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Shouto Todoroki was silent as he watched Dabi from afar. His father, Endeavor, was somewhere else watching. Dabi was in what Shouto could only assume was his private living space. It was in a decrepit building on the outskirts of an abandoned warehouse district.
“Shouto, come in. Over,” Hawks voice played over his earpiece.
“Here. Over,” he replied softly. They’d been keeping tabs on him for nearly three weeks now. After finally healing from his burns and after they put together a strike team to take him into custody, they had cornered him. The other members of the vanguard had dispersed after they lost the final battle against the pro heroes but Dabi had always seemed to have one of them around until now. Police were surrounding the scene at a distance and each of the members of the strike team, including Shouto, had quirk-nullifying handcuffs on their person.
“Endeavor has confirmed to move in 2. Waiting for Best Jeanist and Eraserhead to be in position. Confirm sightline. Over,” Hawks was barely visible on the top of a building about half a mile away. Rei, Fuyumi, and Natsuo had wanted to see the capture of Touya Todoroki. Probably for the same reason that Shouto insisted he be a part of the team. He had to be there; to see it with his own eyes. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t listen to reason about staying away, so Hawks was their guard on the building and would help with his feathers from afar. He’d swoop in if he needed to.
“Sightline confirmed. Over,” Shouto responded.
“Unless absolutely necessary, do not engage,” Hawks said over the earpiece with urgency. “You are there for evacuation of any unknown civilians, coordination of police force, and for possible structure support. Over.” They knew the building in question was not up to code and if a fight broke out, it might not be able to withstand it.
“Understood. Over.” Shouto knew that the pros would be far better equipped to handle this situation anyway. He just hoped that it would go smoothly.
“Eraser in position. Over,” Eraserhead said through the earpiece. He was on limited duty while getting used to his prosthetic leg. Eri was hopeful that she could heal him with practice, but life didn’t stop for him to wait for that. He was a little slower than they would have liked but what they really needed was his quirk. Dabi’s fire was practically unstoppable and without Eraserhead, this plan wouldn’t work.
“Jeanist in position. Over,” Best Jeanist said after another ten seconds.
“Countdown incoming. Prepare for engagement. Over.” Endeavor’s rough voice came out over the earpiece.
Shouto took a deep breath and got battle ready. He had already done a wide perimeter and had led the one civilian he had found away from the building and confirmed that there weren’t any others. Now he just had to make sure that the building didn’t fall down on the strike team.
“Countdown. 3....2...1…,” Endeavor’s voice rang out and at the count of one, the strike team minus Hawks and Shouto stormed the building.
Best Jeanist caught Dabi in his own clothes. Eraserhead was a few seconds behind them, but Endeavor ran over to his eldest son and immediately cuffed him before he had even turned around. As the policeman in the main strike team read Dabi his rights, his words stumbled as he noticed something was off about Dabi. Eraserhead walked into the room and immediately glared at Dabi with his piercing red eyes.
“It’s over,” Endeavor said gruffly, hoisting his prisoner over his shoulder.
“You think you’re so smart,” Dabi mumbled and tilted his head to look at Endeavor. His face was already melting as Toga’s quirk wore off from Eraserhead and the cuffs. “But you’re not as smart as he is.”
Endeavor’s eyes got wide with the terror when he realized what was going on.
“Get out of-” Endeavor screamed and dropped Toga but his warning was snuffed by the intense eruption of blue flames engulfing him, Best Jeanist and Eraserhead. Toga got up and ran, naked and still cuffed, out of a broken window that was at least four stories above the ground. Shouto saw her jump and immediately spread his ice out to catch and capture her.
“Hey, cutie. Thanks for the save,” Toga smiled but began shivering as the ice covered her naked body.
“I’ve got Himiko Toga captured. East alley from objective point. Bring clothes and transport vehicle ASAP. Over,” Shouto spoke over the earpiece to the surrounding policemen. He was trying to keep calm but he had seen the blue flames trap everyone inside. It was up to the pros to stop Dabi. His place was here, he kept repeating to himself over and over again. Keep Toga from escaping.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Toga’s teeth chattered. “Why don’t you go up there and help your father?”
Shouto stared at her. Why would she encourage him to go up there?
“Dabi wants me , doesn’t he?” He asked her. She smiled and kept shivering. Shouto heard policemen and cars coming toward him.
“So bad. In fact,” she looked directly at him. “He won’t stop until he gets you. Which means that bird-boy up there won’t be able to protect your family for long unless you go up there yourself.”
Shouto realized with horror that Toga and Dabi knew everything, every detail of their operation. He didn’t have time to reflect on how.
Running past the policemen coming toward him, he yelled out instructions.
“The mission is compromised! Take the woman into custody, I’m going in.”
