His life had been in shambles long before that day, but it 's only when he wakes up in the hospital with nothing but a hazy recollection of how he got there that he truly realizes how irreparably broken it is. How systematically he 'd ruined it with his own two hands.

When he 's well enough to speak, he turns to the attendant next to him and asks after his sons.

He 's told, in gentle and even tones, that his eldest son is dead.

He listens numbly as a police officer is brought in, and the man tells him there 's not even a body left to bury. Not even ashes. He 's told the haunting sapphire flames that Touya wrought upon them could not even be considered flames, too strong and too powerful; the forensic teams refer to it as plasma. An alchemy so violent and corrosive there 's nothing left to be found. He 's told it's a miracle he 's even alive. He has a burn scar from where Touya slugged him with a fire wreathed fist, a slice across his neck to the bottom of his jaw, but otherwise he 's merely dehydrated and suffering from oxygen deprivation.

Horrified, he asks after Shouto.

Shouto is here in the hospital as well. He 's even less injured than Endeavor. Neither the office nor the nursing staff can tell him how exactly Shouto ended up there ' all they can say with certainty is that he was dropped off at the emergency care entrance, in the security system 's blindspot. Startled EMTs brought him in, but the only injuries Shouto carried were the ones Endeavor himself had given him during their training. He was exhausted, also dehydrated, and low on fluids, but otherwise perfectly unharmed. There are no answers as to how Shouto ended up there, in relatively good health, when he 'd been consumed in that same hellscape as Endeavor and Touya had been. The officer mentions something about a local vigilante in these parts that 's stirred up a ruckus with the local precinct in the last few years, a mysterious upstart with a teleportation-quirk who might have managed it. Endeavor hardly pays it any mind, too hollowed out from his own circumstances.

Touya was dead.

His eldest son was dead, and he 'd used his last words in this life to call Endeavor a disgrace and threaten him with patricide if he ever laid a hand on Shouto again.

The police write the whole thing off as a tragic accident.

There 's a short service for Touya, a small affair with only his family and the buddhist monks. Fuyumi and Natsuo are inconsolable, Shouto cries because they cry, and through it all Endeavor mostly ignores them and stares into the tiny photo of Touya placed on the mantle. That unsmiling boy in his school uniform is dead, and the police might call it an accident, but Endeavor knows the truth. Touya may have died in his own flames, but he did it to save his little brother from a life of misery under his father 's cruel hands.

Endeavor is the only one to blame.

//

FAMOUS LAST WORDS

//

A harried newscaster 's voice overlays among the low din of bullets being fired.

'This footage is from Paris just minutes ago, where we have confirmed sighting of an unknown man appearing out of thin air and launching a one-man siege against the French Humarise headquarters ' '

When Hawks glances away from the main screen to the other ones, he sees various international news stations all covering the same sudden turn of events. He immediately notices, however, that almost none of the locations in the footage appear to be the same. One of them has Dabi in a city that is recognizably Dubai; another has him blasting apart a gold-domed citadel in what looks to be somewhere in Europe; yet another has him walking through a hailstorm of gunfire ' and even explosives ' in what is unmistakably Shanghai. Hawks can 't make heads or tails of it.

'Is this all footage from today? ' Endeavor asks. Even he sounds a bit faint.

His aid hesitantly nods at him. 'From ' from the past hour, sir. '

On the main monitor, Dabi storms the ruptured church without even responding to the gunfire. The bullets themselves are stuck fast in an invisible barrier surrounding him ' a technique Hawks remembers Dabi referring to as Infinity. His pace is brisk but unhurried as he makes quick work of the remaining guards, and heads into the building proper. There 's no movement for a long moment, and no sound but for the heavy breathing of the cameraman and the frantic and distraught cries of nearby civilians. Then the remains of the cathedral shudder ominously. Before their eyes the structure implodes in on itself, dragged down into a massive crater as screams erupt in the air. The ensuing clouds of dust and dirt obscure most of the viewpoint, but Dabi 's starkly white hair gleams in the light as he seems to hover within the haze. And then he 's gone, winking out of view as if he 'd never been there at all.

'He can teleport? ' Endeavor says, voice high with disbelief.

