Hey everyone,
I'm writing this fanfiction as a way to cope with (SPOILER) the death of my favorite character Toya Todoroki.
This story is primarily for my own healing, but I wanted to share it with anyone else who might be feeling the same way. Let's support each other through this

I created a new original character (OC) specifically for this story to ensure a smoother narrative. I found it challenging to leave gaps for your own characters (Y/N) without disrupting the plot, so if you don't like the OC's appearance or quirk, feel free to imagine her differently. I'm also not a fan of quirkless characters because it often leads to an imbalance of power, and I prefer to avoid helpless characters. This isn't a "I can fix him" story; It's about two flawed individuals who are both poison and cure to each other.
As you know, Dabi is mentally unstable, and so is this OC, they are both lovely and terrible in their own way.

Please be aware that this story contains dark themes including death, blood, verbal and physical abuse, self-harm, mental disorders, nsfw/explicit content (smut), insults, and other potentially triggering elements. It begins relatively mild but will grow darker as the story progresses.

This is also a slow-burn story, so don't expect sexy time in the first chapters (I know, I'm so sorry!) T.T

Character description:

Aya Kogarashi (Crimson Blade) is a pro hero in the world of My Hero Academia, known for her diabolic quirk and enigmatic presence. At age 24, standing at 164 cm (5'4") with a slim, almost frail build, Aya's appearance is both striking and unsettling. She has long, wavy black hair that cascades down her back, contrasting with her pale skin and deep, dark eyes that turn a vivid red when her quirk is activated. Her slim face, adorned with dark under-eye circles, gives her a hauntingly attractive look that adds to her mystique.

Aya's quirk, „Cursed Blood", is as powerful as it is dangerous. It allows her to manifest her blood outside her body, shaping it into various forms of force or attack. More ominously, by mixing a drop of her blood with an opponent's, Aya can use up to seven peoples blood simultaneously for up to 23 minutes. This control is signaled by a single, strong heartbeat that her opponents feel when they fall under her influence. However, the quirk comes with significant risks—Aya must continuously mix her blood with her opponent's, leading to substantial blood loss for both parties. She cannot manipulate her opponent from within and must focus on managing the external effects, making each use of her quirk a taxing experience. Bla, bla, bla I know, she's a bit of an edgelord, but what can I say? I've got a soft spot for emo girls.

Enjoy!

Ayas POV

The night stretched endlessly, its shadowy tendrils wrapping around me like an unwelcome embrace.
Standing on the edge of a tall building, I gazed down at the city's neon veins pulsing in a chaotic symphony below.
Tokyo's streets were a grotesque patchwork of grime and despair, revealing the dark side of humanity.
For a moment, the monotony of existence seemed to claim me - my footing faltering, the abyss below seemed to beckon with its insatiable hunger.

It was at this delicate moment that Best Jeanist arrived, his quirk manifesting itself with the precision of a maestro. Threads from my grey cloak intertwined with his, weaving a complex mesh of fate. As the fabric wrapped between us, so did our destinies, bound by the oppressive night. This bond was more than fabric; it was an unspoken pact, a reminder that our lives were as tangled as our garments, caught in the dark currents of our world.
"Watch it. You're getting sloppy," he murmured, his voice a velvet knife, cutting through the stillness of the night. A gentle tug pulled me back from the abyss, away from the yawning depth that almost seemed to beckon. My legs wobbled beneath me like a marionette whose strings had just been cut.
This sensation - fragility - how it disgusted me.

"Your braid's a disaster again," he continued, his voice barely above a whisper but carried the weight of a disapproving parent.
Best Jeanist, the ever-gracious Pro Hero, had a way of making even the smallest imperfection feel like a mortal sin. I could feel his eyes on me, a gaze that stripped away all pretence and left only raw judgement. " Did no one ever teach you how to braid properly?"
"No," I replied, my voice flat, almost defiant. He took a step closer. His fingers, long and delicate, reached for the loose braid, picking it up with a tenderness that didn't belong in this world of blood and shadows. It was almost absurd - this gentle touch from a man whose threads could immobilize villains and bend metal to his will.
He was everything a hero should be.

"You could've mentioned it earlier," he mused, the slightest hint of annoyance in his voice as he began to untangle the mess of my hair.
Every touch was careful, as though he was fixing more than just a braid. "I always thought it was just another sign of your lack of discipline."

