A/N: A moment you've all been waiting for! Let me know what you think of this chapter and how you think the story will progress from here. Thank you as always for your continued support!

Chapter 23

Present Day – Day 16

Dabi holds onto Asami as she's hoisted over his shoulder and hanging limply down his back. He grips onto her ass to keep her from falling while his other arm is snaked around her legs at the back of her knees. He enters the threshold of the abandoned office spaces that they have made their makeshift home for the time being.

A wild grin reaches his lips when the rest of the group watches him enter the room. Spinner rolls his eyes when Dabi saunters in the room with her slacked over his shoulder, while Mr. Compress places his fists disapprovingly on his hips. "Now, was such a brutish response really necessary?"

"She's a feisty one," Dabi shrugs her off of his shoulder as he lays her down on a decaying couch in the room and thinks about how she fought so valiantly to scratch his face until he plunged the syringe in her arm.

He looks down at her as her curly purple hair falls wildly in front of her face and chest as he tosses her arms atop her stomach and lifts her limp legs onto the couch.

Dabi hears footsteps approaching the girl and he stiffens when his black clothes come into view of her. "So," his voice rasps. "This is the girl?" Shigaraki asks as he looks down on her with his hands firmly in his pockets.

Dabi keeps his eyes off of Shigaraki and stares down at the girl they both look onto. "Yeah," he says with a disinterested tone. "Not a fan of this plan," Dabi begins loudly as he glares at Spinner. "But," his head cranes back to her, "Who am I to argue with what our fierce leader wants?"

"She had a point," Spinner tries to justify. "We haven't had new recruits since our attack at UA, and we've lost valuable assets. It's not our fault that you keep scorching all of our prospective recruits," he sneers at him.

Dabi shrugs with a lopsided grin plastered on his mismatched lips, "Not my fault they're all garbage."

"It would be nice if we're included in that decision," the reptilian sneers back.

"Enough," Shigaraki mumbles under his breath. "We'll wait for her to wake up, and then we can discuss this more. How long will she be out," he asks Dabi.

"Ujiko said anywhere from an hour to a full day," he shrugs and he catches Spinner rolling his eyes.

"Then we wait here," Shigaraki states, sitting down on a chair and hoisting his feet onto the table as he watches the purple haired girl curiously past the hand placed atop his face.

Hours pass as the League of Villains impatiently wait for the purple-haired girl to wake from her sleep. Toga hums to herself as she kicks her feet and twirls around the office space. Twice sits atop a crate, kicking his feet aimlessly in front of him. Mr. Compress sits in a chair with his arms crossed over his chest as his head is slugged downwards while he naps. Spinner leans against a wall that he sits at with his elbow on his knee, also napping. Shigaraki has his head tossed back in his chair as he stares up at the ceiling, aimlessly counting the rooftiles with his legs still hoisted onto the table. And Dabi sits in a chair in front of her with his elbows to his knees as he leans in to watch her.

He keeps his eyes on the purple haired girl, never once allowing them to leave her soft face. He watches her as she sleeps, noticing the subtle nuances in her changing expressions. He watches as her nose wrinkles, her lips purse, her eyelashes flutter, her brows furrow, her cheeks twitch. He wants so badly to be in that dream of hers to see what's occupying her mind right now. He could turn that dream nice and wet for her in an instant.

He hears a soft moan lift from her throat and he perks up at the sound. Her eyelashes begin to flutter more as her eyelids vibrate and lift.

Shigaraki crashes his chair back to all fours when he hears her stirring awake. Dabi lifts himself from his chair, figuring it will be best for her to see his face first when she wakes up over the others.

He bends down to look at her as her eyes begin to lift and she groans when she moves her hands to her head.

"Wake up, Butterfly," Dabi speaks to her as she begins to gain consciousness.

She moans as she lifts her heavy head up, only to quickly drop it back down. Her entire body is heavy and aching as though she was dropped out of an airplane and then hit by a bus.

"Ugh… Fuck me," she groans as she tries to hold her head from splitting into a million pieces.

"I'd love to, doll, but we have guests," Dabi chuckles to himself as she scoffs at his detestable response.

