Chapter Text
Making ends meet was a subject neither Fuku nor Kazumi wanted to talk about with Ren.
After all, having to decide between eating dinner or paying rent was not something a twelve year old needed to learn or know about. Maybe they should have thought about it when they decided to run away without a proper plan for the three of them. Turns out, it is harder to make money if none of your siblings have a proper education, and even worse if two out of three are underage.
Yet, neither of them would admit they regret it. Not having to hear stories about Ren stitching up random delinquents that used his last foster home as a medical clinic was enough to make it all worth it. Even if it meant finding whatever odd jobs they could around the city to keep a somewhat decent roof on top of their heads.
They both knew the easy way out if they really needed the money, but neither Fuku nor Kazumi wanted to go that far. It wasn’t too difficult to figure out which neighbourhoods to avoid at night; even though they were relatively new to life in Musutafu, they knew how to pick up on the little details that gave them enough information about every street they walked down.
Working for small time crooks and common criminals wasn’t the life they wanted for Ren; after all, that was the very reason they’d run away from the orphanage in the first place. However, seeing those wads of cash being offered up after hearing what their quirks could do was tempting. After all, there’s a limit to how much a fifteen-year-old can earn, even working two shifts in small cafés that were willing to hire him. Fuku will never make a decent amount of money working in a café.
Unlike Kazumi, Fuku didn’t have much of a moral compass. He’d rather eat than stick to his principles. If giving up his values meant they wouldn’t go hungry, he wouldn’t hesitate to let them go. However, he wasn’t the eldest brother; if Kazumi asked him not to get into trouble, he wouldn’t. Kazumi was a much better person than he was. She would rather go without food than see any of her younger siblings suffer because of her bad decisions; she would go without food just to see her siblings become people who contribute to society, even if it meant her own health suffered as a result.
Even so, Fuku wouldn’t let his sister suffer because of his decisions. They’d both decided that running away was the best solution for the three of them; he hadn’t just blindly followed her ideas. They both shared the same responsibility to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. Fuku wasn’t prepared to watch Kazumi waste her life looking after them. Kazumi had been prepared to take them in even when she could barely keep her head above water without a family to help her. She hadn’t hesitated for a second to take them in as soon as she and Fuku had discovered what they were doing to Ren in those foster homes. There was no way Fuku would let Kazumi fade away whilst they pretended to be happy.
So he did what he did best: observe and analyse. He observed how things worked around him, how those bars that were clearly constantly busy had no drunks outside them, and how in some parts of the neighbourhoods surrounding the café where he worked there were certain streets that no one dared to cross, even in broad daylight. He could see how certain customers at the café always turned up dressed in clothes that were incredibly useful for throwing the police off the scent if they had to draw up a criminal profile, how those same individuals always met up with someone different and ordered the cheapest items on the menu, which existed solely to indicate they wanted a table whilst paying as little as possible for it.
Those people had information, valuable information that could provide them with security. Information that heroes and villains alike would pay dearly to obtain, but it was also information that could land him in a black body bag faster than it could make him money if he didn’t know how to handle it.
That’s why his analytical skills could also save him. It wasn’t hard to tell who was willing to offer information in exchange for favours, or who just needed a good dose of alcohol to talk non-stop. He was still young; he still looked innocent enough to pretend that the world around him was a horizon he didn’t understand, if he needed to pretend to be an innocent, spoilt idiot. Especially if he let his black hair blow in the wind and swapped his second-hand hoodies for outfits more suited to his actual age. He might be 15, but the poor diet that had plagued him all his life had left him shorter than someone his age should be.
If he played his cards right, he’d be nothing more than an informant. Able to pass on information to whoever asked for it at the right price, or even get new information if the payment was worth it. He didn’t need to think too hard to know that in the area where they lived, that sort of information paid well, especially with those rookie heroes who don’t understand that their cover for infiltrating the slums loses value if they don’t haggle even a little over their drinks or food and pay with crisp notes instead of crumpled ones and coins with stains of questionable origin.
At the end of the day, Fuku would do anything for her siblings.
