Chapter Text
Sleep was hard to come by these days. Surrounded by jagged stone, nothing to keep warm but the clothes they had and whatever scraps of fabric they could come across all the way out here.
Himiko shivered miserably for the nth time, and tried to curl up even tighter into herself. She flinched as something pressed into her, growling as she swiped away a little pebble under her cheek. She heard it echo across the cave floor.
Hands down, the worst hideout the League has ever had, no contest. They've been in some terrible places before, but- nothing like this.
None of them ever felt as lonely as this.
Cold wind howled around her, the void of the space ever present, surrounding her little body. Himiko felt like the last bit of food in an empty stomach, waiting to be digested.
Or maybe that was the starvation talking. Who knows.
Logically, she knew she wasn't technically alone. She had good hearing, she knew where her remaining companions were.
Listening to them didn't really help. Hearing Tomura’s occasional screams much further down the system, the grotesque sound of flesh and bone being shaped like clay into the perfect body. His Sensei’s breathing machine, the slow beating of the Demon Lord’s heart. Some nights she could hear Spinner softly crying. She’d even hallucinated Mister’s gentlemanly cadence, once or twice. And on even worse nights-
On the worst nights, she could hear Jin and Magne. Laughing. Talking about something that she couldn't quite understand. Far away chatter, like when her parents had guests over and she wasn’t allowed out of her room. They always disappeared if she tried to focus on them.
All of them, people she could hear but never see . She felt like she was going crazy, actually crazy. The few friends she had in this world, just out of reach.
The only person she really saw these days was Dabi. Touya, now. And even then, things were different. Before he was cranky and mean, sure, but he was like everyone else too. He was like her. Hurt people hurting people. Him keeping his distance at first didn’t dissuade her, most of the League didn’t click together right away, like her and Jin, or Big Sis. No one really came here looking for friends. Dabi was especially vocal about that.
She’d often watch him circle the group, as everyone got used to each other. Himiko often thought of him as a stray cat, a scared angry thing hesitantly sniffing everyone’s hands. Usually right before hissing at them and bopping them. He seemed like he was trying to keep his distance, but Himiko was smarter than people gave her credit for. She knew this dance. Watching, waiting, calculating. Am I safe? Are you going to hurt me too? Where are my exits?
It was a good habit to have, so she never really minded it. Everyone did it a little bit in the beginning, even her. Pulling back, finding a safe corner to hide in, before eventually coming back around. Dabi just stuck to the bit for longer, and was always abrasive. That was just his normal.
Himiko imagined that most ‘normal’ people would find him to be just plain unpleasant to be around. And they were wrong, like they always were about them. They didn’t understand that his insulting nicknames always carried a lightness, that he never really meant them in the way they would. When people called Himiko a psycho, a lunatic, they looked at her with fear and disgust, hoping the words were a spell to make her disappear. When Dabi said it, it was with a smile, a hidden fondness as they talked more. She wasn’t afraid to admit she was crazy, because they all were, and he was honest about it.
People didn’t get that Dabi was fucking funny. Jin is- was, the clown of the group, loud and brash with his dumb jokes that everyone struggled not to smile at. But Dabi could hit you with a quiet quip that was mean and gnashing, and the dry deadpan way he said it only made it resonate with the group harder. He was rude, evil and happy about it. He’d point to corpses and say they looked like you. Himiko took it as a compliment, usually.
And no one else would ever, ever see just how kind he could be.
Burning down her house was just the most recent showcase of that trait. He could deny it up and down all he wanted, tell her it was just to twist the knife in Endeavor more, but she knew. He had tells, in the way he'd turn his head to hide a smile more gentle than his usual manic grin. Or a single satisfied tap of his foot, like punctuation at the end of a sentence.
When Magne had been killed, Himiko had mostly clung to Jin, both of them mourning together, plotting vengeance. But there had been moments where Dabi had tried to check in on them, without being forthright about it. Just lurking nearby, faking annoyance while subtly dropping off extra food he'd swiped when he was out. One night, he even talked to them about it. Admitted he missed her too. He'd tried to take it back when they both started wailing, but he'd left them with the extra push they needed to wipe Overhaul off the board.
