….
[U.A. Faculty Quarters]
"PAPA WON!"
Eri cheered with a bowl of half-eaten cereal in her tiny hands.
Her little horn glowed with faint, happy sparks as she pointed at the screen. "Mama is there too! They're hugging!"
Beside her, Himiko sat, her golden eyes wide and sparkling with pure awe. A bright, toothy grin spread across her face as she clapped her small hands together–
"Papa beat the bad monsters! Mama looks fine too!"
In the hallway just outside the wing, Principal Nezu stood beside Recovery Girl, his tiny paws clasped neatly behind his back.
His dark, beady eyes reflected the flickering broadcast monitor.
'The board has been wiped completely clean…' Nezu thought, an enigmatic smile tugging at the corners of his whiskers.
Before this morning, the world had operated under the fragile shadow of All Might's twilight and All For One's invisible strings.
Now, the axis of Hero society had violently shifted around one man, an ex-underground, and current U.A. instructor who possessed the power of a god, the mind of a ruthlessness, and an unyielding refusal to let anyone touch his family."
Nezu had never felt this invigorated in his entire life.
From the moment he had first encountered 'Toya Todoroki', there had not been a single dull second.
Would Dabi reshape this hypocritical era, or would he simply shatter the old institutions with overwhelming force?
Whatever path the boy chose, Nezu was more than ready to provide the stage.
….
Back in the battle location, Dabi now stood beside Rumi.
She knew that right now, every instinct in his body was screaming to grab her, head back to their home, lock the doors, and fall asleep with their daughters curled up between them.
"You've got cleanup to do before we go home, don't you?" Rumi asked, her voice softening into something gentle.
"Yeah." Dabi murmured, his eyes sharpening as he looked toward the horizon where the Hero Public Safety Commission headquarters lay. "A couple of loose ends that need burning before they try to make a mess."
Rumi gave a nod."Then handle it fast, Patchwork. If you keep Eri and Himiko waiting for breakfast, I am letting them draw all over your face with permanent markers again."
"Deal." Dabi smirked.
With a final squeeze of her hand, Dabi turned back toward the staging lines to settle the command chain with Naomasa and Aizawa who had just joined.
The war over the Villain was over, but the final strike against the old world had just begun.
….
Having made his peace with Rumi, Dabi shifted his attention toward the arriving command unit.
He also changed into something more presentable.
"Naomasa."
Dabi focused, without any delay. "Take the forensics team and secure the area. Tartarus is probably a mess, so take a few heroes and get it under control. There's nothing left in this crater to arrest. Write whatever bureaucratic fairy tale you need, but don't call me for the debrief."
Before Naomasa could even process the barrage of orders, Dabi turned directly to Shota Aizawa.
"Eraser, take the kids back to U.A., get them into Recovery Girl's ward, and keep the press away from the gates."
"Hold on, Dabi–" Aizawa started, his eyes narrowing as he stepped forward. "You can't just dump an entire national catastrophe's worth of paperwork and chain of custody protocols on us and vanis–"
"Watch me." Dabi replied smoothly.
He didn't offer an explanation, and he certainly didn't wait for permission.
Dabi dropped his center of gravity for a split second.
A rhythmic, hiss-like breath escaped his teeth as [Total Concentration] ignited…
BOOM!
A shockwave of azure flame detonated beneath his boots.
The explosive updraft kicked up a ring of shattered glass and loose gravel, scattering the nearby debris as Dabi rocketed straight into the sky.
"Where the hell does he keep getting the energy for that?!" Vlad King roared, throwing his hands up to shield his eyes from the blowback. "Shota! He literally just abandoned the scene!"
Aizawa let out a soul crushing sigh of exhaustion. "Seriously... the same thing has happened multiple times before, right?"
High above the ruins of Kamino Ward, Dabi leveled his trajectory.
Using controlled pulses of blue fire for propulsion, his coat snapping against the wind, he locked his eyes onto the distant metropolitan horizon.
Thirty five kilometers away, the towering glass fortress of the Hero Public Safety Commission was gleaming in the morning sun.
Lady Nagant was already on their roof.
Dabi's lips curved into a grin as he accelerated, leaving a brilliant streak of azure smoke across the dawn sky.
'The wait is over you fucker…'
….
At that exact moment, an emergency transit vehicle skidded to a halt at the outer perimeter.
Sir Nighteye stepped out and froze as he tracked the blazing streak of blue fire ascending like a comet.
