people Spinner recruited has an illusion quirk,” he said, walking a few steps in front of me down the hallway. I followed quickly behind him, right to the very last door on the right. “They created the illusion of the hallway before, making it so you thought you broke through the wall when in fact, Toga had held the door open for you. We were watching you from only a few steps away from where you were standing.”

I just nodded, taking this information in.

Dabi opened the door in front of us, revealing the same room we’d portaled into before, my bag still sat on the bed. Although the room was bigger than it had been before, large enough that there was now a large sofa a few feet away on the other side to the one my stuff was on. The sheets my bag was on weren’t made either unlike before, now messy and scrunched up like someone had woken up in a rush. I also now noticed the visible burn marks on the frame, no doubt made by Dabi. When or why, I wasn’t sure, or more like didn’t want to know.

I didn’t want to imagine the things that had happened involving the blue flame wielding villain within these four walls.

He stretched and walked in, sitting on the sofa with a heavy sigh, clearly tired. He ran his hand through his hair, his fingers getting lost in the white locks, staples on his outer wrists catching and reflecting the artificial light above us.

When I didn’t make a move, Dabi looked back up at me with a bored expression.

“Are you planning to stand there all day, or are you going to come in?”

I became unfrozen and took a step over the threshold, moving robotically towards the bed where my bag was, perching on the edge to face Dabi. Despite having been in this room not too long ago, this was it in it’s true entirety, and I wanted to make sure I wasn’t being fooled by another illusion.

Who knew what these villains would want to test me on next?

As if reading my thoughts, Dabi rolled his eyes, shrugging his rugged black trench coat off of his shoulders, slinging it over the arm of the sofa.

“I won’t reveal the secret, but there is a ‘tell’ to the illusions,” he explained, flexing his arms behind his head. Beneath the trench coat had been a plain white t-shirt, still scuffed and marked like it had been earlier. As he stretched, I noticed the scorch marks at the hem. He reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. “You can choose whether or not to believe me, but if you’re able to figure it out it will be something to throw in Spinner’s face. Even though he knows what it is, he still struggles to tell the difference between the illusions and reality.”

I watched Dabi lie down along the sofa, boots hanging over the arm avoid dirtying the light grey fabric. From the packet of cigarettes, he took one out and placed it in-between his lips, then moved his index finger to the end of it where a blue flame sparked, lighting it as smoke began to rise from it.

The burnt villain took a long drag, closing his eyes as if to fully immerse himself in the moment, then exhaled, minimal smoke leaving his lips.

A few moments passed before the smell hit me, and when it did, I wrinkled my nose.

Without even looking at me, Dabi caught wind of my discomfort, a grin tugging at his lips as he took another drag.

“Don’t like the smell, doll face?” he asked, the pet name from earlier rolling off of his tongue too easily for my liking. Being held here against my will was one thing but acting like we were close enough to nickname me pissed me off.

I didn’t bother replying to him, instead turning away to focus my attention on my bag. I unzipped it, revealing the contents I’d packed not long ago, reminding me of the last twenty-four hours I’d endured.

To think, if I had just left work when I was supposed to when I’d stopped being paid, none of this would ever have happened.

Suddenly a cloud of smoke was blown in my direction, its source inches from my face.

Sharply I turned my gaze to Dabi as a waved the smoke away, trying to disperse it into the rest of the air. Dabi was sitting at the very edge of the sofa leaning right over towards me, close enough that if he moved any closer our foreheads would be touching. I was extremely aware now of how close we were, and how uneasy I now felt.

Uneasy and a little on edge.

“I asked if you liked the smell,” he repeated, his face blank, cigarette between his fingers as his elbows rested on his knees. With the smoke finally clear, I huffed.

“It’s not that I don’t like it,” I told him, eyes looking down at his fingers where the cigarette burned slowly. “It’s just that my Dad used to smoke, so it reminds me of him a bit.”

Dabi didn’t move for a few seconds as if processing the information, then nodded and backed away, allowing me some breathing room. He returned to lying down, took another drag and exhaled again.

“So what, you’ve got daddy issues or something?” he asked nonchalantly, as if he was asking me something normal like how my day had been.

To be honest, after recent events, the answer to that wouldn’t have been anywhere near normal.

I shot a glare at him, gritting my teeth when I saw his grin, his plan to get under my skin clearly working in his eyes. I sucked my teeth a little then smirked.

“What, did you want me to join your club?” I asked casually, looking away from him as I pulled out a pair of pyjamas from my bag to lie on the bed, keeping my expression neutral. This time I heard him lift his body up to walk to me, fingers reaching for my chin to lift my head. He made me look up at him, the glare he shot down towards me making me regret my words a little.

Just a little.

Not enough to keep my mouth shut.

“What, are you not accepting new members?” I asked, blinking a few times. “Are your daddy issues too much as it is?”

I didn’t register the hand around my throat pinning me down to the bed until the whiplash of the movement caused my vision to blur, stars blinding me. Blinking, I instinctively reached up my hands to claw at his hand around my neck, but his grip was unwavering. He knelt beside the bed but still towered slightly over me, his eyes focused heavily on mine.

“Want to say that again doll face?” he asked rhetorically, tone light as if to invite me to test him again.

Clearly, I was looking for a fight.

“I said,” I started, acutely aware of the hand on my throat beginning to heat up. Regardless, I continued to press. “Are your daddy issues too much as it is?”

Dabi’s hand tightened as it increased in temperature, the tingling sensation on my skin becoming uncomfortable as it started to burn. I could also feel the pressure on my windpipe, limiting my oxygen a little, the sensations beginning to make me feel lightheaded.

But I wasn’t letting him use this to control me more than he already was.

Holding my position, I stared up at him with determination, narrowing my eyes.

“Do it,” I told him, capturing and holding his attention, despite him being the one dominating me. “Kill me.”

In that moment I really expected him to continue to burn me, mark me or like I’d said, even kill me there and then.

I didn’t expect him to let go, releasing his tight grip on my windpipe, rip away his hand and storm out of the room, slamming the door shut after him.

Confused, I lay there looking up at the ceiling, replaying what had just happened in my head. Slowly, I sat up, verifying everything when I stared at the shut door, alone in the room.

Surprisingly, I wasn’t worried about him going to hurt Mrs Tomura, or do anything in retaliation against me. I’d pissed him off, but not enough for anything that drastic it seemed.

I sighed, continuing to go through my bag.

“So much for not taking your eyes off of me.”

Chapter Text

I didn’t bother trying to leave after Dabi left. A few minutes after he stormed out of our room, I heard shuffling and a less than pleased grunt, no likely to be Spinner. He didn’t sound so happy about playing babysitter.
Had I stored some more energy up I would have been able to take him, but should Toga show up or even the other people they’d recruited, I wouldn’t stand a chance.
It was best to wait for an opening, instead of forcing one.
With nothing else to do, I shrugged on one of my hoodies and started to explore the room, seeing as this would be where I’d be spending a lot of my time.
I discovered that beside the wardrobe was a door that led into an en suite bathroom, one only we could use it seemed. I was thankful when I saw that it could be locked from the inside. The last thing I wanted was Dabi walking in on me when I was peeing, or worse, showering.
He didn’t seem like the type to force himself on someone, but at the same time, I knew nothing really about his character- for all I knew he could be a serial rapist.
Best not to give him any openings, just in case.
I locked the door behind me.
The bathroom, like the bedroom, was pretty plain, but functional. There was one of those shower/bath hybrids, something I was super happy about since I loved baths, and my cheap apartment hadn’t had one. If we were actually going to be training, my muscles would definitely be thankful to have a long soak to repair, alongside it also speeding up the recovery of my quirk.
Beside it was a sink with a mirror cabinet above it, the door half closed revealing the inside of the cabinet was bare. The toilet was tucked away in the corner, a shelving unit hiding it away on first glance that was full of towels. Like the lobby area upstairs, it was very hotel like.
I peeked my head around the shower screen to snoop at the products Dabi had, pleasantly surprised when I didn’t just find a 3 in 1 bottle. I was actually shocked to see a range of different shower and bath products scattered in the corner edges of the tub’s rim. I reached in and grasped hold of a green cylindrical bottle of Aloe Vera shower gel, sniffing it and smiling at the familiar scent. My dad had always applied this to my sunburn whenever I didn’t listen and put on sunscreen, then would inevitably come back from playing with reddened skin.
Given the burns all over Dabi’s body, the aloe vera made sense.
I picked up his shampoo, popping the lid open to be overwhelmed with the smell of tea tree and peppermint, noting the conditioner bottle still on the side was of the same brand and smell. I hadn’t expected someone like Dabi to like these sorts of smells, especially when he seemed to always stink of tobacco and burnt skin, even if the skin thing wasn’t intentional.
Looking at Dabi’s collection, something I hadn’t brought were my own toiletries. I could probably use his, unless he wanted to smell me every time I walked into a room, but I also didn’t know how easy it was for him to get hold of things like shower gel and shampoo when you were a notorious villain and recently thought to be deceased son of the number one hero. Maybe I could borrow some from Toga-
Wait. Why was I even thinking about this? I should be hoping he gets caught, that way I’d be able to get out of here sooner. That or Spinner and Toga wouldn’t see any point in keeping me around, not without Dabi there to voice his need for me in the League.
Me in the League.
When had life gotten so complicated.
Sighing, I put the bottle of shampoo back and perched on the edge of the tub, running my hand through my hair to destress. I knew I needed to escape, but I needed to do it in a way that would give me enough time to get away, get Mrs Tomura to safety and then disappear so the League and specifically Dabi, couldn’t find me. I wasn’t sure how the teleporter’s quirk worked, and who exactly possessed that power if it was Kurogiri, so I didn’t know what sort of limitations restricted them. I’d read somewhere that Kurogiri could only warp to places he’d been to previously, but unless this person had been to my apartment before, that didn’t seem to be their weakness. Maybe they could only warp to people, so had warped to Toga and Dabi?
Even if that was the case, was I willing to risk mine and Mrs Tomura’s life testing that theory?
Mine sure, but not anyone else’s.
Frustrated I got to my feet, stepping forward but then hesitating, fists clenched in annoyance. I was so limited in what I could do.
As I was thinking, I caught sight of myself in the small mirror above the sink, the angle only showing half of my face. Still, it was enough to see the faint red handprint still around my throat from earlier.
I walked up to the mirror and closed it, staring at the mark on my skin. I lifted my fingers to it, brushing my fingertips against the darker areas, wincing from the sting. It wasn’t majorly painful, but something about the burning sensation was enough to finally trigger tears to well in my eyes. Before I knew it, I was grasping the sides of the sink as my tears splashed into the basin, my sobs echoing against the white tiled walls. Holding onto the cold ceramic was the only thing stopping me from crumbling to the ground.
I cried and cried, the flow of tears seemingly having no end as they leaked from my eyes. I didn’t even try to wipe them away- deep down I knew I needed to let this out now, otherwise it would be even worse later on.
I’d been alone for so long now which I didn’t mind, but only now did I feel truly alone, and I hated it.
“I just want to go home,” I murmured to myself through my sobbing, the snot bubbles in my nose making my breathing rugged sounding. “I just want to go home and forget all of this happened.”
Finally, my legs grew tired, and eventually my knees gave out and I dropped to the ground, no longer caring if I hurt myself. I crawled to rest against the bathtub, bringing my knees to my chest and hugging them to me.
I continued to cry, my tears soaking my hoodie sleeves and leaving patches of damp on them.
I felt so alone, and there was nothing I could do.

