Hero society moves on and forgets what was lost. One who has forgotten everything seeks to remember what was lost, but will he like the answers he gets? The turning point, and at this point, the young protagonist must make a decision. Fuck heroes.

Notes: Please read and review. While I appreciate all of the kudos/faves/follows, please review and tell me what I'm doing right and what needs improvement. Thank you for your time.

This is the second of many chapters left to go. The death ability is very different from re zero's, and will not be shown until much later. There will be loops and death. I hope you all stick around for the long run.

The reason it's taken so long to write is that it's a very complex story and as such, I've been plotting every inch out of every chapter. So now, it's two chapters, with a third one on the way. Next time, it won't take two years to complete, don't worry. Now that I've finally been working and gaining experience through work, I've had some inspiration.

And yes, he'll be a villain but a villain with a heart-that's the biggest problem with canon Touya, they killed his "heart", and I'm sorry, but you need villains to be likable and have some sympathy in them to root for them.

Again this is mainly BNHA canon compliant to a certain extent, with obvious deviations ("Touya's" hair, for starters, Endeavor being abusive and cruel, Todofam not resolving their differences). There will be few pairings, but Rumi and Hawks will be a thing.

Dabi is 17-18 here, so Izuku is around 6-7. Dabi is slightly older than in canon for reasons I will show. I will occasionally cut to Izuku as he is still technically the main character, just not of this universe.

Yes, I'm aware of the tense shifts, somehow that...happens with this fic, and it's super annoying, and partly why I've been so long with updating this. Gonna do my best to cut down on that and leave it in past tense when possible.

Don't worry about it, I'll figure a way out of it. For now, let's just leave Hawks as past tense/dreams as past tense and either go with present tense for Dabi or else past tense. I hope you all can forgive me for the tense shifting and still enjoy the story nonetheless.

Anyway, please read and review, and sorry for taking so long with the update.

Chapter 2: Flash Fire

Hawks: age 17

It was always the same, every time he came here in this dream.

This cruel as fucking hell dream that dared to play with his senses and taunt him about what could have been...he hated it so.

Everything looked normal, too normal for his tastes.

He was in his first year at UA High, only a few years ago, before things had altered and become cruel.

Had he really expected it to change? Not really. But it would have been nice, if just once, it was different. If all of the years that passed were nothing but a fake dream conjured up by some villain, it would be best for him, just so he could come back and see that he was here.

Alas, reality was cruel and not beholden to satisfy our desires for normalcy and intimacy.

It was the same as every dream he'd been having for the past two years; inconsistent, cruel and all too cynical.

He was there, sitting in his desk like usual, looking the same way as he always had.

Those turquoise eyes bore into him every damned time.

Losing a friend was the hardest hell anyone could go through, and now he could tell anyone that much. After spending most of his life without friends, it hurt so, so, so, so much to have made one goddamned friend, (and then he disappeared, he disappeared and now he's gone forever and-) just once, life had given him one person who wasn't bound by the HPSC, someone who wasn't tracking his every movement, or a suckup, or someone just trying to look good.

Touya Todoroki was the only person who appreciated Hawks as he was, and now he was gone.

Knowing someone was gone was so much more worse than knowing they were dead. If someone was gone, they could possibly still be out there somewhere, alive, but you could never reach them. Gone implied some vague ambiguity that just never stopped hurting, the phrase never stopped stabbing you in the gut, over and over. Dead, on the other hand, was a relief to hear, it quenched the soul. At least then you had an answer.

He couldn't help himself, his mouth opened.

"Touya!"

The redhead turned to look his way, before smiling widely, that same smile he always did-somewhere between a smile and a smirk, and turning away.

Probably to go gossip to another one of their classmates, he thought in annoyance.

Damn celebrity status as a Todoroki. His father was famous, so he got to be the subject of gossip by practically everyone in the class. The girls liked him, too, much to Keigo's chagrin.

He's obviously the same as any of those other famous children: arrogant and full of himself.

But he was wrong.

Touya had, in fact, gone over to his desk and introduced himself to Hawks-no, Keigo.

"Can we be friends?" He had asked, and extended his hand out to a flabbergasted Hawks, who was amazed that a student who was the son of Endeavor would even notice him, let alone talk to him.

He had accepted that hand, accepted Touya into his life.

Of course, he had been afraid, afraid that he wasn't enough of an interesting hero for Touya to hang around.

But that had turned out to be totally silly.

Touya had been a practical, down-to-earth type of fellow, and that worked in his favor.

Because of Touya, he hadn't known how to feel about anything anymore, and that was something that really moved Keigo for the first time.

