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There once lived a boy named Touya.
He was the golden boy and only child of his family, and he had his father and mother’s full attention and care.
He was a boy who was loved and knew how to love.
A boy who felt emotion profoundly, with every fibre of his being.
A boy who overflowed with hope for his future.
Yet the world was simply that cruel.
For soon enough, Touya’s quirk emerged. Although it fell short of what his loving father desired, it was powerful enough to warrant training, expectations, abuse.
And yet… it wasn’t good enough. He wasn’t good enough.
Day after day, Touya suffered bruises and burns to his skin.
Night after night, those injuries turned into scars that he would carry forever.
Year after year, as the time passed by and Touya grew older, the pressure to be better, to burn brighter and to push his body to the verge of breaking, only grew.
And Touya, still a child not even ten years old, tried his hardest. But he had been doomed from the start. From the moment his quirk manifested, he’d know that he couldn’t become what his father wanted.
Yet he had hoped, in futility.
Until one day, when Shouto was born. The moment the family saw the newborn infant with his half-red-half-white split down the middle, they all knew: that tiny baby that had only just set foot into the world would be the perfect child Endeavor had been waiting for all along.
And from then on, Touya no longer had reason to hope.
I once lived as a boy called Touya Todoroki, a boy filled to the brim with happiness and desire to do everything right in hope that I could satisfy my father just once.
And yet.
They say we die hoping and waiting for the living to find meaning in our lives.
So Touya left when it became abundantly clear to him that he wasn’t wanted.
I could have given up on my dreams. I could have died.
Yet… when Touya died, Dabi lived.
I found meaning as Dabi, didn’t I?
Dabi had purpose, direction, motivation.
Dabi led the only life he thought he could. Touya had been pushed to the point of breaking, and Dabi chose to avenge Touya, to seek revenge and rebellion in his own way even though he no longer had any association with the father who hadn’t cared for him anyways.
He found people who took him in and became his second family.
He found someone who almost understood yet couldn’t have been farther from understanding.
He found people with differing experiences yet similar pain.
They, too, wished to burn the world that had scorned and rejected them.
And together, they destroyed everything in their path. They did their best to bring the world to its knees.
I kept moving forward, living to destroy.
Dabi was nothing at all like Touya.
Touya was supposed to be a hero, yet he was but a slave to the expectations, the laws, his own family.
Dabi became a villain, yet he was also a god, in a way. He could do as he pleased; he could unleash his full power; there was nobody in his way, nothing stopping him.
Dabi was nothing at all like Touya. Except for one thing.
Neither Touya nor Dabi had anyone who would remain steadfastly by his side. To the League, he was the perfect addition for achieving their ambitions. He was simply another piece in their game. But he was a critical piece, and for a length of time it was as if he could be more than that. They fought together, cried together, plotted together. He killed for them, bled for them, risked his life time and time again.
But soon their game was over, the last piece played, the final stone set in its resting place.
And their little family was no more.
I existed only to destroy. But in time, I tired of that life as well; I had abandoned my humanity; I was left with only a shell of my former self. I burned and burned and burned, yet I couldn’t burn away the pain, couldn’t burn away the grief, couldn’t burn away the desire for something more.
And with that, Dabi left behind another family, one on the opposite side of the divide of darkness and light compared to his original one.
Born anew, bearing the weight of his two failed experiences, and filled with purpose once more, he shed his name but not his past.
He tried his best to do unto others what he had longed for so dearly.
He set out to fulfill the dreams he was too blinded and angry to reach as Dabi, as a villain. One has no way of hoping for a horror story with a happy end, after all.
He cleared for himself the path he had wished for in his youth, as Touya. Perhaps he couldn’t ever satisfy his father, but he could satisfy himself, and that was more important, anyway.
He cared not how others perceived him. It wasn’t as if he had anyone close to his heart who still stood by his side.
So… now… why do I live? Why did I choose to forge ahead in spite of everything?
I have no identity, but I am also closer to my true self than I have even been.
I once lived as Touya Todoroki. And when Touya died, Dabi was born.
And now… what? I am neither Touya nor Dabi, neither hero or villain, neither slave nor god. I am simply human. My heart beats as part of this world.
Yes, the world is cruel, but it is also beautiful.
And I choose to live, to continue to forge ahead, because even I, in my ugliness; I, with my scars and scarred past; I, with the pain I bear to this day; even I am a part of the world’s beauty, in my own way.