It has occurred to me that I have absolutely no idea how to write the dialogue for children while writing this chapter. After giving it much thought, I have come to the decision to simply remove any "advanced" words from the dialogue.

…Pretty sure I failed in that department though…

. . .

. . .

Midoriya Inko liked cafes. The quiet ones, at least. The ones that had loud individuals as their regulars were the cafes that Inko made absolutely sure to avoid.

So when she first found the cafe named 'Background Noise', she was pleasantly surprised. It wasn't a popular cafe nor was it a struggling one. It was somewhere right in the middle with its simple and clean aesthetics, soft piano playing through hidden speakers, and with the majority of its customers being university students with papers and laptops out in front of them.

And while she was not a university student, Inko had a laptop out as well as she scrolled through the web. There was a document out in a different window with a half-finished children's story (one that she should really get to finishing before the deadline), but there was a news article that pulled her attention. As she finished reading the short bit of news, she sadly shook her head.

"How terrible," she muttered.

"What's terrible?"

Inko looked up to see a woman with wild, ash-blonde hair with two cups in her hands.

"Mitsuki," Inko smiled as the woman took a seat across from her. "You're a little late."

"Blame the villain attack that caused traffic," Bakugo Mitsuki scoffed in the same manner that her son would. Sliding one of the drinks across the table, she continued, "Plus, I got us drinks."

She raised a brow, catching the sliding drink. "Villain?"

"Yup. Some dude that could sprout blades from his arms caused a crap-ton of chaos in the shopping district."

"Was his name 'Razorback' by any chance?"

It was Mitsuki's turn to raise an eyebrow. "How'd you know?"

Inko turned her laptop with the news article still on the screen. A few seconds of silence passed as her friend skimmed the page, only taking in the important lines.

"Damn…" Mitsuki said, sliding the laptop back. "I didn't think he'd cause that much damage, let alone leave some five-year-old orphaned from a family of four."

"Reports say that the older brother might still be alive, but the chances of that are practically zero," Inko added. "Running away with one of his blades stuck through a kid's heart like a kebob? I've seen some villains do some terrible things, but that's just inhumane."

The two sat in silence as the sounds of the cafe became its namesake. Fingers rapidly tapped keyboards, pages were turned, coffee beans were ground into powder, and a few, pitiful whimpers of struggling university students could be heard.

"So, your kid." Mitsuki set her drink down onto the table. "She's got two quirks, huh? That's neat."

"No, not two quirks," Inko said with a slight shake of her head. "According to the doctor that Izuki and I visited earlier, she has a single quirk with two parts, fire and ice."

Mitsuki dismissively waved her hand and took another sip of her drink. "Same difference. Two quirks, a quirk with two aspects, they're basically the same thing."

As much as Inko wanted to refute her friend's statement, she knew better than to even try. Mitsuki could be incredibly stubborn when she wanted to be, and this was one topic that she'd refuse to budge on.

"Gotta say though, I'm a bit jealous," Mitsuki continued. "Fire and ice at once? And given who the girl's biological father is, I wouldn't be sure if your girl turns out to be a damn powerful hero."

To that, Inko had absolutely no doubt. As a hero, Endeavor had definitely earned his number two spot. His mind and quirk's strength was a head and shoulder above most heroes. As a husband and father, on the other hand…

She shook her head. There was a good reason why Todoroki Rei, Endeavor's wife, gave one of her beloved children away to keep her away from the number two hero.

"My brat's still gonna be number one. Just sayin'," Mitsuki added with a playful smirk. "Don't care how good your girl's quirk is, my brat's gonna be at the very top."

For the first time in a while, a competitive smile found its way onto Inko's face. "Are you sure about that?"

"Of fu - freaking course," Mitsuki scoffed, having momentarily paused to catch herself. There were a few kids in the store and quite a few studious teenagers, and no one would appreciate her loud profanities. "We don't even have to bet anything since the winner will get gloating rights in the end." She stuck out her hand. "Sound good?"

With a grin adorning her face, Inko grabbed her hand and shook. "Deal."

. . .

"This place looks like shit."

"It's a garbage dump, Kacchan. I'm sure that it looked really nice before."

"I don't care about what it used to look like before. I'm just saying it looks like shit now."

Izuki released a sigh as she listened to Katsuki's statement. While he wasn't exactly wrong, he could've said it in a way that had more…tact.

At the same time, she wasn't wrong either. Dagobah Municipal Beach was once a beautiful beach with clear waters and white, silk-like sand. Thousands of people would come on a daily basis during the summer season, and it was also a giant tourist attraction.