Before he could fully immerse himself in this absurd grooming process, the earpiece crackled to life, its urgent buzz slicing through the intimacy of the moment. A report - clinical, to the point. Villain attack in Ginza. Of course, it would be me who had to deal with it. Ginza - the district of wealth, where even the air smelled of money and secrets. A place where beauty masked rot and wealth covered decay. Best Jeanist's displeasure was almost palpable, a slight tightening of his lips as the information sank in. He wasn't fond of the idea of me, a total mess, being in Ginza.
I just didn't belong there.

"I suppose my hair can wait," I muttered.
"Even if you'll embarrass me to the bone, you're right - go!"

I sprang into action, the night becoming my canvas. Using splashes of my own blood, I lifted myself higher, each jump defying gravity and reason. Tokyo spread out beneath me, a sea of lights shimmering like a galaxy. Tokyo, always alive, always buzzing, its streets glowing with a stubborn brilliance that mocked the lateness of the hour.

It didn't take long to find the villains. I discovered them wreaking havoc and assaulting civilians in the heart of the main street. The chaos unfolded amid a backdrop of neon advertisements and towering skyscrapers, a grim contrast to the usually vibrant scene. Some onlookers remained frozen, their eyes wide with the desperate hope that a pro-hero would appear to save the night and defeat the villains. Others, driven by raw panic, scattered into the darkness, their screams swallowed by the noise of destruction. Their choice to rampage here, on one of Tokyo's busiest streets, was a reckless display of audacity, a brutal reminder of the city's fragile balance between order and chaos.
As if on command, a news camera crew arrived, their lenses thirsty for blood.
How did they always beat the pro heroes to the scene?

I descended from the sky, this time managing to land on my feet with a rare, fleeting grace.
The reporter, eyes gleaming with the thrill of the drama, began her breathless proclamation:
"Crimson Blade, the phantom of the night, the beast from the depths of the underworld, has once again arisen! Beware, villains!"
I blinked, irritation bubbling over at their exaggerated theatrics.
"You'll be the next ones I shut up!" I shot back, my voice sharper than I intended.

The crowd began to scream louder. Maybe Best Jeanist was right - I needed to be more careful with my words.

"Crimson Blade, the villainess among heroes!" Brawn Breaker gasped, his voice a pitiful whine of disbelief. He was a failure of a villain, a nameless rat scurrying through the grimy depths of the Tokyo underworld. His Quirk was something about guzzling alcohol to become superhumanly strong for five minutes, or so the rumour went. A trash quirk, barely worth the effort to categorize. He was accompanied by Sausage Man, whose head shaped like a sausage was his only claim to fame. That was his sole trademark. If I had that shit quirk, I'd probably be a villain too. The longer I stared at Sausage Man, the more absurdity bloomed in my mind, but I pushed it aside. I wasn't here to solve the mystery of how his skull had squeezed through the walls of his mother's womb, I was here to deliver justice.

"Who do you call a villainess?" I snapped at the less ugly of the two. If there was one thing villains had in spades - it was audacity.

"Have you even looked at yourself? You... you... with your skull mask and... and... and your sword," Sausage Man stuttered, struggling to form coherent sentences through his disfigured visage. His speech impediment was almost as pathetic as his appearance. Some quirks were less superpowers and more disabilities, disguised in a bizarre masquerade.

Before I could indulge in a moment of pity, I drew out my blade-less sword. Technically, it was just the hilt, but it served its purpose—looking intimidating. Activating my quirk, 'Cursed Blood', a blade of my own blood materialized, gleaming with a sinister edge. "Hey, she's pulled out her sword! Now it's getting serious!" Brawn Breaker shouted, lifting a car and throwing it at me. I sliced the car in half with a quick slash, sending the halves crashing down and splashing my blood from the blade onto the villains.

The crowd screamed again. "An extravagant move by Crimson Blade, one that sends shivers down your spine!" the reporter shouted, her voice shaking with a mixture of excitement and fear. "I pissed myself!" the cameraman added, his panic now... visible. The reporter now pointed directly at me. "A bad girl!"
I bit my fist, the dark leather against my teeth. The urge to hit this woman grew with each passing moment. But violence against her would only lead to more absurd labels, probably something along the lines of "Crimson Blade, the Sadomasochistic freak". It was bad enough that despite all my efforts, I was continually compared to society's lowest. It gnawed at my pride and honour, eating away the thin skin of respect I tried so hard to preserve.