A few of the policemen yelled at him but he heard nothing. His heart and head were pounding. He had to save the strike team...he had to save his family.
Shouto used his fire to propel himself into the fight, aiming for another broken window that was going to be behind Dabi’s onslaught. Endeavor was holding off Dabi’s flames barely, using his own as a wall to block the incoming damage. The policeman accompanying them was severely burned, Shouto didn’t even know if he was alive. Eraserhead was down but only burned on his left side. Best Jeanist, badly burned as well, was still awake and trying his hardest to wake Eraserhead up in hopes that he could stop Dabi for even just a few seconds. Shouto wasn’t hopeful.
“Touya!” Shouto shouted.
“Finally,” Dabi grinned and looked behind him where his baby brother’s voice was coming from. “Our dance is over, Father.” Dabi changed the position of his hands and his wall of flames became a concentrated beam of fire that blasted Endeavor out of the building. Unfortunately, the wall that he’d busted through had been a load-bearing one.
The building shifted and the ceiling started to crumble as Dabi turned to face Shouto with a manic grin.
“Get them out of here, Hawks,” Shouto yelled into his earpiece as he used his own flames on Dabi. Dabi laughed and sent his flames upward which just further expedited the destruction of the building.
“I don’t think you understand the gravity of the situation, Shouto,” Dabi’s attacks were smart. He was using his flames in a way that were both destructive to the building and aimed to hurt Shouto. “I heard you were brought along for structure support. How fitting!” Dabi yelled as the ceiling and upper floors started to drop down on them. “Since you’re the one-,” Dabi rushed at Shouto and he barely blocked him with an ice wall. The wall supported some of the ceiling but couldn’t stop the other floors above. “-that made my life fall apart!”
Shouto tried to think of ways he could get in close to capture Dabi with the handcuffs but Dabi was fast and unrelenting. Shouto turned his focus on supporting the building and dodging rather than attacking for now. If Endeavor could recover in time, they might still have a chance at taking Dabi into custody. He just needed to keep the building from toppling down on everyone, keep everyone alive, he repeated over and over again in his mind. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw feathers carry the policeman, Jeanist, and Eraserhead out of the building. Dabi hadn’t noticed; his attention only on Shouto.
Dabi’s flames were melting the ice and Shouto was doing everything he could to keep the ice up while also keeping track of the fight. They fought aggressively and without restraint. The dust was swirling around them both as the building continued to break. Combined with the smoke from Dabi’s flame, Shouto was finding it harder and harder to breathe. Dabi was quick and calculated but Shouto could tell that using his quirk for this long was causing Dabi harm. As Dabi continued to throw flames everywhere without caution to the building, Shouto realized something horrifying. Dabi didn’t want to survive this fight. Which meant that he’d do anything to kill Shouto.
“I wish I could have killed dear dad as well but you take what you get,” Dabi put his hands on the ground and blasted a hole through the already crumbling floor, which shook the building as both Shouto and Dabi fell to the next story.
Dust and debris surrounded Shouto as he cocooned himself in a thick sphere of ice. His right side was turning blue and purple from using his ice for so long. Shouto tried to warm that side up, but the damage was done. He didn’t know how much longer he could fight like this.
“I would have liked to see Father’s face as he watched you burn alive,” Dabi smiled maliciously at him through the ice as he brought his hand down to strike his protection. “Shame.”
“Touya!” Endeavor shouted at his son similarly to how Shouto had done at the beginning of their fight. Dabi stopped and looked at his father.
“Come to watch your masterpiece burn?” Dabi’s eyes glinted with muted excitement.
“Please, Touya,” Endeavor walked toward Dabi and Dabi engulfed him in flames. Pushing through them, he continued. “It’s not his fault. It’s mine.”
“Your fault, his fault. It doesn’t matter!” Dabi screamed as he made his fire more intense. Endeavor pushed through, his flesh starting to smoke and burn.The heat of the blue flames was melting the surrounding ice around Shouto. It was everything Shouto could do to keep it up as it was the only support the building had left.
“This is mine to bear,” Shouto heard Endeavor speak softly with pain and sadness. “Touya, please,” he screamed. “Let’s leave this place, I’m begging you!”
“Then beg!” Dabi screamed back and somehow the flames became even more intense.
“Colder, colder, colder,” Shouto whispered to himself. His ice couldn’t take much more of this. He couldn’t hold the building up for much longer with all of this heat.
“Then I’m sorry, son.” His words struck at Shouto’s heart as he realized Endeavor was not talking to Dabi. He was talking to Shouto.
