Chapter Text
Death. That is the one and only word he can describe what he is currently feeling. For years, Touya Todoroki has been nothing more than a living corpse, a biological anomaly whose body has continued to live despite organs no longer functioning like those of a living man.
He has desired it for a long time. The only thing that holding him back to this existence is a blackened, knotted rope of hatred, his obsession with his father, Endeavour.
How Touya yearned to be the one to bring him down. He wanted to stared dead in the eyes with the No. 1 Hero and tell him that he deserved every single of suffering Touya had endured for years.
He wanted to scream until his lungs burned, to throw his burned body at the man, and to force him to see every jagged scar he had carried for years. He wanted recognition. He wanted Endeavour's gaze to bore into his soul, not as a masterpiece or a failure, but as a consequence of his own actions.
But he was too late. The day he intended to strip the mask from his beloved father and expose him to the world was the day Dabi ceased to exist. He never got his grand reveal. He didn't got to see the horrific look on his father's face or the shock on his baby brother's expression.
As he was fleeing on top of Gigantomachia with the rest of the League, a stray Quirk struck him. The last thing he heard was Mr. Compress's desperate and frantic scream. When he finally opened his eyes, the world had changed. He was in a different location.
It was strange. Touya hadn't known anyone else possessed a teleportation Quirk with the range of Kurogiri's Warp Gate.
Touya stared out at the vast, open ocean. Distant seagull calls echoed hauntingly into Touya's ears as he gazed beyond the horizon of the endless ocean. He found himself puzzled as he listened to waves breaking the shoreline. His brow immediately furrowed into confusion, the air also felt different. This didn't look like Japan.
Where the hell was he?
Touya's gaze swept across the horizon, landing abruptly on a cluster of rustic buildings nestled in the distance. Even from this vantage point, it was undeniable that this was not Japan. The architecture, the atmosphere, the very scent of the air, it was all wrong.
A cold realisation settled in. He hadn't been moved by an accident. He had been exiled on purpose! Touya reasoned that this had to be the handiwork of the Heroes.
Someone had deliberately plucked him from the battlefield to isolate him from the League of Villains. But who possessed that kind of power?
His mind flickered to Hawks, but he quickly dismissed the thought. That damn bird had been mangled by his flames. There was no chance he could had made an elaborate plan like this after he barely while surviving injuries that Touya caused to him.
No matter whose responsible for this, Touya knew he couldn't remain silent. He did not have the luxury of being stagnant in this situation. He needed to find a way back to the League, and more importantly, he need to finish what he started.
His master plan remained incomplete. He still had to tear down the pedestal of the No. 1 Hero and expose Endeavour's sins to the entire nation.
Drawing a sharp, shuddering breath, Touya forced a hollow calm to settle over his nerves. Though his hands betrayed him, trembling with the violent friction of hatred and disbelief, Touya's resolve remained unyielding. He would not waver. Not when he was so close to seeing the world burn.
After what felt like an eternity of wandering through the silence of the unknown, he began his descent toward the distant village. Each step was a mechanical effort, his boots crunching against soil that felt alien beneath his feet.
He needed to find a way out of this godforsaken place, which was his only certainty. But first, he needed a lifeline. He needed a phone.
Fortunately, Touya had Skeptic's burner number drilled into his brain. All he needed was a phone to contact the man and demand the help that he so desperately required.
With his hands shoved deep into his pockets, Touya strolled with a deceptive, careless ease toward the settlement. His gaze, a cold and piercing turquoise, drifted upward, snagging on a piece of fabric snapping violently in the wind.
High above, a black flag fluttered against the sky.
He froze, his brow twitching in sheer disbelief. Was that... a skull? A Jolly Roger?
The sight was absurd, an anachronism that felt entirely out of place in the world of high-tech heroics he had left minutes ago.
Despite the bizarre surroundings, Touya continued his march toward the village. He watched as people went about their daily lives, though their attire struck him as strangely archaic, too far old-fashioned for the modern world he knew.
He wove through the streets, his eyes scanning the storefronts for a public phone that he could use.
Several bystanders glanced his way, but their reactions were muted. It was unnerving. Dabi was a high-profile, S-rank villain, a murderer, an arsonist, yet no one seemed to recognise the scarred man wandering casually through their town.
He began to wonder if this place was so isolated that they lacked even the most basic access to the news.
Whatever, it didn't matter.
It was better this way, if they stayed quiet and out of his path, he wouldn't have to burn them to death. He cared nothing for these citizens or their opinions on him.