I must have cried myself to sleep, because I woke up to the sound of banging. My cheek was pressed against the cold tiled floor, them still wet to the touch from my tears. Groggily I sat up, confused where I was when I didn’t recognise my surroundings- I didn’t have a bathtub?
“If you don’t open this door Ren,” a loud and raspy voice called from the other side of the door. The voice was fearfully familiar, and that tone sent chills through me. “I’ll blow it off the hinges. You’ve got three seconds.”
Wait- Dabi, the league, the burn.
I had thought it was all a bad dream- my stomach sank realising it was my reality.
“One,” Dabi counted, his voice calm but menacing nonetheless. I got to my feet, straightening my clothes out to remove the sleep wrinkles.
“Two,” he said, voice a little more pissed off. I rolled my eyes and walked over to the door, grasping the handle and turning it to unlock it, swinging it open.
Dabi stood right at the doorway, eyes narrowed with a snarl on his lips, clearly pissed off. Blue flames danced around his hands, only a second away from having consumed the door in its entirety to burn it to ashes.
“Three,” I said, staring at him directly in the eyes. He raised his eyebrows slightly at my reply, clearly not expecting me to still be so sarcastic. However his face flashed with concerned as he doused his flames, reaching his still very warm hand to my cheek. I winced away, subconsciously aware he might hurt me again, but was surprised when he wiped away the wet from my cheek.
“Were you crying?” he asked, his thumb grazing against my skin before he used his hand to tilt my face to his to look at me directly. I was shorter than Dabi by about a foot, meaning I had to look up to him. He held my chin as he looked down at me, eyes staring into mine as if to try and figure out what I was upset over.
I pulled my chin from his grasp and pushed past him, making a headway for the bed where my clothes were laid out beside my bag. I lifted them up and moved to the wardrobe and began to hang them, not wanting to talk to him.
He clearly didn’t like this.
“You know, for someone being held hostage with leverage against them, you’re pretty balsy,” he commented, walking over to me at the wardrobe. He closed the left door to lean on it, his hand holding the top of it as he towered over me whilst I grasped hold of one of my t-shirts. “I’m trying to figure out what your game is.”
I laughed sarcastically, turning my head to grimace at him.
“You have made it abundantly clear that I can’t escape, that if I do you’ll kill my neighbour, that you’ll find me and drag me back,” I told him, staring him down as I snapped. My voice was getting louder with every word, to the point I was shouting at him. “But just because I’m being forced into your group, forced to help you, forced to stay here, doesn’t mean I’m going to let you control everything about me.”
Dabi didn’t show a change in expression whilst I shouted at him, me completely unaware of just how loud I’d gotten. The shirt I’d been holding was now gripped tightly in my clenched fist.
“You might have kidnapped me, but you don’t fucking own me.”
He didn’t react at first, just holding my gaze as I looked up at him through a narrowed stare. His hand moved too fast for me to react, gripping my throat and pushing me against the closed door of the wardrobe with such a force I felt dizzy. I struggled to claw at his hand as my remaining oxygen began to run out, the tips of my feet barely reaching the floor.
He leant in by my ear, his mouth twisted into a snarl.
“You don’t get to define what this is,” he warned, the hand that was tight around my throat beginning to heat up. I knew if he were to look at me, he’d see the evident panic in my eyes- was he going to burn me whilst my defences were down, or was he going to play the long game and choke me to death?
Instead, he did neither.
Something flicked in his eyes, something familiar, that pause in whatever murderous desire he’d just been consumed by allowing enough humanity to slip in and have him pull his hand from my neck, dropping me to the floor.
I fell with a thump, gasping for air as my hands reached for my throat to assess the damage.
Dabi headed for the door.
“Clean up in here,” he muttered, opening the door and stepping out of the room. “And don’t pull a stunt like that again.”
He closed the door, locking it from outside. That was the second time he’d come close to killing me. The second time he’d stopped and left me all alone.
I was all alone again.
All alone.

Chapter Text

Over the next week, I rarely saw Dabi, except for when he’d come back to get a change of clothes, or on the one occasion, wash. Not that he smelt or seemed dirty otherwise, meaning he must have been staying in another room in order to avoid being close to me in a vulnerable state. Was he worried I’d attack him?

That, or he didn’t want me to hear him singing in the shower.

So much for keeping an eye on me.

Regardless, his absense hadn’t kept me from trying to escape, however Spinner was incredibly strict in his watch over me, hardly ever giving me an opening to even guage where this hideout was. He had Toga kept me company throughout most of the week, so it had been hard to learn any new information. I wasn’t even allowed to leave this part of the building, and had had all of my meals brought to me to eat alone or with Toga. All I’d managed to do was learn we were in a forest, based on the dozens of trees that were outside Toga’s window, but other than that I had no idea where we were. There were too many forests in Japan to narrow it down.

Despite this, honestly I couldn’t say I’d hated having Toga around. When she wasn’t trying to attack and murder me, she was actually quite fun to have around, and had our circumstances been different, I’d have said we could have been good friends.

We would often sit on Dabi’s or her beds where we’d engage in what only could be described as sleepover activities, like painting each other’s nails, braiding one another’s hair, and flicking through gossip magazines.

I’d learnt, that like me, she had also had a bit of a crush on Hawks, something that increased when he expressed wanting to join their cause, but that was quickly diminished once he betrayed Twice and murdered him. She’d grown quite dark in that moment, as if plotting the next steps in her revenge, until I distracted her with an article about the UA students 1^st years, one of whom she had a huge crush on.

The magazines themselves were a little dated so included things such as the UA sports festival, since Toga said she couldn’t just walk into a shop to purchase anything recent.

“That’s the only downside with being a notorious villain,” she said, air quoting as she spoke. She was sitting in front of me as I brushed through her hair, which was surprisingly straight when it wasn’t pulled into the two space buns she wore on the regular. “I say that like I’ve ever been anything but this, but even when I was a kid I was banned from a lot of places, people said they didn’t like how I looked.”

She’d explained how she ended up in the league, from the shunning of her quirk to idolising Stain and following Shigaraki.

“If it Jin hadn’t been in the league too, I’d have probably left a while ago,” she admitted. I’d just finished braiding two plaits at the front of her hair and tied them around the back to crown her new hairstyle, when I noticed she was tearing up.

She caught me staring at her watery eyes and stood up, wiping them with the back of her hand. Her expression was cold for a moment, but as quickly as it chilled, she brightened right back up, jumping from the bed to her feet taking my hand in hers.

“You’ve been here a week now and no one has given you a proper tour!” she exclaimed, her signature smile back on her face. The teen pulled me out of Dabi’s room into the corridor where she skipped her way to the ajoining corridor holding my hand tightly in her’s. I was hesitant at first, suddenly feeling uneasy at leaving somewhere I’d been isolated to for the last week.

“Are you sure it’s okay?” I asked, trailing behind her as she made her way joyfully down the corridor. “Spinner won’t mind?”

She giggled and shook her head. “Spinner is just paranoid, because one of his first recruits tried to escape and we had to kill them,” she chimed. “But I’ve been with you all week and I like you a lot, I don’t think you’re that dumb, right?”

In spite of how cute she acted and sounded, I could hear the subtle warning in her words, and I instantly shook my head. She beamed and continued pulling me along with her.

“It might not look like much, but there is so much to show you!” she beamed, her famous synical smile spread across her pixie like face. “We took this place from some creature hating group, kinda like the Nazi’s but for people with creature squirks like Spinner, and then found this basement section that had so many rooms with so many possibilities.”

