Ready for this? Now I'm a little nervous.

XI

Fuyumi walked along the street toward a public park. She was taking her time and enjoying the short walk, smiling as she held her bag in both hands in front of her.

The weather was finally turning toward autumn, and she loved the cool breeze that ruffled her hair. She smiled a little wider whenever she passed someone, either nodding a polite hello, or waving at a child holding their parent's hand. She recognized a couple of the children from her school, though she hadn't seen one from her own class yet.

From this part of town, she could see UA; the fortress-like building sitting high on the hill, as though watching over the city.

Despite the way she grew up, Fuyumi had never thought badly about heroes. She had liked the idea of there being a special few who could protect the average people and keep them safe. She was proud of Shouto for going to UA and working toward becoming a pro hero.

She was looking forward to seeing her youngest brother again. It had been about a month since he had moved into the UA dorms. He was becoming another Natsuo, never coming to visit.

Her thoughts on Dabi, however, were more complicated.

Despite what Shouto might think, she wasn't coming because she believed he was Touya.

She truthfully wasn't sure what she believed. Based on what she knew so far, the villain didn't seem a thing like the person on the news. He had been portrayed as sadistic and threatening, as well as extremely dangerous. However, what Shouto had been saying about him, and what she'd heard with her own ears, belied that. He also had a curiously lacking criminal record for a member of the League of Villains—unknown identity or not. Not that anyone needed to know she had sneaked a peak at the League of Villains' files using Endeavor's access code.

However, the fact that he sounded nice over the phone didn't mean she hadn't gone to a hero about this meeting.

She had approached a hero she trusted to be level-headed. It was mostly for her and Shouto's protection. And because alerting the authorities about information on a villain was the right thing to do.

The hero had promised to be nearby and watch, but not interfere unless Dabi lashed out.

Fuyumi gave her surroundings a quick glance, wondering whether the hero was currently following her. However, he would most likely tail Shouto, or else had set up a stakeout at the park ahead of time. Whichever the case may be, knowing he would be watching from somewhere out of sight would make her feel much safer during this meeting.

As far as him being Touya, Fuyumi could understand Shouto's reasoning...

After the panic-inducing three-way phone call a few days ago, Shouto had explained his theory in full.

Basically, that Touya had faked his death because of their father, and recently joined the League of Villains despite not agreeing with them, in order to gain the resources needed to achieve some long-standing goal. A goal that was dangerous and not quite legal, which he didn't want the rest of his family involved in, but still missed them dearly.

Shouto had used that theory to explain why Shouto had first met Dabi close to their mother's hospital despite having never visited her, and why he kept denying being Touya but never stopped taking Shouto's calls.

Shouto had also mentioned that Dabi was good at twisting the truth. His words sometimes carried a double meaning, where they could be true literally but not figuratively, or vice versa. So the times he said that he wasn't Touya or that Endeavor wasn't his father could either be true at face value, or in the figurative sense like Natsuo used.

Fuyumi had decided she needed to see him in person to put the whole thing to rest. She would know her brother if she saw him, no matter what words came out of his mouth.

When she entered the park, she paused near the entrance to scan for the other two. There were several people here today. Some kids playing with a ball, a family having a picnic, a couple playing fetch with a dog, some kite-fliers.

It seemed no one had spotted a villain so far.

She wandered around the park, trying to find a quiet area where the two would've decided to meet.

Toward the rear of the park, there were a few redundant ball fields. Only the first ones were in use.

She finally found them sitting against the back side of a set of bleachers—and she only managed that by following the sound of Shouto's voice.

Despite their voices sounding amiable, her heart skipped a beat when she saw orange and blue flames. It took her a second to realize they weren't attacking each other.

Shouto was twirling a ribbon of flame through the air.

"You're getting good at that," Dabi said.

"I can only control it as long as I maintain the connection to my hand, though. How come you can manipulate yours without contact?"

"I guess I'm just lucky like that," Dabi said with a mischievous grin.

Shouto reached over and shoved him and Dabi laughed. "But seriously, though," Dabi said, "it doesn't do me much good."

Shouto frowned, seeming to ponder on it. "All flames dissipate without fuel... What if you feed them? Like with wood pellets?"

Dabi hummed in thought. "The pellet fuel for fireplaces? I could try that."