"It's great being the son of Endeavor, isn't it?" He babbled.

Touya shot him a sharp stare.

"Not exactly. More like it's utter hell." He said flippantly, before getting up and sitting somewhere else.

That was the moment he had thought he would never forgive him.

What an awkward moment; it was unthinkable for him to have said something like that.

What the fuck was he even thinking?

It was as one of his trainers at the HPSC had always said to him when they heard about him fucking up: "You just weren't thinking, were you?"

Which was completely accurate, he had to admit now. But even still, Touya had forgiven him for having said such a careless thing, and had shrugged it off.

Perhaps he was used to hearing such things said by ignorant people who had no idea what type of hell he had to put up with behind closed doors. Touya was somewhat of an enigma, even to Hawks. He was harder to read than any person he had ever known. If he was sad, he wouldn't show it openly. If he was upset, he wouldn't show it, but instead go quiet.

Maybe that was why he sometimes thought: although he had known Touya for only a year before his disappearance, they had still been utter strangers to each other.

He hadn't known much of Touya's childhood because Touya didn't bring it up beyond a few choice remarks here and there. Whatever he went through, it wasn't good and was most likely abusive in nature. He had never been to his house and his father had only turned up a few times to school events, mostly to watch his child struggle and fail to control his quirk.

He was snapped out of his thoughts when he felt a tap on his shoulder.

He looked up, in time to see the red-haired boy smiling at him sadly.

It was a knowing gaze, as if he could see into the future and know that he would disappear and never be found.

Was that why he always seemed so distant and yet seemed to know a lot of things he shouldn't?

"Touya-" He asked.

Touya silenced him with a sharp stare, and motioned for him to follow him as he went to the end of the hallway.

Behind them, he could see a certain white-haired girl running down the hallway, no doubt late to her next class.

Rumi was a wild spirit, he thought with a chuckle. Truly, she was a girl who never let anything get in her way. Someone like that, to Keigo, was-

"Keigo," Touya said, cutting Keigo out of his reveries once and for all.

"What is it, Touya? You look so serious, man. Did something happen?"

Touya looked wistful for a moment, and sighed. "Yeah, it did. You need to move on."

"Move on...?"

"Yeah, move on from this. All of this." He said, motioning to the room around them.

"What do you mean, Touya? Class is starting in the next five minutes, and I can't be late-"

He looked at him piercingly. "You need to move on and live in the present, Keigo. I'm gone, remember? This is all a dream you're having."

His heart broke.

Indeed, it was a dream, wasn't it?

It had been two years, and yet Touya still looked like he did back then.

Touya looked sympathetic to his plight as he sighed. "I'm gone, remember. You won't be able to find me. Don't even try."

"But why? Touya, why would you say that? I want to find you! We're gonna be heroes together, remember?"

He smiled in a bittersweet way. "I know. I remember that so well. But it'll be all right."

"What do you mean, all right? You're gone, and for all I know, you could be dead!" Keigo's voice trembled as his eyes watered.

Touya smiled.

"It's okay, Keigo. In some way, I'll live on and keep doing what I've done before. You'll be fine. I know it hurts..."

"No, Touya!"

Touya was gone and the classroom was black and fading as he started to awaken.

"Remember, Keigo. Get over me. Live your life."

Keigo awoke with a start, sweat clinging to his brow.

He thought over the dream he'd had.

'Touya...I know you said that, but I still want to find you, and I won't rest until I do, living or dead. Mark my words.'

Such was the vow that he made, all the while not knowing that the Touya he would find was completely different from the original one he had met.

But let us return once more to the newcomer who had entered Touya's body without awareness of what he had gotten himself into, and see where his journey has taken him to now. After all, idle hands are the devil's plaything, more so if this one has no awareness of what is to come or even what his role in all of this is. For a role in this he does play, and quite a significant one. But we are getting ahead of ourselves. Let us once more return to the viewpoint of the one called "Dabi."

For it is he we will be following from now on.

For sometimes, all I a witch, can do is watch, as painful as it may be.

(SI!Dabi: Age 17-18 physically. Age before: 20.)

He was dreaming, dreaming, dreaming.

Burning, burning, burning, burning. This endless fire crept up his skin and through his body and heated him from the inside out, like an endless lantern.

The steam that rose from his burns billowed like an endless cloud of pyrocumulus.

The hiss of the steam when it met the ground sounded to him like the flow of a pyroclastic cloud of volcanic ash, something from those things he watched a long time ago, called "doc-u-mentaries.."

He clutched at his head, trying hard to shake off the impending memories slamming into his head.

He didn't want to remember anything, but for some reason, these dreams tormented him, refusing to let go.

