….
The hospital wing was locked down under heavy security that parted like the Red Sea the moment Dabi strolled through the double doors with his family in tow.
The nurses and guarding officers barely breathed, staring wide-eyed at the Hero who had annihilated All For One, now casually holding two toddlers' hands while a hooded Mirko strolled at his side.
Reaching Room 402, Dabi didn't bother knocking.
He simply turned the handle and pushed the door open. Inside, the room was dimly lit by the late afternoon sun filtering through the half drawn blinds.
Enji Todoroki sat motionless on the edge of the elevated medical bed, stripped of his blazing flames, his broad torso swathed in layers of fresh white bandages, staring blankly at the floor.
Sitting on a hard plastic chair beside the window was Natsuo, his arms crossed over his chest, his hair a disheveled mess and dark circles bruising the undersides of his eyes.
At the click of the door, Natsuo's head snapped up.
His eyes widened in shock as he took in the sight of Toya standing in the frame, flanked by the Number Five Hero and two little girls.
Dabi paused on the threshold.
"You're doing a job that doesn't suit you, Natsuo." He pointed out, breaking the suffocating silence of the room.
Natsuo blinked, momentarily thrown by the nonchalance rolling off his elder brother. He swallowed hard, looking between Dabi, the kids, and the silent monolith on the bed, before his face hardened into a grimace.
"You're one to talk..." Natsuo replied back, leaning forward with a weary snort. "You visiting the old man doesn't suit you either."
"Fair point." Dabi chuckled softly, stepping fully into the room.
Behind him, Rumi pulled her hood down, her eyes immediately locking onto Enji with disgust, while little Himiko gripped Dabi's coat tightly, peering out with wide golden eyes, and Eri stepped cautiously into the room, holding Dabi's hand like an anchor.
On the bed, Enji's massive frame stiffened.
The mere sound of that raspy, familiar voice seemed to send a tremor straight through his ruined core.
Slowly, heavily, the broken flame hero lifted his head.
….
Dabi let his eyes linger on the bandaged figure on the bed for only a heartbeat before glancing sideways at Rumi.
"Bunny." Dabi said softly. "Take the kids and wait out in the hall for a minute."
Rumi didn't argue.
Her eyes flashed with one last withering glare at Enji before she placed a gentle, guiding hand between Eri and Himiko's small shoulders. "Don't take all day in here, Patchwork. The strawberry buns get cold, and I am not letting our afternoon date stall out over old baggage."
"I want the pink bun with the extra sugar crust!" Himiko cheered immediately, raising both hands in the air so fast her little bunny backpack jingled.
"Papa said we have to share the big one." Eri reminded her of taking Himiko's little fingers into her own.
Though Dabi hadn't said a single word asking Natsuo to leave, the younger brother took one look at the heavy silence hovering between Toya and their father and pushed himself up from his chair.
"I will... go wait out in the corridor."
He muttered, scratching his cheek awkwardly as he sidestepped toward the exit. He had spent hours listening to Enji's silence, and he had zero desire to be caught in the middle.
As the door swung slowly shut, Eri glanced up into the brightly lit hallway and recognized the tall, broad shouldered young man with spiky white hair.
?!Her ruby eyes lit up with proud recognition.
Having seen him twice before during family check-ins, she felt fully qualified to take charge as the responsible older sister.
Eri gently tugged Himiko's sleeve, leaning down to stage a whisper in that super important tone.
"Himi-chan, look." she whispered, pointing toward Natsuo. "That tall one is Papa's younger brother. That's our Uncle Natsuo!"
"Uncle Natsu?" Himiko squeaked, tilting her head so far back that her blonde toddler buns nearly brushed her tiny backpack.
Her golden eyes went as wide as saucers, sparkling with curiosity. "Woah! Is he a bunny uncle or a fire uncle?"
"Neither!" Eri giggled behind her small hand, shaking her head. "He's an ice uncle, but not the frosty kind. He's just Natsuo-niichan! He has big squishy cheeks, but he always forgets to smile."
"No smile?" Himiko gasped, looking utterly horrified.
She immediately waddled two steps closer, puffed her cheeks out until she looked like an angry little dumpling, and planted her hands on her hips. "Uncle Natsu! You have to smile! If you don't smile, the bread tastes bad!"
Natsuo stopped dead in his tracks.
A bright red flush shot straight up his neck and bloomed across his ears.
He tried desperately to keep his usual scowl in place, but staring down at the tiny blonde gremlin scolding him while Eri nodded solemnly beside her, his entire chest felt like it had been dunked in warm syrup.
"I-I smile..." Natsuo stammered. "Sometimes."
"See? He's shy." Eri informed Himiko wisely, counting on her little fingers to continue her grand family lesson–
"And Papa has an older sister too! Her name is Auntie Fuyumi, and she smells like warm vanilla tea! She makes super-duper yummy soba with crunchy tempura and pretty star-shaped carrots! And she gives the bestest, warmest squishy hugs that make your tummy feel happy."
"I want vanilla hugs and star carrots!" Himiko bounced on her heels, clapping her sticky little hands together in pure delight.
"...and there is Uncle Shoto!" Eri's eyes sparkled brightly. "He's Papa's littlest brother! He has a very sleepy, funny blank face, just like Papa when he's waiting for toast. But he is super-duper sweet!"
Himiko gasped, placing both chubby hands over her cheeks in sheer toddler disbelief. "That's sooo like papa!"