Fuyumi wasn't sure whether someone else could have followed that vague line of thought—what were they planning on doing with the pellets?—or if the two of them were somehow just that in tune with each other.

As she approached them, she noticed some little white cubes, pyramids, and spheres scattered across the ground. They looked like paperweights. Although they seemed to be half-melted.

She gasped. "Shouto, did you make those?" she asked.

The two boys snapped their heads up.

"Oh—is it two already?" Shouto asked.

Fuyumi frowned at him. "Two thirty," she said.

"...I lost track of time."

"He planned on meeting you at the entrance like he had me," Dabi said.

"And just how long were you two alone back here?"

Shouto tried to give her an innocent look. "Not long."

It seemed that Shouto had wanted to have some time alone with Dabi before she joined them, and hadn't told her. She squinted her eyes at Shouto in disapproval.

She hoped the hero she'd contacted had found them whenever it was they had first met, though at least it looked like nothing had happened besides them playing with their stupid quirks like grade school children. Behind the bleachers, no less.

However, there was no reason to add to the tension. Or more like... introduce the tension—seeing as the two of them got along so well.

She put on a smile. "I'm Fuyumi Todoroki," she said.

"I know," Dabi said, looking up at her with half-lidded eyes.

"Right..." Then she smiled again. "So, what did the two of you want to do today?"

Dabi sighed and got to his feet. "Let's just get this over with. Do I look like Touya?" He spread his arms a bit, like he was halfheartedly presenting himself.

Shouto stood as well and gave them a bit of space, gazing at Fuyumi with a pleading expression.

She turned her eyes back to Dabi.

He was wearing a thin jacket, and a white shirt that looked too large on him. His face was horribly scarred and she knew, beneath his jacket sleeves, his arms were as well.

His eyes were bright blue, like her father's and Shouto's, and tired like Touya's. In the sunlight, parts of his hair glittered like copper.

Dabi's hair was spikier than Touya's had been, but that could be caused by hair products.

However, even with purpled scars and piercings, Fuyumi would recognize Touya's face. And...

"He's not Touya."

His eyes were similar. But the rest was different. The shape of his nose was wrong, the angle of his jaw was wrong. His hair might've been a shade of red, but it wasn't the burgundy red that she was so familiar with.

Shouto's face drooped to a sad frown.

Then Fuyumi looked at Dabi again.

She said, "Are you Endeavor's secret love child?"

He didn't even hesitate. "No."

An instant denial was a sure sign of a lie, right?

Izuku was sitting on a couch at the dorms.

He had wanted to go to town to buy what he'd needed for today's package and then stay to watch as Toga picked it up, but, for the first time in several days, Sir Nighteye had called him in for his work-study.

...And he was very happy about his work-study, and working under Sir Nighteye—All-Might's previous sidekick—and it was a real honor to learn from him, and it's always been Izuku's dream to be a hero—

But he had been looking forward to today's test. He was so close to pinpointing the location of the League.

...And he wished he could see Toga's expression when she got the package.

Toga had told him a lot over the past few weeks. She was so willing to talk about her quirk, and even the quirks of her friends. Izuku's notebook entries have never been so detailed—save for Kacchan's and All Might's entries, at least.

But even besides that, Toga said so much about herself. She was a person who loved learning about people, finding out all she could about them. Just like Izuku.

Izuku would hate not being able to analyze people's quirks. He couldn't approve of Toga stabbing or killing people—nothing would make such actions right—but he knew what it felt like to have the urge to understand someone or something completely.

He had never met someone as obsessed as himself before. If things had been different, he knew they would've been friends.

He got out his phone to send her a text.

Being at the apartment right now was boring. Dabi wasn't around, and Himiko had nothing to do.

Her phone buzzed.

Izu must've been done with his work-study!

She texted with him for the next few minutes.

For some reason, Izuku asked if she was currently at their base.

She said yes, with a few fanged smileys, and learned that he was in the common area of his dorm building.

He said he had another present for her.

He said she should go get it as soon as possible.

She squealed and jumped off of the couch, running over to Kurogiri.

"Kurogiri! You go to the library sometimes, right? You know that one bench out in front?" she asked, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

He didn't say anything at first, but finally said, "Yes."

"Can you bring over a package that's sitting on that bench?"

