A/N: Been a little while, but another chapter is being dropped! In general, expect my A/Ns on my older works to disappear so they can be less distracting so the entire work can speak for itself, and let characters speak for and act as themselves. I want to stop hovering over my stories, truncate the A/N and let my characters show the story. Otherwise, it feels like telling the story. I want to always show. Anyway, every chapter has a term associated with fire, this is an archaic term meaning to be surrounded by fire or lightning. Expect more Shigaraki, Hawks and Shouto, and even Rei. Hawks will be a continung thorn in his side.

Please read and review, thanks for all the favorites, and do please review my renovated fics when they get renovated! I hope you enjoy higher quality, better spelled, and more sophisticated writing.

Started reading the Gojo is Touya fic and now I want to do a Gojo si of some kind, at some point in the future, but this requires watching a new series. Eek.

Satella grabbed his fucking soul here, so yes, that's a difference. Like I said, canon differences and a different ability of sorts. But also she's always occupied with her other client, so….absenteeism is a thing.

Chapter 6 Enfouldered

He could hear it everywhere he looked.

He could hear them calling his name.

"Tou_nii-san!"

He had to answer, he must answer.

The children pleaded for an answer from him.

'But I don't know you! Leave me alone!'

This is why he didn't want to answer, why he didn't want to have siblings to begin with.

If he did, who knew what would happen?

'I don't care! Leave me alone!'

His flames rose and fell, from embers to cinders, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Nothing good, only bad, bad at using his quirk, bad at doing anything and everything. All he did was yell and yell and scream at him, over and over.

A giant appeared before him, looming over him.

"Failure. You are a failure, T…ya."

The huge man raised his flaming fists in the air and pounded them together. "Time for me to show you what a hero really does, boy."

"Please stop! He's just a boy! He doesn't have to be like you!"

"This is what heroes must do. Now stand up."

Pain. Pain. Pain. Nothing but pain.

He's disappointed in me again. I'm not a good son. Not a good son. Not good. Not good.

Why can't I be good enough?

The cries of a woman and the sound of her being hit…the crying of children….

"Father…stop this! Stop!" Voices that pounded in his head.

He couldn't see anything, but he could sure as hell hear them, stirring his very soul.

"Try and make me, boy. Show me you're my son, and not a failure."

The man advanced on him and-

"Please, stop this, Enji!"

"NOOOO! TOUYA! MY BABY BOY!" The white-haired woman shrieked.

Someone was screaming.

Oh, he was screaming, because Father…Father was…not here when he needed him to be.

He'd show him. He can handle it, he can!

It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts.

Make it stop. Make it stop.

Flames, everywhere, hot, hot, hot-

He shot up out of bed, and his hand smacked the wall ferociously, as if to attack the man before him.

Except there was no man, and it had all been…a nightmare?

His arm was bleeding…well, fuck.

The pain was the first thing he registered as he returned to reality. A giant pang of pain shot through his arm, indicating that a staple had gotten caught again and required immediate attention.

The rivulet of crimson flowing down his wrist told him it was not going to be easy. Somehow, it had gotten caught on the sofa and, additionally, had gotten pinned under him when he tucked his arm under himself. The blood was immediately wiped away as he grimaced.

"When will you stop fucking bleeding?" Dabi hissed, covering the now openly bleeding wound with a cheap ass paper towel. Obviously, it did very little to help. The blood kept leaking through it. He'd used up nearly half a roll of towels the last time.

It had been a perfectly nice, ordinary day until this shit happened, because of course something bad would happen to him. If things would go well, he would get suspicious and wonder when it would go wrong. He just knew from experience, life did not like him.

As if the past few years of hospitalization, third-degree burns, an incredibly horrid and negligent father, among other atrocities, had not done enough to inform him of that fact. Add in the homicidal coworkers, random passersby being judgmental douchebags, and life continued to pile on even more reasons for him to be so, so, so, so, happy with his life.

Heroes and their perfect lives. How many people could live with a body with third-degree burns? Maybe then they wouldn't judge him for looking strange or weird if they just lived with a body that was falling apart that almost felt like a shell of a body, like a mere phantasm.