Hawks shrugs. 'Unconfirmed. '

The flame hero rounds on him, incredulous. 'What about this is unconfirmed? We 're seeing it with our own eyes. '

Hawks stretches out his neck, wincing when he hears a pop by his ear. Man, he really needs to go to a chiropractor or something. 'Well, it 's hard to say for certain whether he 's the one teleporting or if someone

else

we don 't see is the one doing it, right? So it really can 't be confirmed. '

Actually Hawks is dead sure, with a hundred percent certainty, that Dabi can teleport. He even knows from personal experience that the man can teleport with other people. But allegedly there 's no way to know, and especially not from what 's been written on Dabi in official reports.

'Dabi always works alone, ' Endeavor returns, frowning.

'Also unconfirmed, ' Hawks says.

Endeavor scowls. 'This is absurd, ' he announces, crossing his arms. 'How can we know so little about someone with so much power? '

Because his powers are inexplicable and basically impossible,

Hawks thinks, with no small amount of exhaustion.

'He keeps things close to the chest, that guy. And there 's no public record of him ' or his quirk. ' Is what he says aloud instead.

His words seem to hit a mark he hadn 't intended to land on Endeavor. The larger man stiffens, hands balled at his sides. Then he jerks himself into action, turning to his employees.

'What exactly are we watching here? ' He demands of them.

'News footage from all over the world, ' his aid explains hastily. 'There 's been a bit of a delay with the time differences and the lag between live footage and the satellites ' but this is all from the last hour or so. '

'Why wasn 't I told of this immediately? '

'We weren 't aware, sir, ' the aid replies. 'Not until we were called by the government. They don 't believe Tokyo is on the list, but they want all the heroes in the area to be on alert anyway. '

So everyone knows about this,

Hawks realizes, rapidly processing the evolving situation, and all its far reaching consequences.

Theoretically speaking, Dabi should probably be considered one of the deadliest villains in the world. But since his presence has been mostly isolated to Japan, the WHA wouldn 't consider him a global threat like many of the international terrorists on Interpol 's most wanted are. He doubts that verdict will hold much longer; now that Dabi is showing up in cities all across the globe, he meets the WHA 's exact criteria for a global threat. In fact at this rate he 'll be at the top of their list.

'So there 's nothing to do about it but watch, ' Endeavor surmises, darkly.

His aid nods, wringing her hands together.

Endeavor looks like he wants to burst into flames at the response, and is only holding back out of deference to all the people around him. Hawks gets where the big guy is coming from ' no hero likes sitting around on the sidelines while there 's things that need to be done. But as none of them have the capability to teleport to all these foreign locations, there 's really nothing else they can do.

Hawks doesn 't know what exactly Dabi is up to right now, but he can piece together a rough estimation of what the aftermath of it is going to look like.

He was already a household name in Japan. Now he 's going to be top of mind for everyone on the planet. As the action dies down in Paris, one of the analysts switches the main feed over to New York, where helicopters capture footage of a building collapsing into a cloud of dust, a familiar scene of uniformed armed assailants massacred on the ground. Though it looks catastrophic from this viewpoint, Hawks can see how meticulously precise the damage truly is. The New York Humarise church was squeezed tight between two apartment buildings, neither of which were damaged in the attack. He remembers that night at the Kuat Shipyards ' that perfectly angular pillar of destruction rising into the night sky. Dabi 's powers may look haphazard and explosive, but the technique lying beneath it must rely on magnificently precise mathematics.

'There 's something inside those buildings he 's specifically after, ' Hawks muses aloud, crossing his arms.

Endeavor turns to look at him.

'He 's not bothering with the guards. And he 's not bringing anything with him nor taking anything with him when he leaves. Whatever he 's after, it 's already in those buildings, and it's not something he would risk carrying out. '

'Could he be searching for something in particular? And when he doesn 't find it, he blows up the buildings? ' This comes from Endeavor 's sidekick Burnin ', arriving at the mouth of the room with a handful of other sidekicks.

Hawks considers it, then frowns. 'Doesn 't explain why he 'd blow them up. '

'Maybe he 's blowing 'em up just to do it? ' Burnin ' shrugs.

Hawks shakes his head. 'Not his style. '

Endeavor side-eyes at him. Hawks ignores it.

