“ i realized how naive i have been. ” h
when he had first run away, he hadn’t even thought enji cared. just a failure boy going missing, one less child to feed, one less failure to ignore and pretend didn’t matter. he hadn’t even given the appearance of trying to care. no public statement was made, he hadn’t tried to look, he had just continued with his patrols and continued his plans of training shouto to be the hero he wanted. it was like he’d never existed.
so dabi put the final nail in the coffin of todoroki touya himself.
and now he relishes in the visible anguish the disappearance of his oldest son--- the death of touya--- has caused. maybe it took years for dabi to be able to see it, but he figures it’s better late than never. after all, it’s all the more reason to take full advantage of the guilt he now knows enji bears. and he isn’t at all afraid to do that.
at his words, his face splits into a cruel grin, and the fire behind his eyes borders on maddening. he can feel the stitches pull at skin, protesting the change in expression, the way his grin widens and he’s sure he’ll start bleeding soon if he keeps this up. he doesn’t care.
“ that so? “ his grin carries to the drawl of his voice, and the hint of a laugh punctuates a rhetorical question. he wonders what response enji will struggle to cobble together. he thinks it’s going to be a sight to see. “ it took you . . . how many years? and you only just now realized? “
the laugh that follows is something harsh, bordering on hysterical, like the revelation of just how much he’s fucked up is the funniest thing dabi has ever heard. he can feel the blood from now open wounds drip down scarred skin, the stitches trying to just barely keep him together not quite enough. he’s literally coming apart at the seams.
the way he stops laughing is so abrupt it’s scary, leaves an eerie silence between them as his gaze locks onto the man he once called his father. he straightens up to his full height, and the expression that’s replaced a callous grin is empty, save for anger behind blue eyes. “ what? you think that changes a damn thing about what you did to me? that i’ll feel bad for you and come crawling back? you fucked that up a long time ago. “
flames rise from his palms like a funeral pyre, a flickering cyan that claimed his fire as his own. it crawls over scarred skin that serve as the testament to just how far he had been willing to go to make himself look different, to mold himself into his own person. to kill the boy named touya.
“ i’ll watch you burn before i even think about forgiveness. “