She opens her eyes fully at him, seeing the bright light of his turquoise eyes staring down at her. "You fucking asshole," she weakly mumbles as she remembers slapping him across the face before he plunged the syringe in her bicep. She lifts her hand up to strike him again.

"Easy now," he soothes, catching her heavy hand and her arm falls limp in his grip. "It's going to take a bit for the drug to pass through your system, so no quick movements."

She pulls her arm away from his grip and he lights up at the pouty look she gives him. He backs away from her, giving her room to lift herself in a seated position and take in her surroundings. The rest of the League have their attentions fixated on her as she groans while cracking her neck and stretching out her back.

She looks down at her hand, seeing that her middle finger is bandaged, and she remembers cutting herself on his staple from slapping him.

"Can I get some water?" she asks as she licks her dry lips.

Dabi steps away from her as Mr. Compress steps forward and hands her a bottle of water. She wearily smiles up at him and thanks him as she takes the bottle. Dabi watches as her long lashes droop heavily against her eyes as she takes a few gulps of water.

Once she's finished, she looks around the room when her purple orbs finally land on Shigaraki. She stops looking at anyone else in the room when her eyes land on his. She watches him carefully as he surveys her past the barricade of his father's hand gripping his face.

She swallows hard, her dry throat scratching as she looks at him, feeling the heaviness in the air with how intimidated she is with him.

Neither of them speaks to one another as both of them survey the other. She can't see much past the hand on his face, but she can see the unkept light blue hair sweeping over is face, the weight in his shoulders weighing him down, and his dry hands lacing together as he rests them on his knees.

"Dabi," she croaks out before she clears her throat. "Dabi said you wanted to see me?"

Shigaraki doesn't immediately respond to her, and she wonders if he heard her, but she knows that he had to. He's instead watching her carefully as he surveys her and studies her every movement. There is something clearly intimidating about him that shakes Asami to her core. She finds herself fearing him, potentially more than she does Dabi.

"Spinner tells me you have ideas about the League," he says simply, gaging her response.

"Yeah," she begins as she sits upright. "In my opinion, I believe the League could use a better public image."

"And why should I care what image the League has to the public?" Shigaraki rasps with a grunt.

She delicately chews nervously on her lips. "Because you have a recruitment issue," she begins, "And though I am sure most of it stems from someone's tactless ways of recruiting people," she jabs at Dabi without looking at him, but he smiles at her. "There is still the matter that no one really knows what the League's motivations are." She watches the blue-haired man carefully for an adverse reaction to her comment, but when there is none, she feels the confidence to continue her conversation.

"At first," she continues when he loosens his shoulders. "Everyone believed the League's intentions matched that of the Hero Killer: Stain. But when All Might was dismantled by All for One, it's clear that there was a divide between what Stain wanted and what the League was doing," she says and Spinner scoffs, clearly not agreeing with their move. "That clearly caused distrust amongst the underbelly of villains that were considering joining your cause," she informs him.

"Though I haven't seen the fallout of what happened with Endeavor and Hawks because of certain circumstances," she says now glaring at Dabi for kidnapping her, who returns with a cheeky grin and a wink. "I'm assuming because you targeted the Number One and Number Two heroes, you're looking to dismantle the hero world altogether?" she hangs on the question, waiting for him to answer.

"Let's say that's it," he tells her and she sighs.

"Well then you need to make that clearer," she returns matter-of-factly. "No one knows that, and with the random attacks of your Nomu, your organization seems chaotic and unstructured. Like you're throwing pieces onto a gameboard, hoping some will stick."

Her reference to a gameboard seems to illicit a more attentive response from him. "So, what would you recommend?" he asks her with gritted teeth as her assessment makes him grow increasingly volatile.

"You need to regain the narrative," she tells him simply. "How did the public respond to the attack on Endeavor?" she asks him. "He beat your beast, but no one has really liked Endeavor, so I'm imagining people were comparing him to All Might?"

She looks around, seeing the stiffening of the villains around her and her heart races. She's wrong. He was accepted by the people of Japan as a Bringer of Peace. She keeps her smile to herself, knowing that he always had it in him to rise to such great lengths.

"Show her," Spinner nods at Mr. Compress who looks at Shigaraki for guidance. The blue-haired man nods at Compress with permission.

