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Endeavor dies.
Doesn’t matter how, really. A villain getting in a lucky hit, a rescue mission gone wrong, a car crash; the only thing that matters is that Endeavor gets himself killed not even two months after Touya burns himself down on Sekoto Peak.
The rest of the Todorokis have to figure things out, now. Doing so is not easy— Rei’s mind has not yet fully healed when she is released as the only remaining guardian for her children, but she has inherited all of Endeavor’s money and authority. When she asks to return to her family, the clinic that holds her is bound by legality, and cannot say no. It’s an odd situation. They make the best of it, and do better than they did before; for the source of the evil is gone. He is ashes in a grave; and his ashes are interred next to Touya, the father beside the son in a way he never was when he lived.
Perhaps it is fitting, then, that Touya wasn’t dead.
In another life, Touya might have left again, when he returned to his house after three years in a coma; in this life, he saw nothing to hate, and he stayed. And he found his way back to himself; received love, and help, and before long he went to UA with hope in his heart that he could be a hero. Oh, the Todoroki family still had a lot to work through, all of them, but the future was looking up— though scarred on both the inside and the outside, Touya was healing. Things were getting better.
And, you know, over time— they did.
No matter the universe, though, such is the nature of Todoroki Touya that he loves being dramatic, and hates his father.
“I want to be the direct opposite kind of hero as Endeavor. He fought all his life for number one? I don’t want to be on the rankings at all.” Touya had said, shaking his head. “I still want to do my best, though, but how can I manage that and not become known for it?”
“Have you heard of Eraserhead?” Nezu had asked. “He’s invented being a certain something known as an underground hero.”
Touya had not, in fact, heard of Eraserhead, due to said innovation; however, he determines in an instant that that’s exactly what he wants to be. Well… with one caveat.
“Actually, I have a really funny idea. I might need some help to make it possible, though.” Touya had said.
“Is that so?” Nezu had asked.
“I want to be an underground hero— and I want my public image to the world to be that of a villain. Think of all the stuff I’d be able to do, if I made my career out of being undercover! Besides, I don’t want nobody to know my name, I love flashy gestures. I just… I don’t want to be a top hero, you know? But I still want to help people. I’ll happily give some other hero the credit, and take all the blame.”
And how could Nezu say no to such a thought?
***
a year later
Naomasa is in trouble.
He’s often found himself in trouble, due to the nature of his career, but not very often is he less than a meter from a very painful death. The villain Dabi— son of the deceased hero Endeavor, had gone to UA and had seemed well on track to becoming a hero himself before snapping out of the blue— was looking him in the eyes, halfway through sliding a shoebox full of evidence for a case off a shelf. They’re in the backrooms of Naomasa’s police station; the last thing he expected to encounter when searching for the source of suspicious noises was an A-ranked villain.
“Hands in the air, away from your gun.” Dabi says. “You know what I can do.” And Naomasa did— Dabi was well known for incinerating his victims to unidentifiable ashes. It was… odd, though, that he was sneaking in here in the middle of the night to steal evidence (???) when his usual M.O if he wanted something was to burn the place down. Naomasa squints at the label on the box Dabi is holding, and his eyes widen. That’s the stuff for the Takami vs. the HPSC case— it had gotten locked down a few months ago, and couldn’t be pursued any longer, at least unless the prosecutor's lawyer managed to get ahold of said evidence. Which they couldn’t, not through legal channels, thanks to the HPSC expertly manipulating red tape.
“If you make a sound, you’re dead.” [LIE] Dabi growls.
Naomasa takes a few moments to register the call of his quirk as Dabi steps carefully towards the building’s window.
“Wait up.” he says, feeling rather stupid— but his quirk had never once steered him wrong. Despite the fear that attacks him, seeing Dabi’s bright blue eyes laser-focus on him from the gloom, he doesn’t falter. Dabi wasn’t intending to kill him. For some reason. “What do you want with the Takami case?”
“That’s none of your business. Now shut up and let me get out of here, or there’ll be fire through your throat before you can scream.” [LIE]
Naomasa moves quickly, and stands between Dabi and the window.
“Do you want to die?” Dabi asks.
“Not at all. But you’re not going to kill me, are you?” Naomasa asks, and immediately draws back as Dabi leans towards him, a thin line of blue fire lighting up along his arm. He’s face to face with the scarred visage of nightmares— who looks rather young, really.
“What,” Dabi asks, “makes you think that? I’ve killed many.” [LIE] “I have no reason to stop at you.”
“Except for the fact that you’re lying.” Naomasa says. Dabi blinks. “My quirk is Lie Detector.”