Natsuo aggressively bit the inside of his cheek.
His heart was melting into complete mush, his hands itching to scoop both of the little terrors up and buy them the entire candy shop.
Rumi leaned against the wall beside the door, her rabbit ears twitched with fond amusement as she gave Natsuo a teasing grin. "Told you they're dangerous, kid. One minute you're brooding, the next you're carrying pink backpacks."
"And that person in the big bed?" Himiko suddenly asked, pointing a blunt, curious finger back toward the door that hadn't quite clicked the latch-shut. "Who is the big grumpy statue?"
Eri blinked, her voice dropping into a quiet, matter-of-fact tone completely stripped of anger, filled only with innocent childish clarity.
"That's Papa's dad." Eri explained softly. "Papa doesn't really like him very much. He was really mean and loud a long time ago, so he had to sit in time out for years and years."
"Big time-out!" Himiko repeated with solemn authority.
"Yeah." Eri nodded, her white hair swaying softly. "He doesn't get hugs. But remember that super pretty lady we visited before? That's our Grandma! She gave us soft peach candy and kissed our foreheads. So Grandma is the super-nice one!"
"Grandma is the bestest!" Himiko declared loudly, nodding her head so hard her blonde buns bobbed like little pom-poms. "Nice Grandma gets all the peach candy! Bed statue guy gets zero pastries! No strawberry buns for meanies!"
"Zero pastries." Eri agreed in a very polite, final whisper.
Outside, Natsuo covered his face with both hands, his broad shoulders shaking as he utterly failed to suppress a helpless snicker.
….
Inside the quiet room, the heavy door finally clicked shut, muffling the bright giggles and sweet squeaks of the two little girls down the hall.
Yet, they heard everything before it got shut down.
Enji remained frozen on the mattress.
Hearing the fractured pieces of his life reduced to something so simple, his daughter's warm kitchen, his youngest son's quiet kindness, Natsuo's presence, Rei's gentle embrace, and his own complete, effortless exclusion, struck Enji harder than any physical blow he had ever endured.
Because to those two innocent toddlers, he wasn't even someone worth hating, just a grumpy statue in a bed who apparently didn't deserve a pastry.
Dabi shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his dark coat, standing at the foot of the bed with a slow, devastating smirk playing on his scarred lips.
"Kids are brutally honest, aren't they, old man?" He drawled. "They pick up on things fast."
The room fell into silence, thick with the phantom scent of ash and antiseptic.
The family Dabi now stood at the center of, with laughter, warm meals shared at home, and small hands clutching pastel backpacks, embodied every bit of the warmth the Todoroki household could have possessed.
It was everything they were meant to be, if only the colossal, broken figure sitting in front of him hadn't torn it apart with his own hands in pursuit of his selfish ambitions.
Dabi didn't bother pulling up a chair.
He didn't offer a greeting, nor did he posture.
"The cabinet ministers finally showed their true colors with their latest request." Dabi drawled conversationally, without a trace of flair–
"With the country having lost its golden god and its Number Two, while the bird is buried beneath mountains of Commission paperwork, the whole cabinet is terrified as hell. So a tidy little proposal was put together. Make me their Chief Marshal, and in return, they get to borrow my daughter."
Enji's bandaged frame remained rigid, but his hollow, downcast eyes twitched upward.
"To use Eri's Rewind on you." Dabi continued smoothly. "And the funny thing is, old man, she actually could. She has nearly a year's worth of energy stored within that little horn, so reversing forty-eight hours wouldn't be hard. You would have your [Hellflame] back, and can achieve that precious Number One rank you spent your life chasing."
He paused.
"Which brings me to the only real stain on my teaching record at U.A."
Dabi tilted his head slightly, watching Enji's weathered face. "Minoru Mineta. Got expelled on day one because of his attitude, and due to our negligence in handling it, he drifted into the cracks, and ended up tangled with the wrong crowd until he broke bad.
"Now he is stationed in a holding cell under U.A.'s security, his body wrecked from Quirk-overuse and black-market modifications."
Dabi leaned forward just an inch. "Since Eri's reserves are finite. She gets one clean shot before her horn goes completely cold for the next six months. Either that power goes into reversing a ruined kid back to the moment before he made his fatal mistake...
"...or it goes into restoring the grand, fallen Flame Hero so he can stand atop the heap again."
Dabi let the silence settle.
In truth, he couldn't care less what Enji answered; the decision had been etched in stone before he even left his front porch.
Dabi wasn't looking for counsel, and he wasn't asking for permission. He was curious to see what remained of the man after the flames were stripped away.
Stripped of his strength, his legacy in tatters, his family was pushed away, and all the while the same son he had discarded as waste somehow did something he struggled all life.
Did Enji Todoroki still crave the flame? Was the rot so deep that even a ghost could only think of burning?
The reaction was instantaneous.
For more than a day, Enji Todoroki had worn the expression of a corpse, remaining utterly still and silent as though even his children's tears could no longer reach him.
Yet now, the blank mask violently cracked.
His jaw tightened as the muscles in his neck strained against the white gauze, his pupils dilating and locking onto Dabi with a sudden intensity that carried neither remorse nor fatherly shame, while Dabi's heightened senses caught every microscopic shift.
It was hunger…
Pure, naked, pathetic greed.
The sleeping dragon watched the fallen titan reach for the phantom fire, his lips pulling back into a slow, merciless sneer.
.
….
[To be continued…]
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