Mr. Compress approaches her, holding out a laptop and playing the video for her. She watches as a pink haired boy begins crying out in the crowd, beseeching people to look up at Endeavor and watch him as he continues to fight the Nomu when all hope seems to be lost.

She feels a swelling of pride build in her heart that Endeavor was able to achieve the mantel that she helped him build, and despite not saying her speech, he truly is the Number One Hero and the Bringer of Peace for the people of Japan.

"Well, that's unexpected," she smiles at the computer.

Compress turns off the video and she looks away from it and turns to Shigaraki. She lifts herself from the dusty couch and moves towards him. Dabi stiffens as he watches her move towards the blue-haired man, not liking her sitting closer to him where he can't intervene if the stupid man-child wants to lash out at her.

"How funny," she begins, "You tried to dismantle the new Number One's reputation, and instead, you solidified it," she smiles at the comedic irony of it all while both Dabi and Shigaraki look at her with less than pleased expressions.

Shigaraki looks up at her as she takes a seat next to him at the table. "If you really want to dismantle the hero society, you are going about it the wrong way," she tells him sternly. "Strong villains and flashy Quirks can only get you so far, but as you saw, your Nomu gave Endeavor more credibility, even when he was in a vulnerable spot with the public."

She turns her body towards Shigaraki as she speaks. Her legs are crossed and pointed at him as she leans into him. Her left-hand lays on her lap, while her right rests on the table inches away from his.

Dabi swallows the lump down in his throat when he sees how close she is to Shigaraki. If she says the wrong thing, all he has to do is twitch and his hand will be decaying hers. Dabi won't have a chance to jump in and pull her away before the decay villain does serious damage to her.

"The right way to go about this, is by painting the heroes in a disparaging light, not in a fight that they can or can't win, but with how they react to controversial things."

Shigaraki glares at her behind the hand on his face and she sighs, "Can I see that laptop and I will show you?"

"No way," Dabi speaks up with a stern tone. She cranks her head back at him, unenthused with his objection. "She's just going to use it to contact that flaming pile of shit and compromise our location."

She turns away from Dabi and back to Shigaraki, "You're welcome to watch me as I work, and burn me if I try anything." They seem unconvinced so she adds, "I won't send anything without your permission."

"Do it, Compress," Shigaraki states as Dabi lifts from his seat and begins complaining to Shigaraki about how this is a bad idea, but his concerns fall of deaf ears as the masked villain places the laptop in front of her.

"Alright," she begins as she signs into various forums while the black-haired villain stands uncomfortably close to her.

"Try anything funny, Butterfly," he says as he places a hot hand on her shoulder. "And I'll fucking incinerate you."

"Noted," she sneers as she keeps her eyes on the laptop.

Dabi keeps his hand on her shoulder as she begins typing, and everyone in the room gathers around her. "Looks like the media has dubbed this pink-haired kid 'Look Boy'. He even has his own merchandise," she scoffs with a shake of her head. "This is perfect," she says under her breath as she begins typing wildly on her keyboard.

"What are you doing now?" Dabi presses as he leans into the computer.

"I'm creating fake online accounts within an anti-hero thread. I am giving 'convincing evidence from a reliable source within Endeavor's Hero Agency' that Look Boy was paid off by the hero's PR team to go out there and say those words and paint Endeavor in a favorable light," she begins and Dabi blinks down at her. "There are four of us under his PR team, but if this were a real stunt, the informant could have been anyone."

"Now I'm creating more fake accounts that either corroborate the slander story, or that react to it with things like 'I wouldn't put it past that guy' and your favorite," she says turning to Dabi, "I always knew that guy was a 'flaming pile of shit'," she smiles at him as he looks down at her with a dumbfounded look.

"I'm also using a VPN between each comment and slander story so they don't track under the same source; that way it looks like it's genuinely coming from various sources. No one from the Agency would think about checking that other than me, but still," she shrugs, figuring it's worth the effort.

"Scrubbing Look Boy's social media, I'm doctoring photos of the kid with All Might merchandise to show that he's never been an Endeavor fan which will discredit the kid. Creating a fake NDA with the kid and a merchandise deal dating before the incident should be enough."

She types faster than Dabi can keep up with her fingers as she completely immerses herself in her work. He watches her as a soft smile touches her lips in what appears to be a sense of worth with what she's doing. His eyes land on her lips as she chews on them with determination.