“You’re kidding me.” Dabi says. “Right?”
Naomasa was not, in fact, kidding him.
***
Anyway, that’s how Naomasa’s police station became Touya’s main liaison place for bringing captive villains, and other parts of undercover heroism. There was a set group of people who knew Touya hadn’t committed any of the atrocities attributed to his name. Dragged into the chaos inadvertently by his inconvenient quirk, Naomasa had become part of said group, and soon found himself on the end of dealing with confidential cases from both Touya and All Might (the latter knew full well about the schemes of the former, or otherwise Touya would have long since been arrested). This, of course, was a lot of work— especially considering that if Touya took after his father in anything, it was in the number of incidents solved.
One thing leads to another, and before long, Touya wasn’t the only Todoroki who hung around the place.
“What are you doing here, kid?” Naomasa asks, noticing a boy of maybe ten years of age sitting on a bench in the hall.
“He says he’s waiting for his brother. Won’t say who that brother is, though.” Sansa tells him. Naomasa shrugs; he didn’t know the family members of everyone who worked here.
“Guess who’s BACK!” a voice yells, and the side door to the hall bangs open with Touya’s usual manner of dramatic entrance, skipping across the cement floor.
“What did you do today?” Naomasa asks, because Touya seems more excited than usual, and then he abruptly remembers the kid. Before he can say anything, though, Touya nearly trips over his own feet.
“Shouto? What are you doing here?”
“Coming to see you.” the boy with half-and-half hair says. “Yumi said you worked here.”
“That is not incorrect, but you know I’m a hero, right? Like, I do stuff here, but my job isn’t here.” Touya says. Naomasa exchanges a glance with Sansa. The last thing he needs around this place is a second Todoroki, especially a young one.
“You were here.” Shouto points out. “And I’m here to see you.”
Shouto wants to be a hero like his brother.
“Well, ideally, you wouldn’t be one exactly like me, I don’t think you’d enjoy all the fake villainy nearly as much.” Touya says. Shouto considers this.
“Probably not.” he finally says, and Naomasa is secretly relieved, because despite all the good that Touya does in the world— he is a nuisance.
“So… did you want to do something, or…” Touya asks. Shouto shrugs. “Right. Leaving me to figure out everything as usual.” Touya sighs, flipping a key out of his pocket and unlocking a closet set up specifically for his use. Swinging off his artistically stapled villain coat and shoving it inside, the next thing he does is take out the items made to fix a very pertinent problem. Being that as a well-known villain, Touya could hardly just go out in public as himself. Luckily, thanks to the support item creating abilities of the Hatsume company, there was a way around said problem.
Touya takes off his shirt, and pulls on movie-level prosthetics to cover his arms, chest and head; with his scars hidden, he resembled an odd mockery of himself.
“You always look weird with those on.” Shouto says, watching as Touya adjusts the mask around his eyes. It had white hair, matching his natural color that he always kept dyed black.
“The machine that makes this stuff uses my DNA, Shouto, I look exactly like myself.” Touya says. Sure, he could have gotten the disguise to be different, but what would be the point of that?
“Not without your scars.” Shouto says.
“Hatsume says something with scars is different than something without, because it shows what you’ve created has durability.” Hatsume was Shouto’s best friend, ever since they met during Touya’s searches for useful support items and came across her family’s company.
“She was talking about her inventions when she said that, wasn’t she?” Touya asks. “I don’t know what to think about that girl’s influence on you.”
“She’s my friend.” Shouto says. He pauses. “She says that I’m durable.”
Naomasa realizes, then, that Shouto has a scar of his own, practically engulfing the right side of his face.
“Babies that are durable can do the most.” Shouto says.
“Why does she insist on calling her inventions that? It’s creepy.” Touya huffs.
“Says the villain.”
“Hey! That doesn’t count!”
And that was the day that Naomasa’s number of Todorokis that he watched over went from one, to two.
***
“You burnt down a train?” Tsukauchi’s voice hisses, through the communicator.
“Is that really your biggest concern at the moment?” Touya asks. He sighs. “Okay, maybe it’s your biggest concern, but considering that I am currently trying to fight a villain in said burning train, I have only one focus.”
“I am trying to get you backup—“ Tsukauchi says, and the door of the train car blows off the hinges.
“Real good success at slamming that!” Touya calls towards the fleeing villain, sliding down the tilted floor of the empty train like he’s on a skateboard. Something creaks and snaps in the background, but he decides not to worry about it.