As if some unknowable something was clutching at his insides, grasping them harshly and demanding to be let out of its cage...some unknowable truth that demanded to be seen, no matter the cost.

He didn't want to know. He didn't want to see anything more about Endeavor, about his past, whatever secrets may be there...

Yet he saw anyway.

It was as if his past wanted to torment him and he had no way out.

Currently, he was being watched by a pair of blue eyes.

Who these eyes belonged to, he had no inkling of them anywhere in his memories...and yet...yet...

"You remember me, don't you?" The young boy before him asked, his eyes as blue as his own, and yet different at the same time.

"...You are..."

He kept staring, despite the fact that the sight before him tortured his eyes, and tortured his mind. Something was crying out to be acknowledged within him, try as he might to deny it.

"You know who I am, don't you? Not like you can't remember...after what you did to me." The figure said, his hands dancing with blue flames.

"...To..." He stuttered out, before clutching at his head and falling to the ground.

"Oh, it appears you can't know just now. Too soon, I guess." There was a note of melancholy to his voice.

As if this were someone he should know really well.

"I don't know who you are. Please, tell me." He begged, not sure why on earth he was doing it, he just knew that he had to know.

"...Someday, you'll know who I am. Now is not that day." The boy with flecks of white in his red hair said, again sounding sad.

"Please don't leave. I need to know more. Please..." He reached out a hand to the boy, but the boy looked at him sadly.

"I can't. I'm sorry. You're not yet ready to know more, Dabi." The boy's voice, high but oh-so-familiar, reverberated around the darkness of the dreamscape they were in.

He began to cry, for some reason.

"You always were too soft-hearted for your own good, Dabi. Don't forget this dream...even though...you probably will." His voice was sad and yet nostalgic at the same time.

"Don't leave...please..."

Yet, he was left alone as the figure disappeared.

"T_!" He cried.

All he was surrounded by were flames, all-consuming and all-knowing, demanding that he join them and become a part of them.

Then he awoke, on his bed, the sheets doused in sweat and...it was on fire.

The bed...was on fire.

Yelping, he quickly smothered it with a blanket, and rolled back over.

His hand was now smoking hot from where he'd ignited his quirk during the dream.

For some reason, his quirk seemed to be prone to sudden fits of energy, even when he hadn't specifically activated it.

His only guess was that it was linked to his emotions-that's about as much as Dabi had to go on, with the remnants of his memories serving as a guide.

He knew somewhat, how to manifest it, how to control it was another story.

That was why at his workplace, he hadn't exactly come out about his quirk, because he knew everyone was bound to notice such an unusual quirk. For some reason, fire quirks were relatively rare, outside of Endeavor and his children, so it meant that he drew attention if he were to go about talking about it.

It was times like this that he was actually grateful for the scars on his body, because it meant people paid far more attention to them than they did to his quirk.

For someone like him, who was missing memories, being evasive was by far the best tactic he could use in the book.

It wouldn't do for people to learn of his amnesia, after all. Who knew what they would try then?

Someone with amnesia was a burden, a weakling, and he knew he had to regain his memories as soon as he could, before word got out.

If being an enigma meant people stayed away, then good.

He didn't really need people to begin with, (even though a part of him actually needed people.)

The way that people were so prejudiced was a burden to him.

He was so tired of working in hero society, but if it provided him a roof over his head and helped him stay undercover, away from the man called Endeavor, then so be it.

His mind drifted back to thoughts of the other day, where he had encountered some prejudiced people who hadn't exactly been the kindest towards him.

Dabi was not exactly fond of a lot of heroes in general, but he found that mainstream society seemed to not be the...kindest, to put it mildly, about these matters.

"Excuse me, sir? Where can I find this item?"

Dabi turned to face them, and was about to speak.

Upon seeing his scarred face, the young girls before him paled.

"Oh my god, what the fuck happened to you?" One very ignorant, very stupid girl blurted out, apparently unaware that facial scars existed.

Oh yes, he was fucking aware of how his face looked. Thanks for noticing. It's not like he heard about it ten million times a day.

"Mana, you can't say things like that! I'm so sorry, sir! But can you tell us where we can find this item, please?" The second girl asked, looking apologetic.

Well, that's just too bad, since now, he didn't want to talk, not to them, not since they insulted him.

"Sir, you're creeping me out, why won't you say something?"

Aaaand since she insulted him as well, all she was greeted with was silence, and his icy stare.

"..."

Stares always seemed to do the trick.

"I don't think this guy is right in the head." The girls whimpered, apparently terrified of a stranger for no reason.

"…Over there." He muttered.

"What?"