I let her pull me down another traditional looking corridor to a room with a sliding door. Toga dropped my hand to open it, revealing what seemed to be some sort of weaponry room.

“This room is one of my favourites!” she squealed, pulling me in where I could see every wall was lined with equipment. From a shelf of knives of various sizes and blade shapes, to a stack of swords that would put some video game character’s weapons to shame. There was a section for explosives including grenades, crossbows, arrows, sheilds, axes, spears- There were even a few gun type items, something you didn’t see often unless in the hands of the police. Given this place used to belong to some sort of creature hating cult, having this sort of arsenal seemed appropriate.

I couldn’t help but find myself drawn to something shinning at the back of the room, that I end up walking cautiously towards it whilst Toga chats away about the different types of weapons they’ve been collecting. Once at the source, I reached down to the unknown weapon muddled in with the spears, pulling out a solid, long silver steel pole. I have to reached up to get it to lift fully out of the basket, the clinking it makes against the other spears catching Toga’s attention as she watches what I’m doing. Finally I have it out, noticing its almost as tall as me, maybe a foot shorter, and isn’t completely straight, instead with a curve to it. There’s nothing else to it, fully made from solid steel, with flat ends as if having been cut from a longer piece of rod.

Simplistic, yet, oddly beautiful.

“Is that your choice of weapon?” Toga asked, snapping me from my thoughts.

I almost drop the metal rod from her sudden question, unsure if what I’m doing has her ready to strike in case she thinks I’m trying to escape again. She realises the reason for my reaction and laughs. “You sure are jumpy, aren’t you?”

“I guess, it just caught my eye,” I told her honestly, looking from her back to the metal pole in my hand. You’d think it to be heavy, given its solidness, however its surprisingly lightweight and easy to mauver. It had been a while since I’d handled a weapon like this.  

“Do you know how to use it?” She asked, tilting her head to the side as she looked me up and down. “Or are you not really a weapon person?”

“I’ve never really needed to use a weapon,” I reply, lying a little with my answer. I sigh, remembering my current situation as I put the pole down, leaning it against the basket instead of back inside. “I guess now that’s no longer an option?”

She shrugs before leaving the room, waiting just outside for me to follow.

Toga proceeds to take me to another four rooms; the training room, which looks like a typical dojo training room, a communal bath and sauna room (which Toga tells me is the best for extracting someone’s blood- something I don’t think I’m ever going to unhear), a very chill lounge room filled with sofas and even a TV with DVD player, and then lastly, a bar.

“This was something Dabi had us put in,” she told me as she walked in, raising her arms in a grand showing-off gesture. “We had Spinner’s recruit use their illusions on a team of builders to put it in, it reminds me of our first hide out!”

I looked around, noting how the décor was extremely different from the other rooms. This one abandoned the light and bright traditional Japanese look, opting for dark wooden floors, brick walls, a darker brown L-shaped bar counter top with redwood stools sat along it. Behind the bar counter the wall was littered with shelves of various bottles, from spirits to liquors, wines and even a few alco-pops. A large red sofa sat in the corner of the room, right beside a Football table game, and a low light lamp. There was even a lit-up green ‘EXIT’ sign above the door Toga and I had just walked through.

Right before I took my eyes off of it, the same door swung open to reveal Dabi. He stood there dressed in grey sweatpants that hung a little loose on his hips, indoor slippers, and an oversized black t-shirt that had a few burns and holes in it. His hair was damp and dripping at the ends, meaning he’d just had a shower. I wondered where.

At first he tensed, confused as to why I was there, but then saw Toga standing behind me and relaxed a little. Still, the air was tense between us.

He must have told Spinner and Toga what had happened, as neither of them had asked what had caused him to completely abandon his earlier promise to never take his eyes off of me and avoid me at all costs. I certainly hadn’t asid anything, nor did I mention what happened the last time I saw him.  

The last time I’d seen him was two days ago, when he’d walked into the room unnanouced. I’d gotten used to having the room mostly to myself, and had accidently left my clothes on the bed when I’d had a shower, so had run out to grab them when he’d walked in on me. The worst part was that the towels weren’t back from being washed, so I was stark naked.

He’d walked right back out and not come back since.

Thankfully, he’d only seen my back and bare ass, but still, despite our circumstances, I think we both felt a bit embarrassed.

“I’ll come back later,” he said, about to turn and go back the way he’d come, when something caught his attention.

I felt the shift before I saw Toga jumping up behind me.

Neither Dabi or I noticed he syringe in her hand, at least, not until it sunk into the skin of my neck.

“Toga, what the fuck?” Dabi shouted as I screamed, the pain not really the issue but the shock scaring me more. I head the sound of my blood filling the large clear glass vial she held in her hand, the feeling of my blood being drained making me feel woozy. Dabi was quick to my side, wrapping his arm around my shoulders as I slumped down into him to stop myself from falling as Toga slipped the syringe’s needle from my skin.

Toga giggled.

“I’ve just had such a good time with Ren that I needed some of her blood,” she explained casually, as if taking someone’s blood, especially without their permission, was the most normal thing to do to someone. “I can tell we’re going to be such good friends and- Wait, what the hell?!”

Both Dabi and I looked at Toga staring down at her blood filled vial, only to realise it was no longer filled with blood, but instead was filled with a dark brown, hard, rust like substance. She looked livid, and turned to me for an explanation.

I shrugged, the light-headedness wearing off so I could stand without Dabi’s assistance. “My blood oxidises the moment it leaves my body,” I explained, reaching up to where Toga had stabbed me, pulling my fingers away to see the same substance flaking off my skin. When Toga didn’t look any less confused, I sighed. “Essentially, my blood rusts.”

Dabi couldn’t help but burst out laughing, much to the dismay of Toga, who in a huff threw the syringe at the wall, it shattering and chunks of my rusted blood scattering all over the ground amongst the glass. This only makes Dabi laugh even harder.

“So not only… can she fight off my flames… but you can’t even… steal her blood,” he wheezed between laughs, the smile across his face causing a smile to tug at my own. I don’t think I’d ever seen him genuinely smile, not in the media, not in person, not like this.

Wait- why did I care?

“That’s not fair!” Toga whined, crossing her arms across her chest like a child throwing a tantrum. “How else am I supposed to be like Ren if I’m not able to be Ren?”

Dabi, finally done with his laughing fit, chuckles and heads over to the bar, walking behind it to grab himself a glass before reaching for the top shelf to grab a bottle of what I think is whisky.

After that incident, as weird as it was, the air didn’t feel as tense anymore.

Sulking, Toga dropped her arms and took two overexaggerated strides towards me where she came right up to my face and stared at me intensely. “Ren is such a pretty name you know; one I could definitely fall for.” She beamed at me, however there was something uneasy in the way her eyes seemed to eat me up. I could feel myself begin to nervously sweat.

“Don’t be weird,” Dabi warned, throwing a look from where he was behind the bar towards the crazy eyed teenager. The action didn’t feel like threatening, but it did feel like a warning, one Toga shrugged at. She skipped around the bar to grip onto Dabi’s arm like a child.

“Can you make me that drink from the other night please?” she pouted, tugging on his jacket sleeve the same way a child would to their parent or older sibling. Dabi rolled his eyes, grabbing another glass, much to Toga’s excitement.

He then looked up at me, where I was watching them both from across the room, and lifted the glass in my direction. “Did you want a drink too?” he asked.

It took me a few seconds to realise he was actually talking to me, and then another to understand what he was asking me. I found myself nodding and then walking over to the bar to take a seat on one of the stools.

Toga hurried over to sit on the stool beside me, looping her arm in mine as if she hadn’t just stabbed me and tried to steal my blood moments ago.

“What are you drinking?” Dabi asked me, his back turned to me as he reached up for various bottles to make whatever it was Toga had asked for. Not really being a drinker, I asked to have whatever she was having. Maybe drinks were a good idea, I could try to find out some information and try to escape.

“You’re going to love this!” She said, bobbing around in her seat as we watched Dabi pour the different liquids into a metal shaker along with some ice from the freezer. I couldn’t help watch as his muscles flexed each time he reached or put back a different bottle, the staples holding his skin together shining each time they caught the low light, his t-shirt riding up a little to reveal his lower back where more of the scarred skin was.

I couldn’t imagine having suffered such burns.

When you looked at him up close, they were just as bad as you’d imagine, but it was as if being able to see every ripple, crease, and pierced hole from the staples made it all that much more worse. Having not seen him as close as this for the last week, I’d forgotton how the scarred skin sagged ever so slightly where the staples punctured the dead skin, whilst dried blood was crusted around them where they held onto the fresh alive skin. Just standing alone with all of that going on must have been painful, so to be able to move around as he did, especially in battle, and be able to withstand the heat of his own flames, well, that must have been excrutiating.

He slid a glass towards me full of an unidentified dark purple liquid, something I was instantly unsure about, even when he slid a glass towards Toga. She was fast to down her’s immediately and request another. Dabi rolled his eyes before looking directly at me.

His eyes met mine, narrowed in warning as I averted my gaze and picked up my glass to inspect it.

The purple liquid was really unsettling to me, but the smell it gave off was indeed pleasant and almost enticing me in. It smelt like cherries and chocolate.

With not much more left to lose, I took sip.

“It’s good, right?” Toga beamed, waiting eagerly for my reaction. Unable to fault the sweet and fruity drink, I nodded, and wasn’t far behind her in finishing it off to continue my conversation with Toga, trying to get information about our location out of her.