Touya hadn’t meant to set the train on fire, honest, but he’d been making his way through the villain underworld in an effort at trying to find whoever was selling trigger everywhere (and nearly getting his head knocked off by the vigilante Knuckleduster for his trouble) and instead of finding what he’d been looking for (because the universe seems to want to cause him problems) (although generally he causes most of his problems himself) he’d found an entirely different drug ring, (something that made people with animal mutations go crazy, Touya vaguely remembers) (they had their lab in an abandoned train for some reason???) and had managed to deal with most of the villains there (by getting Knuckleduster to fight them) but was now pursuing the fleeing gang boss, who had decided to start up the train; (which still worked, surprisingly) and one thing had led to another, and, well— most things lead to fire, with Touya.
“Get back here, you jerk!” Touya yells, slicing the train door in half as it hurtles towards him. Strength quirks were annoying to fight, since they didn’t often have much protection for their holders, and he wasn’t about to actually incinerate anyone.
“What is your problem?” the villain shouts.
“Why’re you going around wrecking everything you get near—“
“It’s not my fault you’re an easy target.” Touya says, grinning. “I’ve been an active villain for years, and no one’s caught me yet— the heroes don’t care what I do, when I do it to people like you.”
Touya trips over his own feet, barely managing to catch himself on the train’s handlebars once he realizes what he’s said.
“Touya?” Tsukauchi asks, in his ear.
“Yeah,” Touya says, “I think that explains a lot.” Swinging forwards on the handlebars, he launches himself feet-forwards, and lets gravity carry himself so that he can kick the escaping villain straight in the head— and through a window, grabbing his unconscious enemy as he uses a burst of fire to land safely. Oh, good, there’s a hero here, because of the flaming train; Touya waves at the hero, who jolts in surprise, and then leaps into the sky. Flying with his quirk is difficult, but not impossible, and he lets Tsukauchi direct him away from hero patrols in the area until he finds somewhere to safely have an existential crisis.
“I run my mouth a lot.” Touya says. He presses his knuckles against his forehead. “God, you know that I do, half of my life is lying my head off.”
“Are you feeling okay?” Tsukauchi asks. Touya shakes his head, though he knows the other can’t see him.
“I don’t know. Why is it so easy, to act like… like I’m so angry, I want to see everything else burn. And so much of this world needs to— so many people are missed, left behind by society. I’m doing my part, and I can see it ‘cause of the circles I hang around in, but— I was missed too.” Touya kicks a rock off the edge of the roof he’s standing on, shoving his hands in his pockets. “No one cared about what was happening to me until I nearly died from it.” He stretches his head back until he’s looking at the sky. “No one—“
“I care about you.” Tsukauchi says, and Touya nearly falls over his own feet again.
“I. I appreciate that.” he says. “And— and my brothers, and my sister, and my mother, they care about me too.” Touya looks at the ground as though it will devour him. “Took me a… long while to realize that, though. It’s just— doing this type of thing was my own decision, and I’m happy with it, but Shouto’s got to grow up under my shadow. You can’t tell me you haven’t heard people talking.” he says. Tsukauchi doesn’t answer.
“Yeah. Todoroki Touya, such a nice kid, it’s really too bad he lost his mind and went full off the deep end… remember when he was in UA? There was always something off about him. I never woulda thought Endeavor’s son would become a villain.” Touya hisses, repeating things he’s heard said. “Oh, and I feel so badly for the rest of the family. Sometimes, I think I’m gonna ruin Shouto’s life.”
“I think that he likes your reputation.” Tsukauchi says.
“You cannot be serious.” Touya says.
“If he wasn’t growing up under your shadow, he would be under that of your… late father’s.” Tsukauchi says, and that’s true if anything is, Touya supposes. He grins.
“Well, glad I could do something for him, hah.”
He’s got everything he’s ever wanted, but— if he wasn’t pretending to be a villain, he’d actually be one, and some part of him knows that, he thinks.
Some part of Touya knows that everyone missed him, so long ago, and the only reason he never missed himself was no more than luck. Things were different now, of course. He’s got a family to support, and he doesn’t know what he’d do without them; he doesn’t know what he’d do without them being there, for him.
***
some years later
All good things come to an end. Or, at least, to a roadblock.
“What?” Touya asks, because no. It couldn’t be.
“Detective Tsukauchi was captured by the villain known as the Ice Queen.” Officer Sansa says. Touya sinks his head into his arms.
“Who— who’s that?” He’s heard that name before, he’s sure of it.
“Keroli Croceli is her real name—“ Sansa starts, and Touya jolts so hard he slams his knee into the table. Keroli— a villain who had never quite managed to get her villain name in use— was the head of a wide-ranging Yakuza organization with multiple branches, and that was too dangerous and powerful for any one hero to end the reign of. They just didn’t know enough about her forces, her resources— but of the things they did know, well.