The flaming-haired sidekick crosses her arms. 'Then what is? '

He debates his answer carefully. 'He can seem like a superfluous kind of guy, but I don 't think he does things like that without reason. He 's not the sort to cause that level of destruction unnecessarily. '

'He blew up half an island in the Philippines, ' Endeavor points out. 'What was his reason for that? '

Hawks winces. 'That ' might have been done out of anger. ' He hesitates, before adding; 'Dabi

really

doesn 't like when people hurt kids, and there had been a lot of them there. It 's personal to him, I think. '

Endeavor 's entire expression seems to shut down, the temperature in the room cooling noticeably. He says nothing.

'Makes sense, I guess, ' Burnin ' admits, reluctantly.

Hawks withholds a sigh. He doesn 't normally think this, but ' man, he 's really not paid enough to deal with this shit.

He wants to blame it all on the HPSC and their stupid infiltration mission, but ultimately he knows this situation is his own fault. He 's the one who up and got attached to his mark. He 's the one who decided to lie for him, to keep his secrets from everyone else, even the Commission. He 's the one who worries for him, who lies awake at night with the intense urge to call him just to hear his voice again and make sure he 's alright. And he put himself in this position all on his own, HPSC orders be damned.

He worries over Dabi even now, even though he 's well aware the man can handle himself. Although this does seem like a rather herculean undertaking, even for someone as powerful as he is. Hawks wonders what happened. All he knows is Dabi had been tasked to deal with Humarise by the King of Otheon directly. Apparently they 'd met in the same hotel Hawks had been recovering in to hash out the arrangement. Hawks had pouted mutinously when he 'd realized Dabi would have to do it all without him ' Hawks couldn 't leave the country with the current levels of unrest and crime ' even though Humarise had started out as

their

thing. It 's a silly thing to be jealous of. Hawks is needed here, and Dabi is needed ' around the entire globe, evidently.

Honestly, what he 's really worried about isn 't this mission itself, but the consequences. There 's no going back from this ' for either of them.

//

Izuku is almost too keyed-up to notice when the mood in the common room around him abruptly crashes from loudly chaotic if not mildly pleasant, straight into terror. He still can 't believe ' did that really '

someone asked him out!

Him! Midoriya Izuku! Asked on a date!

And not just anyone.

Todoroki Shouto,

his classmate, son of the Number One Hero, one of the top students of their year, and one of the few people in his life he 's managed to strike up a genuine and deep friendship with. He also happens to be one of the few people in his life that he 's maddeningly, distractingly attracted to. Discounting Dabi (who really should not be counted, that man is too beautiful, it 's basically inhuman) Todoroki is the most stunning person he 's ever seen in his

life.

Izuku is still in awe that someone that cool and that impressive would want to go on a date with

him!

He sits in a blissful daze and doesn 't get a single iota of homework done. Todoroki stays by his side, diligently scrawling through his own homework. At some point during his internal freakout and idle daydreams, Yui must have left to go back to her house or something, because when he comes back to reality she 's no longer next to him. The noise level in the common room had risen progressively over the afternoon as more of their classmates trickled in, but Izuku was still too numb with shock to notice and paid it no mind.

It 's not until all the chatter suddenly stops, and Todoroki stiffens by his side, that he notices something is amiss.

'Todoroki-kun? ' When Izuku looks, his head is turned away from him.

Izuku follows his gaze to where the rest of their class is gathered around the couches. From this distance he can just make out the sound of the television that they all must be crowded around. He thinks it might be the news, but the voices are muted and unintelligible. Then he hears the gunshots.

He and Todoroki are up in a flash, ducking through the crowd to get a glimpse at the screen.

Izuku is thankful he 's ended up in front of the couch, because once he sees what it is his knees buckle and he drops like a puppet with its strings cut.

There 's no denying who it is.

On a foreign street of a city Izuku has never seen before, a familiar man walks through a blaze of explosives and gunfire. Mortar shells erupt around him, blackening the screen and tossing a haze of dust and debris across the footage; the quick pitter-patter of assault rifles ring sharp across the soundwaves, the angry shouts of men at war barely discernible over the din. None of this bothers Dabi, who strolls across the dilapidated street as if he has no care in the world. He cuts a figure immaculate and untouchable, without a single speck of dust or dirt on him. Powerful quirks and powerful weaponry attempt to make their mark on him, but they all fall in the wake of his unconquerable barrier.

With a dismissive flick of his hand the throngs of assailants are tossed aside like toys, slammed into the surrounding buildings where they break and roll to the ground. The shaky bystander footage swings wide to capture his destination ' a grand citadel-like structure surrounded on all sides by a handsome and well-kept city park.

