….
[U.A. High School - Medical Ward - Late Night]
Dabi's eyes snapped open as awareness returned all at once - one moment there was darkness, and the next the world crashed in with blinding light, harsh sound, and every nerve screaming awake.
His vision was different.
And then, there was the Sense.
It was a buzzing, prickling vibration that warned him of every object in the room, every shadow, and every person standing on the other side of the reinforced glass.
His attention drifted toward the hallway outside.
Through the wall he could make out the silhouette of a massive man sitting there, the heat rolling off him almost palpable, along with the heavy, uneven rhythm of a heart beating with the same fiery cadence as his own.
Who is this flamethrower dude?
Just then his vision shifted to the system panel:
====
[GENETIC MILESTONE SYSTEM]
THREE EVOLUTION PATHS:
| [BREATH OF THE SUN] - 100/100% ✓
[SUPER SOLDIER] - 100/100% ✓
[ARACHNID GENOME] - 20/100%
….
LIFE SPAN LEFT: 101+ Years
====
Finally….
But 101 years?
Isn't that still too little considering I have fully absorbed [Super Soldier]?
Just how bad was the condition of my body?
He knew the mechanics of the [Super Soldier] serum.
It is basically an enhancer that optimizes the existing biological frame to the absolute human peak.
Given how thoroughly he had incinerated his own internal organs over the years, he had expected the serum to barely keep him from collapsing.
And despite having counted his years by the bare minimum, he felt that, in that moment, it was enough.
But now even after fully absorbing the serum, he only got 101 years - which is basically a lot less than what the original Captain had received.
The malignancy had run so deep, entangled with quirk-damaged cells, that even peak human physiology could only stabilize his body from the wreckage.
===
[ARACHNID GENOME] - 20/100%
===
Stuck at 20%, huh?
He knew the pattern by now.
He would likely need far more time, energy, effort, and perhaps more than he even knew, to truly recover.
It is always more, and more….
His sense softened, turning his attention to the immediate vicinity of his bed.
"But first and foremost…" he muttered quietly. "–what are these two doing here?"
Rumi was slumped in the uncomfortable visitor's chair, her head tilted at an angle that was going to give her a terrible neck ache.
And in her lap, curled up like a small cat, was Eri.
They looked vulnerable in a way that made Dabi's new instincts hum with a protective ferocity.
Rumi's usual 'Number Five Hero' bravado had worn away under the exhaustion of the night, leaving her looking softer, younger, and completely unguarded.
And Eri's small hand was clutching Rumi's shirt, even in sleep refusing to let go.
Despite the stiffness of his muscles - Dabi smiled.
Outside the window, the moon hung high in the sky, marking the hour as either deep night or the earliest edge of morning, while the U.A. campus lay silent beneath scattered security lights.
For a moment, Dabi considered waking them up. But they looked so peaceful, and he knew once they woke up, there would be questions and explanations and probably crying.
Instead, he carefully extended one arm - and managed to pull a blanket from the foot of the bed over them. It was awkward, and his shoulder screamed in protest, but he got it done.
Rumi shifted slightly but didn't wake.
Eri made a small sound and burrowed deeper into her lap.
Dabi settled back against his pillows, watching them.
And he waited.
The night passed slowly.
He cataloged the changes in his body - the way his senses seemed sharper, how his hearing picked up sounds from rooms away, the strange tingling in his fingertips that might have been his new spider-abilities trying to manifest.
But mostly, he just watched his family sleep.
As the sky outside began to lighten with the approaching dawn, Dabi heard footsteps in the hallway.
Recovery Girl's distinctive gait, accompanied by someone else.
The door opened.
"-told you already, if you sleep in this room, I am going to kick you out of this hospital for–"
Recovery Girl stopped mid-sentence, her eyes landing on Dabi.
He was awake - sitting upright, watching her with sharp, fully aware eyes.
She simply stared for a few seconds, then her professional mask slipped, and her expression shifted through relief, irritation, and something faintly resembling maternal affection.
"You absolute moron." she said, her voice thick. "Do you have any idea how close you came to dying? How many rules of biology you broke just by surviving? I ought to–"
But she was already moving toward him, her medical scanner in hand, checking his vitals.
The movement stirred Rumi.
Her eyes snapped open, those sharp red eyes shifting from drowsy to fully alert in an instant. The moment she saw Dabi awake, her entire expression changed.
"You're–" Her voice cracked. "You're awake."