“That’s the one who tortures people. Has them tortured for her. Whatever.” Touya says, hissing in a whistling breath. God, if Tsukauchi was in her grasp, that didn’t bode well at all.
“Tsukauchi was on a mission with Eraserhead, to try and gather information. They were both captured. It’s known she keeps all records in the main computer at her house— if we could get someone there to hack into it, that would have all the information we’d need to send the heroes after her group for once and for all.” Sansa says.
“Is Tsukauchi going to get tortured now? Is that it? Can we do nothing to save him?” Touya asks. The man was practically family, at this point— he and Touya had worked together for years.
“If there’s anything anyone could do, you’d be the one to figure it out.” Sansa says. He hands Touya a folder full of papers. “That’s… all the information we have on Keroli. I’m hoping you can think of something the other heroes haven’t.” Touya looks up at him, and notices the stiff officiality has vanished from Sansa’s posture; he’s as worried about Tsukauchi as the rest of them, and trying to hold onto something so he doesn’t show it.
“I’ll try.” Touya says. He has to. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he didn’t.
***
“Tsukauchi got captured?” Shouto asks, standing up as his brother enters the support item workshop.
“Be careful!” Hatsume says, grabbing the bracer he’d dropped. She looks over at Touya, too. “Wait, what?”
“Tsukauchi, and Eraserhead. I don’t know what to do.” Touya says, practically collapsing into a chair. “So I came to you for help. God, I’ve got to think of something soon— apparently Keroli has people tortured once a month on some fricked-up schedule, and the next time for that is in… two days. We have two days.” Touya says, slapping a folder of files onto the table.
Shouto grabs the files, and flips through them. Keroli, the head of a villainous organization with more strength than any heroes had yet managed to make a significant dent in, because so much about it just wasn’t known—
“I can’t— this can’t happen again—“ Touya says, and Shouto sucks in a surprised breath as he understands what his brother is saying; there’s a pause as Touya’s eyes widen when he realizes what he’s saying, too.
“Again?” Hatsume asks.
“I didn’t mean—“ Touya says, but cuts himself off. “My dad’s going to die, and I’ll be unable to do anything to save him.”
Todoroki Enji had been the exact opposite of supportive; both Touya and Shouto had suffered immensely, because of him. It was better for the entire family that he was gone— but the first thing Touya had done, when he’d woken from his coma, was try to find his father. Enji had been long dead by then, however, and Touya had been forced to recalibrate his entire worldview. Even now, with all the trauma far in the past, Touya couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened, had Enji been alive to see him return.
Years later, the Todoroki brothers had someone actually worthy of being in the father figure position; it was even more vital, now, that they did not lose him.
“This is terrible.” Touya says.
“You’re well known as a villain, so can’t you just try and contact Keroli as Dabi? Make a deal with her to get Tsukauchi back?” Shouto asks. Touya shakes his head.
“I could, but what would she want from me? With the power of the organization she’s the head of, I don’t know what she could get from me that she wouldn’t already have.” Touya sighs.
“Says here she pays other villains for…” Shouto reads, trailing off. “Oh. Torturing people for her to watch, since she doesn’t want to get her hands dirty.”
“And I obviously can’t fake that.” Touya complains.
“Why couldn’t you?” Hatsume asks. They both look at her.
“Well, I could, I guess, if there was someone willing to pretend to be tortured by me.” Touya sighs.
“I’d do it.” Shouto says.
“What?” Touya asks.
“I’d do it.” Shouto repeats, more sure of himself now. “Tsukauchi’s in danger, and—“ Ever since Shouto was ten years old, Tsukauchi has been a main presence in his life. With Endeavor dead, Shouto had started following his brother around, and that had led to him being watched over by Tsukauchi almost more often than not. Shouto couldn’t imagine losing him. “—if I can do something to help save him, I will.” Shouto wanted to be a hero, after all. Making a career out of saving others, well, it started with saving one person. “And if there’s anyone who trusts you enough to let you fake torture them, it’s me.”
“I’ll call Keroli, then. And tell Sansa that I’ve figured it out.” Touya says. He hesitates.
“Wait, how are we even going to do this?”
Hatsume slams her hands on the table, making both of them jump. “Leave that to me.”
***
“I talked to Sansa, and he said that—“ Fuyumi starts, ducking into the door of the room; she cuts off as soon as she notices her brothers. Shouto is talking with his friend Hatsume about acid; Fuyumi, though, has long since given up on keeping track of the increasing danger Shouto places himself in by helping Hatsume build her inventions, and instead turns to Touya.
