And you know you're never sure
But you're sure you could be right
If you held yourself up to the light - Tonight, Tonight by Smashing Pumpkins
I followed him, the layout of their ship eerily similar to the Magdalene. I tried to hold in my coughing, and follow close as he shoved and cursed the crew out of our way.
"What happened?"
He reached back to snag my hand, pulling me even closer, "I was brought directly to the brig. When Captain Todoroki read between the lines, he got angry. I knew I couldn't ask him to let you go, our job is to catch you." He paused at a ladder before climbing, "But the other officers saw him; he was enraged, crazy! He wanted his heir. Both of them. He raved about slicing Dabi's throat. That isn't our job."
"Someone let you go."
"Yes, it seems I had a friend. Jiro was on duty, and heard the whole thing. She let me go and we raced to the artillery deck, in just enough time to see you staring out the window." He shook his head, slowing and turning about, grabbing my shoulders, "You aren't well. I've noticed; will you be able to do this? Some of the crew will side with me, this is a long time coming for some of them. But he's got firepower like Dabi's. Are you certain?"
I locked eyes with him and nodded, "Let's finish it."
We heard the frenzied shouting before we even reached the bridge doors. A man with beautiful, long red wings and fierce eyes stood outside, obviously fuming.
"Bakugo!" He turned that hawk's gaze on me and I tried to cough quietly. "Who're you?"
"Never mind her. You cannot believe that Captain Todoroki hasn't gone insane." Bakugo cut straight to the quick, "Stand against him, Takami. We three can stop this before it gets any worse."
"Ishiyama is trying to stop him." Takami's wings fluttered, "But he's our captain, and you were locked in the brig."
"You weren't there!" Katsuki bared his teeth, "Whatever is happening in there…" He hefted one gauntlet, "Don't make me use these on you. If you won't help, stand aside. I will stop him, I will even go back to the brig, but what Captain wants and what his mandate is aren't the same right now. He must be stopped and bound."
Takami's eyes narrowed, "Who are you?"
I took a step away from Katsuki, "My name is Uraraka Ochoco. I'm from the Magdalene, and you're hunting good men and women." I coughed again, a low wet sound that had both men frowning at me. "Your Captain is in the wrong. Please." I dropped to the floor, and Katsuki's boots scraped backward even as Takumi's wings flared, "Please. Help us put things right. Let us go."
"My wings ache when a pretty girl drops to her knees." He crouched, holding a hand out to me, and I lowered my forehead down to the deck, "Uraraka? Don't grovel to me. I just want more free time, after all. Captain's against that, usually." He grabbed my hand, and I allowed him to pull me to my feet. "There's not a lot of room in there. If you are fast and accurate, you can stop him."
Katsuki nodded, "That's the plan. Will anyone not allow me to do my job?"
"With his concrete quirk, Ishiyama is hard to burn. He can also make enough to stop you before you even take two steps. You'd better hope he'll just be on your side." Takumi fingered his chin, "He was trying to stop it." Takami's wings shook, and a large red feather darted to the door. "Now!"
That's when the screaming started.
Dabi
The offers of a cease fire had finally stopped, though the Endeavor was still coming around to ram, which at this distance would hurt them as much as us. Maybe more. If I'd not already known that my worthless father was over there, still trying to kill me after all this time, this petty, last ditch action would have proved it. This needed to end.
"Get this deck clean!" I barked orders, "If she hits, we don't want secondary explosions of our own ordinance. Move!"
I suited my words. I ran from the artillery bay up ladders, the pathways clear as people tended battlestations. I burst into the Bridge, and saw that besides Hizashi, who was still staring out at the lumbering ship, calling out the time to impact, the bridge was dead.
Cap sat in his seat calmly reading a report while my brother tracked me with his bi-colored eyes. I wanted to talk to him more; he'd been reluctant to talk even after bursting into my bunk last night.
"We can stop him, Cap."
