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Ari walked down an almost deserted street, he only shared it with a drunk guy walking in the opposite direction to him, holding a bottle in one hand and stumbling in a very wobbly line as he made his way to the nearest taxi rank. Ari dragged his feet over the pavement, it was getting late and he didn’t want to go home yet. It was too loud there, too many people, the only way to get some time to yourself would be to leave. He turned onto the decaying high street, most of the shops had boarded over windows covered in spray paint. He lent against one, tilting his head back to look at the sky, hoping to see the glimmer of stars in the sky under a layer of heavy cloud. Noise broke the previously silent night, cheering screaming and shouting. Curiosity made Ari follow the noise, it lead him to a park bathed in darkness apart from a circle lit up with torches placed on the ground all pointing inwards, what it was pointing in towards was blocked off by a crowed of teens and suddenly some of the group groaned and the screamed in happiness, a few fists bumped the air.
There was one other person, the only one in their twenty’s, standing further away from the rest of the crowed, one eye on the group and the other eye on the surrounding area. He barley acknowledged Ari apart from a slight inclination from his head. The crowed blocking Ari’s sight dispersed into smaller groups and in the light of the torches Ari saw a boy lying on his back, spread eagled with another boy lifting his foot of his chest and offering a hand to help him up. Once the loser had gotten to their feet, the winner ran over to the older man and looked up at him expectantly, a slight smile appeared on his face as he handed over a thin envelope before the younger boy ran away again, into a group that all crowded around them and dealt the money between them, some taking more than others, it was divided up in a way that nobody would understand if they were not part of the group making the decisions.
“it’s rare to see a new face that nobody knows at all”. Unknown to Ari the older man had walked towards him and joined Ari leaning against the fence line of the park. His hands were in his pockets as he introduced himself “Dabi”
“Ari” was all that he said in reply. They lent against the fence for a moment in comfortable silence.
“it’s strange isn’t it” Ari cocked his head to the random change of subject “teens and children, I mean, just look at them. Some have nowhere to go, some don’t want to go where they want to go and some want to get away from where they are and yet that can all be themselves here, they all turn up here. So, what is your reason for coming here?”
Ari turned his head away at that, looked up at the sky again, this time he could see the stars. “home was just too busy; I needed a break”
Dabi turned to him “sometimes we all do”
Ari was walking down the street towards the park again, he had been coming there for a few months, fitting in seamlessly with Dabi running the show. A few weeks ago, as the demand of most of the group they had taken to the ring of torches with Ari getting thoroughly beaten up, much to the laughter of the onlookers. He remembered it fondly. Ari was scrappy when it came to a fight and more often than not, he won through sheer determination and the concept of make contact with the opponent more than they make contact with you. That technique didn’t work against someone who had real training in fighting and that was definitely something that, apparently, Dabi had plenty of.
Ari felt a tugging on the sleeve of his coat, he looked down at a small face looking up at him. Tears were running down her face.
“Ari… sob… they call came at once and Dabi put me down and told me to run. I don’t know what happened…sob”
Ari’s head snapped towards the park at this, she always rode on Dabi’s shoulders, clutching onto his longish hair as handholds. She wasn’t old enough to join the others in fights yet, being brought along by an older sibling who was not willing to leave her alone at home. So, she rode on Dabi’s shoulders shouting out a random commentary to the fights that took place, while he looked up at her with a soft smile on his face. It was one of the few times that Ari had ever seen Dabi smile.
He grabbed her shoulders and make her look at him. “keep running kid, don’t go to your house, go to mine, my mum will love you. You do know where it is, you went there before if I remember correctly”
She nodded and ran off before Ari even had the chance to straighten up, there was no time to come up with a plan, his weak quirk would only let him affect the world around him in small ways, nothing powerful enough to really help. For a moment Ari was frozen in panic, he could turn tail and run, they would never be able to tell that he had run, that he was meant to bet there today but was too weak to stand up to others, but he couldn’t. In such a short amount of time it had almost become more of a home than his real home, no facades like at that place, just him. The true him. He couldn’t leave his family to fight by himself.