“Father, no!” Shouto began to melt a hole out of his protective prison to reach his father, or to at least throw him the handcuffs, but Endeavor’s piercing, determined gaze stopped him. Endeavor had made it within arms reach of his eldest son. Dabi was crying fire. Whether from pain, sadness, or from overuse of his flames, Shouto would never know.
Endeavor stood over his eldest son, still being ravaged by the flames that he had stoked. Blue light radiated from the building, shimmering off whatever ice was left. Dabi didn’t stop his fire. He only made it more and more intense as Endeavor wrapped his arms around him. Shouto could see the severe burns on his father get worse as he refused to let go. Endeavor let out a final super hot Hellfire storm that engulfed both him and his eldest son. Dabi screamed in agony as the fire of Endeavor wrapped around him while his own flames licked at his skin as he refused to stop his own attack. The heat that was expelled melted all of Shouto’s ice, including his protective sphere and the building could no longer stand on its own.
Shouto felt many feathers pull him from the falling building as tons and tons of concrete and steel fell on top of the Todorokis. The flames of both Endeavor and Dabi shot up through the debris above them, creating a whirlwind beacon of orange and blue that swirled higher than the building had stood.
As the building fell on top of his eldest brother and father, the flames eventually were snuffed out. Without the light of the fire beacon, the warehouse district was illuminated only by the remaining traces of fire that covered the ruins of the building and the police lights.
Shouto was flying through the air as he was pulled by lots of burning feathers toward the medics that had been standing by. A stray piece of debris hit Shouto on his right temple and Shouto’s eyes went blurry as he screamed in pain. Before he got to the medics, his vision went black as he passed out.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Shouto woke up in a hospital. He looked down at himself, his eyes still blurry and fuzzy. He was covered in bandages again. In a moment of déjà vu, he reached for his throat to see if it was also covered and was relieved to feel nothing but skin and leftover scars.
“Shouto!” Rei’s relief of her son waking up was clear in her voice.
“Mother,” he said quietly. Though his vocal chords weren’t burned this time, the smoke and dust he had inhaled for such an extended period of time had made his voice dry and raspy.
“Don’t,” Rei spoke softly. Shouto glanced at his mother’s eyes and saw that they were red and watery. “Your brother went to get food and your sister is,” Rei’s voice caught before she continued. “Making arrangements.”
His father and her hadn’t fully made amends after they reunited in the last hospital Shouto had been in. He wondered if the unspoken words and feelings she had kept inside made this worse.
They sat in mutual silence for a while until a doctor came in.
“Glad to see you’re awake, Mr. Todoroki,” the doctor spoke matter-of-factly and began to tell Shouto of his injuries. Concussion, burns, and skin sores on his right side from extended exposure to the cold. “Overall, you’re lucky to be alive. If Hawks hadn’t got you when he did, you’d be buried underneath that building.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” Shouto mumbled. It was all he could manage to say.
Rei was crying silently to herself as the doctor discussed the care plan and possible discharge in a couple days.
“If your pain gets any worse suddenly, call for a nurse immediately,” the doctor looked at him and his mother again before leaving. “I know it’s not really my place, but I’m sorry for your loss. He was a fine hero.”
Rei nodded without looking at her.
“He did what had to be done,” the doctor determined as she left the room.
Rei began sobbing harder.
“Mother,” Shouto said again, hoping to comfort her.
Rei shook her head and composed herself.
“Don’t you worry about me, Shouto,” she stroked his face tenderly, with much love. “Your father may not have acted as I would have liked,” she closed her eyes, tears flowing out of them steadily. “But at least he saved you.”
“I wish he could have saved Touya too,” Shouto leaned into his mother’s hand and closed his eyes with her. “I don’t think Touya planned on letting that happen, though.”
He opened his eyes to find a shocked look on his mother’s face.
“He brought the building down without an escape plan and was purposefully not breaking to recover from his quirk,” Shouto tried to explain but it just upset his mother more. “I’m sorry,” he resigned.
She continued to cry until Natsuo walked into the room with soba for everyone.
“Mom?” Natsuo set the food down and went over to comfort her.
“I’m okay, Natsuo, I’m okay,” she got up and left the room to compose herself, Shouto assumed.
“Here, Shouto,” Natsuo fixed him up a bowl of cold soba quickly and went after his mother, leaving Shouto alone with his thoughts and soba.
He ate in silence, noting that Natsuo had probably got him his favorite food to cheer him up. He wished it had achieved that.
After a couple days of recovery, Shouto was released from the hospital. Fuyumi had worked with the hero commission to set up a relatively private funeral for the family. They decided to keep the funeral site secret as well to make sure that his place of rest wasn’t disturbed, so only the attendees would know where it was.
Shouto had only invited one person to come with him on that day.