"We can even say the Nomu was a fake as well," she says as Shigaraki and Dabi stiffen at her comment. "Add some strings on it or something to make it look like it was a fake. Like the entire fight was a stunt."

"But then no one will talk about my Nomu!" Shigaraki grumbles.

"Yeah, but what does that say about the Hero Society when they start staging fights as a publicity stunt instead of handling the real danger in the streets?" she asks rhetorically as she focuses on creating a clickbait article with the doctored photo.

All the villains watch her with mouths left agape as they watch the woman mumble amongst herself as she seamlessly falls into the flow of her work. Her fingers are moving faster than the speed of light as her head darts back and forth between the edges of the screen.

"You know what," she chuckles, "Why not add Hawks into the mix?" Asami says and Dabi perks up at the sinister smile on her face.

"Kinda convenient he was able to save all those people from the building before Endeavor's Flash Fire Whip destroyed the building into shreds," she mumbles to herself. "They've never teamed up before but they were so in sync with one another on the field. Maybe someone saw them training in a warehouse a few days before the 'attack'? A blurry photo of the two will do the trick."

Dabi scoffs as she completely falls down the rabbit hole once she's in front of the laptop. This comes so effortlessly to her that it's as easy as brushing your teeth or getting dressed.

After less than an hour of narrating ways to discredit the hero and the boy, she smiles wildly and leans back in her chair. "There," she says with a content smile on her face. "It'll take roughly thirteen minutes for Endeavor's team to wipe this from the original forums—maybe thirty minutes without me there—but anyone with a brain is going to screenshot this before that. From there, they won't be able to deny it and their attempts to cover it up will look suspicious."

Dabi leans into the computer past her face, watching wide eyed as live strings of texts flood the screen shitting on the flaming hero and his image, along with the boy who elevated his image in his last battle.

"Holy shit," he exhales incredulously.

Asami stares at the screen, feeling a heaviness in her heart at the conflicted feeling she's experiencing. She feels excited to be working again, having felt lost and empty not doing anything all day. Her work has always given her a sense of worth, and that's what helped her elevate herself and Endeavor in the past few years, yet here she is, completely negating all those years with one single thread.

All those years she dedicated her life to making heroes look good, and here she was, only minutes with the villains and she's shitting on all their hard work. And she can't help the pondering question of if this makes her a villain now?

She exhales, only hoping that her team can pick up on her tells. Every Public Relations Specialist has a tell in the way they control the narrative; their own voice. She made it clear in her trail that she's behind these slander stories, and she only prays that they see this, and with her absence it raises some questions and they find her. She even strategically went after Hawks, knowing that even if her team doesn't catch it, her old friend Riku will.

Dabi snatches the laptop from Asami as he excitedly watches the internet completely roast the hero in a way that his Quirk would never be capable of, while Asami turns her attention to Shigaraki.

"That's only part of the problem," she tells him. "We've dismantled Endeavor's reputation, but we need to build up the League's. I also recommend we make a statement against the Meta Liberation Army," she says and everyone grows stiff as they watch her. She gulps, but keeps her eyes on Shigaraki.

"They have far more followers than you. I wouldn't doubt if they had followers numbering in the hundreds of thousands," she stresses. "Unlike the League, the MLA can appeal to a Hero as much as they can a Villain. They simply believe in the free usage of Quirks. That's something that anyone with a Quirk can support. The problem with that is the more unmandated use of Quirks out there, the more likely people will get hurt or killed. Now that's not the stance that the League would take, but if you say that heroes need to be dismantled because of the selfish profits they make, you go against the MLA's core beliefs of free use of Quirks, and you might illicit a war," she advises him.

Shigaraki nervously scratches at his neck as he thinks to himself. "Those damn Liberationist," Shigaraki grumbles to himself. "Always ruining my plan. Taking the credit for everything. No one's talking about my Nomu!"

Asami turns to him, seeing that he's becoming increasingly annoyed. She places her hand on his arm and he tightens his body at her response.

Dabi glances away from the laptop to look at her, watching as she subtly rubs his arm. He lowers the laptop as his eyes are completely fixated on her move towards the crusty blue-haired villain. He sees the reassuring squeeze of her hand on his forearm and the way that her leg brushes up against his.

