prologue

He is only a little boy when his mother dies on top of him.

It is hot, scorching, the colour of blood and sunrise and spices. It's loud too, roaring to life in his ears – splintering, cracking with the venom of a whip. Fire. Fire. Fire.

He has seen fire on TV before, in action movies and in nature documentaries and on the news, texture like tissue paper, bright and beautiful. He always thought it hypnotic. Not long ago at pre-school, he lit a match and watched the little flame dance. Full of life. The same shade of yellow-gold as his eyes. It is a gentle-looking thing. It is warm and inviting. He pinched it between his fingertips, and was fascinated to find that it hurt.

'Don't play with fire,' his teacher told him. 'You'll get burned, you see.' Then she kissed his finger and it hurt no longer.

Now Mommy is screaming, and he is screaming, and it hurts worse than anything he has ever known. It is ripping him apart, reaching into his lungs, crushing his bones. It is eating him alive. He can't breathe. He can't see, eyes stinging, smoke everywhere. He can't move – Mommy is too heavy against his back, arms around his shoulders, hands all over his face. She is burning. He is burning. Coughing. Crying. Coming undone. He can taste it, he can smell it, he can feel it: oozing heat down his back; drip-drip-drip onto the floor and between his fingers.

He wants to shove her off of him. He wants to beg her to make it stop. But he cannot stop screaming, cannot say a single word – and he wonders, through the bright red fog that suffocates him, if maybe he will die.

He doesn't die though. It hurts for longer, longer than his little mind can possibly comprehend. Even when his mother stops screaming; even when the violent, scraping sound of fire is replaced with sirens and distant yells and someone unfamiliar saying his name; even when he opens his eyes to find that he is staring at the blue, blue, blue sky and a strange pair of blue, blue, blue eyes (he has seen those eyes before, in action movies and in hero documentaries and on the news) – still, it hurts and it hurts and it hurts.

"Where–" he tries to say, though his voice comes out as hoarse and useless as dust. "Mommy? Where is she? My mom?" Nobody answers him. He starts to cry, though his eyes and his throat are too dry for tears. There are needles in his arms. Something wet and sticky is on his back and in his neck, in his hair. "I want my mom–"

"She's not coming, kid."

He is only a little boy when he learns what it means to burn.

i. the broker & the boy

When he parted the beads in the doorway, no one so much as glanced in his direction. It was a dark, anonymous place, exactly the sort one would have expected for an occasion such as this. A veil of cigarette smoke hung in the air. Blues music and muted conversation thrummed dully in the background, beer bottles and whiskey glasses and crystal ashtrays catching the frail light. Head down, hands deep in his pockets, Dabi headed straight towards the bar, as he'd been instructed to do.

He wasn't sure who he was supposed to be meeting, wasn't even sure this wouldn't be a complete waste of his time. Through a series of strange and generally suspicious events, Dabi had gotten his hands on a cellphone number that would, presumably, lead him to the person he'd been looking for. Until now, he'd reached any number of dead ends. Shadowed alleyways. Clandestine meetings under the hazy illumination of street lamps. Whispers and names and money exchanged in seedy deals. All of it fruitless, yielding nothing that would bring him closer to The Hero Killer – Stain.

21:30 ~ order 2 tequila shots & a Vodka & soda .. make it strong

And then, there had come a second message – code is smoking kills

It was already a little past nine thirty – Dabi had never been particularly punctual. There were a few other bodies at the bar, spread far apart and sunken low in their chairs. Dabi took a seat, caught the bartender's eye. "Two tequilas," he said, without feeling and just loud enough for someone to hear. "Also a vodka and soda. Make it strong."

And then he waited.

A few seats down, a girl's laugh rattled outwards and then died. The bartender brought Dabi's order and then went about wiping down glasses. Quietly, ever more impatiently, Dabi circled his finger over the rim of the glass in front of him, tapping his foot, chewing his lip. He spent some minutes like this, self-consciously considering whether or not to down the drinks (though he hated vodka, and hated soda, and was not in the mood to get drunk), until at last he became aware of a stranger's gaze. Close to his right side, not there mere moments ago. He only made to glance at first, and then – when the stranger's attention did not waver – he looked more boldly, finding a boy in the seat next to his.

There was a flash of teeth, a curious tilt of the head. "Sorry to bother," the boy said, voice sharp and clear as glass. He produced a cigarette, displayed it between long, ghost white fingers. "But you wouldn't happen to have a lighter on you?"