“Said what?” Touya asks, hiding whatever he’s holding behind his back. She squints at him, because he’s not subtle.
“Said that you and Shouto had a really stupid plan.” Fuyumi says.
“Is that news, though?” Touya asks. A few feet away, something red and foaming bubbles out of a tube.
“Not really.” Fuyumi admits. “But you’re going to be bringing Shouto to fight a villain. He’s fourteen, Touya.”
“Ah.” Touya says. “Seems like someone has heard incorrectly. Absolutely zero fighting will occur— this is rescue and information gathering only. I’m not stupid, Fuyumi, I know a little better than to get Shouto anywhere near a fight.”
“You are getting him near actual villains, though.” Fuyumi points out.
“I’ll be with him the entire time.” Touya reassures her. “I promise, he won’t leave my sight.”
Fuyumi supposes she can trust him with Shouto’s safety. He’s her brother, after all, even if he is a bit silly sometimes.
“Okay.” she says. He smiles.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEE—“
“Shouto, shut up!” Touya yelps, and Fuyumi jumps in surprise. “What was that for?”
“What do you think it was for?” Shouto asks. Neither he nor Hatsume look the slightest bit perturbed at his ear-splitting scream.
“I don’t know,” Touya says, “that is why I am asking.”
“Practice.” Shouto says, deadpan.
“Practice?” Fuyumi asks, glancing between her brothers as Touya nods in understanding. “Practice for what?”
“Absolutely nothing.” Touya says, in the most unconvincing voice in the world.
“You can’t hide anything from me. Just— out with it.” she demands.
When he tells her, she yells almost as loudly as Shouto.
***
“Torture.” Fuyumi says, flatly. Behind her, the machine for printing Touya’s usual prosthetic disguises is creating a set for Shouto, instead.
“Torture!” Touya announces. “I’ve already contacted Keroli— as Dabi, of course— and I’m set to arrive with my captive tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” Fuyumi asks.
“We’ll figure it out.” Shouto says.
“I’ve never helped with anything quite of this manner before— it’s like making a movie!” Hatsume says, excitedly.
“No,” Fuyumi says, “it’s really not. Touya, you’re going to… pretend to torture Shouto for this villain? In exchange for Eraserhead and Tsukauchi?”
“And hack into Keroli’s computer while we’re at it, in order to get enough information to destroy her organization completely.” Shouto says. Fuyumi attempts to work through her disbelief.
“That’s awful.” she says, finally.
“Do you have a better idea?” Touya asks. She does not, so Touya directs her attention towards the table, which is covered in various items.
“This would be the acid they were talking about, earlier?” she asks, poking a bottle labeled ACID in all caps.
“It’s vinegar.” Touya says. She gives him a flat look. “What? Vinegar is an acid!”
“Nails?” Fuyumi next asks, poking another jar. This plan of theirs was seeming increasingly ridiculous and convoluted by the second.
“Yep.” Touya says. “And here’s the hammer to match.”
Fuyumi continues looking at all the objects, her concern and confusion growing. There’s a knife, which she probably should have expected… some small generator-looking thing… an oxygen mask? A metal pole the length of a ruler, and—
“That’s one of those foam tubes you were having sword fights with, right?”
“Yep!” Touya says. “Man, that was fun… Tsukauchi got so annoyed when we knocked over like five file cabinets, hah.”
Fuyumi lets her eyes wander to the next jar in the row. It’s full of severed fingers.
“They’re not real.” Touya says.
“Obviously.” Fuyumi says, still staring, because what the frick.
“I’ll say they are. Also that they’re Natsuo’s, for psychological torture.” Touya makes jazz hands.
“Why not that they’re mine?” she asks, although she’s not sure why she’s asking. Touya seems shocked by her question, and doesn’t really have an answer.
“Wow.” Fuyumi says, not sure whether to be complimented or annoyed. “Why’d you choose Natsuo over me?” Touya was a little hard to understand sometimes, but he meant well.
“I’m not sure what you’re miffed about.” Touya says, tentatively.
“Good.”
“Sisters are crazy.” he mumbles.
“What’s this?” Fuyumi asks, looking at something she really can’t tell what it’s supposed to be at all. Touya picks it up, and flicks something that unfolds the beige plastic around the miniature contraption with two thin tubes falling out of it.
“Shouto and Hatsume made this ‘cause he wanted to get waterboarded.” Touya says.