“Don’t try it,” Dabi said, never looking up from where he was pouring more drinks. “She might drink like she’s drinking juice, but she’s not a lightweight, so don’t waste your time trying to get information from her.”

I shut up after that and stared down at my empty glass.

“So,” Toga smiled, shifting the empty glass between her hands as she waited for her second. “Where have you been all week?”

I looked back up at Dabi after her question, also keen to know the answer. I was shocked Toga didn’t seem to know either.

Dabi didn’t look phased. “I was looking for a new recruit,” he said, sliding over a second drink to Toga and taking a sip from the one he’d poured himself. “This one seems to have a death wish, and if she just plans to get killed in action, there’s no point keeping her around. So I’ll just replace her.”

I felt the blood drain from my face.

Replace me?

Toga instantly wrapped her arms around me. “You can’t replace Ren!” she yelled, pouting. “She’s my best friend, we’ve had a great time this week together, haven’t we Ren?”

I didn’t move, suddenly uneasy about my situation.

“If you replace me, then what happens to-”

“I’ll kill you,” Dabi intruppted nonchalantly, sipping more of his drink. “And your neighbour too, to tie up any lose ends.”

I clenched my fists, livid he’d go as far as to killing Mrs Nomura for the sake of it.

“Why do I matter so much to you?” I bit back, staring at him now with a furious gaze. “You want my quirk? Fine, take it, I know Shigaraki can take quirks since he inherited All For One’s powers.”

Dabi shot a frustrated look at Toga for having spilled such information during our week together, she simply pretended to hide behind me, knowing Dabi wouldn’t actually do anything to her.

“Seriously though,” I continued, lifting my arm to Dabi, offering myself to him. “Take my quirk, I won’t tell anyone about the last week, or anything I’ve learnt. I want nothing to do with this war!”

“It’s true,” a voice said from behind us. We turned to see Spinner standing by the doorway under the EXIT sign, arms crossed. I wondered how long he’d been standing there for.

He walked over to us, going behind the bar to grab a beer from the fridge behind the counter.

“We can't risk someone like you being enlisted for the Hero's side of the war because your quirk is immune to theirs,” he told me, gesturing to Dabi and Toga with his beer before opening it and taking a swig. “But we can’t just take your quirk either, not after all that training you did with the Commission.”

Instantly I felt on edge at Spinner’s words. I’d even felt Toga freeze a bit, clearly this being news to her.

“How did you-”

“Alongside looking for a new recruit, I did some digging into your history,” Dabi began to explain. He stood up from behind the bar and made his way over to the sofa, sinking into it as he hoisted his legs over the arm of it and got comfortable.

“Your mother died when you were a baby, and then your hero father got himself murdered by a villain. You were orphaned at the age of six, and then taken into State care. But your stay in care wasn’t like other orphans, nope, because your quirk was something else, something pretty unique. The Commission couldn’t possibly let a quirk like yours go untrained, or worse, have you become a villain. So like Pro Hero Hawks and even Lady Nagant, you were taken in by the Commission and trained up like on of their soldiers- its why you can fight so well and have such a good grasp on your abilities, not to mention range. They had wanted you to be their orphan success story, to go to UA, graduate, and become a top class hero so they would have more control over the top heroes and the rankings, and therefore, hero society.

“But you didn’t want that. You made it clear you wouldn’t take part in any hero work whatsoever, flunked the tests to UA, and once you were of age, they had to release you from their care. You got your little media company job, moved back into Daddy’s appartment, and lead a pretty quiet life until that fateful day where our paths met. Am I right?”

Dabi looked so smug revealing what he’d uncovered about me, I didn’t dare give him the satisfaction of knowing it had gotten to me. I kept my composure calm as he continued.

“So, we don’t just want your quirk, Ren,” he said. “We want you too, because quirk or not, you’re pretty strong regardless.”

Despite how pissed off I was, I lingered momentarily on the fact he’d complimented me and said I was strong. Least he knew I was prepared to put up a fight if I needed to.

“Having someone like you on our side does wonders for our cause,” Dabi said, finishing the last bit of his drink. “You might not want to be a part of this war, but whether you like it or not, you are, and your either with us, or you die.”

He pushed himself from the sofa, putting his now empty glass on the side table beside it, and strided over towards me. Once in front of me, he leaned forward til our eyes were level, smiling like a predator who’d trapped it’s prey.

“So what’ll it be, Princess?”

Chapter Text

When I didn’t give an answer immediately, Dabi asked Spinner and Toga to give us some privacy in the bar. At first Toga had protested, but Spinner had convinced her one of his recruits needed help with jewellery and her blood transformation quirk was needed, so off she went, wishing me luck on her way out.
The bar was quiet now, only the sounds of us both breathing could be heard.
Dabi still stood in front of me, but he wasn’t leaning down anymore. I hadn’t moved my gaze though, lost in thought.
“Penny for your thoughts,” he mused, staring down at me. I sighed, turning around to face the bar and grabbed my empty glass to hold it up.
“You’re a shit bartender to leave me empty like this for so long.”
Dabi chuckled and went back behind the bar and began making us some more drinks, this time something different from what he’d made on Toga’s request. We didn’t speak a word to each other throughout the process, until he began pouring the blue liquid into my glass.
“This one is my favourite,” he told me, filling it right to the top before doing himself one.
I lifted it to my lips and sniffed- it was sweet again, but not the same as the previous drink. This time, it smelt more tropical.
I took a sip, again surprised when I enjoyed the taste.
“It’s blueberry and pineapple gin and vodka mixed with some other bits,” he told me, drinking his own. “I made it once at our old hideout when I was smashed, liked it, and haven’t stopped making it. It’s flavours that shouldn’t work together but do.”
We continued to drink our drinks in silence, his earlier question still lingering in the air.
As much as I didn’t want to admit it, I knew he was right. I’d have become part of this war whether it was by Dabi and the League forcing my hand, or by whatever remained of the Commission and hero society. If Dabi could get hold of my records this easy, no doubt Hawks had come across them after our encounter. That was if he didn’t already know of me before I ran into him that day, and he’d just pretended he didn’t know me. We all knew how good he was lying about his true motives.
Still, despite how I’d tried to live my mundane life and go about my business as privately as I could, it was only a matter of days before the Commission turned up at my dad’s apartment with orders to bring me in for training.
That had been one of the terms I’d agreed to when they finally allowed me to live my life as a regular citizen.

You can stop your training, live a normal life Ren. But if we ever call on you for a serious situation, you must come back to us, no questions asked.

Those words had been in the back of my mind after the recent battle. I’d been waiting for someone to crawl out of the woodwork and enlist me for a future attack on Shigaraki and the League. Even when I’d met Hawks after surviving Dabi and Toga that first time, I thought he might have tried to get me back into hero training.
I was bound to end up fighting whether I liked it or not.
But fighting alongside the League? That was extreme.
I’d never much liked Hero Society, not after my dad’s death. Yet, fighting alongside villains like Dabi? They were the reasons heroes existed, the reason people like my dad did what he did. It was because of villains that my dad died.
I could still try to figure a way to escape, I thought to myself, trailing my finger around the rim of the glass. I could feel Dabi’s gaze on me, studying me and my reactions for an inclination as to what I was thinking.
By lending my abilities and strength to their cause, the League had something the Heroes wouldn’t. The same way I could hold my own against the likes of Dabi and Toga, it would be the same against heroes like Endeavor and a good amount of the UA students. Of course, I’d be susceptible to the same limitations should I come up against someone like that UA teacher, Shouta Aizawa, or a hero who was more combat based than quirk focused.
If I didn’t fight with the League however, they’d kill me without hesitation. I was shocked Dabi was even giving me a chance to decide to be honest.
Still, even if I chose death, it wasn’t just my life on the line.
I thought of my neighbour, Mrs Nomura, my colleagues at work, and all the people I walked past each day without even thinking about them. I’d be more useful to them alive and keeping the League close, than deciding to choose the opposite team and losing any chance I had to try to bring the League down from the inside.
I know what I need to do.
I ended up downing the rest of my drink, needing the liquid courage. Once the remains of the blue drink was gone, I placed the empty glass back down on the bar before looking up at Dabi where I met his azure coloured eyes.
“I’ll fight with you,” I told him firmly, sealing my fate. He didn’t try to hide the grin that crept across his scarred features.

