Chapter 2: Crazy Coincidence That You Have A Blue Fire Quirk Just Like My Dead Brother

It took two weeks for it to happen again. There were other bad days, where Fuyumi left the house and all its broken pieces to put itself back together, telling herself she was just going for a walk to calm down.

When nothing happened on her walk, she didn't calm down.

She told herself that the first time she had gone out and had to rescue some kids was a crazy coincidence, and if fate wanted her to help someone else she would have to let fate decide that. She wasn't going to deliberately break the law again.

She could take more walks though.

More walks in sketchier neighborhoods.

She invested in some brass knuckles. Dad trusted her with his money, and it was a slim little thing. It fit perfectly, and was slim enough that her new thermal insulated gloves could fit over it.

It wasn't like she was planning anything. Any person walking through the neighborhoods she was walking through would invest in a little self-defense. Dad had taught her to wield a staff before, since her body couldn't handle her own quirk he thought it would be helpful to have a weapon. She hadn't used it in years, and the fancy little retractable staff had been gathering dust in the corner of an equipment closet.

It wasn't gathering dust anymore.

She practiced while the boys were out. It wasn't like she was trying to hide it, but she didn't want to worry them. And it would be complicated to explain.

It might also be complicated to explain the ski mask she bought, considering she had never skied a day in her life. But it kept her warm and hid her face. The shiny blue goggles were also very stylish, in her opinion. She didn't wear it out of course, that would be ridiculous. But she kept in buried in a pocket of her big, new jacket.

Yes, she already had a coat, but this jacket was sturdier, meant for function more than fashion, allowed more mobility, and it had more pockets! Pockets where she could hide the ski mask, the staff, and the darts.

The darts would be tricky to explain. Fuyumi was great at aiming, her Dad had expected her ice spikes to be a signature move and so trained her relentless on hitting targets from vast distances. Fuyumi didn't want to fight with her quirk though; it could be used to identify her, and the costs were pretty high for usage. The darts were the next-best-thing, functionally similar without compromising her identity or health. Dad had emphasized to Touya and her that they needed both ranged and close-combat moves. He thought they could work in perfect tandem, one jumping into combat while the other jumps back to support from a distance, allowing them to cycle endlessly to wear villains down. He always reminded them how weak they were, but told them that even if they couldn't tolerate their own quirks for long at least they could handle each others.

Fuyumi wondered if she'd still be doing this, going on long walks in dark run-down neighborhoods, if he had kept training her despite losing Touya. Maybe she could have gone to UA instead of becoming a teacher. Maybe she'd be out patrolling officially, with a license, if Dad hadn't given up on her once he lost her other half.

Not that she was patrolling or anything.

It was just such a shame that during these long walks, Fuyumi rarely saw any heroes. The further she got from the nice suburb the Todoroki's lived in, the less she saw of those reassuring heroes making their patrols. Children lived in these neighborhoods, but they didn't go out much.

Such a shame.

Two weeks after her very first walk, the one where she got to punch would-be kidnapper and have problems solved, she encountered another scene.

The neighborhood she wandered into felt near-abandoned. It was primarily worn-down industrial places, not much residential. The relative silence of it made the few sounds that echoed off of dilapidated walls easy for Fuyumi to hear.

She heard the clanking of chains, and voices with no words she could make out aside from swearing. She picked up her pace and approached the building where the sound was coming from. It appeared to be an old abandoned warehouse; broken glass windows had allowed the sound to escape easily. Before investigating any further, Fuyumi put on her ski mask. She had tied up her hair earlier, so it was easy to make sure all of it stayed in the mask. She came close to the walls, padding along and looking for an entrance with a little less sharp glass edges.

The voices inside were now more intelligible: "...let you leave our gang so easily?"

"I wasn't even a part of your gang in the first place. Not like I signed a contract."

Another voice, "You run our merchandise, you become part of the gang."

"And this is how you treat your members?" There was a metallic rattle. "Drug them, chain them, beat them up?"

The first voice shouted, "That's how we treat traitors!"

Fuyumi peaked her head over the sill of a window to get a better picture of the situation. Near a far wall was a guy in leather, with dark spiky hair and... some shiny piercings across his cheeks? The lighting was pretty low, Fuyumi couldn't make out too many features. She could see the little amount of light present reflected on his bindings, each wrist in a cuff with a chain looping around two pillars, forcing his arms to be spread and his torso unprotected. He was covered by a leather coat, but the drooping of the fabric made him seem scrawny and malnourished.