And when Twice- When Jin was killed, he was just as pissed as her. He…
She didn't like to think about that day. As much as she could appreciate Dabi's rage, the glee he took in his reveal, a blow the heroes took hard, nothing could make that day and everything after feel right. It put a pit in Himiko’s stomach.
And ever since that day, the Dabi she knew slowly faded to the background. Now, Touya seemed like he was always kind of… floating. Like he was somewhere far away, thinking about something else.
Actually, it was like he was playing the role of someone more traditionally ‘pleasant’. The exact opposite of how he actually was. He was more chatty, he would hover closer than usual, maybe even initiate contact, if it was an especially weird day. Hell, before things got busy again, Himiko could get him to go on stupid outings with her without any of the usual bitching first. She could almost appreciate that part, but he just…
He had this aura around him, not the usual villain intimidation act, but something else. It was wrong. It was something final.
The mere idea of it made Himiko anxious. She squeezed herself, pulling out of her deep pit of thought to glance at the man himself. Touya was sat against the wall closest to her, a few paces away. He could've almost passed for being asleep, with his head tilted back and eyes closed, but it was fake. If he were actually asleep, his messed up sinuses and lungs would make him snore.
Himiko watched him for a few more seconds, then shuffled closer. Already, the temperature had increased a little. They could always count on his constant radius of heat. She scooched again, a little further this time.
Touya's face scrunched a little, obviously picking up on the sound and the feeling of invaded space. He didn't do anything about it until Himiko's leg gently tapped his boot. He pushed back, cracking open an eye.
“It's cold,” Himiko whined quietly. “M’cold.”
He frowned. “Not used to it, still? C'mon…” He tried to push her back further, but met equal resistance.
“No fair, you don't even feel it,” She puffed. “I've been dealing with it this whole time. You know how much I hate the cold.”
“Oh yeah? Tough,” Touya moved like he was about to stand up. “I've told you not to use me like your personal heater-”
A tiny hand shot out and grabbed his, stopping him from leaving. “And I haven't, until now,” Himiko said quickly. She lifted her head to look at him. He was a little startled to be met with real desperation in her expression, instead of an exaggerating begging pout.
“Please, please just this once? It's- …It's just really cold.” It's the last night I can ask for this.
Seconds passed in silence, with the two villains watching each other. Tiny shifts in their faces making a whole conversation. Eventually, Touya sighed, relenting.
“Fine. One time.”
Himiko beamed.
After some shuffling and a bit more arguing over space, they ended up closer to the center of the cave room, Touya reluctantly laying on his back and Himiko curled up at his side. He'd bargained for as many centimeters between as he could, which was not many but at least more than zero. He sighed again, and glanced at her.
Ugh, she looked like a smug little kitten, all wrapped around herself and smiling just enough for her fangs to peek out. He could almost imagine her purring. What a little brat.
Whatever. This wasn't too bad, and it was just for one night. He wouldn't have to do it again, ever.
He ignored the way a small part of him felt disappointed at that notion. He had no room for regrets, not now. Not when he was so close.
It was almost over. He just had to get through one more sleepless night. He grinned a little, raising a hand up and out in front of him and flexing it, out of habit. The scars and staples pulled his skin taut over his bones, the movement stiff and difficult.
God, it was going to be good to be out of this body.
Before letting his hand drop back down, he let his Quirk out for just a little, watched it zip out from the seam in his palm and start weaving between his fingers. This was the only thing he’d miss, and even then, hasn’t it always caused him trouble? Still, he looked at it with some form of fondness, as it grew to cover his whole hand.
Hello, old partner. Someone’s excited, huh? Me too. We’ll all go home soon, together. Burn forever.
God, now he was talking to it. He really had lost it. He let out a single, humorless laugh, and let the flame go. It dissipated into the empty air, leaving the heat it created that was baking his brain all over again.
Suddenly, he felt eyes on him. Ones that have been on him for a while. Nosy brat. He checked with a quick glance.