Right as he thought that, a migraine headache hit him again. Oh great, return of the killer migraine, and just when he thought it would leave him alone today. Great, everyone can join the party and torment Dabi some more.

This time, it lasted a few minutes before dissipating, at which point he sat up and rubbed his head.

"What the hell was that about?" He muttered, more bemused than anything else. Obviously, that was a nutty statement to think.

Everyone knew ghosts weren't real, after all, and all of the tv shows about them being hunted down were all fake, anyway. Only kids believed that shit, and did those stupid ghost hunting programs, though it was a bad idea to try that when people had superpowers and all.

It was probably just that since he had amnesia, he really felt like a ghost. His memories were erased, practically vaporized from him, and while it was slowly coming back, he still remembered far too little. Names and faces were strongest, but the facts remained a bit more elusive than he would like them to be.

Okay, organize the facts and let's start again.

First, he was Endeavor's estranged son, Todoroki Touya?

'Yes, that's right. It has to be right. Having it not be right would be insanely bad. Otherwise, they would've just kidnapped some random lookalike off the streets and made him pretend to be a top heroes' son, which also sounds like bullshit. So, obviously, that's real. On to step two.'

People thought he was dead. Even though he was right here, you know, but oh well. Even though he was the son of a famous hero, he really didn't seem to be anyone that important, so he'd given up rather easily on the idea of asking the police about himself.

After all, he was looking at a life of prison time, accidental quirk usage or no. Even though the fucker deserved to fucking die for messing with kids, everyone would judge him for having killed him and for having melted his fucking face off, because oh no, think of the poor little sick fucks, think of them and their humanity.

'It's because of…because of sick, twisted fucking thinking like that…that that monster of a man can have kids and treat them badly. Heroes overlook it when it's one of their own, because he was…oh what was it? Oh yes, a bright young man with a promising fucking future, whose life was ended tragically by murder.'

Glancing at the television right now showed him that their funeral was being broadcast, just because the sickos had happened to be applying to a hero agency at some point in time. He had apparently fallen asleep watching it, because this shit was fucking boring.

The worst people did not deserve a funeral. He knew that much.

"I want my baby boy back. Who the hell could hate my baby boy this much to kill him?" The mother of the snuff film maker sniffled, as tears fell down her face. The others in the video appeared emotional, too. If you only knew what he had done in his spare time.

"Aw, yes, I forgot. The poor little angel baby. Yes, let's admire the neighborhood Dean Corll, that poor little animal abuser who tortured and killed animals, including a pregnant cat and her kittens-"

(He hadn't stopped bragging about it at work and had shown all of them the gory pictures and no one ever said or did a damned thing about it, just laughed and ignored it.)

"He never hurt a soul. He would always babysit and the neighbors never had an unkind thing to say about him. He always brought good to his community-"

"Oh, yes, that poor boy who touched young girls and filmed their suffering, the same boy who sold those videos over the Internet, he's a real fucking human being! The purest saint in the entire fucking world! Angels shed tears today when he was killed!" He wasn't sure why he was shouting aloud, he just felt the need to let it out.

"The person who did this isn't even human. My son's life was unjustly evaporated by the hands of the devil who used his quirk to inflict terror upon others. You wrote that my son needs to suffer for what he did. He's innocent. He didn't do a damned thing to you. You're out there, and we will find you! My son was a human! A human!" She was sobbing now.

"Sorry I couldn't see how human he was when he tried to fucking murder me!"

He calmed down upon seeing a passing neighbor looking at him funny through the window. Said person immediately made a beeline for somewhere not occupied by a scary-looking psychopath, he assumed.

The nerve of them, to compare a disgusting, pedophilic, animal-killing, child abducting fiend to him? To claim the two of them were both human, was absolutely vile, repulsive, reprehensible, disgusting, disgusting…

The table was on fire now, glowing a shade of azure as the flowers inside the vase melted and shriveled up.

"Shit!" He cried, throwing his jacket on top of it.

The nightmare was immediately smothered by the heroic sacrifice of his coat. That had been a good coat, but not even it was resistant to three thousand degree flames, unfortunately.