He ran.
He skidded into the park, feet slipping on the still wet mud and in front of him was madness. There was a wall of heroes facing the teens, Dabi was standing in the middle, blue flames roaring from his hands into the heroes, hiding the faces of the teens that he could but it was not enough. Behind the heroes there was already some teens being forced onto there knees, handcuffs being slapped onto there wrists. Ari just stood and stared, how could they do this, why would they do this. Hero’s were always too late when it mattered and turned up when it didn’t. Where were they for these kids when they were needed. Was there only purpose was to come in when others had tried to build a life for themselves, create a family and then rip it to shreds in front of their eyes. He snapped out of it. This was no time to be angry. He approached some of the teens that were at the back to the group, he signalled that the other gate, that was covered by overgrown bushes had not yet been discovered, they needed to get out when they could. It didn’t take long before the heroes realised that some were escaping from another route, it was soon cut off but at least some had gotten out. Soon they were whittled down, they had no chance in the first place. A rag tag group of teens with two people barely into adulthood leading them, it was designed to fall apart if heroes ever got involved.
Through the blue flames, Ari spotted one of the heroes harshly push a kid to the floor, no sympathy in their eyes, just distain. Distain for someone below him, someone who couldn’t save themselves. They had always lied to him, all through school and all those media outlets telling him how great the amazing heroes are. Heroes are not there to save people. Heroes are there to punish people, to punish what is perceived as the guilty. In that moment the heroes don’t seen teens and children trying to create a family for themselves. They see a would-be villain, someone creating a disturbance for those who were ‘good’.
Ari snapped.
In that moment something clicked in Ari’s brain, the blue flames surrounding him, Dabi and the few teens left amongst them, died down as electricity cracked, the ground shock and the heroes in front of him cowered. They would regret entering his territory, regret coming near his family.
Ari’s mother called him down, from his shared room, an edge of disapproval in her voice. It had been a week since the incident and although the heroes and police couldn’t prove anything against him, his mother had correctly guessed what had happened and he hadn’t been let out of the house alone since.
Awkwardly standing in the doorway of the kitchen was Dabi. The rest of the family streamed around him, rushing about for god knows what reason.
“we should talk outside” said Ari, looking at the floor rather than at the man he had come to respect and deep in his heart he couldn’t help but think he had let him down. Dabi had nodded to that, not that Ari saw, as he dragged his feet outside.
Dabi looked up at the blue sky for a moment before starting to talk. “the kids all got away with it, they didn’t technically do anything illegal, so it was all a scare tactic. I got away with it for… other reasons and they didn’t catch you so it’ll all be fine, we can start to meet up somewhere else and”
“we can’t” Ari cut Dabi off “my parents know what happened and there worried, for me, that I’ll influence my siblings to do things that they can’t get away with, I’m being shipped of to uni. Mum begged her parent to pay for some of it and the loans will cover the rest. I’ve got two weeks max before I have to leave.” Ari’s shoulders hunched over “I can do what I can, I can try and find somewhere for you all too met that’s safer, but I can’t go anymore.” Tears started to drip out of his eyes “I can’t see any of them again, they won’t let me.”
Dabi bumped his shoulder against Ari’s.
“don’t worry about it, I feel like that’s the case for quite a few of the kids. What you think you can do is more than enough for us.” Dabi turned away and started to walk out of the gate that lead to the concreate patch that pretended to be a front garden.
“DABI” Ari yelled out at the last moment “if you ever need any help let me know, if you ever need anything. If its one of those criminal kids that you sometimes help out or just a new location, anything, just let me know. It’s all I can do, these past months, they’ve been some of the best”
Dabi waved his hand dismissively as he walked away. “I’ll remember that kid, look after yourself. Keep it together when you’re at uni.” And his shadow walked away from the house, his lanky figure walking into the future one that Ari hoped included him.