Disclaimer: I don't own My Hero Academia
This is just a small idea I had recently concerning Touya and Rei. It is based off a notable scene in Avatar: The Last Airbender which I also do not own.
SMASH!
The glass Dabi threw against the wall smashed to pieces upon impact and fell to the ground.
Meanwhile, the cremation villain was seething with anger.
His 'father' had held a press conference alongside Hawks and Best Jeanist where he openly admitted to everything he had done. Before he would have been overjoyed at Endeavour finally owning up to what he had done because it had been everything he was working towards. The sheer expression of despair as everyone finally seeing him for what he was would have given Dabi a feeling of joy he had not felt since childhood.
Keywords: would have!
Instead of breaking down from criticism and admitting his past sins, Enji Todoroki stood tall and revealed everything with a straight face all the while asking the populace to direct all their hatred and concerns on him. In addition, he admitted that the only way he would atone was by putting away every villain that was on the loose.
Hah! As if that would make up for anything.
Nothing would ever make up for what he had done, at least in his mind.
Twenty years. Twenty. Fucking. Years. He had spent burning his flesh off because of that man!
Nine years trying to prove he could be the hero his father wanted him to be!
Nine years trying to get him to acknowledge his existence!
Nine years trying to prove him being born was not a mistake and that he didn't need to be replaced!
Nine years trying to prove he was not a failure!
And then the remaining eleven years trying to make his life as painful and miserable as his had been!
Both times he had worked so hard to achieve them, destroying his body and nearly dying several times in the process. Yet, despite all of that, the universe was cruel enough to continue denying him what he wanted.
It wasn't fucking fair!
Dabi strode over to the sink and began to wash his face. After drying off, he stared deeply into the mirror. His hands traced slowly over the patchwork (a result of his hard work), and then up to his hair which had been restored to its original colour.
Dabi never quite figured out what caused his hair to change colour, though if he had to guess it was something to do with his mother's side.
The very genes that caused his body so much harm.
Scowling he briefly considered dying his hair again despite it no longer being necessary.
"Do you really need to do that?" a familiar female voice questioned. "Your hair was so nice before."
Dabi froze as he looked up in the mirror and saw someone he had not seen in years but had never forgotten.
His mother stood behind him smiling looking perfectly healthy.
'It can't be her, it can't,' he thought frantically. 'Wait! I'm in an abandoned building and she's locked up in an asylum. There's no way she could be here. Fucking hallucinations! Then again, why should I be surprised?'
"Why are you here?" Dabi asked confused.
"I didn't want to miss my own son's return," Rei responded cheerfully. "You were hurt in your last fight Touya. I wanted to see if you were okay."
Touya's expression quickly morphed into a glare. Even if he didn't hate her as much as Endeavour, he still hated her.
"Don't pretend to care now," he growled. "You were fine with me burning myself for years. Why is now so different?"
Rei's expression didn't falter, further proving that she wasn't really here. Touya remembered their last conversation quite well and how she tensed up during his rant. Then again, it wasn't every day when a person son told them they were sold by their parents.
"I've always cared," she responded calmly.
"Bullshit!" Touya snapped. "You never cared! Not about me, or what I wanted!"
"That's not true," Rei replied calmly.
"DON'T LIE TO ME!" Touya screamed. "You never even looked at me. And whenever you did, it was always with fear and disgust. The others you would look at with affection and love, but I never had any of that. You encouraged them to follow their dreams and even supported Shoto becoming a hero, yeah I know I heard you both talking, but with me you tried to shut me down."
If it were possible, Touya would have felt tears forming in his eyes but since his tear glands had burned away it was no longer possible.
"You never looked at me as your son, you looked at me as a monster," Touya said softly.
Despite seeking his father's approval, he had always felt hurt at the way his mother saw him. When Natsuo was born, she looked at him with a paranoid expression. And when he heard her encouraging his father's 'masterpiece' to be a hero Touya felt hurt and envious because she had never done that with him. He couldn't understand why it bothered him so much because they were never close, but it did.
The worst part was he believed it was justified. After his breakdown, Touya knew very well what he did was wrong, and that his mother had every right to fear or hate him. It still hurt though.
Rei stared at him with a sombre expression.
"I think you're just confused," Rei said softly. "All your life you've obsessed over your father, trying to fulfil his dream by surpassing All Might. You never tried to look anywhere else despite there being other options."