Long ago, through his [Foresight], Nighteye had glimpsed a terrible, magnificent dragon wreathed in azure flame that would decide the fate of this era.
Seeing that exact creature's shadow carved into the sky above Kamino, he finally understood. The future he had once feared wasn't a calamity, but the apex predator that had severed the strings of fate.
Beside him, the rush of wind whipped across the barricade as Hawks landed, his crimson wings fanning out to absorb the shock.
"Wait! Hey!" Hawks shouted, his sharp eyes widening in utter disbelief as he stared up at the departing streak. "Is that Dabi… Is this a joke?! The battle just finished!"
Seeing Dabi heading straight toward central Tokyo and the HPSC, Hawks didn't hesitate.
With a snap of his feathers, the 'Number Three' Hero launched himself into the air, pushing his wings to maximum thrust.
"Hey! Where are you going?!" several confused officers yelled from below.
Hawks didn't answer, angling his body to cut through the slipstream at breakneck speed as he desperately tried to close the gap.
It was utterly futile.
Even exhausted and out of his dragon transformation, Dabi's propulsion ripped through the atmosphere at an absurd velocity that left Hawks choking on azure exhaust fumes miles behind.
Dabi wasn't waiting for a trailing feather, a debrief, or a warning.
Thirty five kilometers away, the Commission was waiting, and the reckoning was already five seconds out.
….
The wind roared in Dabi's ears as he rocketed through the upper atmosphere.
It had taken Lady Nagant almost an hour of rooftop leaping, evasive maneuvers, and subway detours to cover the thirty five kilometer gap between Kamino and the capital.
Dabi crossed it in minutes.
His body was screaming under the strain.
The [Dragon Force] state had completely burned out, leaving his muscles heavy and aching from the aftereffects of [Total Concentration].
Honestly, he was literally running on flames since the fight against Shigaraki.
However, he refused to postpone this for a single second longer.
For him, the Hero Public Safety Commission had overplayed their hand one too many times.
They had constantly tried to keep him in check, treating him like an unpredictable attack dog they could manipulate through pressure, dictating his moves, issuing unauthorized commands, and even daring to use his family as leverage.
The final nail in their coffin had been hammered during the training camp in the mountains.
When his students were surrounded by the Vanguard Action Squad, with Shoto and Bakugo targeted and children bleeding in the dirt.
The Commission had deliberately dragged their feet, withholding immediate reinforcements to manage their own bureaucratic optics and political risk.
They had left children to die in the forest while they played clean handed politics in air conditioned suites.
That was the line.
They thought he was just a rogue hero who could be reined in with paperwork, court trials, or threats to his license, believing his life with Rumi, Eri, and Himiko had made him soft and manageable.
But forgot that underneath the teacher's jacket, he was an underground monster who didn't play by their rules.
As the HPSC's central administrative complex loomed ahead, Dabi adjusted his flight vector.
He didn't slow down for the landing pad.
He locked his turquoise eyes onto the top floor executive suite, his boots igniting with a fresh burst of ultraviolet flame as he angled himself like a descending meteor.
CRASH–SHATTER!
The reinforced, bulletproof panoramic windows of the top-floor executive suite exploded inward in a violent storm of glittering safety glass and thermal backdraft.
Inside the expansive, marble lined office, Lady Nagant stood with her internal sniper barrel locked dead center onto the forehead of the ash blonde Madam President.
Classified dossiers, execution warrants, and shredded paper fluttered chaotically across the floor, caught in the sudden howling draft.
Dabi stepped right through the jagged breach in the wall, his hands casually buried in his pockets.
He had already discarded his charred battle patient gown for a loose, dark casual shirt and trousers, looking less like a man who had just cracked the atmosphere over Kamino and more like someone dropping by after a lazy afternoon stroll.
His shoulders were loose, his guard at absolute zero.
"What the hell?" Dabi drawled, stepping over the scattered paperwork with a look of mild irritation–
"You still haven't cleaned things up, Kaina? Why the lag?"
Nagant didn't lower her rifle arm, though a faint twitch pulled at her eye. "Tsk, you can fly too? And did you forget I had to run thirty kilometers?"
.
….
[To be continued…]
★─────⇌•★•⇋─────★
Author Note:
Visit Patreon to instantly access +1 chapter for free, available for Free Members as well. For additional content please do support me and gain access to +12 more chapters.
-->[email protected]/WrightBrothers