His stride finally came to a halt in front of a rustic inn. A weathered, old-fashioned building with several posters plastered haphazardly across its exterior wall.
Touya squinted, his eyes narrowing as he leaned in to inspect them. They bore a striking resemblance to wanted posters, likely depicting the local petty criminals of this backwater town. With a dismissive shrug, he pushed the door open and stepped inside.
As he stepped inside, a heavy silence followed in his wake. Dozens of eyes drifted toward him, lingering on his scarred features for a few fleeting seconds before darting back to their business, not caring enough for his presence.
Touya approached the barstool, his silhouette cutting a jagged path through the dim light. Behind the counter, a bartender stood rhythmically wiping a bottle of wine with a tattered cloth.
The scene was a ghost of a memory. It reminded him of Kurogiri tending bar in the dim, smoky sanctuary of their old hideout, back when the League was more than just a collection of tragedies.
A sudden, sharp pang constricted his chest. He didn't understand why, but he did miss when the League....was still a League.
Touya quickly suppressed the unfamiliar emotions blooming in his chest. He had no time for sentimental angst. Nostalgia was a luxury for the living, and he was little more than a ghost. With a weary sigh, he sank onto a barstool, the wood creaking beneath his weight.
The bartender leaned forward, his movements practised and slow. "What can I get for you, sir?" he asked, his voice as raspy as sandpaper against stone.
"Water," Touya answered curtly, his voice a dry rasp.
The bartender shot him a brief, sceptical look, likely unused to people ordering something so mundane but he did anyway as he turned to fill a glass. Touya accepted it with a muttered word of thanks and downed the liquid greedily, the cool moisture soothing his parched, scarred throat.
The relief was momentary but profound. Between the brutal Gunga Mountain villa raid and the chaotic retreat atop Machia, his body was almost pushed far beyond its limits. This is all that damn bird's fault. And Twice... Twice had to die because of him, too. That absolute traitor.
Touya shifted his gaze back to the bartender, who had resumed his rhythmic, mindless task of polishing wine bottles.
"Do you have a phone I can use to call someone?" he asked, his tone deceptively casual. He was so damn lucky that the man showed not even a flicker of recognition.
The bartender paused mid-motion, the cloth stilled against the glass as he gave a slight nod.
"We have a Transponder Snail," the man rasped, setting the wine bottle back onto the shelf with a dull thud. He reached into a low cabinet, rummaging through the shadows.
"But the little guy's been shell-shocked and broken for weeks. Won't let out a peep." To his surprise, the bartender put down a huge snail in front of him.
Touya's eyebrows furrowed. What the actual fuck. Is he joking?
Snails? He was looking for a public phone or a burner phone, anything that he could use to contact the League. Not a biology lesson.
"I didn't ask for a pet," Touya spat, his voice dropping to a dangerous, low hiss that usually made even seasoned Pro Heroes flinch. "I asked for a phone. A communication device. Do you have one, or is this entire town as primitive as your fashion sense?"
The bartender stared at him as if he had suddenly sprouted a second head. The confusion in the man's eyes only made Touya's temper flare as his patience was already wearing dangerously thin.
He didn't have the luxury of time to waste in this confusing backward place.
He still had a grand reveal to orchestrate. He had a legacy to incinerate.
Most of all, he had a debt to collect from the man who had dared to discard him like he was a failure. The image of Endeavor's stoic, arrogant face flashed in his mind, fueling the cold fire in his gut.
"I'm not playing games," Touya hissed, his turquoise eyes glowing with a lethal intensity. "The device. How do I contact the outside world?"
"Look, I don't follow a word of what you're saying. But if you want to talk to someone, this is the only way to do it," the bartender said, his voice flat with confusion. He gestured toward the oversized, dormant snail resting on the counter.
Well, it does look like it has some numbers on it but still. Who uses a snail as a phone?
"You're joking," Touya hissed, his blue eyes narrowing. He wasn't going to believe this nonsense.
" Well, I'm not. " The bartender scowled before leaving Touya alone with the weird-looking snail phone.
Touya let out a heavy, weary sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose as he prepared to stand. He had no more patience for this absurdity. But just as he pushed back from his seat, the door burst open with a violent crash.
A group of thugs stormed into the inn, their faces twisted with aggression and heavy firearms gripped firmly in their hands. "Everyone freeze! Empty your pockets if you want to keep your lives!" one of the thugs roared, levelling his firearm at a trembling patron nearby.