Dabi returned with me back to his room, this time sitting on the bed and making no move to leave like he had during the last week.
“Well, now I don’t need a new recruit I can go back to keeping an eye on you,” he informed me, kicking his slippers off and lying properly on the bed. I was still stood by the closed door looking at him, not used to having him being in the room again with me. I also couldn’t help but find myself thinking of the last time we were both properly in here, when he almost burned and choked me to death.
I was snapped from my thoughts by a knock at our door.
I opened it to find someone I didn’t recognise on the other side.
They were tall, taller than me only by a few inches, with a short straight green bob that was cut at an angle. Their eyes were fully white, standing out against their dark skin tone from behind their hair. As far as I knew they weren’t a known member of the league to my knowledge, nor were they a standalone villain I’d seen before. Were they one of Spinner’s recruits?
In the palm of their hand was a silver ring with a bright blue rim running around it.
“This is for Dabi,” they informed me, their voice soft. They went to hand the ring to me, but at the mention of his own name, Dabi was on his feet and standing right behind me, leaning over my shoulder to look down at the person in front of us.
“Thanks Tora,” he said, reaching over me to take the ring from their palm. His scarred skin brushed against my shoulder as he did, his body temperature increasingly warm as always and leaving a lingering sensation on my skin. “Fast work, as always. You and Spinner have my thanks.”
With that, Tora nodded and walked away, Dabi closing the door behind them and going back to sit on the bed.
So they were one of Spinner’s recruits- I wondered if they were the one who created the illusion when I first came here.
“No, that’s Kenzo’s quirk,” Dabi said, interrupting my thoughts after having seen the clearly perplexed look on my face. “Tora is their sibling, and their quirk involves control over items. Come look at this.”
Nodding, I took half of a deep breath and approached him. I sat down in the space beside him and the edge of the bed, where he was looking down at the ring in his palm. He put his other hand out, gesturing for mine.
Confused, I gave him my right hand where he slipped the ring onto my ring finger. I looked back up at him when I saw it ran a little big, but he was still looking down at the ring. I followed his gaze, where before my eyes I watched the ring begin to shrink until it fit perfectly.
I gasped, bewildered at what I’d just seen, until I saw the blue line around the ring begin to pulsate, as if in the rhythm of a heartbeat.
My stomach dropped.
“It’s linked to my heartbeat,” Dabi announced. I looked from the pulsating ring to him, then back to the ring again, knowing I probably looked a mixture of confused as well as dread. “That ring is conditioned to my lifeline. If my heart stops, the wearer of the ring’s heart will also stop,” he finished, watching my features scrunch up as it dawned on me exactly what he was telling me.
Immediately I went to remove the ring, but it wouldn’t budge, as if my finger had swollen up when moments ago it had slid on effortlessly.
Dabi smirked. “Only I can remove it, as I’m the person it’s linked to.”
Ignoring him, I tried to pull it off again, panicking. Dabi and his flames were constantly on their own suicide mission when it came to his family, and I was determined not to become a casualty of their drama.
“It’s an insurance to make sure you don’t try to get me killed when we’re out fighting,” he told me, lying down again. “If I die, you die. The others know where to find your neighbour and her cat, and won’t hesitate to end them if you let me die.”
A shiver ran up my spine.
“So now, you can’t even kill me to escape,” He laughed, the vibrations reaching me through the bed.
He really had thought of everything in order to keep me on their side.
I stood up, twisting the ring on my finger as I got used to its new placement. Whilst the function behind it was enough to cause anyone to stress out, I was focused more on the unusual sensation of having something like this on me with no way to remove it. I’d never been a jewellery person, always finding such accessories tedious and always likely to get in the way. I’d had a ring of my mother’s when I was a child, one that had been passed down through her family, but had lost it just a few months before my dad was killed. The ring had been a bit too big for me so I always wore it on my thumb, but it must have slipped off without me realising.
I looked down on the ring Dabi had put on my finger. Least with such a condition on the ring, I wasn’t at risk of it slipping off and getting lost.
“Fine, I’ll stop trying to escape,” I huffed, wrapping my arms around myself. The unfamiliar ring was still causing a foreign feeling on my finger, but hopefully I’d be able to ignore it’s presence. “Not that I’d made any progress with it anyway, I couldn’t find out anything other than that we’re in a forest, and even then, I don’t know if that’s real or just another illusion.”
Dabi smirked, running his fingers through his hair. “Yeah, Kenzo’s good at what she does. Those siblings are a force to beware of, I would not want to get on their bad side.”
I nodded, not really paying attention. Finally, it was sinking in that this was going to be my new life, that no matter the path, Dabi had made it a dead end. Even if I failed at trying to take the League down from the inside, I couldn’t risk Mrs Nomura being killed for nothing; I wouldn’t do it.
I wouldn’t have another person die because of me.
“Well, we should probably get some sleep for tomorrow,” Dabi announced, pushing himself off of the bed and heading to the bathroom. He left the door open as he grabbed a toothbrush from the cabinet, turned on the tap, and began to brush his teeth.
Wait.
We?
I walked over to the bathroom and stood in the doorway; arms crossed over my chest.
“What do you mean ‘we’?” I asked just as he spat into the sink. “And what’s happening tomorrow?”
“We, meaning this is my- sorry, our bedroom, and we need to go to sleep.” He wiped his mouth on his face towel and tossed it into the dirty laundry basket, which I saw was now filled with not only my washing, but seemingly Dabi’s too. From the pile it must have been the entire week’s worth. Where the hell had he been all week?
“Tomorrow, we’re training. Oh, and I sleep on the right side of the bed.”

Twenty minutes later, I was still refusing to get into bed with the blue flame wielding villain.
“C’mon,” Dabi chuckled, lifting the covers up for me to get under them. He was currently lying on the right side, his side, dressed in nothing but his grey sweatpants which were hanging suspiciously low on his hips. I averted my gaze.
As much as I was horrified at the prospect of sharing a bed with him, a murderous villain, I was guilty of admiring his physique. Hawks had some rivalry when it came to the looks department, it seemed. “I won’t bite, I promise.”
In the time he’d spent assuring me all we’d be doing was sleeping, I’d gotten myself ready for bed also, having washed my face, brushed my teeth, and changed into my pyjamas which consisted of an oversized band t-shirt and some bashfully short sleep shorts. Such a sleep attire had been fine over the last week when I’d had the room and bed all to myself, but now with him invading the space I’d been confined to, I didn’t feel all too comfortable.
“I’ll sleep on the sofa,” I told him, lying down on the small couch in a fetal position, my legs hugged beneath my butt from how little space there was to stretch out.
Dabi rolled his eyes and got out of bed, looking down at me from where he stood.
“If you think I’m going to allow you to make mistakes tomorrow because you ‘slept funny’, you’ve got another thing coming,” he sighed, leaning down and picking me up bridal style, earning a yell from me. He didn’t hesitate before throwing me onto the bed, making me yell out again, but this time from my ass hitting the bed so hard.
That was going to be sore tomorrow.
Before I’d even had a chance to try and get away, he was already on top of me, climbing over me to get to his side.
He paused for a moment when he was directly over me, trapping me between his arms and legs. Looking up at him, I couldn’t help but let out an intimidated squeak.
He smirked before dropping down beside me and pulling the covers up over us both. Still in shock, I almost didn’t hear him asking me to turn the bedside table lamp off.
Once we were in pure darkness, I was suddenly on high alert.
There I was, in a building I didn’t know the location of, sharing a double bed with one of Japan’s- no, the world’s most wanted villains. There was no way he was expecting me to just fall asleep, not when I could feel the heat radiating off of him as he lay less than a foot away from me. The sound of his breath was even, but did that mean he was already sleep, or was he trying to lull me into a sense of false security and strike when I was vulnerable? I looked from the ceiling over to him, noting he had his arm over his eyes whilst lying on his back. We were so close our shoulders were less than an inch from touching.
I fisted the cover more, pulling it right up under my chin as if that would stop the being beside me trying anything.
“Y’know, if you’re struggling to fall asleep,” Dabi spoke, interrupting my panicking thoughts and breaking the silence. “I’ve got some fun bedroom activities that will definitely tire you out.”
Why couldn’t I have slept in Toga’s room?
With a huff I turned on my side away from him in response, earning a chuckle from him as he too turned away from me.
This was going to be a long night.