Himiko’s easy smile was gone, replaced with a look that was dead, observant. The ‘I’m about to ask a question you’ll hate’ look, he knew it well. He felt it in the atmosphere before she even said his name.
“…Touya?”
He stayed silent, hoping she’d forget about it.
“Touya, don’t ignore me.”
He felt his heart seize at the phrase. Manipulative little psycho. “What do you want now?” He groaned.
Himiko went quiet. Touya wasn’t looking anymore, but it sounded like she was trying and failing to start her sentence over and over. He frowned and turned his head. “Spit it ou-”
“I’m really scared, Touya,” She whispered, half muffled as she started to hide in her hands. “I-I- You were right. I don’t know if I’m really ready for this.”
Touya’s jaw clicked shut. Oh. He blinked at her, wondering if she would fill the ever stretching silence. She didn’t. She was waiting for him to say something.
Logically, he always knew how young Himiko was, it was obvious. She was the League’s youngest member, at least from the people who stuck around. At times like this, these little moments where she’d drop the crazy act and just be some girl, she felt tiny.
It scared him, in a way. In these moments, he was holding her fragile, still-growing psyche in his hands, and she had placed it there, knowing exactly what he was capable of. She just watched him set himself on fire for the nth time, and she still, still trusted him like this.
Like he was still someone’s big brother they could go to for advice. God, the poor wretch definitely thought of him like that. She held onto the ‘found family’ thing like a lifeline. It was a lifeline. He understood that, for Jin and for Magne and especially for Himiko-
The League was all the family and community they had. It was all they really wanted. Except it wasn’t, was it? Having these connections… Sure, in this microsecond, he admitted to himself, it was nice. They were all so alike it annoyed him. They always understood, and they were some version of kind that didn’t make him feel sick. But that didn’t fix anything. The world was still broken and hated all of them, because it was somehow their fault that they couldn’t live the way they demanded. This broken family of weirdos didn’t save them from needing to commit violence, the itching urge to destroy, to be evil, do wrong. They were just in it together.
That was why, huh? Why Himiko was still waiting for him to say something.
“…So are you gonna ditch?”
Himiko startled a little, peeking out from her hands. “What?”
“Are you gonna ditch?” Touya repeated. “I bet you could.”
It wasn’t a dare. It wasn’t a threat, it wasn’t bait, it wasn’t to make her upset on purpose. It was honest.
Himiko slowly lowered her hands, wrapping her arms around herself. “…No.” For all that thinking she was doing, she never thought about straight up leaving. She… She couldn’t. “Everyone’s gone, but they’re also still here. I have to be there to fight for them.”
Touya furrowed his brow, puzzled. “What do you mean, ‘everyone’s gone’? We’ve only lost two… No, three people,” Oh, that didn’t sound great when he said it like that. “…The rest of us are still here, though.”
Himiko shook her head. “That’s wrong. We’ve lost everyone. Can’t you feel it?” Her voice started to shake. “Jin and Big Sis- They’re the obvious ones, Mister too. But Tomura’s not himself. He acts more and more like that Sensei of his and- And I can feel how worried Spinner is about him, while those new Quirks are driving him crazy, we’re losing him too.”
She swallowed a hiccup, and her body was shaking again. Touya knew it wasn't because of the cold anymore.
He never really thought too hard about the others, like she did. He was never any good at the whole empathy thing. Himiko, on the other hand, was a little too good. If anything was ever slightly off with anyone, she would just know. She could just feel it. He didn’t really envy this sense, it only seemed to make her upset.
“It’s not fair,” She said, bringing him back out of his head. “It’s not fair at all. Those filthy heroes- ” She spat and choked on the word, teeth gritting. “They hurt all of my friends so badly, and they think they haven’t done anything bad like we have. I-I-” Tears started spilling over her cheeks, red with fury and heat. She could hear Tomura and Spinner again.
“I hate them! They made me feel like this!”
“Good,” Touya quickly interjected. “That’s right. It’s their fault. You hold onto that, okay? All that hate and anger- It’s gonna help you win.”