Dabis POV

Another dreary evening settled over Tokyo, suffocating in its usual malaise.
The villainy was in full swing: pathetic quirk abuse, mild injuries inflicted on the unlucky, yelling from drunken losers and overambitious thugs, and a few clumsy assassination attempts by failures whose names would soon be forgotten. After Stain's grand declaration, was that really all the villains had to offer? Probably, as long as sanctimonious figures like All Might and Endeavour continued their hypocritical antics. Shigaraki's bitter complaints about them seemed more justified than ever; as long as All Might breathed, people like us would remain dismissed as irrelevant.

Dragging my weary body to the Villain Café, exhaustion weighed me down like a heavy blanket. Sleep had become a distant dream, unattainable for years now; my burning hatred demanded vengeance, and only that could extinguish its flame. Tossing and turning in bed, like a pig in a stall awaiting slaughter, just didn't feel right. At least here I could surround myself with those who, in their own miserable way, understood. They weren't a family, not by any means. It wasn't love or camaraderie that I got. It wasn't even genuine attention. But they were there, broken souls like myself, abandoned by a world that had lost sight of them. They were the forgotten, their deaths likely to go unnoticed and their graves unmarked. But at least they were present.

I trudged into the dimly lit café, a beehive of misery. The usual suspects were there: Shigaraki, Compress, Spinner, Twice, Kurogiri and Toga. The scene resembled a bizarre carnival rather than a place of solace. I slumped on a stool at the bar, my eyes locked on the television. The news was on - an annoyance I normally avoided. But since meeting Shigaraki, it had become something of an unintentional pleasure. His rage when a Pro Hero was shown live was almost comical. His neck would itch and his anger would fester, his eyes bulging as if they were about to pop out. His reactions were more exaggerated than my own, which was saying something. All Might's daily appearances drove him close to madness. I suppressed my laugher everytime; a part of me almost felt sorry for Shigaraki.

Tonight's broadcast came from Ginza, where two notorious criminals were causing chaos - well, one was actually dangerous and the other was just an eyesore. We wondered which so-called hero would come to the rescue this time. And then she appeared - a supposed angel of death.
"She's new, isn't she?" Spinner asked, his tone reflecting a mixture of curiosity and unease. Shigaraki's irritation was almost palpable, his neck itching as usual. "That bitch! I hate her!" he spat, his anger as obvious as ever. Toga giggled, her voice carrying a strange note of amusement. "Well, I think she's kind of cute."

Kurogiri sighed. "No, she's not new, but her fame has increased since Stain. Since then, she's gained a lot of attention."
"Why?" I asked, my gaze fixed on the screen where 'Crimson Blade' flashed in bold letters. The name clicked as she drew her blood sword and sliced a car in half. "She bears a strange resemblance to Stain in style..." Kurogiri continued. "'She's the perfect propaganda tool. A heroine who resembles one of the most popular villains in quirk and manner. They're using her as a counter to Stain's influence, appealing to the younger generation. It's a clever trick by the entertainment industry."

It made sense why Shigaraki hated her so much. I rested my chin on my hand and continued to watch the unfolding drama. "So the Pro Heroes are already that desperate," I murmured.

Crimson Blade, with her silver skull mask, dark cloak and blood sword, seemed almost a grotesque reflection of our table's collective sense of chaos. Her presence exuded aggression and malice. Nothing about her was typical of a hero. Her attacks were devastating, her quirk - diabolical. The sheer force of her blood attacks shattered chunks of asphalt, deliberately missing her targets to avoid unnecessary deaths. Half an attack like that would have been fatal.

"You disgusting pests," she declared with unsettling calm, stepping into the cloud of dust that had swallowed the villains. "You scream for your lives now, but when you struck down the innocent, it was righteousness in your eyes, wasn't it? Is suffering only justified when it spills from those who have already bled? She continued, her voice cutting through the dust like a blade. I was almost mesmerised; it was a bizarre sight - a pro-hero attacking fallen villains.

"She's not going to kill them now, is she?" Spinner called, alarmed.
"Shut up and listen!" Shigaraki hissed, his frustration boiling over.

The cloud of dust obscured the scene.
"Tell me, is your excuse to taint others with your pain because someone else wounded you first?" she asked, appearing from the cloud with one badly injured villain on each side. She dragged them into the lit street and threw them in front of the camera, leaving the usually vocal reporter stunned.