Chapter Text

I struggled to not fall asleep in my cereal the following morning.
Dabi sat opposite me at the kitchen island munching happily away at his toast, whilst I was barely able to keep my eyes open. I sat dazed, looking at my hand holding my spoon of cereal part way between my mouth and the bowl, unsure of which way the spoon should be moving.
“Tired, are we?” he mused, taking another bite of toast as he watched me struggle.
Regardless of Dabi being a villain or not, I had indeed tried to get some sleep after checking at least 5 times that he had actually drifted off.
The only issue with that was that he was a living furnace and had made the bed so warm that it was simply too hot to sleep. I’d ended up tossing and turning all night, throwing the covers off from being too hot but then covering back up when the room air was too cold, and repeating the process until Toga knocked chirpily at the bedroom door telling us she was going for breakfast.
He should have just let me try to sleep on the sofa.
“Ren looks sleepy,” Toga commented, sitting beside me with a plate full of pancakes topped with strawberry sauce, fresh strawberries and squirty cream. “What were you two doing last night for her to be this tired?”
I gasped and looked at her in horror with what she was implying, but she only giggled and took a bite of her food, waving the fork around triumphantly. “I’ve finally perfected the sauce,” she announced, immediately cutting me a piece of pancake covered in sauce and offering it to me.
Exhausted, I thought nothing of it and went to accept the mouthful, until Dabi reached over and covered my mouth with his hand, shaking his head at me.
“That’s not strawberry sauce,” he told me, looking at me with an expecting look.
Realisation dawned on me as I retched at the thought of almost having consumed something or someone else’s blood without my knowledge.
Toga pouted, complaining Dabi had ruined her fun, whilst I stared down at my bowl of fruity flavoured corn shapes in horror.
I no longer had the appetite for my cereal anymore.
At that moment, Tora and another person walked into the kitchen, both clad in full black clothing, Spinner not far behind them. I knew instantly that the person with them was Tora’s sister, Kenzo, the illusion quirk weilder; She had the same full white eyes like her sibling, again, standing out against her dark skin tone.
Unlike Tora, she was shorter, shorter than Toga by about half a foot, with a long curly purple hair that hung around her waist in wisps. It was undeniable that the two of them were gorgeous, in an almost etheral way.
They both helped themselves to the bowl of fruit in the corner of the kitchen which I was surprised was even stocked, and sat at the end of the kitchen island, a seat in between them and both Dabi and I.
Spinner went straight to the coffee machine, pouring himself a cup as he stood looking at some gaming device in his hand.
“I don’t believe we’ve been properly introduced,” Kenzo said looking at me. It was hard to tell exactly where she was looking since she didn’t have pupils or irises, however she turned her head in my direction and half smiled. “My name is Kenzo, you met my sibling Tora, last night.”
Tora nodded at this.
“I’m Ren,” I greeted, staring at them both with a sleepy gaze. Had I had more energy, I’d have tried to make more of an effort, but simply being awake was using up all my energy. I held up the hand and flashed the ring Dabi had locked onto my finger the previous night. “I’m Dabi’s hostage.”
Dabi growled, peering over at me from across the counter as Toga giggled. The siblings also stifled a small laugh each. I rolled my eyes at him, but couldn’t stop the small smile tugging at my lips.
Triumphant, I got up to pour myself a coffee, bringing the cup of murky brown hot liquid to my mouth and allowing the caffeine to work its way into my system. I took another sip as Dabi chuckled.
“Give it a week of us actually sharing the room and trust me,” he grinned, finishing the last bite of his toast. “You’ll be begging me to tie you up.”
The mouthful of coffee I had in my mouth was immediately spat out, unable to believe what I was hearing, as both siblings burst out laughing. Spinner couldn’t help but blush and look embarrassed, whilst Toga, bless her, looked very confused.
“I don’t get it,” she whined, pouting again and looking at the rest of us for answers.
Would I be able to eat or drink anything this morning without someone ruining it for me?
I threw Dabi an unimpressed look as I grabbed the kitchen towel and began cleaning the coffee I’d spat out. As if I’d ever beg him for anything like that.
He’d be lucky to get me in such a position!
And who said I’d be the one tied up?
Spinner cleared his throat as he adjusted his headband around his pink hair. He looked from Dabi to me as I put the towel on the kitchen counter.
“The plan is to see exactly what you do and don’t know with short and long range combat,” he explained. “We know you have a good grasp on your quirk, and we’ll focus on maximising it too, but I want to know if you can hold your own without it first.”
I nodded, picking up my cup of coffee to warm my hands. “It has been a while since I properly trained,” I started, looking down at the lukewarm brown liquid in the cup. “I left the Commission more than a few years ago now, and haven’t had to fight at all until I had to fight against you all.”
Spinner didn’t react, instead listening as he waited for me to elaborate.
Sighing, I continued. “Okay fine, I did continue with some combat classes that are available to the public, simply because I preferred those to the gym when wanting to stay fit.”
“We can work with that,” Spinner interjected, lifting himself away from the counter he’d been learning on and making his way to the kitchen doorway. He looked back over his shoulder at myself and Dabi as the siblings got up to follow him. “Meet me in the hall in an hour and we can test exactly what you know.”

I screamed as I crashed into the beam behind me, the pain shooting up my spine upon impact as I slumped to the ground. My vision was hazy enough that for a moment, it looked like there were two Spinners in front of me instead of the one who’d just thrown me across the room.
“Despite your agility and strength,” Spinner started, walking over to me before offering his hand for me to take. Reluctantly I reached out and took it, him pulling me to my feet whilst I unsteadily regained my balance. “You’re uncoordinated unlike before, why?”
I shot a daggered look at Dabi, who’d been gone for most of the day I’d spent training with Spinner, only to have returned an hour or so ago and was leaning against the wall in the corner watching us. I’d managed to push through my tiredness the entire day, and hold out for the last two hours as things started to become harder to predict and follow. Yet slowly my concentration and focus had started to falter until I felt like my thoughts were chasing after my actions, instead of the other way around.
Spinner caught my glare and rolled his eyes and called it a day. He growled at Dabi.
“Not all of us are mad enough to be able to function without basic necessities like sleep,” Spinner told him as he headed towards the door. “Figure out a way she can actually get some sleep, otherwise she’s just gonna get herself killed before we even make it to the battle field.”
With that, he walked out and slammed the door behind him.
Dabi chuckled and made his way over to me where I was mopping up the sweat on my forehead with my towel. He’d chosen to opt for comfier clothing today, going for dark sweatpants and a burgundy pull-over hoodie with a black rose on the front. After having seen so much media coverage, posters and photos in publications of him in his long coat ‘villain attire’, it was still taking some time getting used to seeing him in casual clothes. If it hadn’t been for the scars, I’d have probably thought he was a normal guy in his twenties having a chill day.
He stretched his arms over his head, the hoodie rising up enough to reveal the hem of his sweatpants and the v-line they hung off of, and yawned.
I shot him a ‘really’ look. “What are you tired over?” I shot at him, dropping to the ground and crossing my legs.
My clothing was a little less covering that Dabi’s, having gone for cycling shorts and a vest top to prevent overheating. I could already see the tinge of yellow and brown seeping into areas of my skin where bruises were sure to form from today’s intense sparring.
Dabi dropped down beside me, then lay down flat with his hands behind his head.
“Watching people work out can be tiring!” He defended himself half heartedly, snickering. “Plus, I don’t think I got my full 8 hours beauty sleep, it was a bit warm last nig-”
I grinned as my sweaty towel hit him square in the face.
Dabi growled before setting it on fire, watching it burn into nothing in his palms.
“For a hostage, you’re quite balsy with how you act with me,” he remarked. “You wouldn’t think you were scared of me.”
I scoffed. “And that, Patchwork, is where you are incredibly wrong,” I laughed, stretching my legs out in front of me.
Dabi frowned. “Patchwork?”
I ignored him, rubbing my hands up and down my shins to ease the soreness that was seeping into my muscles. “Sure, your fire can be scary, especially facing it when defenceless. But scared of you? You’re funny.”
Dabi looked up at me with a quizzical look. “So you aren’t scared of me?”
I shook my head, not noticing the unsure frown that had settled on Dabi’s face from my response.
This room was what appeared to be some sort of prayer hall in its former usage, but I assumed the League had gutted it when they took it over. Arched windows that were too high to look out of still allowed enough light in to show the sun had begun to dip below the horizon, casting long shadows across the room.
The floor was covered in worn out and discoloured padded sparring mats, overlapping where thick marble pillars stood from the floor to the ceiling of the room, their shine dulled by layers of dust no one had bothered to clean before using the room for training.
I wiped the sweat from my brow, my muscles aching from hours of relentless practice. I glanced over at Dabi, who was lying similar to how he had the previous night, his eyes now covered with his arm. Even in the dim light, I could see the soft inhale and exhale of his chest.
I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts. I couldn't afford to get flustered by him again, not after how this session had me beat like this.
I began to get up, but Dabi’s voice stopped her.
"Leaving so soon, Ren?" he called, his tone laced with amusement. He was half sat up, eyes uncovered as he looked at me on my knees.
I forced a smirk and rolled my eyes as I got to my feet. "Some of us need rest, Dabi. You heard Spinner."
He chuckled, but followed me regardless. "Or maybe you’re just eager to get back into bed with me."
I rolled my eyes. "In your dreams."
We fell into step together, walking back towards our room. The air around the compound, which is what I’d started calling it given the amount of rooms it had were endless, was cool, and I felt a gentle breeze hit my arm as we turned the corner to the corridor that lead to our room. We walked in silence, not uneasy or hostile, but instead comfortable.
For a moment, it was easy to forget he was a murderer and mad villain.
"You're impressive, you know," Dabi said after a pause. "As tired as you are, you’re a strong opponent."
I glanced at him, surprised by the genuine compliment.
"Thanks," I replied, my voice softer than I intended. "Spinner is a good sparring partner."
Dabi chuckled, the sound warm and unexpectedly pleasant. "Don’t let him hear you say that, it’ll go to his head. His hair is big enough."
We walked in companionable silence to the room, the tension between them a familiar yet strangely comfortable presence. I found myself relaxed by the time we got to our room, the usual edge of animosity dulled by the camaraderie of shared exhaustion, even though I didn’t know what Dabi had been doing before he joined us.
"Do you ever miss it?" I found myself asking him suddenly as I pushed open the door to our bedroom, the question surprising myself as much as him. "Y’know, before the war, the League, back when it was you on your own?"
Dabi looked at me, his expression thoughtful as he followed me into the room.
"Sometimes," he admitted, taking a seat on the sofa and kicking his feet over the arm. "But I’ve learned to live in the present. What about you? Do you miss being in the Commission?"
I sighed, perching at the edge of the bed, my gaze distant. "I miss the simplicity. When things were clear, I was told where to go and what to do, and I knew who I was fighting for."
Dabi nodded, his eyes softening. "It's never that simple, is it?"
"No," I agreed quietly. "It's not."