"Over there, the item is o-over there." He said, raspily.

He should at least try to help, he knew this much. Just because he had forgotten everything about his life before this doesn't mean he should forsake all manners and customs people were taught-

"Thanks, villain," The second girl said sarcastically, before she rolled her eyes and joined her friend in walking away.

They walked off quickly, and threw nervous stares back at him.

Yep, because apparently every single person who happened to look different was a fucking villain, give them a cookie for their intelligence, hip-hip-hooray.

No matter what he did, he was defined by these stupid facial scars and his appearance mattered more than anything, apparently.

As he stood there, he felt the scars on his arm itch, probably the pain-in-the-ass quirk activating for no goddamned reason.

Reluctantly, he folded his hands to stop it from happening, but he did singe himself slightly.

Anyway, the entirely not prejudiced, and non judgmental gang of girls continued talking shit where he could hear.

'Not the sharpest tools in the shed, I see.' He thought in annoyance.

"Don't even look back at him, Mana. He's obviously a villain. Look at those freaky scars."

'Ignore them.'

"Did you see how long it took him to respond to a question? Something's wrong with him." Mana said, to her lizard friend, before the girl who hadn't spoken yet shuddered.

"It's okay, Aoi. I know full well that if he tried anything, we'd kick his butt. Did you see how scrawny he looked? I bet he's all bark and no bite." The lizard said to Aoi, who shuddered again before speaking.

"How do they let villains like that roam around freely? If I was in charge, I'd lock them up and never let them out." A third one with Medusa-like hair said flippantly.

'Shut up.'

The fire was starting to activate under his skin, lovely. He imagined the headlines: local pyromaniac torched three girls alive for the crime of saying rude things about him.

"Honestly, it makes me feel uncomfortable. They should just lock them up, for the sake of everyone else who doesn't want to see them." Mana said, her nose up in the air.

'For All Might's disgusting sake, shut up!'

As the girls left, he turned back to his work, annoyed.

It wasn't the only time he'd heard rude words like that, those ones happened to sink in a bit further than usual.

Work was more important than thinking about their words. They were just ignorant, dumb kids. He was a kid, too, but part of him felt like he was much older than that.

'I know that, but…I hate them.'

He hated this job.

No, that wasn't quite correct. Perhaps he's not using the correct wording.

He loathed this job from the bottom of his fucking heart. Then again, there were plenty of things he hated, the memory loss being the number one thing.

He hated coming in here, he hated the customers and how they fucked with him. He hated having to be so hot in this heat, with additional suffering coming from the stupid quirk that won't ever stop fucking with him. He hated the heroes. He hated this damned society.

But mostly, he hated the damned quirk that wouldn't stop interfering with his day. He swore it was sentient and wanted to ruin his life.

….But it wasn't the fear-filled faces of the customers he hated most, but rather one group of people. Said people happened to be headed this way at this very moment.

These classy assholes-er, coworkers-had decided he was perfect to torment and from that very moment, he was hounded by these losers.

The pay was good, so here he was, stuck here with these clowns.

Suppressing the fire quirk from hell took so much mental work and he was already annoyed from earlier...

"Hey, ugly! You're still here, huh? Too bad, I was hoping you'd died already." An octopus man said, smirking at him.

"Hey, did you decide to kill yourself and then chicken out halfway through? Too bad you opted out. It's not like he's much use here as he is." Another one says, shoving him.

He's not going to respond to that.

"Aw, he doesn't want to talk to us, huh, kid? You think you're better than us just cuz you're quirkless? You're one of the freaks." Octopus guy folds his tentacles and stares him down.

These assholes decided that since they worked together, that meant he should be bullied and tormented for being quirkless, (because he has never shown the quirk around them at all), and for looking the way he does.

The bane of his existence were these three creatures.

'I wish they'd just die. I wish they'd just die. I wish they'd just die. I hate them. I hate them. I hate them. Leave me alone. Leave me alone. Leave me alone.'

Unfortunately, they took his silence as a sign of him being a wimp and continued to torment him as frequently as they could.

He didn't really have the moral compunction to fry these assholes...yet.

He wasn't entirely ruling that out, for some reason.

Which was why, if anyone were to ask him about what his emotions were at that moment, it would be nothing but rage, anger, and annoyance, probably.

All of the above happened on a daily basis.

Dabi was a very angry ball of fiery nerves in an annoying situation with a body that hated him and barely worked half the damned time.

It would be more appropriate to say that he, Dabi, was filled with nothing but burning rage at the world, because what other word suited him at the moment?

His mind drifted back to the topic of Endeavor, as it often did when nothing else was going on.