“He wanted—“
“It’s in all the movies, you know? Anyway, this part seals up the nose and mouth holes of the mask so that no water gets in, and Shouto breathes out of the tubes— they go to his ears. Unfortunately, we can’t waterboard him because there’s no way I can bring a water tank (plus whatever else is needed) all the way to Keroli’s place in a way that isn’t super inconvenient. We’re still gonna use this thing for dryboarding, though.”
Fuyumi stares at him in disbelief.
“That’s, uh, where you shove a cloth down the victim’s throat and—“
“I don’t need to hear it.” Fuyumi interrupts. “I’m still getting over the part where you’re torturing Shouto.”
“Not really, of course.” Touya says, like she doesn’t know that already.
“How are you going to— to act like—”
“I make my heroic career out of pretending to be a villain.” Touya says, which is a valid point, but he doesn’t seem to see the obvious problem. Fuyumi spins around to look at Shouto, who’s been watching the whole discussion quietly.
“You’re okay with this?” she asks.
“Mostly I’ll just be screaming a lot. Won’t be hard.” he says, shrugging.
“You have to tell me how it went after you’re back.” Hatsume insists. “I need to know how well my babies did.”
“They’ll do great, I’m sure.” Shouto says. “Your inventions are quite possibly the most crucial part of this entire thing— it’s got to look real, most of all.”
“You can count on me.” Hatsume tells him.
***
Keroli is a lot shorter than Touya expected. Ice-blue hair in a neatly cut bob, two small black devils’ horns, and a pair of circular glasses, she hardly looks anything resembling the terrifying villain he knows her to be. He considers, briefly, of attacking her— he could easily win. But the building was full of her fighters, and the rest of the country even more so; if Touya wanted to take the Ice Queen’s organization down for good, he would have to collect the information needed to find every branch of it at once. Thus, the deception he and Shouto were about to embark on.
“A boy? Children are not ideal… they die too quickly.” Keroli says, looking Shouto over. Touya shifts his stance, swinging the bag of torture instruments over his shoulder; Shouto is blindfolded, gagged, and firmly tied up.
“Trust me. He’s strong— we’ll be able to get a lot of screaming out of him. I’ve been waiting a while for this— you’re lucky we’ve made the transaction, that I’ve got to listen to those who hold my debts. Because this is personal.” Touya releases Shouto from the ropes, then wrestles him onto the torture table shaped in the form of a cross, snapping the manacles around his limbs. He hesitates; Shouto won’t be able to get out of them, in an emergency.
Touya sits on the spinning chair beside the table, and glances to Keroli’s computer set-up, in the corner of the room. That’s what they're here for. That, and two others.
“The detective and the hero. Are they alive? Mostly unharmed?” Touya asks, unzipping the bag and setting up a camera to record the “torture”— what it (more specifically, the hidden device inside of it) is actually for, as he angles it in the right direction, is to hack Keroli’s computer. It would take some minutes to get through her firewalls, and Touya and Shouto would give the device all the minutes they could spare.
“Indeed. And you’ll be pleased to know that I had quite the idea.” Keroli says, and a side door to the room opens, bathing the dully-lit area in a blue glow. Two of Keroli’s henchman wheel in a pair of chairs, and lock them down at the other end of the wall— facing the torture table. “Eraserhead. Detective. I thought you might be interested in knowing the price that is being paid for your lives.”
“What now?” Eraserhead asks, but Tsukauchi glances from Shouto to Touya, and his eyes widen in shock as he understands in an instant.
“I’m Dabi. You may have heard of me.” Touya says, waving. Tsukauchi is still staring in disbelief. “See, I owe some people some things, and one of those people wants the two of you. So— you won’t die today.” Touya spins around on the chair dramatically, letting his coat flare. “Instead— meet my brother Shouto!”
“Your brother? Now this ought to be interesting.” Keroli says.
“You’re going to kill him.” Eraserhead says. Tsukauchi still can’t seem to find any words, and Touya grins.
“Once I’m done making him suffer beyond human imagination.” he says, noting Tsukauchi’s wince as his quirk informs him of Touya’s lie. Not that he needed the notification.
“Don’t— don’t do this. Take me instead.” Eraserhead blurts out, and Touya raises an eyebrow. It was… odd, to finally meet the hero he idolized, but to be unable to tell him the truth of anything.
“Sorry, but that’s not the price! You get to live— and you get to watch one of the greatest pleasures of life alongside me.” Keroli says, and judging by the expression on Eraserhead’s face, he knows full well what amuses Keroli.
“Wait— they’re going to watch?” Touya asks, because that had not been in the plan. He and Shouto had a lot of things prepped, and for Tsukauchi to see it all would be pretty horrible. Never mind Eraserhead, who wouldn’t even know it wasn’t real.