Aizawa looked up, his mouth a grim line, "Our engines are ready, but if I move away now I'll only give him a better position for ramming." He gestured at Hizashi who nodded sadly without even turning.
"No. My brother can." I turned to Shoto, "You have ice. We can use it to bridge when she's close, then we run over there and burn him alive."
"If you can refrain from killing him or yourselves, then go."
Shoto shook his head, "I do have mom's quirk, but I've never done anything like that! And I never use my flames. Besides, fire would be useless against him."
"It isn't. He can go all out without overheating for five minutes. Then he needs a break. That's Enji in top form. I don't know about the last ten years, but if he's still drinking himself into stupors, we can take him. Flames or not. You give me ice, I'll bring the heat. Ochaco and Bakugo are there fighting for us! If he's an unhinged as Cap reported…" I clapped my brother on the shoulder, "Brother, please."
Shoto considered for all of two seconds, "Fine. Have Izuku open the boarding door. I think I can push my ice out far enough to bridge over." His eyes flicked up to our nav officer, "Yamada, please tell them to prepare to be boarded. There's others over there who are not resisting. Let's do this, Toya."
We could hear him utilizing his voice as we raced down ladders and corridors to the boarding doors. We swept Izuku up on the way, and he pelted ahead of us with more speed than I thought he possessed. When we hit the landing, Izuku threw bolts and tugged on the heavy door until it started to creep open.
My brother and I pushed from the other side, and ice-cold wind gusted, trying to dash us all against the opposite wall. I held on with all my strength, and Shoto had iced one hand to the door. I felt a moment of longing to see our mother, holder of such a fine ice quirk once again. Except Shoto had told me she'd been moved to a sanitarium after she'd burned him as a child with hot tea water.
I pointed out at the Endeavor, where we could just see a forward hatch gaping. There were two figures in white, which I hoped meant that someone had understood that we'd need an egress onto the ship. His feet planted with more ice, and he detached his hand before shaking them.
"You can do it." I shouted over the rush of wind, "You're strong enough."
He nodded, and with a hard look, he flung out his hand, and a thick, curving ice sheet formed, bridging us. I almost danced! Instead I thought about how to run on it. I directed flame at my feet, and soon tongues of it were licking my boot soles.
Shoto watched me, and his eyes steeled before his boots were similarly covered. This was it, I focused on that hatch, and I ran with all my might. My feet stuck and slid in a strange rhythm that I tried not to think about. The very last thing I wanted to do was fall into the ocean. If I didn't die from a fall of this height, I'd die from freezing currents. I pelted onward hearing my brother running behind me. As their hatch neared, two bodies leaned out, and caught my arms, pulling me aboard in a rush.
I stumbled to the far wall, leaning there relearning how to breathe. I waited for Shoto and the two crew leaned out again, and my brother was similarly pulled aboard. He caught his footing better and stopped short of the wall, breathing in loud gulps. He was shaking with either exhaustion or nerves, and I tried to still my own trembling body.
"Go back to your duties," Shoto said in his command voice, and they snapped salutes before trading surprised glances and darting away. "This reminds me of our forward cargo hatch."
"The Endeavor will look a lot like our ship." I swung my eyes to where our upward ladder was, and theirs was in the same place. I pointed, "Up we go."
We ran up ladders and across strangely deserted corridors. Up we went, past doors that, were they done in a different color, would have been indistinguishable from the ones I knew so well. Where the Magdalene had been stripped and redone to be a service vessel, the Endeavors' grandeur grew as we raced to her bridge.
The sound of explosions and screams did not bode well. The doors to the bridge were closed, and there was a man crumpled in what looked like the remnants of wings. Red feathers, burned and split, carpeted the decking. Shoto stooped and checked his pulse.
"Couldn't stop him," The man's voice was low but easily understood.
Shoto glanced at me, "Father." I nodded, and he stood, "He'll live, but if Ochaco is in there.."
"Then we go in. I promised her that I'd keep her from the misery of this world. I may be a liar, but I always keep my promises."