He didn't know how he was treated there, but he didn't want to find out-the first impression was already bad enough.

That one clearly won't be winning any father of the year awards any time soon, if abandoning your teenage son after he'd experienced a traumatic accident and burning himself didn't already convince him of that fact.

The biggest question was: why?

Why would a successful, influential hero like Endeavor be like that man he encountered, back when he first woke up? He recalled briefly hearing the man argue with doctors before he fully woke up, but it wasn't over anything to do with his so-called son or his emotional well-being. That would have been the hallmark of a good father, which he doubted the man was. First impressions were a bitch like that.

The man claimed to care about saving people, but why would he have tried to pull the plug on an injured teenager-and one who might even be his offspring? It didn't make a lick of sense to Dabi. None of it made sense.

Heroes were supposed to be heroic knights who rescued the good guys from the bad guys, saved injured and dying children, and cured world hunger.

Whoops, apparently not, and that was a load of bullshit.

Shouldn't Endeavor have everything to gain from taking care of his own offspring? In the good sense, of course, not in the horrible way he tried to casually murder him before he even woke up.

According to the news, there were three other children, but the media only mentioned the kid he had that has two powers, though he's never really appeared out in public yet. But he knew he had two other children and yet he never mentioned them. Like they didn't exist, or weren't important.

Who does that? Maybe he wanted their privacy?

That could be, but maybe he's just playing favorites. The latter sounded far more likely to him, for some reason.

He was called a Todoroki, so clearly, Dabi was unfortunately related to this Endeavor, and was apparently the eldest child.

My condolences.

But who the fuck is Touya? Efforts to look up this event gathered no results beyond a quickly hushed up incident about the hospital fire that was a brief passage in the local paper.

It appeared like Endeavor had a wider influence. The man was the Number 2 hero, but by far the biggest hole in that net was-why aren't people looking for him? If he's that important a person, why aren't people looking for him? If he was the son of the number two hero, why cover it up that fast instead of racing to find him like there's no time left to lose?

Why wasn't anyone present to greet him when he woke up, besides that creepy ass nurse? Why weren't his relatives there?

This was stretching it a lot...but...maybe…maybe this version of "himself" was someone that didn't fit in to their family? Maybe he wanted to cut ties with him, so the father did as the son asked? No, that sounded absurd, he wasn't conscious to even consent to that, so he shut that shit down as soon as he thought of it, disgusted.

Endeavor was a liar. That much was obvious by the hurried way his beloved father had closed the case and shut down further discussion on the matter. Although, he could never be too certain about that fact, as he had no way of knowing how the man thought, since any evidence of him had disappeared from his memories. All he knew was that thinking about the man made him feel sick to his stomach and produced a white-hot rage in his mind for some reason.

Well, it was natural to be angry, he reasoned. He'd just abandoned him, for no reason. Apparently, he had at least paid for the surgery on his body, but since that added more torture to his life, he wasn't fond of that, either.

Oh well, he wasn't his problem to deal with anymore. As for the others, the children...he assumed they were under his protection. He didn't know how they were treated, but it probably wasn't good. But surely they wouldn't have been outcasted like he was...or maybe they were. He honestly didn't know, but it had to have been just him he didn't like.

It wasn't like there was anyone looking for Touya, anyway. Endeavor hadn't even kept the missing posters up beyond a month. He'd checked.

Anyway, there was nothing he could do for them, not now, anyway. Not when he hardly knew left from right and could easily be swayed by Endeavor's words. He only imagined that an amnesiac older son would serve Endeavor's purpose at forgetting how he had abandoned him perfectly, and repressed a shudder.

He needed to stay away, no matter how much he wanted to see them.

No matter how much he wanted to know about them, he had to stay away. He couldn't risk it.

Did they even miss him? Maybe it was them who had put out the missing posters, he thought, thinking of the small children in the picture.

It seemed like Endeavor had a wild family.

Besides, he didn't remember them, and you can't miss what you never knew, as someone once said. Someone, who of course, he couldn't remember. Well, wasn't that just great.

Besides, wouldn't it just make them depressed, seeing their son like this?

He would save that for some time way off in the future...in other words, not now.

On to other topics...he frowned as he remembered something from earlier.

One of his "coworkers" seemed to have noticed his hand smoking, if he hadn't mistaken the glint in his eyes.

If he knew Dabi had a quirk and had lied about it, he could be in trouble. He had to take care of things.

Dabi stared out the window into the night.

A smirk made its way onto his face.

It seemed like now he would actually have to deal with those pests.

The spark had now lit into a flash fire and was running along the fuse that was his sanity, quickly burning out of control.