What struck Touya as truly bizarre was the reaction or rather, the total lack of one. Those customers didn't scramble for cover or scream in terror. Instead, they remained seated, calmly sipping their wine as if the armed thugs were nothing more than a minor nuisance. Touya stared, his confusion deepening.
Did they know the Pro Heroes would come and save them? But that was impossible. Every Pro is now at Gunga Mountain and attacking and arresting the Paranormal Liberation Front. Every single one of them was there.
The bartender didn't even stop his work. He casually pulled a lever, pouring a frothing beer into a heavy mug.
"You've got a lot of nerve," the bartender remarked, his voice steady and unimpressed. "Storming in here and causing a scene in Whitebeard's territory... do you have a death wish?"
Touya's eyes narrowed. Whitebeard? The name sounded like the title of some ancient, legendary hero, yet it carried a weight that seemed to hold this entire village in a state of fearless security. He had never heard that name before.
"Whitebeard?" Touya muttered under his breath, his fingers twitching. A small, flickering spark of blue heat licked at his palm. SHIT, his emotions are almost getting over him.
You can't blame him. He was getting tired of names he didn't recognise and rules he didn't understand. Touya needs to control his emotions better.
The leader of the group stepped forward, his boots heavy against the floorboards as he pressed the cold barrel of his gun against the bartender's temple.
"You think we're stupid?" the thug sneered, a crooked grin spreading across his face. "Once we load the gold and paint these walls with your brains, we'll be gone without a trace. Not even the old man will be able to find us."
Touya felt his blood begin to simmer. He loathed this, he hated the way these intrusive emotions kept clawing at his chest, threatening to boil over. He didn't have the patience for a hero named Whitebeard to come and save the day.
All he wanted was the noise to stop.
Before the leader could pull the trigger, Touya moved. With the lethal speed of a predator, he lunged forward and seized the man's arm, his grip like a vice as he wrenched the gun away from the bartender.
"W-what the hell?! What do you think you're doing, you freak?!" the leader shrieked.
Up close, the thug's eyes practically bulged out of his head as he took in Touya's horrific appearance. The air around them suddenly grew heavy with the cloying, acrid scent of scorched flesh. He stared in terror at the jagged, purple skin held together by a crude surgical stapler, he looked like a walking corpse.
The rest of the thugs swung their weapons toward Touya, their fingers white-knuckled against the triggers. But they were far too slow.
Before a single shot could ring out, a brilliant, terrifying blue light erupted from Touya's palm. The air didn't just heat up, it screamed. A torrential wave of cobalt fire roared forward, engulfing the leader instantly.
The man's scream was short-lived, swallowed by the roar of a heat that reached thousands of degrees a flame far hotter than any natural fire. Soon the whole inn smells like burned flesh. The man's body had been charred to a crisp, his form unrecognisable before he collapsed onto the floorboards with a heavy, hollow thud.
Nonchalantly, Touya reached over to a nearby table and snatched a half-full bottle of wine. With a bored expression, he tilted the bottle, pouring the dark liquid over the smoking corpse. The wine hissed and bubbled as it hit the scorched remains, dousing the lingering blue embers and sending a plume of bitter steam into the air.
"A... a Devil Fruit user?" the bartender murmured, his voice trembling as the words barely escaped his lips. Touya heard him but he decided to ignore it.
Touya set the wine bottle back in its place with a dull thud. He turned his cold, predatory gaze toward the rest of the gang. They stood frozen, their faces pale and eyes wide with horror as they stared at the charred, smoking heap that had been their leader just seconds ago.
The air in the room was still thick with the smell of ozone and burnt copper.
Touya's staples pulled at his skin as he gave them a thin, mirthless smile. He looked like a demon masquerading in a man's skin, illuminated by the dying glow of his own azure heat.
"You're all staring," Touya noted, his voice smooth and terrifyingly calm. "Does that mean you want to join him, or are you going to get out of my sight before I decide this room needs more light?" All of them immediately scramble away from there.
"Who... who exactly are you?" the bartender stammered, his eyes glued to the charred floor as Touya turned on his heel.
Touya didn't bother looking back. The sheer frustration of this place was starting to outweigh his curiosity. He had come looking for a simple communication device or a satellite phone, a radio, anything, and instead he got a fucking snail.
"The name's Dabi," he tossed over his shoulder, the cold declaration hanging in the air like a threat.
Without another word, he walked out of the inn, his boots heavy against the wood as he stepped into the humid outside air.