"Well, what choice did I have?" Touya yelled turning to face the illusion. "Growing up, he was my idol. He chose me to be his successor and then started filling my head with his dreams and ambitions of being the number one hero. That was the only reason he ever gave me any sort of attention. But then, simply because my quirk didn't suit his needs, he stopped training me and decided I was a failure. I didn't want to stop though because I wanted to be a hero like him. I wanted to make him proud. And so, I continued training in hopes he might reconsider, destroying my body in the process. Instead of being proud of me for trying, what did he do? Or should I say, what did you two do? You decided to make me quit by having another baby in order to replace me."
Rei did not respond to these accusations though Touya was not certain if she could.
"Do you have any idea what that was like for me, a five-year-old, to see my parents neglect me for another child made purely for making me quit?" Rei remained silent. "It was fucking horrific. Because no matter how much I burned myself, no matter how hard I worked to be acknowledged, the minute Shoto was born he threw me aside like I meant nothing and never spoke to me afterwards."
That was the part he hated most about it. In spite of everything he did, his father never considered it and moved on to the next one. To make matters worse, his mother went along with it.
"Stop pretending you care, Mom," Touya said firmly. "You didn't when I needed it then, and I seriously doubt now that I'm publicly a mass murderer. Go look after the 'masterpiece' who succeeded in becoming a hero and stop wasting time with the 'failure'."
Rei didn't leave. She smiled at her broken son to comfort him.
"You're wrong. I love you Touya, I do," she said warmly.
Touya stared at the hallucination for what felt like an eternity.
I love you.
That was a lie. A huge lie.
Almost instantly, every memory of Touya burning himself from training, his rejection from his father, his siblings being born, and his mother interacting with him, all came back at once.
There was not one good thing among them. He had never been encouraged nor comforted when he needed it. He had no friends because they were only interested in his father. No one cared about what he wanted and disregarded his hard work. Worst of all, it was those words.
I love you.
He couldn't remember hearing them once. Not for him.
Because no one did. Not ever.
With all of that in mind, Touya squeezed his eyes shut before punching and smashing the mirror.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" he screamed before collapsing to the ground with a bloodied hand.
Even though he could not cry, Touya curled himself into a ball and began sobbing.
Even though he was a child when it happened, it was still his choice to believe everything he was told. He was given an impossible dream which was taken away from him. He harmed himself repeatedly to achieve it, all for the sake of a small glimmer of acknowledgement from his father.
And now his parents were looking at him. Not with love or admiration, but fear, despair, and disgust.
Instead of becoming a hero like he dreamed, he became a despicable hated villain.
And yet.
Was it really so wrong?
For a child to want their parent's acknowledgement.
To be loved unconditionally.
For them to say they are proud of them.
Touya had wanted all of those things at one point, despite it knowing it would never be possible.
Now.
He just didn't know.
Hi there! Well, what did you think of that?
This fic was inspired by the scene from Avatar where Azula suffers a breakdown after hallucinating her mother. Dabi I feel is very similar to Azula in terms of abilities and parental relationships.
Despite having done terrible things, I see Dabi as a tragic character because as a child he went out of his way to earn his father's affection while damaging himself in the process. He was fed dreams of being a hero only to have them shattered because his quirk was hurting him. To make matters worse, his parents tried to get him to quit by having more children to replace him as the successor which I find to be disturbing (though also a little understanding) because of the emotional and mental impact it had on Touya. Worse still, Touya knew exactly why he had been born and when his father stopped training him, he felt he needed to train harder disregarding the damage he would take to earn his acknowledgement.
Rei surprised me somewhat because everything she did with Shoto, she did the opposite with Touya. In Shoto's case, she was there to support and console him when he needed it and encouraged him to be a hero. With Touya it was the opposite where she tried to dissuade him from being a hero (though her reasons are understandable) and didn't console him as much as she did with Shoto.
The way I see it, Touya was a lonely hurt child who wanted his parents love and respect but thought he needed to earn it after the neglect started. Rei and Enji should have sat down and explained why they didn't want him to use his quirk instead of leaving him to his own devices. Unfortunately, this did not happen and their attempt to make him quit backfired horrendously.
I hope you enjoyed this fic. I have an idea to do another one centring on Rei and her thoughts on Touya, one where it's Izuku and Dabi talking (because Touya also parallels Izuku in certain aspects), and while writing this story I got an idea for a story where Touya keeps his training a secret and goes to a hero school without his parent's knowledge.
Anyway, let me know what you thought in the reviews. Thank you!