It took him by surprise, somewhat. Whatever Dabi had been expecting, this wasn't it: a pale little thing, glossy and fine as a choir boy despite the chipped black nail polish and the plum dark bags beneath his eyes. The boy's hair was a shock of white gold; he wore a three-sizes-too-large turtle neck in spite of the bar's sweaty closeness.

Feeling his stomach burn, the anticipation setting goosebumps down his nape, Dabi held up his finger. A blue flicker of flame bloomed to life and danced at his fingertip. "Smoking kills, you know," he said.

The boy's smile widened crookedly. "Mmm." He lit his cigarette, puffed without looking away. "And you are?"

"Expected."

"On what business?"

To see hero society burn. "To put my convictions to good use."

"First time I've heard that answer."

Dabi wasn't interested in making small talk. He did not stop a scowl, didn't bother keeping the hunger from his voice. "Are you the person I talk to or not?"

The boy shrugged. "You're looking for Giran-san," he said. "He's running a little later than you. Busy with another client, but shouldn't be another ten minutes, I'd guess. In the meantime~" his voice took on a sugar spun trill as he reached for one of the tequila shots. "Don't mind me. You can have the other, if you'd like. Relax a bit, you're terribly scary looking." He threw back the shot, took the vodka and soda without missing a beat. "On the business account ~ order yourself something. Giran-san won't mind, would probably prefer it actually."

"You seem pretty young to be drinking."

"You seem a little overcooked to be commenting on appearances."

Dabi didn't know what to say to this, so he said nothing. Instead, he ordered himself a whiskey ("make it a double") and watched as the boy inhaled the vodka and soda like it was water. Bouncing his foot at the base of his seat. A very slight tremble about his fingers when he lifted the cigarette back to his pert little mouth. There was something scattered and terrifically chaotic about him – Dabi spent a while staring without being able to put his finger on it. His clothes: washed out, oversized, hanging limply over skinny limbs. In the fleshy space between his thumb and index finger – a bruise, clouded and greenish. He fidgeted with the empty shot glass, pulled at his turtle neck, crossed his legs one over the other and then one over the other – and, most disconcerting of all, he talked, talked, talked in a quick, chirpy voice wholly unsuited to the bar's drab air.

"Whiskey? You look like a whiskey guy..." he started out. "Not going to have that shot though? That's okay. I don't like tequila all that much either. Not for business anyway. Although coming to a place like this, well, needs something to lighten the mood, you know? God, it's depressing here. Normally we meet clients in some of the nicer clubs in, like, Kabukicho and whatever... But things have gotten a bit tight after the whole thing with Stain, more security, more eyes and ears all over. So we have to come to these quieter places. More discreet and all. But business has been booming! That Stain guy. Got to hand it to him! An inspiration to many, apparently! Seems every second cunt on the street is looking to – what did you say again? – put their convictions to use?" He flicked his wrist in a deft, dismissive gesture. "Most of them just riff-raff. Nothing to offer besides enthusiasm, which is great, obviously, but good intentions being the path to hell and all. You, though, you've got that look about you. Something special. I can tell."

God, he was irritating.

The odd thing was, restless as he seemed to be, there was nothing ironic or unsettled about his manner or his speech. Normally, the ones that went off like this – twitchy fingers; red, rabbity nose – were wired out of their minds and anxious to get things over with. Scared, even. But it was in the boy's eyes: smooth, honeyed golds, unflinching as a cat's. He was perfectly serene, contrary to what his fluttering energies suggested. Perhaps that was what rubbed Dabi the wrong way, keen and bothered and impatient as he himself was.

"That is why you're here, right?" the boy continued, leaning ever so slightly forward. "Because of Stain?"

Once again, Dabi said nothing. He kept his gaze fixed firmly on the boy, watching him with some caution as he sipped from his whiskey (oh, the sweet relief of that potent, golden burn).

"Hmm. You're not like the other fans, it seems." Feline smile, dropping his head in a childish question mark of an expression. "We had this one guy, earlier this evening – mutant-type quirk, pretty cool to look at, had the mask and everything, even had to leave a ton of knives and swords and shit at the door. I mean, talk about a groupie! It was Stain this, Stain that. Super chill guy, though. I liked him. Oh, and then there was this girl. Actually, I've seen her on the news, once or twice, scary." He sighed wistfully. "But the prettiest thing I've ever seen. We couldn't invite her to the bar, too young, can you believe it? So we conducted the interview in a playground. The way she talked about Stain was like–"

"Interview?"

"Huh?"