“What’s the point in winning if all my friends are gone?!” Himiko sobbed, starting to claw at her chest. She could hear all of them now, clear as day. “My perfect world can’t happen now! Jin was supposed to be there, Big Sis, Tomura, Spinner, Mister-”
Touya reached out a hesitant hand, trying to stop her from pulling herself apart. “Calm down! You and everyone else are gonna break Mister out once this is over, obviously, you’ll figure it out once-”
“ You’re supposed to be there!” She shoved him away and sat up, the protest echoing against the walls. “You’re supposed to stay with me, and you're trying to leave!”
Everything stopped. Touya felt his heart hammering against his bones as he sat up slowly, watching Himiko cry into her hands. He felt that rare numbness in his skin, the few times he’d actually felt cold.
“What?” He said, dumbly. “What are you talking about, crazy?”
“I’m not fucking stupid, Touya!” She did bring her volume down a little, realizing how extreme the outburst was. “You’re acting different too. You’ve stopped caring about things you used to, you’re always smiling but it’s not right, and you talk all weird! You talk like- Like you’re gonna be gone soon. I know what you’re doing.”
The two stared at each other again. Touya had gone blank, while Himiko struggled to stop crying while holding his gaze. It was silent, again. No sound but her quiet sniffling.
Himiko really meant it, when she said she knew what he was doing. She'd seen it happen to her peers in junior high, girls who came the closest to being like her before they'd disappear. And she'd felt it too, back then, briefly. It was outweighed by her desires, and she'd ended up ruining her life in a completely different way.
Thankfully, she kept living, and she found her place. She didn't like to think about what would've happened if she chose differently. If she tried to leave, when she was so close to finding true happiness.
“…Yeah.”
Himiko stopped. She squinted at him. “…Yeah?”
“You’re right. You got it,” Touya shrugged. “I don’t plan to stick around. What about it?”
She deflated. “Why… Why not?” She whispered, betrayed. “Why are you leaving us? You’re leaving me! ”
“It’s not about you. It’s not about any of you.”
She watched him lay back down, grunting a little as his staples dug into his skin again.
“It’s just me. For me. It was always gonna happen, since the beginning. Even before I started ‘acting weird’,” He gestured to emphasize. “I was never gonna make it to your perfect world. …Sorry you thought otherwise.”
He wonders when he slipped up. Made her think that he was always gonna be there. Got her hopes up. She shouldn’t even want him around though. Why was she-
Touya made a totally undignified yelp when Himiko suddenly surged forward and grabbed him, yanking him off the ground to shake him like a doll.
“What the hell is wrong with you?!” She screeched. “What do you mean, ‘sorry you thought otherwise’?! Don't give me that!” She gave him a good whack on the shoulder. “Say you're sorry for scaring me! Say you're sorry for even thinking about leaving me when you're all I have!”
Touya shoved her away before she could land another hit. “I told you, it's not about all of that! Quit being selfish!”
“ Selfish?! ” Himiko shrieked. “You think I'm the selfish one?! You're such a hypocrite! You told me I had to keep living!”
“Don't you want to? You're not like me, you're not-!”
“I don't know anymore!” Himiko sobbed. “I don't know if I can keep living in this world!”
She was hiding in her hands again, letting out an exhausted shuddering sob after the outburst of volume and truth. Touya stared at her, truly shocked. (In other circumstances, Himiko would've been proud of being the cause behind the look on his face.)
Both of them stayed stuck in place, shivering. A young girl of flesh and blood, weeping into the arms of a rotten ghost. He actually wasn't sure when he fully embraced her. He never did that with anyone now. Still, long scarred arms had gently braced around her shaking shoulders, and Himiko's small, cold hands had scrunched tightly into his coat.
Touya tried to blink away the visions of peppermint hair and tatami flooring, the smell of old wood and smoke. The smoke was probably real, actually, as his eyes focused again and he saw the seam on the back of his hand leaking into the air. He removed that hand and waved it around until it calmed down.
Himiko shifted back at that, sniffling, seeming to realize their position. Touya relaxed, and almost let go, but Himiko yanked him back.