Kazumi had always wanted to be a teacher, yet she still had to work as a secretary on minimum wage at the agency of a rich kid of a hero who played with people’s lives. Ren had to learn what was necessary for his age from old exercise books found behind schools and from library books that had to be renewed every two weeks, whilst he dreamed of perhaps being able to study medicine at some distant point in his life. If this was what they had in mind when they decided to run away, they should have stopped to come up with a better plan. After all, his life was worth less than his siblings’. If anything happened to him, his quirk was good enough to get him out of a tight spot, but theirs wasn’t so easy to use. Kazumi might be able to, but even she knew that in a dangerous situation she would freeze and fail to react; with Ren, his main concern was how he might escape, he was still a 12-year-old boy who could easily be recruited for other kinds of shady operations.
So if anyone was going to risk their life to play at being an informant, it had to be him. There was no other option; if they wanted to keep that dodgy flat in their name on the tenancy agreement, he would have to play at being an informant.
Running away from a bunch of amateur thieves wasn’t part of Fuku’s plans for his Friday night. To be honest, he felt a bit out of his depth; a bunch of twenty somethings acting like thugs against a fifteen year old boy who, as any sane person would tell you, looked even younger, it wasn’t a fair fight, nor one he thought he could win.
Running away from a bunch of amateur thieves wasn’t part of Fuku’s plans for his Friday night. To be honest, he felt a bit out of his depth; a bunch of twenty-somethings acting like thugs against a fifteen year old boy who, as any sane person would tell you, looked even younger, it wasn’t a fair fight, nor one he thought he could win. And yet there he was, running through the streets, knocking over any obstacle he came across in the hope that they’d lose his trail. To tell the truth, Fuku wasn’t really running because of the value of what they might steal; his mobile was an old flip phone he’d finally managed to make using his quirk after spending two months watching videos of the inner workings of the devices and reading a mountain of articles on the subject, which now allowed him to recite the device’s wiring as if in some strange trance. He was running for the exact opposite reason: if the thieves saw that they stood to gain nothing from selling the device, they would look for anything else they could steal from him and, to tell the truth, they would be greatly disappointed to see the state of his pockets. But that was precisely what he feared; people like that didn’t take it very kindly when they realised that their ridiculous pursuit had actually borne no fruit, and, being the emotionally mature individuals that they are, they would resort to violence.
And, truth to be told, having to use his quirk to draw and then conjure up bandages or gauze so that Ren would have to watch his older brother covered in blood whilst he treated him wasn’t part of his plans for the evening.
Neither was getting attacked, chased or mugged, but anyways.
By this point in the night, Fuku really had no idea where he was. He’d run fast enough to put a decent distance between himself and his attackers, but that had come at the cost of losing his sense of direction. If it came to it, he could use his quirk to conjure up a few coins until he had enough cash to take a taxi home, but he wanted to believe he hadn’t strayed too far from his lovely residential area, teeming with gangs and seedy bars.
He didn’t think he was far off the mark; after all, he hadn’t yet come across a hero willing to help him without asking for payment in return. If he’d left his neighbourhood, he’d already have at least two or three rookie heroes wanting to help him, just to boost their rising fame.
He didn’t know how long he’d been running, but it was long enough for his legs to start protesting from exhaustion and his breath to be running out. He knew he couldn’t run much further before he’d have to stop to catch his breath, or perhaps he’d be lucky enough for the adrenaline to give his body just enough of a boost to keep him running for a few more hours. Even so, he had to keep running, run until his legs gave out, hoping to be lucky enough to escape or get far enough away so he wouldn’t have to ask Ren to help heal whatever injuries these thugs had decided were enough for him.
“Hey, don't you guys know how to fight someone your own size? Or are you so bad at your job that you can't even handle a brat?” a voice said as he lit a cigarette with a flame that shot out from his fingers. “I don't like rookies who don't know anything about respect, not even for civilians.”
The owner of the voice stepped out of the darkness that had been hiding his face. His hair was black and tangled, a clear sign of how little care he took of it. His face looked burned, as if his own quirk had attacked him with third-degree burns.
“Get lost.”
Fuku is in deep trouble.
It wasn’t hard to see that the person who had ‘saved’ him wasn’t exactly on the straight and narrow. His physical condition and general appearance seemed to be a clear indication of that. Perhaps it was a good moment to have wished he hadn’t been saved; now the least of his worries was his wallet hidden among his clothes and his outdated mobile phone in his pocket. Fuku could only look at his saviour, hoping he would have some compassion and not pull the trigger on starting a conversation to demand some sort of compensation.
“Hey, you stupid brat, are you all right?”