"You're gonna regret having messed with us!" Her eyes darted to the woman who just spoke.

She could only see the other people from behind, since they were all facing the chained man, but she could count three of them. A tall man, with spiked pink hair, bat full of nails in his hand. A large man with feathers all along his skin. Last, but not least, a short blue-skinned girl with white hair.

"I think you're the one who's gonna have regrets," The chained man said.

His legs were apparently free enough that he could kick out, and although the thugs surrounding him were far away enough that he couldn't kick them directly, a burst of blue flame made them scream and scatter.

A fire quirk.

"Respir!" The large man shouted, and with a nod the girl took a deep breath and blew.

There was a whoosh of air moving, and the fire was blown back into the guys face. He coughed at the onslaught and immediately stopped the flame.

The man with a bat got closer, swinging it menacingly as he spoke, "We know all your little tricks and we have ways to combat it. So stop resisting, it will only make your punishment last longer."

Fuyumi couldn't stand back anymore. She wasn't certain what was going on, but three people against one seemed like an unfair fight. Not to mention, if she had the option of fighting three people versus one who was incapacitated, she'd prefer a real fight.

The blue flame might have also biased her, considering it was the same color as Touya's.

So she burst in, flinging a dart at the exposed neck of the man with the bat. He sputtered at the injury, turning in an instant to face whoever dared attack him.

The other two were surprised, long enough that Fuyumi was able to throw another two darts at them, getting the large mans chest (feathers peaking out of a v-neck shirt) and the woman's nose. The woman (Respir?) screamed at the injury, hands coming up to her face, while the bird man seemed unaffected. Maybe his feathers cushioned the blow.

Before Fuyumi could analyze any further, a bat swung towards her and she dodged by only a hair's breadth. She pulled out her staff and activated it, allowing it to open from both ends, one end reaching the floor while the other dug into the man's gut.

The man guffawed before backing up, and Respir cried out, "Ghad!"

So his name was Ghad. His face twisted into a snarl, raising the bat again and watching Fuyumi's staff to prevent any more tricks. She slapped the bat away as he tried to swing it against her again, redirecting its energy to empty space and forcing him off-balance. She was about to take the chance to punch him in the face when a screech caught her attention.

The bird man was making an ungodly shriek while running at Fuyumi, hands extended to reveal deadly talons. Fuyumi only had a moment to block the claws with her staff, preventing him from tearing out her face.

Unfortunately, holding him back took both hands, and Ghad was now behind her.

Fortune came in the form of fire, bursting from the chained man and blowing the bird man off of her. His feathers glowed, singed, and he began rolling on the ground in a panic.

Which gave Fuyumi time to once again face Ghad, dodging and re-directing the swings of his bat. With one particularly wide swing, Fuyumi dashed directly towards him, punching his nose with her reinforced fist.

That made him fall back, dropping his bat to clutch at his now-bleeding nose. Fuyumi took the opportunity to swing her staff against the side of his head, sending him to the ground. Pride swelled in her chest at the sight of her defeated combatant

The chill of wind made her turn back around to her other opponents. Respir was still bleeding from the dart in her nose, but apparently she had recovered in time to use her quirk against Fuyumi. Fuyumi dug the soles of her shoes into the ground, trying not to be blown away by the onslaught of wind.

Once again fire saved her, blowing directly at Respir, forcing Respir to turn and blow it away. This allowed Fuyumi to dash right up to her and thrust her staff into her stomach, bowling her over.

By now the bird man was standing again, feather fire put out, and Fuyumi frowned at one opponent being behind and one being in front. It was hard to defend both sides at once.

So she grabbed Respir's wrist, tugged her over her shoulder (she was an adult, but a small one, and much easier to carry than 16 children) and flung her against the bird man, sending both of them sprawling to the ground.

She was prepared to continue fighting, but as soon as they got up the feathered man grabbed Respir's hand and booked it, running out of the warehouse. She glanced at their abandoned friend (or gang member? Ally? Who knows), still unconscious on the ground.

"I didn't ask for your help."

The voice made her jump, but it was just the chained man she saved. "Do you want me to leave you chained up there, then?"

He grumbled. "Ghad probably has the keys."

She pawed through Ghads pockets before finding a set of keys. As she tried various ones on the ring, she looked more closely at the man, and had to hold back a look of disgust. The metallic sheen she thought were piercings were actually staples, holding together pink-ish, fresh skin with purple, dead, scarred flesh. That had to hurt. He did also have piercings, though. Not to mention piercing blue eyes, which surprised her for some reason she couldn't pinpoint. She found the right key on the third try, and the man rubbed at his wrists gingerly for a moment.