Izuku watches in disbelief as Dabi enters the now emptied church, and in what seems like only a few seconds obliterates the entire building. The whole thing shudders once, then twice, then collapses in on itself, towering steel beams and great metallic domes crumpling apart like wet paper. What truly astounds him though, is watching the surrounding scenery. Amidst the apocalyptic scene, he notices the nearby flower beds remain utterly untouched. There 's not even a stray breeze bending the flower stems to denote the presence of a catastrophe just beside them.

This is it, then. The

true

power of Dabi 's quirk.

Plenty of people could cause that level of destruction. In Izuku 's class alone, he can think of at least four he knows for sure. Himself, Yui, Kacchan and Todoroki could demolish a building of that size, albeit all through different means and perhaps not quite as instantaneously. Among top heroes, there are even more.

But to cause such staggering destruction, such total annihilation, with

that

level of precision? It should be impossible.

'And piecing together the timeline, we believe his next stop to have been Helsinki, where a similar scene played out. '

The footage minimizes into the corner of the screen, the newscast turning into a map of the globe. Red dots light up over cities across the world in accordance to the hypothesized timeline ' Izuku notices immediately that the pattern of his movements resembles concentric circles. The center of the radius seems to be somewhere in central Europe.

Even through his terror, his analytical mind pieces together information at a lightning pace.

So that 's how he must do it ' is its limitation distance based, or something else?

His mind races despite himself. He 's always known Dabi could teleport. He 's made it a point to never ask

anything

about the man 's quirk, because he knows if he started he 'd never stop, and he 'd like to maintain some kind of plausible deniability about it in case he 's ever put in a position where he 's asked to reveal the man 's secrets. A situation that seems more and more likely as he watches this broadcast.

Izuku rapidly shakes his head. This is exactly what he 's been trying to avoid doing. The science behind Dabi 's quirk is riveting and probably the stuff of legends, but that 's not a can of worms Izuku should be opening.

He balls his hands into fists. They tremble noticeably as he rests them against his knees.

He wishes Yui hadn 't gone home. Even if she was just as powerless in this situation as he was, the solidarity of having someone else who knows Dabi 's real identity would be reassuring.

' 'Seems to be a direct assault on Humarise at a global scale ' '

'We don 't have a motive yet, but an official statement was released just minutes ago by the government of Otheon claiming the attacks as part of an ongoing, official investigation. The World Heroes Association appears to be involved, although no representatives were present at any of the Humarise headquarters as they were destroyed ' '

' 'This just in: we have official confirmation coming in now from the UN that the unknown assailant is indeed Japan 's top criminal, s-rank cremation villain Dabi. How and why he is part of a mission sanctioned by the WHA ' has not yet been disclosed ' '

Izuku squeezes his eyes shut, trying to remember the last time he 'd spoken to the villain. Was it just a few days ago? Had Dabi already planned for all of this to happen, even as he spoke idly to Izuku on the phone about his new favorite pastry?

'This is

insane! '

Kaminari gushes from somewhere behind him. 'How can one person be capable of all of this?! '

'We don 't know that for sure ' he

could

be working with a team. ' Is the rational, level-headed response from Yaomomo.

They might not know, but Izuku does. He knows this is all Dabi, and Dabi alone. The sheer scale of destruction the villain is capable of is staggering. The range, the extent, the

reach.

It 's not an exaggeration to say Dabi could destroy the world. Even if every single hero on the planet banned together to defeat him, Izuku honestly couldn 't say they would manage it.

'This guy is on a whole other level, ' Sero mutters.

'His mastery over the darkness of chaos and destruction is truly unsurpassed, ' Tokoyami agrees, sagely.

'T ' There 's no way anyone could defeat him! ' Kirishima cries in dismay. 'How are the heroes supposed to stop a guy like that?! This is crazy! 'But so manly!! '

'No wonder he stopped that villain in Kamino without even getting a scratch on him, ' Uraraka adds, sounding pensive.

'So that 's what he looks like beneath the blindfold, huh? He 's pretty hot! ' Ashido enthuses.

'Ashido! '

Yaomomo says, scandalized.

'What? It 's true! I 'm still so bummed I didn 't even get to talk to him at the summer training camp when everyone else did!! '

'He 's a villain, not a celebrity. ' Yaomomo frowns sternly.

