Capítulo 20: To Be a Hero
Shouto woke up dazed and disoriented. By the time he was aware enough to look around the room, he'd been tied to a chair with quirk suppressant cuffs. A man with painful looking scars sat in a chair across from him, but from what Shouto could see, they were the only two in the room.
"Hey Shouto," the man said softly, "It's good to see you."
Shouto frowned slightly, he didn't understand why a villain, even one who just kidnapped him, was happy to see him, "Who are you?"
The man smiled slightly, "I go by Dabi, but I think you can guess that's not my real name." He leaned forward, "We actually knew each other once, back before I got these scars."
"Am I just supposed to know who you are?"
Dabi shrugged, "It's not like you knew a whole lot of people back then. That flaming bastard kept you isolated so no one could distract you from your training."
That made Shouto pause. He'd never heard anyone else talk about Endeavor that way, with the same intense hatred he himself felt. Against his better judgement, he found himself actually liking the villain that had kidnapped him. But how did he know about Shouto's isolation?
"My hair was red then, too, kinda like yours." Dabi continued, producing a brilliant blue flame and watching it flicker with brilliant teal eyes.
Shouto wracked his brain, trying to think of who this guy could be. Red hair, like his left side...strong flame quirk, like his left side...teal eyes, like...Shouto's eyes widened.
"Touya?"
The man smiled, "Hey there, little brother."
Aizawa rested his head in his hands as he sat in the interrogation room waiting for Tsukauchi. Dozens of students hurt by the gas or the other villains, another in critical condition from a classmate's rampaging quirk, an abducted pro hero, a kidnapped student, and a dead child. The three measly villains they'd managed to capture were nothing in comparison to the unmitigated horror that the training camp had been.
Aizawa looked up when he heard the door open. Tsukauchi looked at him sympathetically and set a cup of coffee down in front of him, "How are you holding up?"
"I couldn't save him," Aizawa said, "I knew they'd taken him and I got so close , but at the last minute, I was too weak." He looked at the detective, "What kind of a teacher lets his student be kidnapped?"
Tsukauchi sighed, "We're dealing with elite villains the likes of which we haven't seen since before All Might's debut. The blame for this incident is theirs and theirs alone. This was the same group that managed to kill the symbol of peace, so don't blame yourself that you couldn't take them all out. That being said, we do need your statement of the incident. Maybe it can help us find Todoroki in time."
"Do you know why he was taken?" Aizawa asked.
Tsukauchi shook his head, "We were hoping you knew. The best we can come up with is that he was probably abducted to use as leverage against Endeavor. These villains are targeting hero society itself, so it'd be in line with their goals."
Aizawa nodded, "The first I knew of the attack was when Mandalay sent out the message. I left Vlad King with the other students and left to go fight. As soon as I left the main building, I was confronted by a flame user who implied that they were after the students. I tried to interrogate him, but he dissolved into goo before I could get any information out of him."
"Goo?" Tsukauchi questioned, "I thought you said he had a fire quirk?"
"He did," Aizawa sighed, "I think the goo was some kind of cloning quirk belonging to another villain."
Tsukauchi nodded, "What happened next?"
"I took out Muscular as he tried to chase one of my students. I then went into the forest, sending any students I came across back to camp. I had just saved Ururaka and Asui when Bakugo found me and told me Todoroki had been kidnapped by a villain in a yellow coat that compressed him into a marble. I searched and found the flame villain I'd fought earlier talking to someone else. I followed them until I saw the villain that had taken Todoroki, then canceled his quirk, which temporarily freed Todoroki." He grit his teeth, "Then everything went to shit. The fire user used his flames to block my field of vision. I couldn't see him to cancel his quirk and I couldn't see any of the other villains either. By the time the flames disappeared, they were gone, taking Todoroki with them."
"What did the villains look like? Can you give me any physical characteristics?"
Aizawa nodded.
"Let's start with the fire user," Tsukauchi said, "What did he look like?"
"Tall, black hair, teal eyes. His skin was pale, but his neck and arms as well as part of his face were covered in large burn scars that appeared to be stitched together with his normal skin."
Tsukauchi paused in his notetaking, "You said he was held together by stitches?"