“Stay,” She croaked. “Please. Please just stay. Please, Touya, I can't do this. I can't do it alone.”
He felt a shock of heat in his skull, his brain threatening to liquidize itself and come pouring out of his mouth.
It scared him, how much she was like him. Born broken. Born to be shunned, pushed aside, to retaliate and be killed. He knows he was born to die. Was she?
He couldn't imagine it. No, she was different from him. Himiko was always full of life and love, god, love just flowed out of her so easily, a wound in her chest, bright red blood pounding to the beat of her heart, a finch’s fluttering wings. It wasn't right for her to have that stolen from her. She had time.
“You have to do it,” Touya said, voice crackling. “Even if you end up doing it alone. That's what it means to be a villain, right? You do it on your own, you make it happen, no matter what.” Aut viam inveniam aut faciam.
Himiko shook her head again, fat tears rolling down her cheeks. “I can't, I can't do it, I need everyone with me! If no one else is gonna make it to our new world then-”
“I’ll be there.”
Shit. Why did he say that? He just stopped thinking, listening to Himiko sob like this was destroying any sense of logic he had left. She had at least stopped for now, brows furrowed at his sudden 180.
“I- There’s… There wasn’t supposed to be anything left for me, once I killed Endeavour. I wasn’t made to do anything else. Hell, my body wasn’t supposed to hold up for more than a few months,” Touya let go of her to bring a hand to his hair, tugging at the strands. “There’s almost no chance I’ll survive fighting him.”
Himiko frowned, obviously confused. Her lips parted to speak.
“But,” Touya interjected, “If somehow we don’t take eachother out, if I make it out alive… I’ll be there. So you’ve gotta make sure you do your part, okay?”
She stared at him, gold irises burrowing into his broken face, rimmed red and puffy. She sniffed, breaking the contact when she wiped at her face.
“You’re a fucking liar, Touya-nii,” Himiko laughed, watery and quiet. He barely got time to breathe when she leaned forward to headbutt his chest, like a lonely cat. “But I’m gonna make you keep that promise, or else.”
She could probably hear his heart in his throat, choking the air out of him when he asked, “Else what?” I’ll be dead.
“I’ll follow you, and everyone else. I have to be like the people I love.”
“Toga, that’s not-”
“Call me Himiko, stupid,” She punched him in the shoulder. “And don’t try changing my mind. I’m just as stubborn as you.”
Touya puffed out a wheezy laugh. God, she was right. What was the point of all this anyhow? What a waste of time, getting so worried about things that had to be decided the moment they happened. He, they all would just have to be patient again, wait and see.
“Fine. I’ll live if you live.”
“And I’ll die if you die!” Himiko hid her morbid grin in his coat.
“Shitty poetry,” Touya laid back down and let her follow. “If we're done, you should go to sleep. You’ve got a lot to do. Didn’t you want to talk with that One for All kid?”
Himiko hummed. “Oh yeah, Izuku… I still need to tell him something. I wonder what he’ll think…” She yawned. Touya actively suppressed the urge to yawn as well. “Maybe if he… then I won’t have to…”
She muttered to herself for a bit longer, but was too exhausted to keep her eyes open anymore. He thinks he heard her tell him goodnight. So he sighed, peeling off his coat to throw on top of her and put some distance between them again.
“Goodnight.”
…
Days later, with little sleep, the heroes and villains would go to war. The villain Dabi would be defeated and captured in combat by Endeavour, barely alive.
Hospitalized from his wounds, hardly able to stay awake, Touya would just barely grasp what happened to the League. To his friends.
Tomura Shigaraki was dead, perhaps even before the war, a puppet of his Sensei from beginning to end. He could barely be happy about All for One reverting into nonexistence alongside him.
Spinner had been captured after he’d passed out from Quirk overuse, hospitalized just like him. How funny, that they would share that in common when they barely got along.
Mister was still in jail, no surprises there. He was not allowed to visit Touya or Shuichi.