We reached that comfortable silence again, but neither of us seemed in a hurry to break it. The night was peaceful, no sounds coming from beyond or room, voices trailing down the hallway or sounds from beyond the walls of the compound. I stole a glance at him, noticing the way his un-styled white hair flopped over his eyes, causing light shadows to soften the hard contrast on his face that his scars caused.
"Why do you do it?" I asked, the question slipping out before I could stop it. "Fight so hard, I mean. What drives you? Is it just the hatred for your family, and for hero society?”
Dabi met my gaze, his eyes piercing yet open.
"I could ask you the same thing. You might not have had my family, but we were both pushed by people we were supposed to trust into weapons they could use. Most people wouldn’t have stuck it out and endured the cards you’ve been dealt like you have."
I hesitated, then shrugged. Dabi had a point.
"I guess... I fight because I have to. Because if I don’t, the very few things I have left to care about could be lost."
I looked down to my lap, where I’d unknowingly restarted an old bad habit of picking the skin around my fingernails whenever I got anxious. Whilst I hadn’t done enough to draw blood, the skin on my thumb around the nail was looking red and tender. I wrapped my arms around myself before Dabi could notice, lying back on the bed, the pillow soft against my heavy head.
Dabi nodded slowly. "Same here. Maybe we're not so different after all."
His words prompted a strange flutter in my chest, a flicker of connection that both unsettled and intrigued me. Dabi had something he cared about? This entire time, I’d thought the only thing driving him had been the hatred for his family. Even Dabi looked shocked he’d said what he had, frowning at nothing in particular.
For a brief moment, I forgot the kidnapping and being held hostage, the fights, the destruction, the bloodshed. There was just Dabi, Touya Todoroki, lying across from me in our shared bedroom on the sofa, sharing a rare, honest moment.
There was something in my gut that forced me to break the silence.
I shook my head, forcing a laugh. "Don't get too comfortable. Tomorrow, once I’ve had a decent night’s sleep, I'll be back to kicking all of your asses."
Dabi grinned, a spark of mischief in his eyes. "I wouldn't have it any other way."
I couldn't help but smile to myself, a warmth lingering that I couldn’t quite dismiss. I hated him. I had to. But in that fleeting moment, it was almost easy to forget why.

I’d drifted off not long after our conversation, the need to rest taking me before I could even get changed out of my workout clothes. Had it not been for welcomed aroma of delicious food, I’d have probably slept through til morning. The smells caused me to stir, but the sounds of slurping and chewing pulled me from the realm of sleep.
“Wakey wakey,” Someone chucked, piercing blue eyes being the first thing I saw when I groggily opened my eyes. I’d not been woken up to food since I was a kid, my dad always waking me from a nap with my favourite ramen whenever he’d been home after I’d tired myself out from playing.
I couldn’t supress the yawn that took over, forcing me to stretch out as I tried to remember where I was.
When my vision cleared, everything about my situation washed over my memory instantly. I couldn’t help feeling a bit heavy, the memory of my father fading into exactly that, a memory.
Dabi was where he’d been before I fell asleep, on the sofa, yet now he was sitting up with a steaming bowl of ramen in his large scarred hands. I couldn’t help but notice a second bowl on the bedside table next to wear I was sleeping.
He had a mischievous grin on his face, yet nodded towards it, signalling for me to tuck in.
"I couldn't sleep," he said by way of explanation, holding his bowl close to his mouth as he slurped a spoonful of broth. "Thought you might be hungry."
I rubbed my eyes and let out a sigh. The simple digital clock by my bowl of ramen flashed the numbers ’00:46’.
"It's the middle of the night, Dabi."
"Exactly," he replied, taking another spoonful of broth. "Perfect time for a midnight snack. Plus, you’ve not eaten since breakfast."
My irritation at being woken up faded as the aroma of the ramen continued to overwhelm my senses. As if on queue, my stomach growled, reminding me that even at breakfast, I’d hardly eaten. I got up and then plopped down beside him on the sofa, leaning over and grabbing my bowl.
We ate in silence for a few minutes, the only sounds the slurping of noodles and the occasional clink of chopsticks or a broth spoon against the bowl. I found myself relaxing, the warm food and the unexpected company soothing me more than I cared to admit.
"This is good," I said between bites, glancing up at him.
Dabi smiled, a soft, genuine smile. "Glad you like it. I made the broth, and Toga and Compress sorted out the veggies and meat."
Who knew the League of Villains could make delicious ramen. Had things worked out differently, maybe they could have been the League of Ramen.
For a moment, it was easy to forget about their complicated history, the countless crimes and destruction they’d left in their wake. I didn’t want to admit it, but I’d enjoyed my week spending time with Toga, and even today, the time with Dabi had been a welcomed change of pace to our established pattern of arguing, threats and almost violence. Here I was, sitting with Dabi, just two people sharing a meal in the middle of the night. Of course, my curiosity got the better of me.
"Why do you do it, Dabi?" I asked, her voice thoughtful. "Why the mind games? One minute we're at each other's throats, the next you're bringing me ramen."
Dabi paused eating, and looked at me, his expression unreadable. "Maybe I’m bored of our current routine. Maybe I like the challenge. Maybe I like keeping you on your toes."
I rolled my eyes, but there was a hint of a smile on my lips. "You’re infuriating, you know that?"

Dabi leaned closer, his gaze locking onto mine with that familiar intensity that made my pulse quicken. "Gotta make sure I keep you scared of me.”
I felt a flush rising in my cheeks and quickly looked away, focusing on the ramen. "I told you, I’m not scared of you Dabi."
He chuckled, the sound low and rich, sending a shiver down my spine. "You sure you’re not scared of me?”
Despite the sofa being small, he was closer to me than he’d been moments before. I shook my head, trying to ignore the fluttering in my chest, and got to my feet to put the ramen on the desk. I needed a break, a moment to regulate my thoughts. "Don’t flatter yourself."
I should have known he was testing me when I felt him stood close behind me, his breath on the back of my neck, his bowl beside mine on the desk.
Before I could react, I was pushed onto the bed with Dabi following right after. We both fell onto the soft matress, my head hitting the pillow with a soft thud. The sudden movement had me spun, and for a moment, everything blurred.
When my vision cleared, I found myself pinned beneath him, Dabi’s weight pressing me into the bed, his knees on other side of my thighs and hands on either side of my head as he loomed over me. Dabi’s face hovered inches above mine, his breath hot against my cheek.
My heart was pounding in my chest, a mix of fear and something else I didn’t want to name.
I was trapped between his body and the bed.
Flashes from the previous night flicked in my mind from when he’d climbed over me, and now here I found myself, under him again in bed in less than 24 hours.
He grinned down at me with a smug look. His eyes locked with mine with an intensity that sent shivers down my spine. His smirk was infuriating, the confidence in his movement infuriatingly sexy.
Sexy? When had I ever thought of Dabi as sexy? What?
It was late, and I’d not slept enough, that was it.
No way was I going to even dare to acknowledge that.
“Look at the little trapped mouse, scared now?” he toyed. His breath fanned my cheek with each word, and I couldn’t deny that it didn’t smell like smoke as I thought it would. "Admit it Ren," he murmured, his voice low and dangerous. His eyes roamed over my face, pausing for a moment to linger on my lips before finding my eyes again. "I scare you, and you hate it."
I felt a flush spreading across my cheeks that had nothing to do with heat of the food. In that moment, any fear I’d had was replaced with how much I hated how he made me feel in that moment, specifically hating the way my pulse quickened under his gaze.
Yet despite wanting to, I couldn’t look away, trapped by the storm in his eyes.
"Get off me," I spat, struggling against him. I tried to free my arms, but the movement only seemed to bring us closer, his body pressing more firmly against mine. The heat of him, the strength in his muscles, it was maddening.
Dabi chuckled, a dark, rich sound that sent a shiver through me. "Tell me you don’t enjoy having someone like me this close to you, Ren."
This caused my anger to flare, mingling with my fear. "Don’t flatter yourself, Staples."
Dabi’s smile widened, a predatory gleam in his eyes as the staples around his mouth pulled at the burnt skin.
Dabi leaned in, his lips brushing against my ear despite my protest as he whispered, "Deny it all you want, but I can feel your heart racing. I can feel you trembling beneath me."
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to block out the tumult of emotions threatening to drown me whilst trapped beneath him. I needed someone to interrupt this scene, stop him taunting me like this, to cut the tense atmosphere and get me out of my current predicament.
I needed to focus, needed to find a way out of this, but with every second that passed, I felt myself slipping further, the line between hate, fear, and desire blurring until I was struggling to tell one from the other.
Dabi chuckled, evidently aware of the war my mind was having with itself. He reached his hand to my chin,
tilting my face up to meet his gaze once more. "I’ll make you admit it, Ren. This isn’t over, not by a long shot."
With a final, lingering look, Dabi pushed himself off of me and stood, before heading for the bedroom door. I watched him walk away, leaving me lying on the bed, breathless and confused.
Then, just as quickly as the atmosphere between us had changed, he was gone, and I was alone in the room.
I let go of a breath I didn’t realise I was holding.
“What the fuck…” I breathed, running a hand through my hair to calm myself down. “What the fuck just happened?”
Despite the tense and life-threatening situations, I’d found myself in recently, for the first time in a long while, I felt truly afraid. Not of Dabi, but of whatever the game he was playing had stirred in me.