As soon as Aizawa said yes, Tsukauchi stood and opened the door, "Sansa, bring me the reports on the canvassing operation!"
"What's wrong?" Aizawa asked.
"Nothing," Tsukauchi smiled, "But we might have a location on the League of Villains."
"Father told us you died."
Dabi scoffed and rolled his eyes, "Yeah, cause after all the shit that guy's done, he'll definitely draw the line at lying."
Shouto frowned. It made sense, a little too much sense actually, but he still wasn't sure Dabi was telling the truth, "If you're really my brother," he said suspiciously, "what did we do on weekends when Endeavor would meet with the hero commission?"
Dabi's eyes lit up, "Mom would gather us all in the front room with all the pillows and blankets in the house. Then she and Fuyumi would make hot chocolate for all of us and we'd watch a movie. Then we'd make a game of cleaning up so there was no trace of what had happened by the time Father came home." He frowned, "We stopped that tradition when Endeavor locked Mom away."
Shouto stared. None of them had ever told anyone about that tradition so that Endeavor would never find out. There was no way he could have known about it, much less spoken about it with so much happiness, unless he really was Touya.
"I also remember that Mom would ice your bruises and burns after Endeavor's training, " He spit out bitterly, "After she was gone, Fuyumi took over that job," Dabi met Shouto's eyes, "They did the same thing for me when I was subjected to the bastard's training before you got your quirk."
"You went through it too?" Shouto breathed out. Dabi nodded, "It was hell. He'd make me work past my body's limits, producing fire for hours even though it hurt. He'd kick me when I was down, then blame me for being weak when I couldn't stand up again. He'd constantly remind me that I wasn't good enough, even though I was the best shot he had at beating All Might at the time." He scowled. "And when you finally got your quirk, he tossed me aside as just another failure, forgetting all the abuse he'd put me through in favor of abusing you."
"I'm sorry." Shouto said, "I'm sorry he forgot about you."
Dabi shrugged, "It wasn't your fault. I'm sorry you got the perfect quirk and had to go through that hell disguised as training longer than I ever did." He chuckled. "Even back when I was living at home, I'd fantasize about what I'd do the bastard if I ever got the chance. How I'd kill him when I got strong enough, even as he was pounding me into the floor. I hated him even then." He looked at Shouto. "You hate him too, don't you?"
Shouto swallowed, but nodded. Absently, he knew that as Endeavor's masterpiece, he shouldn't be bonding with a villain, but Dabi was his brother , his brother who understood . His brother who had the same burning hatred as he did for their father. Even Natsuo and Fuyumi couldn't understand, not in the same way.
"That's why you don't use your fire isn't it?" Dabi asked. "Because you hate him."
Shouto nodded, "It's his quirk. I don't need his power, just like I don't need him."
Dabi shook his head, "There's a better option here."
Shouto tilted his head in a silent question and Dabi continued, "Endeavor gave you that fire so you'd become a hero. So what if you were to use that fire for something that dear old Dad would hate ."
Shouto started, remembering Midoriya's words back at the sports festival, you could always use it to do things your father would hate.
"How would you like to use your fire to show Dad how wrong he was? How would you like to use it to show him how much you hate him?"
Shouto thought for a minute. He was supposed to be a hero, that was what he'd been raised to do, but the idea of showing his father how much he'd hurt him was tempting. Father was the one that was always pushing Shouto to become a hero, but had he ever really wanted that?
Maybe he had once, back when he was a little kid, back before his mother had been forced away from him, but that small desire had been burned and kicked out of Shouto by a decade of abuse. The only reason he was even at UA was because of what his father wanted.
But what did Shouto want?
He clenched his fists as the hate burning in his heart grew even hotter. He wanted to show the world what kind of a person Endeavor really was and hurt him like he'd hurt Shouto. He wanted to hurt everyone who thought that heroes were perfect and would always save the day. He wanted to prove to them that heroes weren't gods. He wanted to hurt all the heroes who must have known what was going on, but who never once came to save him. He looked at his brother with fire in his eyes.
"So Shouto," Dabi asked, "how would you like to be a villain?"
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