'Shoji-kun said he was super nice! '

'I said he was helpful, ' Shoji denies.

'That 's the same thing! ' Ashido dismisses.

'It 's really not, ' Sero sighs.

'That 's true ' he really helped us out at the training camp. And he was at USJ, right? He was helping Aizawa-sensei, ' Uraraka murmurs. 'It was scary to witness, but he

was

helping us. Both times. So maybe he 's ' not really a bad guy? '

'But then, what is he trying to do here? ' Sero asks, frowning.

'Right, I mean, this is a little different ' isn 't it? ' Hagakure returns, hesitantly. 'Just ' the scale of it all ' '

The class falls silent at that.

On screen the footage changes to a somewhat amusing scene of Dabi pantomiming elaborately with what looks to be the Hong Kong police. They 're not shooting at him, but they aim their rifles at him in a tense stand-off as Dabi and an officer seem to be locked in some kind of game of charades in lieu of a common language.

'Law enforcement at the scene have confirmed Dabi to be acting on orders as part of a greater mission to neutralize a global threat instigated by Humarise. The threat itself has not been confirmed yet by the WHA, but rumors from officials involved in the mission have placed it as some kind of weapon of mass destruction. '

Eventually they must find a translator, because a hapless looking young man in tactical gear is inserted between them and begins gesturing elaborately. The police slowly lower their weapons as Dabi hands something to their commanding officer. It looked like an ID card of some kind. The man takes it; they exchange a few words, and then Dabi is pulling his shades down and smiling at the man as he confirms his identity.

Ashido whistles appreciatively. Uraraka stutters. Even Yaomomo gasps.

'Yeah, okay, he 's pretty hot, ' Hagakure admits.

This is

really

not the time, but Izuku has the hysterical urge to laugh. No matter what the situation, Dabi 's good looks are always criminally distracting. No one is ever immune when they finally get a good look at his face.

His

face.

With a horrified gasp. Izuku 's eyes snap open.

He whips his head towards Todoroki, standing at the arm of the couch beside him. He 's watching the broadcast with a riveted look, expression tense but not particularly shocked or horrified. Izuku careens his neck to search Kacchan out of the crowd. He 's standing off to the side, almost blocked from sight by Shoji 's bulk in front of him. From what Izuku can see, his expression is something similar to Todoroki 's ' apprehensive and intense, but not terribly surprised. Jirou, directly next to him, is the opposite. She 's covering her mouth with her hands, eyes as wide as saucers, looking as if she can 't believe what she 's seeing. Like she cannot fathom that the man who was so easy-going and kind to them at his concert just last month could be the same man inciting global panic on live TV.

Perhaps it wouldn 't be so easy even as a

No Scrubs fan

to make a direct connection, if she had been just another person in the crowds at the venues. With the dim lighting, the distance from the stage, the outfit and the lack of cameras ' But Jirou had met him personally, that day they 'd all gone to see Yui before her show. There 's no way she could mistake him. There 's no way Todoroki or Kacchan would be able to mistake him either, yet they don 't seem so surprised.

'Todoroki-kun ' ' He whispers quietly, staring up at him.

Todoroki glances down at him. He seems to read what Izuku can 't say aloud from his expression alone. He reaches out and rests a hand on Izuku 's shoulder, squeezing it gently. 'I know, ' he says, softly.

Izuku nods dumbly. How long had he known Satoru was Dabi? And ' does it even really matter anymore?

He staggers to his feet, wobbly and lightheaded. Todoroki holds him upright with a firm grip on his arm, a look of concern crossing his features as he steadies him.

'I ' need some air. ' He excuses himself, lurching towards the doors.

He wrenches them open with a gasp, sucking in greedy gulps of cold autumn air as he collapses to his knees again.

He 's always known Dabi was powerful. It 's true it 's rather frightening to see the real extent of his abilities with his own eyes, but it 's the

fear

that truly unsettles him. The fear of the uncertain future ' the fear of

losing

him. There 's no coming back from this. He 'd thought that after Kamino, but Dabi had proved him wrong. This, though ' He doesn 't think the world will ever stop searching for Dabi after this.

'... Midoriya-kun? ' A surprised, hushed voice whispers to him.