“I so do love an audience.” Keroli laughs, and Touya realizes he can’t do anything to change her mind.
Time to start— Touya pulls the gag and blindfold off Shouto, who takes a few deep breaths, looking around as if terrified. The “skin” underneath his eyes is loosened and darkened, as if he’s been forced to stay awake.
“You’ve been evading me for quite a while… oh, Shouto. Perfect quirk, perfect life, everything I could never have. But everything catches up to everyone eventually, and I caught up to you.” He looks through the collection of tricks before deciding to start small. They should build up to the big stuff— decision made, Touya grabs a pair of pliers.
“Let’s start with a classic, why don’t we? There’s no reason to further delay it.”
A small smile plays across Keroli’s lips, and Touya pushes his spinning chair over to one end of the table. He takes a breath; time to see if they could be convincing.
“You’re going to to torture me?” Shouto asks.
“Too right.” Touya says.
“What do you want?”
“Just your pain.”
“As much of it as possible.” Keroli says.
“I won’t give it to you.” Shouto snaps. “I won’t scream for your pleasure.”
Touya shrugs. “We’ll see.”
***
Shouto steels himself, glancing briefly towards Eraserhead and Tsukauchi, but then over at Keroli. She was the reason they were doing this— she was the one they needed to deceive, to save innumerable lives— especially the lives of those who were chained to chairs at the other side of the room. Sorry, Shouto briefly thinks, watching as Touya fits the pliers firmly around his fake fingernail.
Shouto’s glad he can regulate his temperature with his quirk, because otherwise being covered in everything that he currently is would be hot. They’d taken extreme advantage of the device Touya used to disguise himself when he wasn’t doing hero work, and ran Shouto’s DNA through it in order to make prostheses enough to cover his entire head, neck, chest, and arms up to the elbows. The step after that had been filling said prostheses with fake blood.
Touya pulls the fingernail out, and Shouto gasps and clenches his fist, putting up the illusion of fighting against pain. Some of the aforementioned fake blood spills through his fingertips.
“Ah, we’re only just beginning.” Touya says, grabbing his hand.
“AGH!” Shouto yells, pretending to fight him as Touya singles out another finger.
“Please don’t be boring again.” Keroli sighs.
“I’ve seen most everything already before… it’s so hard to find proper entertainment. If you’re really creative, I’ll even pay you extra.”
“The last thing I’ll be is boring.” Touya says, twisting the covering over Shouto’s finger around itself— with a well timed snap to match from the sound effect device in his pocket, the apparent result looks awful. Shouto yells in (apparent) pain again; by quickly creating and heating small bits of ice underneath the mask, the water thus made overflowing from the eyeholes to resemble a small amount of tears. He’s careful not to make too much, at least for now— the longer all this goes on, the more tears he’ll make.
“Stop it!” Eraserhead yells. “Stop hurting him!”
“No can do.” Touya laughs.
***
It must be admitted that Naomasa had imagined Touya coming to save him. How could he not? He and the boy had worked together for many years now, and if there was anyone who could get into the hideout of the Ice Queen herself and out again, it was Touya. Naomasa wouldn’t put anything past him.
In his thoughts of such, however, he had never once imagined this— and the worst part was that it made perfect sense. Far more subtle of a plan than to come in fire blazing, and doubled with gathering information as well (that camera was hardly up for no reason); the only real question was whether Touya and Shouto could pull it off. How much would it take for Keroli to be satisfied? And how far ahead had Touya and Shouto planned?
The torture was rather realistic, Naomasa had to admit, watching Touya carve a bloody X into the palm of Shouto’s hand, and then peel back the flaps of skin to fill the flayed parts with shards of glass. Shouto screeches, fighting uselessly against his bonds as Touya presses his hand into a fist.
“Hm. You’re doing okay so far, I suppose.” Keroli says.
“Stop it, stop it!” Shouto yells, hissing in pain.
“Not until you tell me how much it hurts.” Touya growls.
“It hurts so much, oh my God…” [LIE] “…what did I ever do to you?!”
Naomasa’s quirk helpfully tells him every time anyone is lying, which is rather jarring in the current scenario. If he’s honest, he appreciates its reminders, because the last thing he’s ever wanted to see is one of his kids cutting up the other.
They are his, aren’t they?
He should be the one protecting them, but instead, they’re going to insane lengths to save him.
