Tokoyame spent what felt like hours pleading with Dabi. Nobody in their right mind would unleash such a monster onto unknowing civilians, right. But, as Tokoyami had to keep reminding himself, this wasn't same rational bystander or law-abiding citizen of a good society. Granted, none of those things were quite so clear cut, and yet Dabi stood as an outsider to all of those regardless. So Tokoyami persisted, berating him for his heinous plans and the people involved with it, up until he got a door slammed in his face. That had been his way of saying "go to sleep," and Tokoyami could only say so much to a closed door before getting discouraged enough to stop.

He would start up again in the morning after fitful sleep, waking almost immediately to the sound of Dabi's bedroom door trying to open quietly. And just like the night before when Dabi had so carelessly revealed his plans, Tokoyami was at his side in an instant, desperate for the man to hear him out. Only to be met with the same response, or lack thereof. Dabi carefully pushed him aside to get to the kitchen.

"Knock it off," he growled. "See, this is why I shouldn't tell you things."

"You need to, though!" Tokoyami interjected. "You of all people can't ignore me – it's your fault that I'm here!" There was so much more weight behind those words than what could be so easily explained, but he knew that Dabi understood. Your fault was a lot of things: dragging Tokoyami into that portal in the forest so long ago, holding him back on the night that All Might died, getting him caught up with those yakuza when Shigaraki went to meet Overhaul… and most recently that encounter with the nomu. Every one of those things he couldn't help but place the blame on Dabi's shoulders. Regardless of orders, or wills, or ambitions, it was Dabi that kept pulling him into these things. He hated it. So, so much. But he wasn't about to stand by and watch other people succumb to a horrible fate orchestrated by him. Or Hawks. Or the doctor of whoever the hell was pulling these strings – it didn't matter anymore, so long as just maybe there was something he could do about it.

Dabi grabbed something out of the cupboards and was already heading towards the door without bothering to give him a response.

"Dabi!"

He paused, hand already on the handle, and sighed. Apparently he had a conscience after all. "If you do anything rash at this point, be warned that you will get hurt, and despite everything that's not what I want to see happen. Today the top heroes get announced, so I need to finalize some things. I'll be back tomorrow, but not for long. And knowing you I'm sure you'll still be here, right?"

Tokoyami glared back at him. This time he was the one without words, and Dabi took his silence as an answer.

And then he was alone in the room, with Dabi having left to attend his nefarious deeds. So of course Tokoyami spent the whole day dwelling on what was going to happen, wondering what damage would be wrought and how it was going to go down. Time was ticking down to a catastrophic event that he knew about and couldn't do anything to help.

"But the heroes will be on the scene, right?" Dark Shadow cawed. "So everything will be okay!"

Everything will be okay… "It won't be though," Tokoyami sighed, sitting down heavily on the couch that groaned in protest beneath him. Dark Shadow hovered close to him, still so small. There was a worried expression on the quirk's face, like a cat that was spooked by a loud sound. "Nobody will know it's coming… other than Hawks. And that nomu is a real monster. If this is just supposed to be a "test run" for it, then how can I not think about who it might kill?"

These thoughts tormented him like demons throughout the day and into the night, all while Dabi's absence weighed heavy on his mind.

At one point, once the sky had darkened and Dark Shadow started getting a bit antsier, Tokoyami had approached the door. Locked and bolted, it stood less as an obstacle and more as a reminder to stay where he was. With a head filled with worries, he reached out to the doorknob.

Nausea rushed over him and he stepped back from the door. He couldn't quite place what this feeling was, but it felt familiar. Guilt settled uncomfortably in the pit of his stomach and he slinked back to the couch, without him ever having given the door an honest try. There was nowhere he could go. And even if there was, if he could do something to warn the heroes, he doubted they would actually hear him out. His uncertain mentality was a driving factor behind the woes that so mercilessly plagued him, and dark thoughts crept up on him.

"Hey, Fumikage. You should eat something."

Tokoyami lied down on the couch. "Mph."

"Why don't we try training tomorrow? We didn't really do anything today…"

Tokoyami looked up at a dark ceiling. "When Dabi gets back tomorrow, I won't let him leave without a fight."