Izuku 's head snaps up. He 's not alone on the porch. There, by the corner where the porch bleeds off into the treeline, is Yui. She has a phone to her ear, and her eyes are tight around the edges. Izuku doesn 't think he 's ever seen her this pale before, or this visibly shaken. For once, her expression is clear as day ' and all Izuku can see on her features is a fear that mirrors his own.

She darts a furtive look around, then urgently beckons him closer. He sways to his feet, and drags himself after her.

She pulls him behind a robust tree trunk some paces into the forest, tucks herself into the hollow of its roots and jams him in next to her, so tightly they 're touching from leg to shoulder. This close, he can hear the low voice of the person on the line.

' 'just a fucking nightmare to deal with, too, you know what I mean? Seriously, this man is out here with no shame, no limits to his stupidity, and worst of all no hairline. My Otheon handler is gonna end up just as bald from all this stress by the end of it, poor dude. '

Izuku 's eyes widen. 'S 'Satoru-san? ' He whispers, furtively.

There 's a pause in the rant. 'Eh? Is that Izu-kun too? Oh, good. Keep me awake, both of you. I 'm sooo tired but I can 't sleep yet. '

Izuku turns an incredulous and borderline hysterical look Yui 's way. Yui just stares back, lips thinning into an unhappy line. She subtly shakes her head.

'W 'What, um ' what should I do? ' Izuku stutters out, hesitantly. 'I don 't really know how to keep people awake ' '

'Hmm~ tell me about your day? Oh, I heard something exciting happened to you! ' He can

hear

the mischievous grin in Satoru 's voice.

His face lights on fire. 'You told him?! ' He wails to his dark-haired companion.

She shrugs. 'Did you really think I wouldn 't? '

Fair enough. He sighs, wringing his hands in his lap. It 's awkward to even think about, but even now he can barely summon up enough embarrassment to be mortified over the ordeal. His stomach is tied up in knots, and he 's too worried and fearful to truly get worked up about it right now.

When he glanced nervously back towards Yui, her expression is equally as wary and concerned. He 's never seen her look so worried before, he thinks. Not even after USJ, when she 'd admitted aloud that she was concerned for Dabi had she looked like this. The look she 's giving him is imploring and full of a strange, frenetic fear.

So he takes a deep breath and tries to explain how a boy he thinks is cute asked him out this weekend as if this is any other normal day he 's talked to Satoru on the phone, doing his best to keep the trembling out of his voice.

//

News trickles out in fits and starts all throughout the night.

The hour is nearing early morning, but Endeavor is still in his office, dozens of foreign news outlets spread across the double monitor station he 'd had IT set up for him earlier. His desk is a mess of notes as he scrabbles together an attempt at a timeline. Despite his best efforts, the nature of Dabi 's '

Touya 's '

abilities remains elusive and indefinable. Just as impossible and insensible as they always have been. If he hadn 't heard it straight from All Might 's mouth personally, hadn 't been there in the room and heard it with his own ears, he still wouldn 't be able to make himself believe it. A fire quirk. All Might confirmed it. The missing piece of the puzzle, or so he had assumed.

In reality, it still makes no sense at all.

If Dabi has a fire quirk, then what exactly is Endeavor seeing right now? The logic-defying teleportation, the indomitable telekinesis, the shields and the pure destructive power?

He rereads through Captain Celebrity 's official statement one more time, both the translated version and the original given in English.

The American hero explains the situation from where it all unraveled ' the throne room of Humarise 's secret headquarters, a massive steel structure hidden high in the Swiss Alps, with most of the base carving deep into the mountains. The heroes confronted Flect Turn, the mastermind behind Humarise. The tables turned as Flect ambushed them with his guards; dozens, if not hundreds in number, Captain Celebrity says. All armed, in addition to their quirks. Then Flect reveals his secret plan to stop his prophesied apocalypse; Ideo Trigger bombs tucked away in Humarise bases across every major city in the world, ready to be detonated by the remote in his hand. Endeavor is vaguely familiar with the concept of the bomb, on account of Hawks 's report on the Kuat Shipyards incident. A volatile substance transmitted through the air, it causes a person 's quirk to spiral out of control, turning them into a walking suicide bomb. If a hero like Endeavor, who already possessed a quirk with explosive and highly destructive capabilities, were to be hit with such a substance ' they could easily take out half a city, if not more.