Then he grabbed the collar of Fuyumi's coat and slammed her against a wall. His body blew flames, an attempt at intimidation that might have worked better if Fuyumi was not already used to Dad doing the same thing.

"Who the hell are you? Who sent you? Why did you help me?"

His snarled questions gave Fuyumi a little trouble.

Like, specifically, who was she?

She couldn't say her actual name for sure. That was just asking for trouble. But despite her preparation in other ways, she hadn't actually thought up a vigilante name or anything. What was a good name? Something about ice? 'Elsa'? 'Icicle-woman'? 'Frozer'? She took a breath. No, she was planning to fight functionally quirkless, so using an ice theme would be silly. What was a cool name? 'V' for Vigilante? No, way too boring. Maybe she could use a name from a TV show or something? Who was cool and noble? Whose name could she...

He lifted her higher. "Well?"

"Leia," She choked out, "Call me Leia."

He didn't let go of her collar, but he did lower her with a raised eyebrow. "...Like from the classic movie series, Star Wars?"

Fuyumi blinked at his recognition. It was a famous series for its time, but better known by historical film buffs than anyone else. She only knew it because her mother was a fan. She had good memories of being curled up in a blanket with her, Touya, and Natsuo, watching the death star blow up. "Yeah."

"Weird name. Who sent you?"

"Uh, no one? I was just sort of wandering when I heard a commotion..."

His eyes narrowed. "Sure. What are you, some kind of vigilante?"

"Yes!" She exclaimed, excited that he had called her that.

He clicked his tongue, but let her go. "Well sorry to disappoint, but you probably should have left me alone."

"I'm just trying to help out in places where heroes and law enforcement haven't reached."

He snorted. "Well a good cop would of cuffed all of us, considering I got into this mess by running drugs for a gang."

She frowned. "That is technically illegal."

He watched her with lazy eyes, as though curious how she would react.

It was illegal, but it's not like he was hurting anyone, right? She didn't know why he would be desperate enough to do that sort of thing, maybe he was in a bad situation? Especially with those injuries, she imagined a lot of places would be too creeped out by his staples to hire him.

Maybe she wanted to make excuses for the sake of a fire quirk user. Even now, heat radiated off of him in excess. It reminded her of Touya when they would cuddle up together, his heat and her cold mixing together into the perfect comfortable temperature. She definitely had a bias when it came to fire quirks.

"Luckily I'm not a cop," She decided.

"So what? Something tells me you ain't just into this for 'the sake of justice' then."

Those words made Fuyumi pause. She was trying to be fair and just, and she wanted to help people, but truthfully... 'Saving people' gave her an excuse to do what she wanted. "Maybe I'm just big into fighting."

He clicked his tongue and started to walk away. "Then join a fighting ring or something, don't go helping folks who don't ask for it."

That made her straighten up. She scurried after him. "Wait, fighting rings?"

He appeared taken aback by her confusion. "Uh, yeah? Folks brawl each other, people make bets? I'm more of a bettor than a fighter myself."

"Where can I find one of them?" Fuyumi's voice had risen, excited, at the thought of a place where she could let loose and not have to go prowling the streets for a morally-justified fight.

He slowed down his pace, allowing her to walk alongside him more easily. "...You're actually interested?"

Fuyumi shrugged. "It took me two weeks to find this fight. If there's somewhere where I can just instantly go in and have it guaranteed..."

"Looking for fights? Geez, you trying to work out some sorta repressed shit?"

She thought about all of her anger and frustration, feeling useless while her family fell apart. She felt pretty useful when she saved this guy. "...Maybe."

"No shade, I'm hardly one to judge. Look, if you're really interested, then I'll do you a favor for helping me out there. Meet me next Saturday night, 8 P.M., and I'll take you to a place I know that does it. It's pretty low-key, and they do amateur nights."

Fuyumi stared at him. Was she really going to trust a sketchy dude who runs drugs? "Where should we meet?"

He glanced around. "This place is chill. By that street sign over there, 8 P.M. sharp. If you're late, I'll leave you."

The street sign said 'Tatooi Avenue'. Fuyumi repeated it a few times in her head, trying not to forget. "Alright."

He turned on his heel and began walking away.

"Wait!" Fuyumi called out.

He glanced back, irritated look on his face at his exit being interrupted.

"What's your name?" Fuyumi asked.

"Dabi."