"Ah… then I'll be right there with you," Dark Shadow murmured, sounding just a bit unsure.

Through another fitful night Tokoyami waited, at times holding his breath in anticipation when he thought the door would open and Dabi would step in, only for nothing to happen. At this point it felt like he was just making himself sick with worry, and the subsequent lack of rest he got as a result of that did nothing to help.

Tokoyami didn't know what all happened at the Hero Billboard event, only that it had come to pass. He recalled those magazines Dabi had lying around that talked about the top ten heroes. It's official now. The top two heroes in Japan are… Endeavor and Hawks. I can only imagine they have their work cut out for them, all things considering…

Waiting through the next day was even more agonizing, because Tokoyami knew that Dabi would be back.

Hours ticked by far too slowly, until the afternoon began to drift away. He was beginning to think that he wouldn't come back, that some irreparable damage had already been done on the world, and that scared him the most.

So when the door finally did open, Tokoyami exploded onto his feet. "Dabi!"

"I don't have the time for this, little bird," Dabi sneered.

Tokoyami was taken aback. He hadn't been called bird in a long time. "So… it's happening?"

The grim smile that pulled at Dabi's face was deeply unnerving. "Everything is in place."

The villain moved to get past him. This time Tokoyami didn't outright block his way. But he did grab onto his sleeve with as much resistance as he could possibly muster. Only to be pulled along with him. Dabi wasn't exactly a strong person, but he was determined now more than ever. And that had Tokoyami worried.

Dabi opened the door to his room. That's when Tokoyami finally let go, skirting to a stop just a few paces inside his private area. He'd never actually come inside the room while Dabi was present, but right now he didn't seem to care. It didn't look much different than when he'd snuck in here. Dabi opened up drawers, fishing through its contents and pocketing a few extra medical things.

"W-wait, are you going to fight as well?"

"If I have to," Dabi said a bit too eagerly. Tokoyami wasn't sure he liked the villain's open enthusiasm.

Tokoyami thought back to what Dabi had told him about what was going to take place. "But… didn't you say that the nomu was attacking Fukuoka? How are you going to get all the way to Kyushu?"

Dabi looked him up and down. And then he scoffed, as if it were all just some joke. "I don't see how that's any of your concern. I have my ways." He turned to leave. "But maybe I'll tell you how it goes later on. Bid me good luck!"

Tokoyami's blood boiled at that off-handed, self-assured comment. He rushed forward, sweeping past Dabi to block the door. "I should've done better to stop you sooner, I'll admit. I take the blame for that. But I'm not doing it again – you're staying right here!" Tokoyami declared. Dark Shadow squirmed in his mind, nervous but still with him.

Little agitated flames flickered to life around Dabi's fingers. "I don't think I am, actually," he said coldly, stepping forward until he was towering over Tokoyami.

Tokoyami did his best not to shrink further under his intimidation. "Then… then I'm coming with you!" he blurted out.

Dark Shadow winced. We're what?

Dabi's smile faltered. "You're what?"

"I, uh," Tokoyami stammered. "I can't sit by while people get hurt! I can't let you do to others what you had that nomu do to me!" He was certain that his words sounded more convincing than his weak attempts to block the door, but there was only so much he felt he could do at this point.

Though maybe that wasn't enough.

"How noble of you," Dabi snarled. "Is that what you wanted to hear? Is that what you think you're doing by trying to play hero even though you're clearly not?! Get real! You're not going anywhere and you're sure as hell not going to be the one to stand in my way after everything!"

Tokoyami thought that this would be where Dabi shoved him away with force, and he steeled himself against the door in preparation for that. But it never came. Instead, Dabi whirled away, walking back towards the center of the room. Tokoyami let the tension in his body drop, staring after him in wonder. I'm… fairly confident I didn't convince him, and yet…?

Er, I don't think this is over, Fumikage. But, uh, you weren't actually serious about joining him, were you?

I… didn't know what else to say. Truthfully, I'm not so sure.

Tokoyami was still trying to process what had just happened when Dabi reached a hand up to his ear. "Heyyy, don't mind the hold-up. I'm ready, Ujiko. Send me out."