Paralyzed by the threat and with no recourse, Captain Celebrity said he was willing to negotiate with Flect to stall for time as French pro hero Voyance, their official liaison with the WHA, called for backup. As deep in the mountain range as they were though, even the Otheon military waiting on standby would need at least half an hour to get to their location.

During all of this, Dabi had been, apparently ' on the phone, texting.

While Captain Celebrity and the other assembled 'main heroes ' were focused on Flect, their support heroes, Clair Voyance and Dabi ' going by the hero name Six Eyes ' were just behind them. Endeavor almost snorts aloud as he reads that. In what world would a man with Dabi 's powers ever be considered a

support

hero? But on a related note, why was the official quirk listed on his official hero license an

optic

quirk? There 's barely any information on it at that, and none of it lines up with the fire quirk Endeavor knows he was born with, nor the telekinetic one he displayed to the entire world on this mission. Pro Hero Six Eyes is listed as being able to see the quirks of others up to a certain radius.

It utterly baffles Endeavor.

It terrifies him, too, because he remembers

exactly

how haunting those eyes were up close. He could never bring himself to believe they were normal, no matter how much the doctors insisted there was nothing special about them. Indeed it would not come as a surprise to him to hear Touya had some kind of mutated dual-quirk. But the teleporting? The telekinesis? How was he ' or anyone, really ' meant to explain that? If All for One truly wasn 't involved, if Touya 's powers weren 't forced upon him by the man 's wretched abilities, then where did they come from? Could these monstrous powers of his truly have ' always been there, this whole time? From the very first time he 'd opened his eyes as a newborn infant?

He drags himself out of his thoughts before he spirals yet again into an endless pit of his own doubts, focusing back on the reports at hand.

Clair Voyance 's official statement has Dabi confirmed to be on his phone for most of the confrontation. While Dabi ' or Six Eyes ' has no official statement out to confirm or deny this, he sees no reason for the French hero to lie. Voyance reveals that Dabi had come up with the entire plot to stop Flect 's bombs within the five minutes he spent surveying the situation, after finally looking up from his phone. He destroyed the detonator while Flect was still holding it; Voyance 's eye witness account states he appeared to have obliterated it instantaneously, leaving no time for any of them to react.

After that, the statements of pro heroes Voyance, Captain Celebrity, Elecplant and Pankration, all more or less follow the same story.

Dabi uses his teleportation to get the drop on Flect. Flect 's quirk, reflection, fends him off at first. While he 's doing that he also uses his telekinetic powers to send a shockwave out to the assembled guards, stunning them and knocking them off their feet. The attack he levels at Flect after that is enough to break through Flect 's barrier in one hit, shattering it and even the surrounding atrium in one hit. The heroes were all too busy scrambling out of the blast radius to get a definitive look at the technique, but whatever it was had enough power to break through a powerful quirk in one blow, and stun Flect long enough for the heroes to arrest him.

With their leader as a hostage, the Humarise members and the heroes ended up in a stalemate.

Flect turned the tables by revealing he 'd set the activation timer on the bombs long before the heroes had even confronted him. He 'd activated them the moment they 'd received word that heroes had stormed the base. The detonator had just been for show; there was now way to deactivate the bombs once Flect had turned them on. The only way to stop them was to find them in every single Humarise base across the world, and physically destroy them.

To launch a counter-mission of that magnitude would require the work of hundreds of people over the course of many days, maybe even weeks, all working in unison. A massive undertaking even the World Heroes Association would struggle to get off the ground.

And, laughing madly, Flect reveals he 'd been stalling them this whole time. Having them chase him through the bowels of the base as he threw his best lieutenants at them to slow them down, leading them all to the throne room, the showdown with the guards, the grandstanding. It had all been a ploy for time. Now the bombs would have less than two hours until detonation, and all of them were stuck here, at his mercy.

This is when Dabi acts.

He kicks Flect to the ground and drags him by the scruff of his robes towards the heroes. He has Voyance send him a compiled list of all the Humarise bases ' something they apparently had investigated together over the course of the past month ' and then promptly has all the heroes gather in a circle. Within an instant they 're teleported out of the Humarise base and returned to the same military airstrip they 'd originally started their mission at, with Flect as their hostage.