Well, according to the information she was able to find on the web, at least.

Now though, Dagobah beach was almost a landfill. Over the years, garbage and waste started to pile up from the sea, slowly accumulating as no one bothered cleaning it up. Trash littered every square inch of the once-white sand, and what was once clear waters were now murky with the rainbow-colored stains that you'd see from oil. Only a few spots were free of trash, but even then, it was still very small.

As it was, Izuki and Katsuki were standing in the middle of one such clearing that was no bigger than the size of their living rooms. Large shipping containers and other unwanted pieces of waste acted as a man-made wall, making it impossible to see the nearest streets of their town.

"How'd you even find this place, Izu?" Katsuki asked.

"I came across it by chance," she answered. "No one really comes by this place, so it's a perfect place for us to practice our quirks!" A frown then marred her face. "Though you'll have to be a little careful because your quirk is loud."

"Che, whatever." Katsuki raised a hand and sparks began to crackle in his palm. "Who cares about being quiet?! I'll just blast everyone out of my way!"

Another sigh escaped her lips. A year had passed since the two of them received their quirks, and within that year, Katsuki had grown more arrogant. It wasn't too bad since Izuki was constantly reeling in his ego, but at the same time, it was, in a sense, deserved. His quirk was strong and the sharpness of his mind rivalled it.

"Just try and keep it down a bit. We finally have a place for us to practice using our quirks, so it'd be a waste if the police catch us," Izuki reasoned. "Want to start?"

At this, Katsuki's mouth split into a wide grin. "Hell yeah!"

Without waiting another second, he walked forward a few steps so that his quirk wouldn't be anywhere close to Izuki. It was a sentiment that she appreciated. While Katsuki was definitely a quick learner and was able to get his control over his quirk easily enough, there were still a few sporadic accidents and explosions that he didn't intend to let off.

As expected of quirks though. It was one thing to have control over your quirk, and it was another thing completely to master it. Mastery was something that only came with many years of experience, and that was something that neither of the two had.

Turning her body to be angled away from Katsuki, Izuki took in a slow and deep breath. In the past year of studying her quirk, there were a few things that she learned aside from the fact that she was almost six-years-old. The first was that she was able to shoot out stronger flames with a bigger intake of oxygen. It confused her at first but quickly made sense. Oxygen feeds fire.

The second was that the more she used her flames - her right side, the higher her body temperature would get. Due to this, she'd have to repeatedly us her left side to cool down her body.

This normally wouldn't too difficult of a task since she could simply expel ice from the left side of her body, but that caused a layer of frost to form over her skin.

Once again, that in itself wasn't too bad, but her mother's words would always come to mind in Izuki's head. That night was also the first time that her mother looked scared. There were many times when she would look worried or anxious, but never scared, and so Izuki took her mother's words to heart and kept her ice a secret to almost everyone she met. The only others outside of her family that knew of her ice abilities were Katsuki and his mother, Mitsuki, and neither of the two were not the type to break a promise.

After releasing another bout of flames, she felt it. Despite the coolness of the weather, her body felt like it was burning inside, and she willed her left side to come to life.

'Slowly. Carefully.'

The cold spread throughout her body and trails of steam began to rise from her skin, which was then followed by rime.

'Slower. More control.' She slowly exhaled as she focused more on her quirk. Despite the cold spreading throughout her body, beads of sweat rolled down the sides of her head as she struggled with her quirk's control. 'Slowly…slowly…' The few bits of rime melted away from her skin, but the steam stubbornly continued to rise, much to her vexation.

"Haaa… Good enough, I suppose," she sighed. "If I can't get that down, then hopefully people will chalk up the steam to a mere side-effect of overusing my quirk." She glanced over at Katsuki. He seemed to be having the time of his life as he blasted whatever he could find. "Must be nice, having a simple quirk. Then again, his drawback is that he can hurt his own arms if he uses too much power with an explosion…"

Taking in a deep breath, Izuki stretched her arms and focused on regulating her breathing control. If she wanted to use her fire-half of her quirk effectively, then she'd have to get used to the motions of monitoring her breaths.

'Maybe I should ask Mom if she can enroll me in a dojo,' she thought to herself as a wave of fire rolled off her arm. 'I read that they teach you breathing exercises so that the students don't run out of breath too quickly during a fight. Plus, a bunch of pro heroes know a form of martial arts to either assist them with their quirk or as a backup plan if their quirk can't be used.'