Midoriya was dressed in all black and was walking with Shouto after getting tea for the both of them at a local cafe. Shouto hadn’t said much to his best friend this morning but Midoriya didn’t mind. He was worried about Shouto but was more concerned about being a place to lean on if he needed it.
They made their way to the private funeral in relative silence. They had the day off from school but the rest of the world continued. Sounds of people talking and laughing pierced their ears as Shouto felt mostly nothing.
Midoriya sipped his tea for warmth on this particularly chilly spring day. It was late April but it was like Endeavor had decided to take the warmth out of the day to show that the fire had died with him. Or maybe it was his mother, Shouto thought, making the world feel her pain.
“Todoroki,” Midoriya said hesitantly.
Shouto looked at him.
“Whatever you’re feeling right now is okay.”
“I don’t feel anything,” Shouto answered honestly.
“That’s okay. I just thought that maybe you weren’t talking much because your emotions were...complex.”
Shouto sipped his tea in response.
“I’m here if you need anything,” Midoriya patted Todoroki’s shoulder in support.
“Thank you, Midoriya,” Todoroki was at least thankful that the school had let Midoriya come with him today.
They walked to the Todoroki family funeral plot together but it looked like they were the last ones to arrive. The guest list was small and Todoroki had seen everyone that he knew was coming. Fuyumi and Hawks sat together, Hawks held her hand as she sobbed into a handkerchief. Hawks and her had grown close in the last few weeks. Shouto was glad that she had him right now. Rei was being comforted by Natsuo, whose stoic appearance was a relief for him. Shouto was worried that he’d be the only one not crying from their family.
A few other pro heroes and some other family and friends were there as well. Shouto and Midoriya sat down and the ceremony began. Due to the severity of Endeavor and Touya’s injuries, they decided to cremate them both.
Endeavor’s given name was painted red on the grave that had been made for Shouto’s parents and a smaller one with Dabi’s given name was to the right of it. It was the same one that Shouto had seen since he was a kid. At least it wasn’t a lie anymore.
Shouto heard nothing of what anyone was actually saying and just went through the motions, so when Midoriya grabbed his wrist and squeezed, it almost startled him.
“It’s over, Todoroki,” Midoriya’s voice rang with concern.
Shouto nodded. He’d been involved in services and ceremonies all week. He sighed and stood up as the rest of his family gathered at the grave one last time before they left. They all were in a line, oldest to youngest and paid their respects to both their fallen brother and their father.
After saying their final goodbyes, Natsuo hooked his arm around Fuyumi and took her to Hawks who was waiting by the main gate.
Rei had sunk to the ground and was instead stroking the kanji on Touya’s gravestone.
“I didn’t think I’d go through this twice,” Rei sobbed. Shouto laid his hand on her shoulder. “My first-born,” she barely made out before breaking down. Shouto got on his knees and held her. He’d become unrecognizable to the boy that Rei had raised but that was part of why the pain hurt so much. She couldn’t make up for her mistakes and she couldn’t help him.
“You didn’t deserve this,” she sobbed. Shouto held her tighter.
Eventually, Rei broke the hold of her youngest son and made movements to get up. Shouto stood up quickly to help her.
Rei wiped her eyes and thanked him without words. He linked his arm in hers and caught Midoriya’s eye. He nodded his head toward the gate and Midoriya understood.
Natsuo had offered to take time off from college to make sure Rei was okay for a couple weeks, so Fuyumi and Hawks had already left. Shouto’s big brother took his mother from him carefully.
“I know you have to go back to school, Shouto, but-,” Natsuo’s voice was gruff and hushed, “please make time to check up on Mom when I have to leave. Fuyumi said she will take weeknights after she’s off work.”
Shouto nodded and Natsuo patted Shouto’s back in thanks with the hand that wasn’t interlocked with his mother. Natsuo waved down a car and took his mother home.
Midoriya had waited for Shouto’s family to leave before joining his side again. They walked to the train station in silence and just had the one train ride back to school. That’s all they had to get through.
The train came after a little bit of waiting and Midoriya sat in reserved stillness with his friend.
After about twenty minutes of a shaky, quiet train ride, as if Shouto’s feelings had come back all at once, he broke down. Midoriya was thankful that the train was empty except for an old man toward the front for Shouto’s sake. He didn’t know what Shouto was thinking or what had finally caused this but Midoriya said nothing, allowing it to happen. Shouto’s head fell into his hands as the tears came hot and fast. He wasn’t a loud or ugly crier but the soft sobs were made more prevalent by the silence of the train car. The old man turned and looked at them for a moment but didn’t react much else.
Midoriya wrapped an arm around his friend and leaned his head on his shoulder. He remembered something that Todoroki had said to him just under a year ago. It was the truest statement that he had ever made. Heroes cry when they need to.