Within the hour, the Otheon military launches a full-scale assault on the Humarise headquarters deep within their country 's mountain range, and Dabi systematically teleports across the world and destroys every single Ideo Trigger bomb himself, leaving a trail of death and destruction in his wake.

The sheer breadth of his abilities, the staggering power he 's capable of unleashing, the length in which he can sustain it ' all of it should be impossible. Even on top of the fact that he knows with personal certainty that Dabi was born with a fire quirk, it should still be impossible. No quirk is capable of that. There 's always drawbacks to any technique ' there 's always limitations.

But Dabi doesn 't seem to operate under limitations of any kind.

He 's been reading through these reports for hours now ' watching the footage for even longer ' and still cannot come to terms with it.

There is little doubt in his mind now that Dabi is Touya, after seeing his face in full on live television. That somehow, despite the impossibility of it all, the boy he 'd forced himself to accept as dead with his too-strong quirk and his too-weak body was the same man who could easily obliterate buildings within seconds and walk through storms of gunfire without a scratch. Who took down one of the world 's largest terrorist organizations entirely on his own. Who defeated Japan 's Emperor of Darkness, All for One, All Might 's arch nemesis, in one blow. It was an unfathomable concept, but deep in his heart he knew it was true.

No matter how hard he tries to focus on the

facts

and not lose himself to his own fears and uncertainties, his thoughts turn in that direction nonetheless.

When did these powers surface within Touya? If All for One was not the one who gave them to him, then how did he manifest them? The day of his birth? The day his fire quirk showed itself? If those powers had been there all those years ago, why had Endeavor never witnessed anything even remotely like them?

They trained every day, and Endeavor never went easy on him. He

hurt

him, terribly, during those sessions. But Touya never went easy on him either, and even as a child he knew how to be vicious. He never flinched away from the pain, and despite his sickly constitution he was strong, and he was clever. He 'd landed plenty of hits on Endeavor too, discrepancy in their sizes be damned, and his ability to read his opponent was superb, even at his young age. That had been why Endeavor continued to train him, despite knowing his quirk was subpar at best. At the time, Endeavor had thought he might not have had the body nor the quirk to be the Number One Hero, but he 'd certainly had the talent.

Then came the day Touya had stared up at him ' bruises up and down his arms from deflecting Endeavor 's punches, training uniform torn and burned and hanging off his small frame ' with those piercing, unbearably intense eyes of his, and told him in no uncertain terms that they were done with training for the day.

Endeavor had raged at him that day. Touya had stood his ground. He truly thought it would come to blows, but something in that haunting gaze of his stayed his hand.

Now he wonders if it was his own impending death that had stopped him, if some instinctual part of him had known he was pushing too far, starting a battle he had no hope of winning.

He 'd let Touya go, that day. And Touya had walked away without another glance.

Even though the man is his own flesh and blood, his own

son,

he doesn 't think he ever really knew Todoroki Touya at all. He remembers holding the boy in his hands for the very first time. His firstborn son. He remembers thinking how shockingly, terrifyingly small he was; Endeavor had been able to cradle him in one hand. Again that same child, older now but still shockingly small for his age, staring him down with searingly cold eyes as he dismissed himself from his own training and dared Endeavor to say anything about it. Then the child as a teenager, taller and healthier with the worst of his childhood sickliness behind him, forcing Endeavor to his knees with an overwhelming surge of power and heat that even the Number Two Hero in the country couldn 't withstand as he destroyed his father 's ambitions with words alone.

A greater picture comes to light, as he gathers up more and more pieces of this enigmatic child.

The officer leading the investigation on Touya 's tragic 'death ' had mentioned a local vigilante with a teleportation quirk as the likely suspect behind Shouto 's appearance at the hospital. Endeavor had looked into it briefly after the fact, but never turned up any leads ' the vigilante had either died or gone to ground, and was never seen again. Not long afterwards a criminal with a mysterious cremation quirk started to gain notoriety, and the police dubbed him 'Dabi '. And now there 's international hero Six Eyes, who teleports and sees the quirks of others. All the pieces might be lining up, but none of it makes any sense.

Endeavor closes his eyes with a weary sigh, elbows on the desk, resting his forehead on his tented fingers in front of him.

'Touya, ' he murmurs under his breath, eyes slowly opening as his unfocused gaze trains on the looping footage on his screen. The monitors are the only light in the room, casting an eerie blue gaze across his eyes. 'Just who

are

you? '