Tokoyami wasn't given the time to think. "Don't you dare leave!" he screeched. Tokoyami rushed forward, grabbing his cloak and sword instinctively in the process, and held a desperate hand out to Dabi. Black sludge erupted from the villain's mouth enveloping him almost entirely within seconds. "Take me with you! Please!"

Tokoyami's hand passed through residual black wisps as Dabi vanished into thin air, most certainly being taken to his destination. Tokoyami staggered, horrified that he'd lost track of him yet again. And now… people were going to be hurt – killed – because of the havoc Dabi was unleashing.

Tokoyami's knees hit the floor. His hand clenched around the fabric of his cloak, and the other one clenched nothing. "Damn it… Damn it! I could've done something!"

Fumikage… maybe we can still–!

Dark Shadow's voice cut off abruptly. Through Tokoyami's haze of frustration, he lifted his head, wondering if something was wrong. "Dark Shadow–?"

A nauseating feeling came over him without warning. The familiar sensation made him stagger, until he was retching on his hands and knees in confusion. He gasped for air, only for his airway to feel blocked off, and Tokoyami watched in stunned confusion as that same black sludge poured from his beak and onto the ground. His eyes stared at it, widening as realization dawned upon him. He only had time to think, No wait, before the insidious transportation quirk claimed him the same way it had Dabi.

He sincerely hoped he never got used to this – at least not in the sense that he'd actually be okay with being transported all across Japan with this bullshit. Because the next thing he knew, he was being deposited on a random alleyway in a random city he didn't recognize.

"What… what the hell?" Tokoyami coughed, gasping for breath. He was staring at a rough concrete ground instead of the familiar hotel room floor. Clumps of weeds and shards of splintered rock dappled the area beneath him. All around, he could hear the very distinct sounds of a bustling city filled with people going about their daily lives. And when he looked up, through the tall stone walls that blocked him on all sides, he could see the sky. As the sun was fading, it was tinged with a purple hue, mostly clear but for a few straw clouds. If he stayed here long enough and didn't think too much about what had just happened and why, he could probably pretend that this was his ticket to freedom. That he'd been shown the mercy to be let go.

It wasn't that simple.

The ground trembled beneath him from an impact not far away. A chorus of panicked screams assailed his dazed mind, and when he found himself able to shake those thoughts from his head he finally realized just what kind of situation he'd been so unceremoniously dumped into.

Tokoyami hastily donned his cloak, covering his head as though he had something to hide, and rushed out onto the main street in the direction of the noise.

Do we have time to think about what just happened? Dark Shadow cawed, still reeling from the sudden displacement.

"If only," Tokoyami lamented, only just now beginning to regret his outburst. It would've been so much better if Dabi had just stayed put. Instead… "Instead I'm right here!"

Tokoyami turned a corner, skidding onto a street that was way too busy for what he was used to. People poured past him, running for all they were worth as they fled the scene. Cars honked, stalled in traffic and trying desperately to navigate through the clogged streets. Amidst it all, Tokoyami found himself standing in the street, a rock in the stream of people. He stared up in horrified awe as he watch the top half of a skyscraper start crashing towards the earth, its shadow bearing down on him and everyone around him. Before he could even blink, whips of fire lashed across the sky with expendable force, slicing the decapitated building into thousands of pieces. More ruptures of fire roared above the city, bearing down from the very heavens. But that wasn't the source of the reign of terror. No, that was more difficult to spot.

Tokoyami began stepping forward, hesitantly at first. And then he was running against the grain, dodging around frenzied civilians escaping the act of terrorism. He kept his eyes locked on the sky, searching it out. He didn't understand why everything was happening so far out of his reach, but they were there.

The high-end nomu was propelling itself through the air on a jet-powered quirk, its body twisting and convulsing to lash out at everything within range. He recognized those baleful eyes and black tendon-gnarled flesh anywhere. The monster was fighting toe-to-toe with the number one hero: Endeavor.