Though even thinking about it made his headaches insanely worsen, for no real reason. Endeavor must have been a horrible disgrace of a father if he'd wanted to forget him that easily.

He bandaged up the wound again, scowling as he did so.

Spending money was not what he liked doing, since he didn't make very much to begin with.

It felt like a constant battle, between brain and body. That was what it was, much like the continental plates rising and falling, the amnesiac mind battled the cognizant body for dominance over the other, and Dabi was left to suffer the consequences of their perennial battle.

He always felt like sleeping off his pain, anything was better than being awake at this point.

He had three younger siblings, his mother he was unsure of, and if there were any others, he wasn't sure of their names, either.

He had a nagging feeling he'd been to UA at some point, but he wasn't sure of that much yet, mostly just little hints here and there of what life had been like here before he'd lost his stupid fucking memories. Honestly, if he could meet his memories, he'd beat the shit out of them for making him suffer for four fucking years, he was now nearly nineteen for Christ's sake, spending every year alone, it would help if he at least remembered something.

Just one eensy-weensy, teeny tiny thing would be enough for the constant suffering he went through due to his body fucking hating him. Wasn't that easy enough for whatever god was watching over him to grant?

He wished he at least knew what his siblings' birthdays were, then maybe-maybe he could reestablish contact-or try to, at least. But would they even accept him as he was now?

That thought made him freeze in his tracks, imagining what his younger siblings knew him as versus who he was now.

What was Todoroki Touya even like before? Before all of this-before this accident happened, what was he like?

He didn't know that information, what if they thought he was a fake, or an imposter? Could he really do that, look innocent kids in the eyes and tell them he was their brother? What if they cried? He wasn't exactly good with crying kids, it was a soft spot of his, really.

What if they told Endeavor?

That was the one thing that always stopped him, the one idea that put a nail in the coffin, so to speak.

He shoved that idea to the back of his mind for now, eventually he would do that. Eventually.

You know, once he stopped being a murderer, which was now more unlikely than ever.

But it was the right thing to do, kill the bad guys and weed out the bad from the good, right?

He thought about how good it had been to savor that creature's dying screams, how good it was for it to get the same karma it did to those innocent animals it had killed. Pedophiles to him weren't even humans, but insects. No good scum was better.

Shaking his mind free of those thoughts, Dabi sat up. He was hungry, and it was time to get something to eat from his fridge. What horrors awaited him in there? Anything expired, hopefully not, but he was forgetful about his purchases. He stumbled over to the fridge door, and swung it open, only to be greeted by the most awful, repugnant smell he could imagine.

Yup, something had definitely gone bad in there, and it wasn't him for once who smelled bad. Stupid fire quirk.\

He pulled out various dishes, before finding the culprit: peaches, moldy, rotten peaches. They were dark green and had circular patches of round mold growing on them, no doubt they had been peaches he had bought fresh, weeks ago. Peaches were quite popular, both in tea and in fruits. Peaches were the subject of some famous tales before quirks had been invented, but now they were quite in season, since it was the beginning of summer.

He bought peaches quite often, for use in tea. Fruits were tasty when you squeezed their juice into the tea and let it be stirred in. It brought out such a nice taste. Sometimes he made smoothies for himself, too.

But mostly he preferred to use regular peach tea. Apparently, that was what the USA used in the South, lots of tea, according to some of the websites he read. Peaches were quite popular there, too.

He wasn't sure why in the world the US felt so familiar to him. Obviously, he was born and raised here, so where in the world had he been getting that idea from?

Sighing, he threw the peaches away, into the garbage, before pulling out the other thing that had become moldy in there. A sandwich from a few days ago, tuna mayo with shokupan, milk bread. It had been left unwrapped, and now it had gone bad, much like their bones must be turning now, white, moldy and gross.

Suddenly, he felt the urge to vomit come rising up in his stomach when he thought of how he'd melted that man's face off, watched it peel off like a slice of grilled cheese on a plate.

Quickly, he reached for some tea and drank and drank, gulping it down thirstily, until the urge to vomit had gone away.