Kurogiri opened a small portal, and Toga held her arms under it. A small, rectangular box plopped into her hands.

She twirled around, hugging the box, and then jumped back onto the couch and texted Izuku that it was wrapped in just the cutest wrapping paper.

Then she unwrapped it and lifted the box's lid—and gasped.

Lying delicately between layers of crinkled red tissue paper, was a small, silver-colored refrigerated containment cylinder, with a side window allowing her to see the blood within.

Amongst half of the students of class 1-A as they hung out on their day off, Izuku jumped to his feet and shouted, "The League of Villains' headquarters is in the basement of Mustafar's public library!"

The others in the room stared, and Midoriya stood frozen for a few seconds. Then he said, "Wait... That can't be right..."

He plopped back onto the couch and started mumbling. At one point saying something about forgetting the warp villain.

Dabi had assumed all of Endeavor's kids had red hair. In hindsight, he should have realized the white side of Shouto's hair wasn't just a fluke.

Fuyumi didn't look a thing like Dabi had imagined. But now he realized she was just like her brother.

"I'm not calling you Dabi."

He stared down at her, willing her to see he wasn't moving on this. "You just said I wasn't Touya."

She huffed. "I didn't say I wanted to call you Touya. We just need something to call you other than Dabi."

He raised an eyebrow. "What's wrong with Dabi?"

"It's a villain alias, not a name," Fuyumi stated. "Shouto and I want to talk to you as a person, not you as a villain." She glanced at Shouto. "Right, Shouto?"

Shouto stared at her for a moment, wide-eyed. "...I just wanted to call someone 'Touya'." Then he added, turning his eyes to Dabi, "But I agree I want to talk to you as a person."

"Fine," Dabi sighed.

He frowned in thought. What could he give them that he wouldn't mind hearing, and wouldn't give away too much?

"...Aki."

His mother's name had been Akiko, but he would rather hear that than 'Hiro.'

Fuyumi lit up. "We match! I'm winter, Natsuo is summer, and you're autumn!"

Dabi opened his mouth to correct her—it wasn't the same 'aki' that meant autumn. But then he thought it might be better she call him 'autumn' than the more personal 'luminous'.

Although this meant he was still going to be called something that wasn't his name.

Dabi was feeling a mix of things when he got back to the apartment, but he supposed he was mostly frustrated.

Everyone glanced up as he shut the door—perhaps slightly harder than normal.

"Hey, this is familiar. It's completely different from before. What happened this time?"

He really should learn to hold his tongue when frustrated. "I've been promoted to 'Aki the illegitimate half-brother'."

"Wait, Endeavor has an illegitimate kid?" Shigaraki asked.

"How should I know?"

"How do we know you're not his illegitimate kid?" Toga asked.

Dabi groaned. "How am I supposed to prove something like that false?"

"I could ask my boyfriend for a vial of Little Shouto's blood," she said happily. "Then we could do a comparison."

Shigaraki turned to stare at Toga for a few seconds. "Who in the world is your boyfriend?"

"No, Toga," Dabi said.

"Aww, you're being protective of your brother?"

"He's still not my brother. And maybe I'm just not letting you around my blood."

"Hmm... Aki..." Toga said, seeming to test out the name, "Aki Todoroki... Aaakii..."

"Don't call me that."

Author's Note:

Sorry, I've been misleading lately when it comes to answering questions about how soon the fic will end. ...But it's true that it's now known that he's not Touya, and that I see the fic ending if or when it becomes known that he's not a Todoroki. So it was true from a certain point of view.

I'd planned on Fuyumi asking Dabi that question and it mirroring the first chapter for such a long time.

I changed my mind about rearranging the next two chapters. I like how chapter thirteen just happens to be number thirteen. ...But I would still like to have it up before next month (if I can write it that fast), so I might have a lot of uploading happening this week. (I'd written the Hawks-related chapter a while ago, though, so I just need to read over it some.)

...I'm unsure how I feel about giving Dabi telekinesis. I thought it sounded next, but now I'm not so sure it makes sense.

I had an idea pop into my head recently for a future story event, but I don't think it feels right for this fic. Been pondering on making an offshoot fic that's more serious than this one, because I thought it was a neat idea. But I'll need to wait and see.