He'd never seen the hero in action like this before. He could feel the heat of his attacks from here. Granted, he'd grown used to feeling intensely hot fires, but the amount of literal fire power being thrown around right now was still impressive. Especially when pitted against that thing. He'd known already that the nomu had only been toying with him before – that no amount of his efforts would ever had been enough to properly match it in a real fight, with or without his quirk. But that just made seeing what it was capable now all the more grotesque. So this is what Dabi had meant by "test run."

Even still… Endeavor was number one for a reason. Was this fight really going to end in the hero's defeat? There was no way that Tokoyami could be sure from this distance. But as his eyes tracked the impossibly fast actions filling the sky, it wasn't long before he was able to see that there was another player in all this.

Red feathers split the air. They were everywhere, dragging people out of dangerous areas and safely disposing of large chunks of broken building that were hurtling towards the crowded streets. He knew them all too well, knew the power and grace that compelled them to act. And he knew their owner. He had to be so close by.

Hawks, where the hell are you…

He kept his eyes locked on the sky and the chaos stretching out above him. Up until a car honked at him, and he remembered exactly what kind of position he'd been left in. Tokoyami backed up swiftly from the agitated driver, bumping into a fleeing civilian. He recoiled at the touch.

"I'm not used to being around so many people," Tokoyami fretted. He wondered if everyone was getting out of the danger zone alright. By the looks of things, there were already a handful of heroes that had arrived on the scene as backup – he could hear them shouting to each other, and their quirks were being used wherever it proved helpful – but this was such a sudden and unprecedented attack on city grounds that there was certain to be a lot more damage and injury than even the back-up heroes could handle.

Tokoyami jostled his way through the tangled mess of people until he could get to another alleyway. This time, when he was able to stop and take a good look at what was going on above him, he saw it: a flash of red, bigger than the small feathers swirling around doing busy work. And being pulled along by the reduced wings was his old mentor – his old hero – Hawks. He watched the number two hero all but plummet from the sky and fall onto a rooftop barely a block away, right next to where the nomu was facing off against Endeavor. It was just as Dabi had promised: a fight to seed doubt and despair into the world after the top heroes had risen to their new statuses.

But that begged the question – where was Dabi in the midst of all this hellfire? He had planned for this, prepared for it, only to not be openly present once the actual fighting had already broken out. Are you trying to bide your time for something? What are you waiting for?! It's already started!

Tokoyami hadn't realized just how wrong he was. It was plain to see that there was nothing he could do in the fight against that high-end nomu other than trust that the person that was given the rank of number one could handle it. In the meantime, it occurred to him that the best course of action would be to track down that degenerate fire villain and convince him to call off the high-end before any more damage was caused. If he acted fast, then maybe he could put a stop to this before it got worse.

A different kind of scream filled the air – wretched squeals from the twisted throats of crudely modified bodies. Before Tokoyami could even stop to think of where the hell he was supposed to find Dabi in this mess, he was plagued by a new yet all too familiar peril. He skid to a halt, just in time to watch smaller nomu variants split off from Hood and come hurtling to the earth, already prepped to fight and setting their ugly sights on fleeing civilians.

Shit! I didn't know it could do that!

Fumikage, I don't like this place anymore!

I didn't like any of this from the start, and yet here we are.

Tokoyami took a moment to take a breath amidst the madness. He pulled the hood of his cloak more securely over his head, flattening down his feathers, and adjusted the sword he was grateful to have at his hip. If we can do anything at all to help in this situation, you know we have to try.

Dark Shadow hesitated, forcing Tokoyami to hold himself in place until he got a response. He needed his quirk to be okay with this if he was going to try anything. Dark Shadow relented, but he didn't sound happy about it. Do what you can, but I can't get hurt in all this. Not by one of those things. I don't want to see you getting hurt either, though. So please be careful!

"Right!"

Tokoyami sprinted through the narrow side streets, headed directly towards the source of the madness. He didn't encounter nearly as many people on this route, since most people had taken to main streets that were guaranteed to lead away from the destruction, rather than the winding paths. There were a few people, though – some disoriented civilians and cowering homeless people. These paths were way too close to the crumbling building and the threat of the newly spawned nomu, so every time someone crossed his path he hastily directed them towards the main roads, insisting that they clear the area effective immediately. It wasn't likely that a hero would be able to look around for the stragglers at this time. They were probably in short supply and were focusing their efforts on maintaining the large crowds and keeping them safe if at all possible. So if Tokoyami could clear out these small areas, then that would be enough.