Her eyes went incessantly red - actual tears slipping down her face even as she tried to hold onto an expression that was supposed to look angry.
The commotion stirred someone else too.
Eri blinked awake, rubbing sleep from her eyes; then she saw Dabi and immediately scrambled out of Rumi's lap.
"Papa!" She tried to climb onto the bed, but the Recovery Girl caught her gently.
"Careful, dear. He is still injured."
"I am okay, Eri." Dabi said, his voice rough from disuse. "Come here."
Though he was still wrapped in bandages, he could tell he was completely healed.
Recovery Girl helped lift her onto the bed, and Eri immediately buried her face in Dabi's chest - the one spot that wasn't completely covered in bandages - and started crying.
"You were screaming so lound…" she sobbed. "And then you were quiet, and I thought… I thought…"
"Shh. I am okay. I am right here." Dabi managed to lift one bandaged arm to pat her head awkwardly. "Takes more than a couple of monsters to finish me off."
Rumi was still standing there, tears falling freely now, her tough exterior completely shattered.
Dabi met her eyes. "Hey, Bunny. Miss me?"
She stepped forward and gently rested her forehead against his.
They stayed like that for a moment, a small family reunited.
Then the Recovery Girl cleared her throat. "I need to examine him properly." she said. "And there are others waiting to see you."
"Others?" Dabi asked.
She replied. "Quite a few people actually."
As if on cue, voices rose in the hallway, and then, one by one, they stepped inside.
Gran Torino first, looking more relieved than Dabi had ever seen him. "I thought you had finally kicked the bucket."
"Not before you, old bones." Dabi replied.
All Might in his muscular form, his sunken eyes bright with emotion. "Young Dabi. You had us all very worried."
"Agian, sorry about that."
Then the Todoroki siblings entered - Fuyumi, Natsuo, and Shoto.
The room went very quiet.
Dabi looked at them - his siblings, whom he hadn't seen in almost over a decade, who had long believed he was dead.
The situation explained itself quickly enough.
Natsuo spoke first, anger already boiling over. "Why?" he demanded. "If you were alive all this time, you could have at least come to see us once."
His voice trembled with barely restrained emotion.
It was the same question Endeavor had asked the other day.
Fuyumi was crying silently, her hands over her mouth.
Shoto stood apart, his expression carefully controlled, but his heterochromatic eyes were fixed on Dabi with an intensity that was almost painful.
"I..." Dabi started, then stopped.
How did someone even begin to explain something like this?
"Toya is long dead...." he said finally. "I am Dabi now."
The words landed like a blow.
To everyone in the room, and even those listening from the hallway, it sounded like rejection, as though he were choosing this new name over the family standing in front of him.
But to Dabi, it was simply the truth.
The boy who had burned himself alive trying to earn his father's approval was gone, and not in some poetic or symbolic way.
But for real…
"Then what about Mom?" Fuyumi asked through her tears. "Does Dabi care about what happened to her? About how she–"
"She is the only person I owe anything to." Dabi cut in quietly. "The only debt I can never repay."
The room fell silent, because that was the truth as well.
Everything Rei Todoroki had endured - from the arranged marriage to years of quiet suffering, and finally the breaking point that had sent her to the hospital - none of it had ever been her fault.
Like her children, she had simply been another casualty of Endeavor's ambition.
"I will visit her myself." Dabi said. "Once I'm back on my feet. But understand this, I am not Toya anymore, and that needs to be clear."
Before anyone could respond, the door burst open.
Endeavor paused in the doorway, exhaustion written into the lines of his wrinkled costume and the faint, unsteady flicker of his flames, his gaze moving across his children one by one before coming to rest on Dabi.
"Toya." he said, and his voice was–
"Piss off." Dabi interrupted.
Endeavor blinked once. "What?"
Dabi's eyes didn't move from him. "That was me being polite." he said flatly. "Let me try again…"
"Fuck off."
The room's temperature surged abruptly, and this time the heat wasn't coming from Endeavor's flames - it was radiating from Dabi.
Everyone stepped back instinctively except Rumi, who stayed close, her hand on Dabi's shoulder.
"Dabi." she said quietly. "You need to calm down."
He didn't even realize he was doing it, the rage - it wasn't entirely his.
It was Toya's, buried beneath everything he had become: years of resentment, pain, and that desperate need to be seen clawing their way back to the surface.
He forced himself to breathe.
[Total Concentration Breathing], the rhythm he had perfected over years.
In. Hold. Out.
The temperature dropped.