Of all the responses Fuku could have expected following that act of helping a desperate ordinary civilian by someone who was clearly a villain, that was the last thing he’d anticipated. Trying to hide his surprise at those words, Fuku wasn’t very good at concealing his emotions. Although perhaps it had something to do with the fact that he remained completely silent whilst rolling his eyes.
“What? Did you imagine in your head that I’d set you alight just to get your wallet, which is probably empty? You look too desperate to be carrying enough in your wallet to make it worth stealing. I’m a bastard, but not enough to steal from someone who needs the money more than I do.”
Truth to be told, Fuku didn’t know whether to feel flattered or offended.
Who on earth had given Mr ‘I-got-burned-by-my-own-Quirk’ permission to comment on his financial situation? Even if it was true, did he really need to rub it in the face of a kid who probably looked under fifteen?
“Hey, brat. In my day, you said ‘thank you’ after someone saved your arse. What, didn’t your parents teach you manners when you were growing up?”
“If minimum-wage workers and volunteers at the orphanage don’t count, then I’m afraid nobody taught me any manners.”
No sooner had those words left Fuku’s mouth than he began to regret his boldness. Perhaps having spent his entire childhood searching for clever answers that his various carers couldn’t refute had taken its toll, causing him to fall back on habits without really considering what his replies meant in the situations at hand. To tell the truth, he was terrified. He had no idea what that maniacal arsonist might do after hearing that reply.
And even so, his time at the orphanage had taught Fuku one thing. Never back down; every word that came out of his mouth had to be something he was prepared to die for. Otherwise, there was no point in having spoken in the first place. So, even if he was terrified of how the person in front of him might react, he couldn’t appear weak. He had to keep his word, even if it cost him more than he was prepared to pay.
“Do they teach rude orphans to run away this well?” said the man in front of him with a smug smile. “How long ago did you run away, you little brat? You don’t look old enough to be what’s legally considered an adult”.
“Why would I tell you that?” Fuku replied, trying to play along with the tough-guy act they’d been up to since they started talking. “A rude orphan doesn’t know how to say thank you around here”.
A small chuckle escaped the man’s lips.
“I like you. There are very few people around here who have the balls to speak to me”.
“Some of those people value their lives,” Fuku replied, just as he smoothed his hair to pretend nothing had happened.
“Got someone waiting for you at home?” said the burnt man, giving him a look.
“I’ve got siblings,” Fuku replied, for once, honestly.
“Then I’ll keep an eye on you from a distance to make sure you get back to them. It’d be a shame to lose someone so entertaining to a bunch of bastards who want to steal a few coins”.
“If I had any survival instincts, I wouldn’t let you do that”.
A natural laugh escaped the man’s lips.
“Someone with survival instincts wouldn’t have replied to me in the first place”.
‘It’s a good thing I’m not a logical person then, otherwise you’d have had a very boring evening,” Fuku smiled back at the man. “Are you going to tell me a name, or do I have to keep calling you the burnt man?”
“It sounds like a good name for me, but if you see me again, call me Dabi”.
In this world, there are concepts that only a select few are blessed with the gift of knowing or understanding. There are people who would rather wallow in ignorance than broaden the horizons of their tiny world, just to stay within their comfort zone. Perhaps if he had grown up with a functional family or parents who cared for him, he might have been one of those people. But that comfort comes at a price, and that price is staying in the same place for the rest of your life, and that was something Fuku was not prepared to do.
If he had to wait for a villain to save him from the robbery he’d nearly fallen victim to, what would happen to people who weren’t so lucky? Who was to say that Dabi would be able to help him again when he needed it? He couldn’t afford the luxury of simply waiting for Dabi to come and save him; he had to accompany Ren to the library every day to read books and catch up on the basic knowledge a 12 year old should know.
When people with quirks began to appear and the world entered a period of chaos, the first vigilantes emerged; these men and women used their quirks for good and managed to bring a measure of order to the world.
Once the situation had stabilised, a process was initiated to regulate the vigilantes and officially turn them into professional heroes; however, not all vigilantes went on to become heroes, as they did not meet the requirements.
As time went on and heroes rose to prominence, vigilantes came to be regarded as obsolete and officially disappeared; however, some still operate from the shadows, generally doing what heroes cannot do due to the laws governing their actions.