Shoto's eyes narrowed, "Then the least we can do is pay our father a visit."
I put my hand on the door mirroring the one Shoto was ready to open. We pushed together to find a scene out of Dante's Inferno. At first I couldn't comprehend what I was seeing. The Endeavor should be plummeting as we spoke. There was smoke everywhere. Fire and sparks erupted from damaged controls. Even the seats arranged around the bridge were husks.
Katsuki stood, his clothing blackened and holed, but his face was hard as he held his hands out to Enji. Our father's face was twisted into a rictus, his hulking body spurting heat and flame. At the sound of the door, both men had looked, and Shoto's body had gone from being warm flesh to crackling ice. Then I saw Ochaco.
She was lying on her side, I could see her breath stirring her hair, so she was alive. I went straight to her, noticing that other than the slow rise and fall of her chest, she was still. Blood was dripping stickily out of her nose, and a wet line ran into a small bloody pool.
I bolted upright, "Enji!" My flames mirrored his except that I was awash in shades of blue to his orange.
"Toya." The menace in his voice was nearly a physical force. As if you could reach out and feel the cutting edges of his insanity. "All grown up. And you brought back Shoto." His eyes shone, "Your mother sends her love."
I screamed. It was like when I had been a child, but he would see I was a scrawny thing no longer. Although my skin would never heal from my burns, I had no fear of more. I allowed my hatred to stoke, making Shoto lean away and Bakugo back up several steps.
"I'm not a child any more." I dropped into my fighting stance, bringing up fists, though they'd do no good against him. In the background there were voices, but my world had narrowed to the living flame before me.
He laughed, and barrelled toward me, his flames blasting from his back, propelling him forward. I immediately copied him, though I'd never thought to do that before. Could the man fly? The question rattled around in my brain. Instead of thinking, though, I met him in a blazing conflagration of opposing flames. The hiss and spit as our fire raged was a fitting complement to the Endeavor's control board's death throes.
I whipped a ball of vibrant plasma into being, trying to smash it into his face. He didn't even flinch. We traded blows instead. I'd thought that I could fight flame against flame, but we were too evenly matched.
I reared back to throw as much weight and quirk energy at him when I heard Bakugo scream and the sound of Shoto shielding himself with a thick wall of ice. My world drowned in an explosion of light and sound. My ears ached, and I stumbled forward blindly toward my father's enraged yell.
"He's down!" Bakugo shook me roughly. "Take her and go! I'll wake the others if I can. We're leaving."
Shoto limped to my side, his hair damply blown back from his face in bi-colored spikes. He fell to his knees by Ochaco's limp form. I knelt down, my head hanging. I didn't know if I could move again.
"Don't give up now." Shoto's voice was heavy with emotion, "We can get her back to the Magdalene. Midnight can fix her."
My hair flopped in my eyes as I nodded weakly. I felt my bloody tears collecting on my staples as Shoto helped me to carry Ochaco. Down ladders and back across decks which were populating now that they had to deal with the aftermath of this worthless battle.
The Endeavor was sinking, but the ice bridge still held for the time being. Shoto slammed his foot against the decking, and reinforced the ice in a swirl of crackling white. I had hoped that Ochaco could carry us as she'd done with Bakugo to get there, but her stubborn refusal to wake told me that was an impossibility.
"Ready?"
Shoto nodded, "Run hard. I don't know how long it'll hold our weight since the Endeavor is moving."
I wreathed my boots once again and tightened my hold on Ochaco. We exchanged another glance, but said nothing. I ran with all the strength left in me.
AN/ Let's just put this out there. As of writing, I'm caught up with the manga. Maybe Enji is a douche, but I think he's traveling a road to redemption. I believe in you, fire daddy! Thank you for reading! Maybe NOW you can hit the review button? I refuse to believe that you're all just...following for the hell of it. LOL In any case, as ever, thank you Mosevic. I don't know if I'd have the strength to do this alone.