Kurogiri had been killed by that shitty explosion kid, hearing that made Touya seize up and the heart monitor go crazy. He never talked much with Kurogiri, but he was an ally and important to the team, and he should’ve set that little brat on fire when they kidnapped him way back when.
The day he finally heard news about Himiko, he actually sent the staff into a panic about his condition. They kept him alive though, the bastards.
It was blood loss. A transfusion she inflicted on herself, to save that stupid little pink girl she loved so much even though she broke her heart. God, he hoped that guilt was eating her from the inside out. How dare she get to live because of Himiko’s kindness, when she couldn’t be bothered to treat her like a person mere months before?!
How dare Himiko die and leave him here, unable to even choose the same fate? It was just a slow crawl to that finish line, everyday, forced to hear about how things were ‘getting better’, thank goodness the war was over, that all those scary people were dead and gone.
They were lucky he was on enough Quirk suppression drugs to tank All Might prime into a wimpy old man, or else the whole hospital would’ve been nothing but an ugly crater in the earth.
He almost blamed Shouto for relaying all the information to him, but what good would that do him now? Holding onto that childish hate for his little brother when he was the least annoying of all his guests. None of the others would’ve told him these things with half as much sympathy.
“I never got to talk to her, I think,” Shouto had said, a few days after the news had sunk in. He glanced at the monitors to make sure he wasn’t sending his brother into another fit. “She liked Uraraka and Midoriya, but they… Don’t like to talk about her.”
Touya wheezed, the best he could do at a laugh nowadays. I bet. Rotten little things.
“Do you mind?” Shouto continued, unbothered by the silence. “I was curious about what Himiko was like. You knew her for a while, right?”
A beat. Machinery whirred as Touya barely managed a stiff nod. His chest pumped with breath, forced, as he thought. His brother waited, patient.
“…Crazy…” He huffed, simplifying his thoughts into whatever words would hopefully agree with his lipless mouth. Shouto blinked at him through the glass. He vaguely gestured for him to go on. Right, everyone knew she was crazy. What else could he say?
He thought about game nights in the bar. About dodging her throwing knives. He thought about after Camino, in between hideouts, giving her a supply of his blood for the first time and definitely not passing out during it. She gave him some sort of sugary nonsense after he woke up, feeling bad about it. He thought about one of their many raids, where he’d asked her to rate the different corpses he charred to hell, and she happily called each one of them cute. He thought about the battle with Machia, how she teased him about his fire not doing damage. About long after, when she kept her promise to return to them safely. Why couldn’t she do it again?
These parts of her no one else saw, and no one ever would again. What else was he supposed to do but tell people about her? The lizard had a point about spinning stories, or whatever stupid way he put it.
Touya swallowed, as he stared down at Shouto. “L-lil’... Sister…” He croaked. Tears suddenly spilled from his eyes as he finally admitted the words out loud, bloody and raw. “Sh-She… Loved everything… E-Even me…”
God, crying was exhausting, he almost forgot. Now that he’s doing it every other week, it was really draining him. It was a good thing he didn’t mind sleeping the rest of his days away, for the most part.
He’d mostly gathered himself after a while, though he could just barely see Shouto in a similar teary state once he’d blinked the blur away.
“I… I’m glad. That you had each other. I wish I could’ve seen it,” His little brother sniffed. “… Another sister would’ve been nice.”
Touya wheezed again, equal parts crying and laughing. “Greedy ‘rother,” He coughed. “ …She ‘ould’ve… Liked ‘ou too… I think…”
“I hope so. I hope… she could forgive me. That I… we, didn’t do better.”
Beeps and hums filled the silence. Touya’s heart rate had slowed again, and his consciousness was drifting. Before the doctor could flip him horizontally again, he said, “Go t’ hell n’ ‘ind out.”
Shouto was cool, because that didn’t upset him in the slightest. “Alright. I’ll talk to her then,” he picked up his school bag and stood up off the bench in front of Touya. He’d basically already fallen asleep. He might’ve been muttering something, but Shouto couldn’t hear much through the glass.
“… Goodnight, Touya-nii.”
---