Chapter Text

Dabi didn’t come back that night, or the night after that, and in fact, I didn’t see him for the rest of that week. However unlike when I’d spent my time with Toga, Dabi didn’t come back for clothes or to use the shower.
I couldn’t lie, I was thankful. Given the extent of my bruises and soreness from my first training with Spinner, if Dabi had stayed I’d probably have gotten no sleep.
Because of his body temperature keeping me awake, of course. Yeah. The heat.
I’d asked Spinner about Dabi’s whereabouts the next morning, bringing the two-half eaten, cold ramen bowls to the kitchen to wash up. Spinner had shrugged, keeping his response as short as possible and simply telling me he was ‘out’.
Wow, so helpful.
Where was he this time? Had he left because of me, because of what happened?
Why?
I still hadn’t been able to make sense of what had happened between Dabi and I that night. How had it gone from calm and almost comfortable, to a territory I’d never expected to find myself in with a villain, let alone a villain like him?
I closed my eyes, the memory of his gaze lingering like a ghost whenever I found myself remembering his breath on my cheek, haunting me. What did it mean? How could I feel such an intense pull towards someone I was supposed to despise? My mind was a whirlpool of conflicting emotions—anger, confusion, and as much as I hated to admit it, a reluctant, unbidden attraction that I couldn’t deny.
I was supposed to hate Dabi. Before we’d met, he was a murderer, a violent villain that lacked any sort of conscience and would do anything to achieve his goal of hurting Endeavour. Even after meeting Dabi, I still hated his arrogance, his manipulative tactics, and the way he always seemed to get under my skin.
Still, I couldn’t deny the bubble of chemistry that had flared between us when he had me pinned down on our bed.
After my second sparring session with Spinner, which had gone a whole lot better as I’d actually slept, I spent all evening trying to make sense of it all. I’d trained for most of my life to be strong, to be focused and unyielding. Emotions were a weakness, a distraction that I’d never allowed myself to have. Yet here I was, my thoughts consumed by the one person I was determined to get away from, to stop, to try to defeat.
Why had he left me lying there? Why had he walked away when he could have struck, could have taken advantage of my momentary vulnerability? And why, despite everything, had I felt a pang of regret as he disappeared from view?
The questions circled in my mind, unanswered and persistent. I should hate him, yet here I was, drawn to him. The very idea was maddening, a crack in the armour of my resolve to try to take the League down from the inside. Dabi was dangerous, not just as an enemy or villain, but as a temptation, a challenge to everything I’d been brought up and trained to believe.
I’d known when I accepted Dabi’s offer to become part of the League that deep down it wasn’t going to be easy, especially with my ulterior motives. I’d taken to Toga, more than I thought I would. She was just a girl, a lonely teenager who was desperate for friends to just be young with. She was someone who’d been pushed the point of accepting she was an outcast, and then being further ostracised because of it. All she wanted was friends and love, but didn’t have the experience to know how to handle these things if and when they were given to her.
Surprisingly Spinner had started to grow on me. We’d spent all day, every day, training. He’d pushed me to my limits and then pushed further, but then each time I was able to keep up and perform to his expectations, he made sure to tell me how well I was doing and encourage me. He also didn’t shy away from providing useful criticism where needed, something my dad hadn’t done even when I’d asked, but also knew where I was struggling and didn’t punish me for it like the trainers at the Commission had. He would have made a brilliant combat teacher.
And then there was Dabi.
He was a sarcastic, manipulative, moody asshole.
He was also kind of charming, and knew how to tease you enough to push buttons without you being too angry at him.
He also had eyes I found myself easily able to get lost in.
Dabi was more than just an enemy now—he was a puzzle, a question I couldn’t answer yet, and a pull I didn’t quite know if I’d be able to resist the next time I had to face it’s force.
I had always been sure of my path, clear in my purpose to stay out of the conflict between heroes and villains, to keep to myself. Yet now, with Dabi’s shadow and smoke lingering in my thoughts, the road ahead seemed uncertain, filled with unexpected twists and dangerous turns.

And as much as I tried to ignore it, a part of me couldn’t help but wonder what the next encounter with Dabi would bring.
Come day six without Dabi, I woke with a smile on my face, as well rested as I could be, and surprisingly ready for the day. Sure, the bruises from my first session were still covering a good portion of my arms and legs, but they’d faded considerably.
After grabbing a light breakfast and getting changed, I headed to the Training Hall.
Since we were using it consistently, Spinner had tried to kit it out better to be a more appropriate space to train in. Rather than just a large, open space with high ceilings and a dusty wooden floor covered with worn training mats, he’d added in racks so weapons and training equipment could line the walls. There was now a pile of clean towels and a basket for used ones, as well as a pack of unopened bottles of water in the corner to save on trips back to the kitchen and keep focus. Whilst it was only small changes, it actually made the place have more of a sense of discipline and control.
Water bottle in hand, I arrived at the training hall with a smile on my face, only to find it empty.
Odd, I was sure Spinner had said—
I didn’t get to finish my thoughts because I was shoved forward into the floor, arms flailing as I tried to stop myself from hitting my face. I landed with a thump, the impact jarring my body and knocking the breath out of me. For a moment, I was stunned, my mind racing to catch up with what had just happened.
As I lay there, the padded mat cool against my cheek, I heard footsteps approaching. They were measured and deliberate, the sound of someone who had taken me by surprise and knew exactly what they were doing.
"Get up, Ren," a familiar voice commanded, firm but not unkind.
I rolled onto my back, wincing as I pushed myself up on my elbows to see who it was. There, standing over me with a faint smile, was Spinner. His tall frame loomed over me as his pink hair was silhouetted against the morning light, and his eyes glinted with a mix of amusement and challenge.
"Spinner," I muttered, finally catching my breath. "What the hell was that for?"
He extended a scaled hand to help me up, which I took, rising to my feet with his assistance.
"Consider it a lesson," he said, his smile widening into a grin. "You need to be ready for anything. Even here."
I brushed myself off, trying to shake off the lingering shock and the slight embarrassment.
"A little warning would have been nice."
Spinner chuckled, shaking his head. "Warnings are for amateurs. If you’re caught off guard, you’re vulnerable. And vulnerability can be dangerous." His tone shifted slightly, more serious now. "You should always be prepared, Ren. Always expect the unexpected."
I nodded, understanding the lesson he was trying to impart, even if I didn’t particularly appreciate the method.
"I get it," I said, rolling my shoulders to ease the tension from the fall. "So, what’s on the agenda for today?"
Spinner gestured to the centre of the training hall, where a series of thicker mats had been laid out.
"Today, we’re working on reflexes and situational awareness,” he told me. “Hand-to-hand combat, with a twist."
"A twist?" I echoed, raising an eyebrow.
Spinner nodded, moving to the side where a small wooden table held an assortment of blindfolds.
"You’ll be fighting blind," he explained, picking up a black cloth and tossing it to me. "Relying on your other senses, your instincts."
I caught the blindfold and stared at it for a moment, a mix of curiosity and apprehension bubbling up inside me. Fighting blind was something we had talked about but rarely practiced. It was a true test of one's abilities to perceive and react without the crutch of sight. He knew I’d dabbled in it during my time with the Commission, but it had been so long since I’d had to rely on my other senses like this, especially without using my quirk.
"Alright," I said, steeling myself. "Let’s do this."
I tied the blindfold around my head, plunging myself into darkness. The world around me disappeared, replaced by the sounds and sensations I had often taken for granted. The creak of the floorboards under my feet, the rhythmic sound of Spinner’s breathing, the faint rhythmic sensation of my own heartbeat.
"Ready?" Spinner’s voice seemed louder now, more present in the darkness.
"Ready," I replied, spreading my stance slightly and raising my hands in a defensive posture.
"Good," he said, and then there was silence.
For a few seconds, I stood there, straining to hear any indication of his movement. Then, without warning, I felt a rush of air to my left. I turned instinctively, raising my arm to block a strike that I couldn’t see but could almost feel in the space around me.
Spinner’s fist connected with my forearm, the impact reverberating through my arm. I shifted my weight, grounding myself as I pushed back against his attack. He was testing me, probing my defences, and I knew I had to stay alert.
He moved again, quicker this time, a blur of motion and energy. I focused on the subtle cues—the slight shift in the air, the faint sound of his feet on the mat. I dodged a punch aimed at my head, ducking low and sweeping my leg out in a counterattack.
Spinner jumped over my leg, landing with a soft thud a few feet away. "Good," he said, his voice steady. "But you need to be faster."
I didn’t have time to respond before he was on me again, his attacks coming in a rapid flurry. I blocked and parried, each movement guided by instinct and the teachings that had been drilled into me during all of those years training. My heart pounded in my chest, adrenaline surging through my veins as I fought to keep up with him.
"Feel the rhythm," Spinner instructed between strikes. "Anticipate the next move. Trust your instincts."
I nodded, though he couldn’t see it, and focused on finding that rhythm. The pattern of his attacks, the way he moved—there was a flow to it, a dance that I needed to sync with. I blocked another punch, my arm stinging from the force, and countered with a quick jab of my own, which he deflected effortlessly.
As the sparring continued, I began to lose track of time. Each movement, each block and strike, became part of a continuous flow. My senses sharpened, and I found myself reacting more naturally, more fluidly. I could almost see the fight in my mind, a dance of shadows and intent.
Spinner’s movements slowed, and he took a step back. "Enough," he said, his voice filled with approval. "You did well, Ren."
I pulled off the blindfold, blinking as the light flooded back into my vision. Spinner stood there, a satisfied smile on his face. The scales on his face shone with a sheet of sweat, his hair weighed down, and his breathing was slightly laboured, a testament to the intensity of our session.
"You’re improving," he said, handing me a towel. "Your instincts are getting sharper. Keep training like this, and you’ll be able to fight anyone without ever having to rely on your transformations."
I took the towel, wiping the sweat from my face and neck.
"Thanks," I replied, feeling a surge of pride and relief. "I’ll keep working on it."
Spinner nodded, his expression serious again.
“Remember, Ren, the key is to stay adaptable. We both know the world won’t always fight fair. You need to be ready for anything and everything."
I nodded, absorbing his words. "I understand. I’ll be ready."
I looked around the training hall, already filled with dim of late afternoon light and the echoes of our sparring session. My stomach growled, confirming we had been training for hours.
Despite the hunger, I felt a renewed sense of purpose. The lessons Spinner was teaching me, the challenges he set, were all preparing me for the uncertainties ahead, regardless of which side I was on.
With a final nod of thanks to Spinner, I gathered my things and headed for the door. Today had been a test, but also a step forward. And I was ready for whatever came next.