"Whatever the reason might be—I'm not here to judge you. I'm here to end this madness," Crimson Blade declared, raising her sword once more.
She looked directly into the camera, her blood-red eyes piercing through the lens.

"And with that, I bid you all good night."

The broadcast was cut off before we could see the ending.
I leaned back, my mind swirling with the implications of her actions.
So this was the state of the Pro Heroes now - a desperate, cynical display designed to scare and manipulate.
"What a show... completely out of control!" Twice he muttered, his tone a mixture of amusement and something darker.
His personality shifted quickly - one moment a jester mocking the absurdity of it all, the next a brooding figure on the brink of madness.

"And they call us the villains. Look at her, so righteous, playing the hero while she slaughters those who are already broken. A hypocrite. How many more will she cut down in the name of justice? They think their morals justifies their actions, but they're no different from the 'pests' they crush," Shigaraki sneered, his voice deep and venomous.

"She's so cool! I want to be her friend!" Toga joined in, bouncing around like a manic doll, her eyes gleaming with admiration. "And she's pretty too," she added with a giggle, pressing her fingers to her lips. Crimson Blade certainly had a certain charm - a dangerous allure that seemed to resonate with the darkest corners of society. She was terrifying, yes, but in the eyes of this pathetic world, she was also seen as just.
"Hmm... I think I like her," I muttered, more to myself than anyone else, sinking further into the bar as the words left my lips.

"What? Have you both lost your minds?" Shigaraki snapped, his irritation spilling over as he waved his arms in annoyance. " She's made a mockery of the complex motives behind what we do! She didn't just beat those two idiots—she exposed them, questioned their reasons, and then discarded them like trash.
She killed them," he growled, arms crossed tightly over his chest, his expression a storm of anger and something else - something that looked an awful lot like fear.
"Doesn't that make her one of us?" I asked, my tone deliberately casual, aiming to stir the pot. Shigaraki hadn't had his daily dose of frustration yet, and it was starting to feel almost... abnormal.

He shot me a sharp look, eyes narrowing as he tried to decipher my intention. "What are you trying to say, Dabi?" The counter-question hung in the air, more loaded than I'd expected. I shrugged, the corners of my mouth curling into a half-smirk.
"If you're thinking about recruiting more from the other side, why not her? She's got the kind of bloodlust we could use."
A dark, wicked sensation stirred within me at the thought of having a monster like her on our side...

That would be something. "They're not so different, this Bakugo and her," I continued, the words rolling off my tongue with a certain inevitability. "Both cruel in their own way. Both walking that fine line between hero and villain."

"It's a thought worth considering," Kurogiri interjected softly, his voice a low murmur as he carefully polished a glass.
Shigaraki let out a weary sigh, his fingers twitching in restrained annoyance. "Didn't you hear her?" He turned to me, his voice laced with something close to desperation. "'Bakugo's still a kid. We can twist him, mold him. But her? She's already too far gone, buried under that mountain of self-righteous crap she calls morality."

"But she doesn't exactly strike one as a picture of mental stability, does she?" said Compress with a detached tone, his mask giving nothing away. "People like that are ripe for manipulation. We can show her what it's like to be among her own kind. I'd wager she's lacking in solid friendships or genuine relationships," he added.
"Yes, that's a good idea," Toga said, plopping down on a barstool with the enthusiasm of a child discovering a new toy.

Shigaraki hesitated, his fingers drumming impatiently on the surface of the bar. "Hey, Dabi," he said, his voice laced with a rare thread of curiosity. "Your quirk should be able to counter hers, right?"

I considered the question, allowing my mind to sift through the possibilities. Fire, after all, was a primal force that could vaporize liquids, including blood. But if her blood attacks were dense enough, or if she used the right intensity, she could potentially suffocate my flames.
"Possibly," I said, igniting a small blue flame in the palm of my hand and letting its eerie light flicker across my face.
"But in the worst case, her quirk could counter mine."
I let the flame crackle, a subtle sign of confidence.

"But that's not going to happen. I trust my fire to burn through anything," I added with a grin, letting the flame flicker and then die out.

Shigaraki's gaze sharpened. "Then you'll bring her to us," he decided, his voice final.
The corners of my mouth curved into a wider grin. The thought of dealing with this twisted little beast was almost thrilling. Yes, it would be a pleasure to get my hands on that freak.

to be continued...