"You said you conducted an interview," Dabi said darkly. "I'm not here to be interviewed for anything."

"Oh ~ that's okay! You don't have to think of it as an interview. See, this is how it'll work." The boy tipped a finger in the direction of an obscured corner of the bar. "You'll just head over to that booth over there, where Giran-san'll get to know you a little. Nothing too serious. It's just to kind of get a vibe for you, see if you're what we're looking for. You can ask questions too. We're all about transparency and shit. And if you're not happy, all you have to do is walk away."

Something told Dabi that it wasn't so straightforward as that. What they were looking for? This guy'll get you what you want, he'd been told. Best in the business. Since when had he become the product to be assessed? Was this not exactly what he'd been running from, all these years? He gripped his glass, looked away to scowl at his gnarled, dark hand (that hand, this skin, just one symbol of what he would make a stand for).

False heroes. Superhuman society. Imposed ideology. Stain's message was a simple one – their world was rotting, heroism the disease at its core. And it would be he, Dabi, to tear it down, watch it burn and turn to ash. He would be the one with the necessary conviction to do so. However, the fact of the matter was, he would be able to do nothing if he was alone at the bottom of the world, pressed with his back to the ground by the massive weight of the status quo. He would need to rise, garner the height and the power to trample on society as it had trampled on him. Perhaps, to do that, he would need to become a number, fall in line with other nobodies.

It would not be long, he told himself. With the right resources, it would be a straight rise, and soon enough he would burn himself onto the face of the world.

A hand dropped onto Dabi's shoulder, followed by a hot, smoky breath brushing against his cheek: "So sorry for keeping you waiting, my friend."

Dabi turned in his seat to be met with an unfamiliar man, middle-aged and smartly dressed in a navy suit, spectacles balanced neatly at the top of his long, thick nose, which had clearly been broken one too many times. Silvery bristles hung in a thin moustache over his lips, pulled back to reveal a mosaic of greyed teeth and a missing incisor. The man considered Dabi smilingly, brows raised and inquiring.

He held out a hand. The skin was leathery and ashen. "Name's Giran," he said. "Merchant and broker. Hope Satoshi here has been a good host."

So this was him – Giran. Dabi's eyes flickered again to the boy. So that was his name – Satoshi.

"And what should I call you?" Giran asked.

"I go by Dabi."

"That not your real name, then? Good, good. Much simpler that way. Come – got a drink for yourself? Whiskey? Excellent. I'm a whiskey man myself."

As Giran made for the booth in the corner of the bar, movements slinky and languid, Dabi stood slowly, appraisingly. Satoshi leaned onto his elbows, taking one final drag of his cigarette before stubbing it out on the counter. All the while he kept his gaze on Dabi, irises gleaming soft and strange beneath pale lashes. The corners of his mouth curved and fell in all the wrong places, his smile a painful twist that set something hard and acidic growing in Dabi's stomach. "Nice meeting you," Satoshi said when, at last, Dabi turned and walked away.

Giran placed a photograph on the table, asking if Dabi recognised the face being shown to him. He said he didn't, nor did he know the name 'Shigaraki Tomura'.

Giran was a smooth talker, with a wide smile and a polished broker charm. He smoked while they spoke, an expensive brand of cigarette Dabi didn't like (the smell was too false and flavourful, a minty overtone to the tobacco that came across as sickly and medicinal), explaining only briefly who he was working on behalf of and why. Affiliated with Stain, which is the important thing, isn't it? Offering a generous contract, requires certain services from a select group of individuals. Dabi listened quietly, direly, taking slow and decided sips from his drink so as to not finish before Giran did.

It was a decent enough conversation, at least, explicit and to the point. What did Dabi want? What was he willing to do to get it? "I've worked with a rather colourful bunch of people," Giran said, seeming pleased with himself. "So please, don't be shy."

So Dabi told him. And whatever answers Giran was expecting, Dabi must have given the right ones. It was over within ten minutes, pending some more questioning about the nature of his quirk and his arrest record. He hadn't even finished his drink yet. Grinning, Giran reached across the table to shake hands – his palm papery and disgusting – following which he produced a burner phone from a briefcase beneath his seat, told Dabi to keep it on at all times and not to answer to any numbers that were not already listed in the contacts. He could expect further instructions in the next few days – any questions?

It occurred to Dabi to ask how the boy, Satoshi, was involved in all of this. But it didn't seem particularly relevant and, frankly, he didn't think he cared all that much. So he rose, drink in hand and burner phone in his pocket, and left, downing his whiskey on the way to the door.