Some vigilantes still operate within Japan, although they are more common in countries with fewer regulations regarding heroes. In today’s society, vigilantes are supported within marginalised neighbourhoods and communities that suffer from a shortage of heroes to protect them. There have been reports of vigilantes being protected by the residents of the communities they frequent during their patrols, as well as reports of vigilantes whose identities are revealed and protected by the civilians themselves. This is in an effort to secure a better life for vigilantes, given that their activities are unpaid.
Although it is not officially recognised by the HPSC, according to various interviews given to the media by survivors rescued from human trafficking operations uncovered by undercover heroes, many legal restrictions faced by the heroes were overcome by having a vigilante within the team who could act freely without worrying about the legal limits of their profession, which calls into question the effectiveness of the heroes in specialised operations.
Many victims of these trafficking rings have expressed their gratitude for the heroes’ willingness to collaborate with parties operating outside the law, as this was vital to the successful rescues that now allow them to live in freedom. It is true that, at present, certain operations carried out by undercover heroes require breaking the law or the boundaries of what is considered legal and moral, and vigilantes provide a solution that professional heroes could not fulfil without losing their licence. Whilst it is true that heroes must do everything possible to save civilians, there is a limit to what they are willing to sacrifice to support the community if it poses a risk to their livelihood and personal safety. This is not a matter of doing the right thing; it is a matter of understanding that heroes are individuals and not the image of immortals that they often present to society.
Despite the efforts of the HSPC, the vigilantes’ reputation has not waned in areas where most hero agencies refuse to operate or are understaffed. Whilst it is true that vigilantes pose a risk to ordinary citizens, they also represent a beacon of hope for all those who have never been saved by a hero. Vigilantes are closer to civilians, as they work hand in hand to ensure the safety of the areas they patrol.
There is considerable debate regarding the actions of the heroes operating in these marginalized areas, as it is well known that many of these heroes do not seek to arrest vigilantes. This goes against the measures established by the HSPC when dealing with these individuals. Vigilantes seek to reach an agreement with the heroes operating in these neighbourhoods to ensure the safety of civilians.
A survey conducted monthly over the last five years demonstrates steady progress in public perception of vigilantes….
Vigilantes.
Although the article went on, his mind had become fixated on that phrase. If the watchmen were protected by the neighbourhoods they guarded, he could protect his brothers without having to worry about being around them all the time. He could finally rest assured that they were safe walking around the area where they lived. Where they lived wasn’t exactly a bad neighbourhood; it was simply that poverty sometimes drives people to take desperate measures to get what they need. Fuku wasn’t stupid; even if he dared to become a vigilante, he knew it wouldn’t grant him immunity. There would always be some element of danger as long as it bore any resemblance to the work of heroes.
And yet, he couldn’t shake the idea of becoming a vigilante from his mind. Perhaps it was the prospect of having adrenaline constantly coursing through his veins whilst doing things in a tight-fitting suit that he would otherwise find ridiculous, or perhaps it was the sheer amount of power that would give his fifteen-year-old self.
Either way, it didn’t stray from his original purpose; being a vigilante would be a sure-fire way to obtain information, and reliable information at that. He wouldn’t have to risk his neck just to get poor-quality intel. Although he knew full well what the biggest obstacle would be to him even considering becoming a vigilante.
Kazumi.
His sweet, beloved older sister who worked herself to the bone for them every day. The sister who was willing to go without food so that her younger siblings could have something on their plates every day. That very same sweet Kazumi was the obstacle standing in the way of him becoming a vigilante. Although it was something he normally adored about her, her unwillingness to compromise her principles was precisely what was holding him back from his mission. There was no way she would give him permission to be a vigilante if it meant doing something against the law. Her moral compass was so strong that the mere idea of her brother doing anything that could even be considered against the law was enough to worry her and make her refuse. Normally he would agree with her; it was a very stupid idea that put them all at risk, especially Ren, because he knew that Ren would be the one to help him with his injuries. As much as they hated to admit it, Ren’s quirk was very useful for medical procedures, even if the only medical procedures he would end up performing were stitching up his brother’s wounds with his hair.
“There’s no way in hell I am letting you do that” those were Kazumi’s words as soon as the words to express the idea had left Fuku’s lips.
Fuku didn’t even try to argue.
“There’s no way on earth I’m letting you go off playing the hero illegally, without a pay check or any way for me to even know if you’re alive or dead, Fuku. What on earth are you thinking?”