After another few minutes of shooting flames, her body started to heat up once more. Ice started to spread across her body out of reflex and began cooling her down.

'Maybe it'll help with my ice-quirk control too…' she frowned.

. . .

In. Out. In. Out. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Inhale through the nose, exhale through his mouth.

His lungs felt as if they were on fire. Each breath he took only increased the pain, but that pain quickly faded as he exhaled, leaving behind a pleasant, cooling sensation in his body. And then it'd burn again as he took in another ragged breath.

Rapid footsteps echoed from the alleyway he was in, and he began running again. His legs screamed in protest, but he forced them to move, for it wouldn't just be his legs hurting if he was caught by the men chasing him.

As he ran, he came across a two-way split in the alleyway. He mentally flipped a coin in his head. The mental coin spun a few times before stopping.

'Tails,' he thought to himself. 'Left it is then.'

He took the left path, and upon seeing another corner a little ways down, he silently praised himself on taking the left path. That praise immediately turned into scorn when he turned said corner.

He had half a mind to curse his piss-poor luck. Of course the path he chose would end up in a dead end, and given how close the angry voices were from down the alley, he wouldn't be able to turn back and take the right path.

"Shit! A split!" One of the men shouted.

A bit of hope started to rise in his chest. With luck, his chasers would go down the opposite road and give him the opportunity to escape.

"I'll take the left, you two go right! If you find the brat, don't let him get away! It'll be on all our heads if he does," a second voice ordered.

"Got it!"

This time, he really did curse out loud, but he still kept it to a whisper. Even if he was going to be found, he might as well prolong it for as long as he could. Then again, there'd be no way that he'd be able to win against a grown man, not with his quirk being so self-destructive.

With this in mind, he did the only thing that a child of his age would do in this situation.

He hid.

Thankfully, there was an abundance of garbage around him that he was able to hide in. At the same time, garbage was garbage, and the smell alone almost made him throw up what little he had in his stomach. But beggars couldn't be winners, and if he wanted to survive, he'd have to put up with the smell for now.

Once he was sufficiently beneath a large pile of waste, he moved aside a few bags and scraps so that he'd be able to peek into the alley.

And not a moment too soon as the man chasing him turned the corner and stopped. Dressed in jeans and a black tank top, the man looked quite intimidating with his muscular build and buzzcut. His fingers drummed the handle of a large knife that was strapped to his thigh.

A shiver ran down the young boy's spine as the cold metal glinted maliciously in the dim lighting of the alley.

"Tch, damn it," the man said with a click of his tongue. "This is gonna strain my damn eyes…"

The large man closed his eyes momentarily before opening them, and the boy sharply inhaled. The man's eyes, now glowing a dark blue, landed right on him, and a wicked smile rose on the man's face.

"Found ya, kid," the man sneered. "Too bad for you, but my quirk gives me infrared vision, so I can see you hiding beneath that pile of shit."

He didn't move in hopes that the man was lying, which was quite the foolish decision. Even he didn't believe his own hopes.

"Oi. You either come out on your own or I drag you outta there, and trust me, I ain't gonna play nice," the man growled.

Resigning himself to his fate, he pushed himself out of the pile of garbage and rose to his feet.

"Smart kid." The man chuckled and walked forward until he was standing less than a foot away from the boy. The man's large hand suddenly grabbed the boy's head before he could react and lifted him off the ground. "Then again, not that smart, if believing my word is anything to go by."

The boy began kicking and scratching whatever part of the man he could touch, but that only caused the man to growl and apply pressure onto his head, causing him to scream in pain.

"Stop strugglin', brat, else I won't play nice. I'll make your death slow and so painful, making this - " He punched the boy in the stomach, hard, and all the air was forced out of his lungs. " - feel like nothing!"

Through the pain and the coughing fit he was currently in due to the punch, the boy managed to latch onto the hand holding his head. He didn't like using his quirk because he always got hurt by it, but at the moment, the only thing that he thought about was getting the man to stop crushing his head, and his survival instincts kicked in.

So, with his small hands tightly grabbing onto the man's meaty hands, he released his quirk.

There was a roar from inside his chest. Heat rushed out from the center of his body and to the tips of his fingers, and then a powerful flame came forth. His skin began to turn red and his hands were engulfed in a blue flame, burning both himself and the man.

Screaming in agony, the main quickly let go of him and took a couple of steps back, holding a now-burnt hand, but not before kicking the boy across the narrow space. He landed painfully against the cold ground.