"Don't worry," she sooths him with a silky voice. "I can take it over from here," she says as she continues to rub him.

"I'm going to decay them all into dust!" Shigaraki growls.

Dabi watches as she leans into him, laughing at his dark words as her dimples press to her cheeks. Making a show of how 'funny' he is.

She throws her head back, with a breathy laugh pressing out of her throat as her lips curl up into a smile that takes over her face, stopping at her dimples that dig into her cheeks. She lowers her head and bites down on her lips to stop her laughter. She brings her shoulder to her chin, sheepishly shrugging behind it.

She turns her head over her shoulder, pulling her purple hair behind her ear as her lilac orbs land on his turquoise pools and she watches him carefully. Her eyes stay on him, dragging down to his lips then back to his eyes as her lips close into a grin. Their gaze lingers on one another and that's when it strikes Dabi.

It's fucking her.

Waves of memories and images of her crash into his scull like a hurricane intent on pulling him under the water. He stares at her, his eyes transfixed on hers as she turns from him and back to the pale-haired man, but his eyes remain. Sweet recollections of her childlike innocence assault his waking mind and he feels himself getting increasingly sick.

How the fuck is this happening?

When looking back at his childhood, all Dabi can remember is pain. He remembers the physical pain of his father's trainings, of course, but what sticks with him to this day is the emotional pain of his family failing him at every turn.

Naturally he knows there were good times with them, but for every peaceful recollection he had of them, it was overshadowed by the pain.

His determined father who shared his goal in becoming the Number One Hero became the monster who struck him for each failure. The loving mother who once embraced him turned to the cold ice queen who became horrorstruck by the sight of him. His sweet sister who encouraged him turned a blind eye when she noticed him breaking. His younger brother who was his safe space and a refuge from the pain, became burdened by his fears and frustrations. The youngest from the moment he was born resulted in his final undoing.

And then there was her.

Dabi watches her as she laughs at something completely unheard to him. She was a light in his life. A beacon to a happiness that he never deserved. She was the only constant in his life. She was the only semblance of good from his fucked-up childhood and he allowed her to become a forgotten reverie. She fell into the realm of nonexistence and all the fond memories he held of her dissolved into a dream of fantasy. She stopped existing in his mind, and when Touya become Dabi; Asami and everything good that came with her, was forgotten and no longer there.

But that laugh… he could recognize that laugh anywhere. She is real. She is not a dream. She is not something he conjured and disposed of. She existed. And now… she is here.

He stares at her as she fumbles through her attempt at flirting with Shigaraki who seems less than interested in anything she plays.

How could I be so fucking blind? Look at her. It's fucking her!

It's as if he's finally seeing her for the first time again.

Dabi kidnapped her under the guise that she was that flying fuck boy's slam piece, but he couldn't deny that she was his type, and he was eager to bite off a piece of her. But how the fuck is he supposed to do that now? The plan is going up in fucking flames and he can't control it. Just like that night on Sekoto Peak.

"Dabi, you mind turnin' the heat down in here," Twice fans himself energetically as everyone looks over at him while his body heats up at the realization that it's her.

His eyes land on hers—Fuck it's her—as she watches him carefully. He swallows down the lump in his throat, feeling his vision blurring as he attempts to focus on anything in the room. He staggers back, trying to regain his balance as his knees grow weak.

His body is igniting with heat, and the laptop in his hands begins melting. He drops the thing with a loud crash and takes another step back.

"…r…u …lri…t?" he hears someone mumble around him, but he isn't even sure who it is as his vision begins to blacken and his hearing muffles.

His eyes cross and his vision begins to tunnel around him. His eyes search desperately for something to focus on as he feels his body spinning. His heart is racing wildly and he feels like he's having a heart attack.

He clutches onto his chest. Did she get her fucking Quirk back? Overhaul's fucking shitty ass drug!

His head grows heavy as an ear-piercing white noise rings out in his skull.

"He's hav…g… pan…c att…k" he hears the words muffle behind the loud ringing in his ears.

Dabi growls and before his body feels weightless, his blurred vision fixates on a purple blob rushing towards him when everything suddenly goes black.