"Sorry." He muttered, not sounding sorry at all. "Still adjusting to… a few changes."
Then he looked at Endeavor again, and whatever softness had briefly crossed his face disappeared completely.
"Why don't you go train your youngest project." Dabi said coolly. "That's what you have always been good at, isn't it? Don't waste your time here on a failed project."
Endeavor flinched like he had been struck.
"And Shoto." Dabi added, looking at his youngest brother. "If you get the chance someday, make sure you 'F' him up. You have got the potential."
Shoto's eyes widened, just a fraction, and Dabi eased back against the bed.
"Anyway, that's enough of this little family reunion." he said flatly. "I am tired, so everyone can–"
"Wrong, wrong, wrong!" the interruption cut straight through the tension.
Eri had slipped out of Recovery Girl's grasp and climbed onto the bed, planting her tiny feet firmly on the mattress while placing both hands on her hips as she glared up at Dabi with all the authority a four-year-old could muster.
"Papa." she scolded. "–that is not how you talk to uncles and aunt! Bad manners!"
The sudden shift in atmosphere was so abrupt it almost felt absurd.
Fuyumi blinked in shock. "Papa?"
Natsuo stared between Dabi and Eri as if trying to solve an impossible equation. "Wait… were you married? How old are you now? How old is she–"
"Four." Dabi cut in quickly. "She is four."
He rubbed the back of his neck. "She is adopted, but she is still our daughter."
Eri's innocent interruption had defused the situation. The rage that had been building had been deflated in the face of a small child scolding her father about manners.
Sensing the moment before it could reignite, All Might stepped forward. "Perhaps we should give them some space and discuss this elsewhere–"
"There is nothing to discuss." Endeavor said roughly.
His eyes were fixed on Dabi, the look in them difficult to decipher - pain tangled with regret, anger threaded through confusion.
"I agree." Dabi replied.
For a long moment neither of them looked away.
"Endeavor." All Might tried again, more carefully this time. "This isn't the something you shouldn't be deciding in a spur–"
But Endeavor had already turned.
Without another word he walked past All Might and out of the room, his heavy footsteps echoing down the hallway until the sound faded completely.
The silence that followed felt thick and uncomfortable.
Fuyumi's eyes were still red and watery, the traces of tears not yet faded.
Natsuo stood there looking caught between lingering anger and something that almost resembled relief.
Shoto's expression remained carefully blank, but something in his eyes had changed.
"I think." Recovery Girl said firmly. "That my patient needs rest, so everyone out. You can visit again once he has recovered a little more."
The first to leave were the Todoroki siblings.
Natsuo practically dragged Fuyumi out of the room while Shoto followed quietly behind them.
Slowly, and with obvious reluctance, people began to file out of the room.
Gran Torino paused at the doorway, glancing back at Dabi. "I will see you later, kid." he muttered. "My back is already complaining from standing here too long."
"No matter what happens." Dabi replied dryly. "I am not giving you a massage."
"Tsk, ungrateful brat."
All Might lingered a moment longer. "Young Dabi." he said gently. "What you did today, protecting those students, that was true heroism. I am proud of you."
Dabi didn't answer, only gave a small nod.
Aizawa was the last one to leave.
"The students have been asking about you." he said from the doorway. "They want to visit once you are up for it."
"Tell them I will see them when I can walk without looking like a mummy."
Aizawa nodded once. "Will do."
At last the room quiets, leaving only Dabi, Rumi, Eri, and Recovery Girl.
Recovery Girl was checking his vitals again, her expression thoughtful. "The cellular changes in your body are still continuing." she said after a moment. "Whatever transformation you are going through hasn't finished yet, which means you will need to remain here under observation."
"How long?"
"At least a week." she replied. "Possibly two."
She lowered the scanner and gave him a stern look.
"And during that time you will actually rest - no training, and don't even think about using your quirk. Your body needs time to stabilize. Understood?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Good."
She packed away her equipment and headed for the door. "I will check on you again in a few hours. Rumi, make sure he doesn't do anything stupid."
Rumi simply nodded.
Eri, however, straightened up and gave a tiny salute. "Don't worry, Granny! I will make sure Papa doesn't even get out of bed."
Recovery Girl smiled faintly at that before stepping out.
Now it was just the three of them.
Eri had curled up against Dabi's side, careful of his injuries.
Rumi sat on the edge of the bed, one hand resting on his.
.
….
[To be continued…]
★─────⇌•★•⇋─────★
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