There was a thick, metallic-tasting liquid in his mouth.

'Blood,' he realized, spitting out a wad of the red liquid. He tried taking in a deep breath but winced as the action caused his ribs to flare in pain. 'It hurts to breathe…'

"Fucking shit, my hand!"

The man glared at the boy and drew the large knife from his side. Before he could do anything else, however, something dropped down onto his face, throwing him back and onto the ground. Said 'something' turned out to be a young boy in khakis and a white hoodie.

"Woo! Perfect aim again!" Landing lightly onto his feet, the new guy looked at him with a lopsided grin. Unkempt, platinum colored hair framed his face from underneath his hood and his eyes were a rich gold in color. "You alright?"

The boy managed to give a small nod in return. His wrists and hands were bright red from his quirk, but grit his teeth and forced the pain down. "Uh huh."

If possible, the smile on the hooded kid grew wider. "Great! Just hold on for a minute and we'll be out of here, okay?"

With that said, White (the boy decided to call him 'White' due to the color of his hoodie) turned around and faced the man, who was rising to his feet his fire in his eyes.

"That hurt, you little brat," the man growled, wiping away a trail of blood from his broken nose. "I'm gonna make you pay for that. Both of you."

"Yeesh, a little hard-headed there, aren't ya?" White grumbled. "Most guys that I dropkick from a top of a building tend to be knocked out."

Not bothering to reply, the man threw his knife at White, who ducked to avoid the blade that would've embedded itself in his skull. In that brief moment, however, the man rushed forward at an alarming speed and swung his leg, and White just barely managed to block it with his arms.

"Atatata, that's pain," White said, rubbing his arms. Ducking underneath another kick from the larger man, he reached into his pocket and threw… "POCKET SAND!"

The unexpected assault of sand caused a very slight delay in the man's reactions, and as such, he was unable to avoid getting hit in the face by the countless grains. His hands immediately went to his eyes and White scrambled.

"Your turn, Kūhaku!" White yelled.

There was a slight ripple in the air and a boy in a grey hoodie, most likely this 'Kūhaku' that White called for, appeared in the air above the man, who was still recovering from the sand attack. Kūhaku's leg was already raised when he appeared, which he savagely brought down right on the man's skull. The man's knees gave out and he fell onto the ground, and Kūhaku delivered another axe kick onto the man's already-broken nose.

When Kūhaku stood up and brought his leg back, the man was knocked out with blood all over his face.

"Right on time," White grinned.

Kūhaku looked over at White before flicking his eyes over onto the boy, who had not moved an inch ever since he was dropped by the man. There was a staring contest of sorts before Kūhaku simply nodded once.

"We should go. He won't be out for long," Kūhaku said, nudging the unconscious man with his foot. Without another word, he began running down the alley.

"Uwaahh~ Walking off on your own again?" White sighed before flashing the boy a bright grin. "That's Kūhaku. Doesn't speak a lot, but he's a pretty nice guy if you can get past all the seriousness of his."

He nodded. "I - I see…"

White suddenly stuck his hand out. "Name's Komadori Muko! What's yours?"

The boy was about to respond as he did the past nine years of life but then stopped.

'I don't go by that name anymore,' he reminded himself. 'I'll need a different name now.'

As if noticing his turmoil, White - rather, Komadori, folded his arms. "No name, huh? Or you don't want to use your old name?"

"Mm." He nodded in response.

A thoughtful look appeared on Komadori's face for a few seconds before his eyes lit up. Snapping his fingers, he brightly grinned at him.

"Then, why not 'Dabi'?" Komadori offered.

He raised an eyebrow. "Dabi?"

"Yeah! Your quirk is fire related, right? And 'dabi' can mean 'cremate', or 'cremation', so I think it fits!"

"'Dabi'…" He quietly repeated. A small smile then rose to his face. "Yeah, I like it."

"Well then, let's do this again, shall we?" Komadori stuck his hand out once more. "Komadori Muko! Nice to meet you!"

With a smile that almost matched Komadori's, Dabi grabbed his hand. "I'm Dabi. Pleasure."

Komadori's grin grew even wider, if that was possible. "Welcome to the family!"

. . .

. . .

Throwing a big wrench in Dabi's canon right here. Ha.
I've some plans for Dabi and the 'family'. Hopefully, it turns out as well, or at least as half as good as I'm thinking it to be.

Thanks to all that read / followed / favorited / reviewed, and I'll see you all in the next chapter...which is probably in like...a month. Maybe two.

Life's a bitch.