Every so often he'd see a brief glimpse of a feather zip through, on the lookout for lost bodies and endangered citizens. Maybe to people on the street, they could see these feathers and feel relieved. But Tokoyami knew that they weren't infinite, and before long he was seeing fewer and fewer of them.

After running through the dark passages of Fukuoka for long enough, redirecting citizens and clearing the paths, he finally burst out into the open space of one of the streets closest to the building that was seeing the brunt of the fight. Embers rained down from above, sizzling onto his cloak, and large, irregularly sliced chunks of building had been placed on the ground in haphazard stacks. He wasn't given much more than a few seconds to process the new surroundings before a scream of terror rang out above the sound of fighting and flames.

Tokoyami dashed immediately to the left where the sound of distress had come from.

He rounded a mass of rubble, hand on the hilt of his sword, and almost ran beak-first into the towering figure of a green-tinted nomu.

Be careful! Dark Shadow croaked as helpfully as he could.

"Ack!" Tokoyami's sword flashed out of his hilt in the same second that the nomu rounded on him with a meaty hand raised into the air. He hacked at the arm that came down on him, staggering under the force until he was brought down nearly to his knees. He could feel the nomu's flesh becoming embedded in the blade, and shuddered at the angry screech it released because of it.

It hurt to maintain this position, and all he'd done is made the damn thing angrier. But looking behind the beast, he saw a businessman that had been cornered by it.

Tokoyami's arms were shaking. "Get out of here!" he roared at the fear stricken pedestrian. With a yelp, the unlucky worker made a run for it, slipping past the nomu and towards the streets where hopefully somebody else would be able to help him to safety, far away from this nightmare.

In that instant, the nomu briefly turned towards the fleeing man.

No you don't! Tokoyami borrowed a small amount of Dark Shadow's power, covering his hands in shadows that solidified his fading strength. He pushed back against the nomu the instant it tried to divert its attention. The monster cried out in pain and surprise, loud enough to make Tokoyami's head ring. When he'd adequately forced it back a couple steps on his borrowed power, Tokoyami swiftly disengaged in a flash of steel before it could regain itself. The wail it unleashed was blood-chilling, and Tokoyami did his best to maintain a safe distance from it. Even when the high-end was just toying with me, I could tell it was impossibly strong and fast. Meanwhile, this one… is nowhere near that level!

It's still a formidable foe, though. I don't wanna fight this thing! Dark Shadow whimpered.

Tokoyami grit his teeth. His sword was held in front of him, warding off the creature, but its bulbous eyes were glaring at him in hatred. Y-yeah. That person got out of here, so as long as nobody else is around we should just leave this to a more capable hero. If only it were so easy to get away…

The nomu roared at him and lunged forward.

Tokoyami kept his sword at the ready, anticipating another clash.

Instead, their fight was cut short by a sharp red feather slicing through its thick neck.

Tokoyami's eyes stretched wide in alarm, and he lowered the tip of his blade as the nomu fell to its knees. It screeched, frenzied hands trying desperately to cover the bubbling wound that had been left on it.

The feather – judging by its length, a secondary wing feather – shot back into the sky to attend some other task, leaving Tokoyami behind with a howling, injured abomination. He stood there, utterly stunned, by the unwarranted intervention. He has to know I'm here now. His gaze drifted back to the ugly scar that Hawks's signature weapon had left. Those feathers… I don't think I ever realized just how sharp they are.

Do you think we should leave this here? I bet they'll wanna capture these guys alive for processing, yeah?

With a shuddered breath, Tokoyami flicked the blood off of his sword and sheathed it back into his belt. "Right. We need to move on. There's still a lot that can be done here. And when I find Dabi, I'll make sure he knows just how much trouble he's caused here."

Tokoyami backed away from the nomu, keeping his eyes on it up until he got far enough away. Then he made a run for it, back into the streets where fire and feathers continued to fall.