That had been awfully close, but he hadn't been able to have much of an appetite lately, beyond the bare minimum of three meals a day. Drinking was mostly what he did, if it wasn't that, it was smoking, anything to cure the smell of decaying flesh that had been filling his mind lately. The nightmares continued to plague him, and no matter what he did, he couldn't get the sight of that sick fuck's face out of his mind.

Peeling back the layers of flesh and seeing muscle and bone underneath had been a horrifying sentiment for him to see, (yes he knew bone was under the face, did he look stupid, but it shouldn't have come apart, like this, not like this)-as much as the man had deserved to die for hurting children like that...he knew there had to have been another way.

Drink the peach tea. Just...drink.

Don't think, just drink. Drink and forget your problems.

That's right, he wasn't wrong in killing him. He'd been scum that plagued the world and more would pop up to take his place.

"Yeah, that's it...I just picked the worst way to kill him. Probably should have burned his eyes off and left him to choke on the smoke, or just burned him entirely. Doing it that way made me have nightmares, not again. Next time, I'm going for the throat."

That was what was wrong, right?

He'd obviously done a good deed for society's sake. Now the sicko could never harm women or children again and the world was safer and better off for it. Those who were heroes out there would disagree, obviously, because they hadn't seen the same pictures Aiden had seen-

Who the fuck was Aiden?

His name was Dabi, obviously, he thought with a twinge of resentment. True, that had been one of the options for his name he'd thought of, but…obviously, his legal name was Touya. He just didn't go by it because he was considered legally dead. Ya know, because faking your own death tends to do that to you.

Dear old dad, go fuck yourself.

He'd also gotten his hands on Endeavorites and immolated the bag and cleverly placed it on the wall, straddled by an Endeavor doll hanging like it was being hung from a noose. No one had appreciated his creative integrity and it had been removed the next day.

Someday, he'd poison that sentiment, but let that thought rest for now.

He found yet more horror stuck in the back of the fridge, a hamburger that was now completely gray and green, the meat a shriveled mess of gray fuzz, the burger completely green and inedible.

He lit up his hand and tossed both into his flaming hand, where it was incinerated in an instant, only to cause more smoke to rise from his hand. Fuck, where was a good fire extinguisher when he needed one? Why didn't that one fire hydrant guy come by and spray him down?

By the time he was done, at least seven piles of moldy food sat in there. Dabi had become a bit of a food hoarder, tending to stockpile food in case he got kicked out of his apartment again. He didn't want a repeat of the apartment incident, where the immolation had resulted in his being kicked out.

He threw some away and burned the rest.

"I need a fucking drink." He muttered, longing for actual beer, and not just this stupid tea. Remembering suppressed memories of your father beating the shit out of you will do that to a guy.

As he drank, his thoughts turned to the youngest boy in the picture that he pulled out of his pocket, all crumbled up.

His eyes narrowing, he lit his hand on fire and burned Endeavor out of the frame, again. Another clipping he'd gotten off the internet.

He'd circled the boy who had multiple hair colors and had written, "who are you?"

Well, to be fair, he barely remembered the kid, but apparently there had been one last spawn of Satan.

He existed nowhere in his memories, but apparently this poor kid was being trained to succeed him, at least that's what the news said.

Sighing, he slid his hands into his jacket pocket and stood up, the keys in his hand before he was aware of it.

"Going out." He muttered, to no one in particular, as he locked the door.

It wasn't like anyone was going to answer.

He had some research he wanted to do on Rei Todoroki.

No information about her was available online, but she must be around here somewhere.

"Your father loves us, Touya. He does, I know it."

His head started to pound viciously, and he swayed to the side, holding the railing for support as the world began to sway.

"Then why did he marry you? You were sold to him-"

"That's not true! He loves all of us!" The woman argues, stop arguing, please smile.

The faceless young boy, with his hair a mixture of red and white hairs, keeps arguing.

"He's using you! That man hates us!"

"Touya, please try to be normal. Can't you just be a normal child?"

Her eyes filled with tears as she reached out a hand to the boy, which the boy violently rejected.

"Leave me alone! I hate dad, I hate you and I hate everyone!" He shouted, as he ran to his room.

"Touya…"

He opened his eyes quickly, to find that he was back in his apartment, on his bed.