"It would be a good way to make money and get information,” Fuku replied in a weak voice, not wanting to upset his sister any further.
“It would be a good way to end up having to identify your body at a morgue and lose a brother, Fuku. I’m not going to let you waste your life like that”. Despite how blunt she was being, Kazumi was speaking gently, as if to a small child.
“And I don’t want to see you waste your life working at something you hate just to keep a roof over our heads either. I don’t want to see you lose yourself for our sake; I won’t let you”.
This wasn’t the first time they’d had this conversation; it was a discussion that haunted them in whispers and worried glances at one another after their respective shifts wherever they could find work. Glances that had become more frequent when Kazumi realised he was using his quirk to create anything that could be sold without difficulty, even though it tired him out even more and left him with barely enough energy to live.
“Let me do something to help you; I don’t want you to carry the weight of our whole world on your shoulders, it’s not fair on you. You deserve to live” Fuku said, almost pleading.
“Suppose I gave you permission to go ahead with this madness, what’s your grand plan to make it actually work for us?”
"Vigilantes earn respect by helping civilians. They’re given food, water or even money; the civilians themselves support them and protect them. There wouldn’t be so many novice thieves trying to rob us just because we look young; you could go out without worrying that Ren would have to act as a doctor again
Fuku knew that was a low point, a crude remark that even he knew he shouldn’t bring up. Running away with a twelve-year-old boy so that he’d stop cutting his hair and be put to work stitching up wounds on drug addicts had nothing to do with his crazy idea of wanting to be a vigilante to play at being an illegal hero. What they’d decided to do for Ren’s sake wasn’t some stupid excuse Fuku should use to justify his whims.
And the look on Kazumi’s face seemed to reflect that he was thinking the same thing.
“Don’t bring that up again as an excuse for this little game of risking your life that you want to play. Do you want to risk your life to see if the people around here would be kind enough to give you something in return? Is that what you’re telling me? Do you value your own life so little that you simply decided playing at being a hero without pay is worth it?”
“I didn’t mean that! And you know it!” Fuku replied without realizing he was shouting.
Kazumi’s cold stare made him swallow hard.
“Keep your voice down; for once, Ren is managing to sleep without having nightmares about the blood on his hands.”
For a few seconds, the room was completely silent.
“I won’t let anyone else use Ren’s quirk to heal wounds; not you, not me, no one. That’s what we agreed when we ran away. I looked him in the eye and promised him he’d never be used again. Do you understand that? How can I look him in the eye if I can’t keep that promise?”
‘I know, Kazumi, believe me, I know,’ Fuku began. ‘I was the one who held him while he cried those first few days here, because he thought that if anyone died out there, it was his fault. They made him feel guilty for everything that was happening around him, until he forgot how to be a child.’
Fuku sighed.
“I don’t want to make you feel guilty because I know that for the first few days, Ren and I were practically on our own, but back then, Ren could only sleep if he had a pair of scissors close enough that he could get up and cut his own hair if he needed to. I had to learn how to make a pair of scissors with my quirk because the only other option we had was to steal them. It wasn’t easy. How could I tell him that no one was going to ask him to stitch us up with his quirk and his hair? He didn’t believe me, no matter what I said.”
“Fuku,” Kazumi began.
“I know you hate this idea, that you think it’s stupid and dangerous, and that you think it’s just a risk I want to take. But if there’s a chance I can help us by doing this, I don’t care about the personal risk if, in the end, it can help us do something to get Ren out of this hellhole. I’m not thinking about me or you; I’m more worried about him”.
Kazumi was silent for a few seconds.
“If I let you go through with this madness, what is your actual plan for the future? In five, in ten years, what do you intend to do?”
“To be honest, I don’t know. I’m not going to plan for the future if I haven’t got the present sorted out,” Fuku replied honestly.
"Three months. If nothing worth continuing has happened in three months, you stop. Understood? And you and I are going to have a long chat with Ren to make sure nothing comes of this".
A smile played on Fuku’s lips
"Of course, I won’t let you down. If this doesn’t work, you’ll never hear me speak of the matter again, I promise." Fuku looked Kazumi in the eyes for a second before continuing, "I have no intention of making Ren my personal doctor again; I’d rather bleed to death in a deserted alley than put him through that again. I’m asking you, just this once, to trust me; I promise it’ll be worth it”.