"Young Dabi, you must be more careful. You could have fallen down those stairs, sleeping like that." Kurogiri said, watching him through those shadows of his.

It wasn't entirely an unfamiliar sensation, but one much more closer and directly involved in his life, unlike a certain someone who didn't come out unless called for.

He thought he felt the shadow inside his own stiffen slightly, and felt a sense of regret for insulting her like that, but he let the moment pass.

No one else seemed to be capable of seeing her, anyway.

"How long was I fucking out for?" He asked, idly reaching for a fresh peach on the tabletop.

"Around ten minutes, I believe. There is a matter of some importance I think you should listen to, though. It concerns you."

At this, he looked up, having munched into some of the peach.

"Lwike Hwat?"

"Please have some manners and swallow." Kurogiri sighed.

He did as instructed, and flinched at the feeling of the staples cutting into his mouth. This was why he didn't talk much, as doing too much talking would ensure his tongue would bleed and too long meant potential risk of death by blood loss.

Though he'd had that happen before, and had actually bled out once here, only to find himself back before it had even happened. It was like he had whited out.

"Do you think it's possible…to.."

"Possible to do what? We are in a time period where humans can do the impossible. I don't think anything is out of the ordinary."

"Is it possible to die without being aware of it-"

Or so he would have said, had nothing ever passed his lips.

The words never came and he was suddenly immobile, unable to move. Satella's hand reached out and flew past his limbs and his heart and toward something else, something he couldn't see, and grabbed hold of it, hard, causing him to shout in mortal agony. Having his heart squeezed would have been a gentle mercy compared to the feeling of having his mortal coil be attacked-

"Dabi?"

Then the moment passed, and he was back. Whatever that was had passed.

"Like I said, die-"

It happened again. "No."

He was back.

"Dabi, you look pale. Are you all right? You seemed to be in some kind of trance."

He recovered quickly and shook his head, "I'm fine. Just thought of something, and forgot it, like usual."

"The words get caught on the tip of the tongue and are then lost? Sounds like life for me as well." He laughed.

"Really? You have memory problems, too?" He asked, standing up out of his chair in a hurry.

"Yes, I do. But I don't worry about it. It is not who I am now."

Confusion turned to anger in a split second.

"Why wouldn't you want to know who you used to be?" He cried.

"….I know who I am now, and that is enough for me." Kurogiri said wisely, without even having gotten angry.

"Know…who you are now?" Dabi muttered.

"That's correct. When you're secure in your own skin, it is easier to deal with the insults or misunderstandings of those who do not understand the real you. They only see what's on the outside, a monster of a man."

"….Why doesn't it get you down?" He found himself asking, entranced.

"Because I have my reason for living. I do not let the mere words of other people drag me down and define who I am when I know who I am and what I want to protect."

"….Really." He muttered.

He didn't know who he was or what he wanted to protect.

How pathetic, how could he dare to be in the presence of this man, who, despite having endured many struggles, had still managed to look upon himself with pride? How could he even compare?

"So, I have heard from sources on the street that a hero student is coming after you."

He continued eating his peach like nothing happened.

"So?"

"The name I heard was Hawks. Some hero with bird feathers, supposedly tracking the murderer who's been burning people to death here and there. You might want to be careful."

"I think I'll be fine, but thanks for the warning, anyway." He muttered, sipping the drink.

Really, he could handle all of this.

All he needed was a bit of time.

A lot of it, enough to be able to make sure to not let the peaches go rotten.

"Well, take care now." Kurogiri finished the conversation and left to go god knows where else.

He could do without his ponderous, tedious presence anyway.

"What would I say to you? I wonder what I would say, huh, Shouto Todoroki?" He glanced at the picture as he spoke.

It was hard to imagine a person you never met, after all, but the name sent a pang of recognition going to his brain.

This person was also connected to his memory loss.

Perhaps meeting him would also help lead to more answers.

First thing in the morning, he was going to go out and try to get to the hospital to look at the records of Todoroki Touya.

Online had been purged, but someone ought to know something.

Right?

The young boy gazed at the photo on the mantelpiece, of the young boy who'd been his oldest brother.

He had died a few years ago, his father had said.

That violent death was why his father trained him to use his fire, so he didn't burn to death like Touya did.

When he had mentioned Touya to Natsuo and Fuyumi, they had gotten too scared to bring it up.

Fuyumi turned red and muttered excuses, while Natsuo rolled his eyes and told him to shut up.

He wished they'd be nicer to him, it's not his fault Dad separated him from them and made him live in a separate part of the house. If he'd been conscious enough, he would've let that be his own decision.

His bed was too high up and he had to climb all the time, the room smelled bad, there was dust in there, he wasn't allowed to put many toys in there, and the painting his grandma put in there stared at him at night.

It was a creepy picture of a scene at night, where a man stared up at the moon, which stared back. The moon's creepy face, while child-like and innocuous, seemed to stare through the painting into Shouto's face. Sometimes, he'd woken up to see the painting still staring.

Seeing the creepy caricature had made him have a miniature heart attack once after waking up.

Supposedly, it was to make him behave better, since the moon watched over them all at night and told the sun of his misdeeds, or good deeds.

Shouto decided then he would behave as good as possible so that way the Moon Guy in his room wouldn't look so creepy.

The painting was unaffected and still continued to creep him out.

Eventually, Enji had enough and covered it with a blanket so it wouldn't bother his masterpiece.

He turned over in his bed, and turned the picture to face him. "Mommy is now in the hospital since she hit my face with water, Touya-nii. Natsu-nii and Fuyu-née are never happy with me, and Daddy keeps fighting me. I don't want to fight him, but it hurts anyway. I want to be a strong hero like you, Touya-nii. Hope heaven is fun."

When he finished, he placed the photo next to his bed, so Touya could watch over them all.

"I wish I could meet him. Why can't he come from heaven to here? Don't we matter?"

Endeavor had told him people can't come from heaven to Earth without a special reason.

Shouto thought he was just being a dumb grownup.

Obviously Touya-nii would come back and save him from his dumb dad.

Obviously.

As he turned over in his covers, the wind crept inside the windows and the photo was blown over onto the ground, on its side. The boy did not wake despite the noise.

The figure tiptoed inside and eyed the photo.

"Touya." He muttered, before he flew out the window.

He would find him tomorrow.

He was sure of this much.

Shigaraki Tomura wished Master would stop paying attention to that stupid, annoying scarred jerk. He never spoke and he was weird.

The car he was driving in the video game suddenly crashed, due to his inattention.

"NO! Not again!" He reached his hand out to the console, before it dawned on him that Master might not like having to replace the cable tv a twelfth time due to impulsive disintegration.

A shudder ran through him.

Sensei would never replace him, right? Then why did he keep tailing that stupid green-haired kid? He didn't have a quirk, what was the point, then?

Sensei should stop noticing Dabi and this Midoriya and notice him, Tomura Shigaraki-

The controller slid off his hand and onto the floor.

"You lost! Better luck next time!" The game over narrator taunted.

Shigaraki grabbed his controller with all of his hands, and….the entire controller turned to dust in his hands.

Well, shit.

His eyes narrowed, and Kurogiri came in the room just as he had dusted the doorknob in his rage.

"You destroyed a game again." It was a statement rather than a question.

"Yes, because the controller betrayed me. So I dusted it." He said proudly.

"I see. Do you mind paying me your allowance to cover the cost of damages?"

"What?"

"I shall be talking to Sensei about it."

Sensei, save him! Please!

A few minutes passed and he returned.

"He says that you can easily pay the amount of yen owed for the controller."

Shigaraki stiffened in his chair, the preteen getting more angry.

"He said he'll double the amount if you destroy another TV. Stealing them isn't easy, you know."

He winced. He was a loser this time.

He hoped Izuku would break his stupid nose somewhere.

The sun rose bright and early, as did he.

He left as the sun started to rise.

Everything went well until he entered the alleyway.

"Hold it right there.'

Dabi tilted his head.

Feathers surrounded him on every side.

"Let's talk, Touya Todoroki. Thought you were dead, what are you doing murdering people?"

The son of a bitch spoke confidently, as he wrapped a hand around Dabi's neck.