“You existed.” [LIE] Touya says, letting go of Shouto’s hand. Blood spills in streams onto the floor. “You existed, and I suffered for it, and now it’s your turn.” [LIE] Touya unbuttons the front of Shouto’s shirt, and pulls it off of him. “What am I doing, wasting time on your hand, when I’ve got all this canvas to work on? There’s art to be made today.”
Touya picks up a bottle labeled ACID, and pours it over his brother’s chest. Hissing smoke rises into the air, and Shouto howls in pain as his skin bubbles and decays, foaming with red, and the thick scent of chemical burns fills the room.[1]
“Oh, my.” Keroli says, appreciatively.
“AH— AAH— AAAAAAAAAARRRHHHHHHAAAAA…” Shouto’s entire body is wracked with tormented movement; Touya continues pouring the acid in lines, mouth twisted in a vicious grin as Shouto’s skin curls and blackens.
“You’ll look worse than me, once I’m done with you.” [LIE]
[1]: vinegar, baking soda, food coloring, and the top layer of the prosthetic made to react with hydration.
***
Aizawa can’t take this anymore.
“I’ll do anything you want, just leave him alone!”
“Will you torture him in Dabi’s place?” Keroli asks, smiling at Aizawa. He freezes.
“I thought not. Do continue, Dabi, this is quite fun.” she says, settling back in her seat as Shouto begs for release from the acid eating at his skin, writhing and yelling.
“What is wrong with you?” Aizawa asks, staring at the absolute joy in Dabi’s expression; it’s manic, compared to Keroli’s soft amusement. He isn’t sure which is worse. “That’s your own brother!”
“So it is, so it is.” Dabi says. “Doesn’t that make this all even better? Poor little Shouto destroyed my life just by being born. I figured I’d return the favor.”
The detective— Tsukauchi, Aizawa thinks his name is— hasn’t spoken once since they’ve been brought into this room, and is watching the torture with appalled shock, wincing at nothing in particular (or perhaps at everything) every so often. Shouto’s screams die down to whimpers, a yelp as he grips the side of the table with his ruined hand.
“Please don’t… don’t… don’t!” Shouto sobs, as Dabi closes up the acid bottle to grab a jar full of nails.
“There’s quite a ways to go yet!” Dabi says cheerily; spinning a nail in his fingers, he drags the pointy end through Shouto’s mutilated skin, ignoring his shrieks. “Here’s a bone, I think… doesn’t really matter if I’m wrong, though.” Dabi mumbles, picking up a hammer and using it to drive the nail into his brother’s body.[2] A slight flicker of blue flame curls around Dabi’s fingertips every time he presses in a nail— which he does multiple times, a smile tugging at his lips every time Shouto’s cries reach a high pitch.
“Let’s up the ante a little, shall we? The acid wasn’t enough to reach more than an inch or so into your skin… can’t have you dying early on me.” Dabi says, picking up the knife he’d used to attack Shouto’s hand and scraping it through the horrifying mess of what’s left of Shouto’s skin. Every time it hits one of the nails stabbing into him, the blade digs in more, too. Dabi pokes around the bloody, destroyed flesh, making Shouto wail in gasping agony as he cleans out the area. By the end of it, Shouto’s voice is hoarse and his blackened skin removed from his body, revealing a red and raw area that pulses with his heavy breath, and the crimson shine of blood that spills over his sides, spattering the floor. The heads of nails peek out, metal glimmering through the gore.
“Now what?” Keroli asks. Aizawa can’t find anything to say— can’t think of anything that could stop this. There’s a child being literally tortured only a few feet away from him, and he can’t do a single thing— the chains on his arms and legs are strong enough to hold even his fury at the atrocities being committed before him.
“Now? You’re about to see something glorious.” Touya says.
[2]: said nail is folded paper (it simply crumples, and Touya burns it) except for the flat top, which is metal and glue.
***
The only part of Shouto that actually hurts are his wrists, and that’s his own fault, for pulling so hard against the manacles. But he’s got to make it look good— Shouto pushes as much feigned pain into his voice as he can, and he hears Eraserhead’s shouts of horror in the background alongside Keroli’s giggles.
“Don’t move so much, you’ll throw them off!” Touya says, holding Shouto down as actual centipedes (bought as lizard food from the local pet store) crawl through the scraped-off stripes of burnt not-actually skin on his chest. It looks horrible, and makes disgusting squishing noises.
“Get them off, get them off, GETTHEMOFFFFFFF!” he shrieks. “Please, please—“
“Beg for my forgiveness.” Touya spits, pouring the remaining glass shards onto him as well. “But no matter how much you cry, you’re not getting it— no one in our family ever once cared for me. I’m just returning the favor. Fuyumi wants to fix the family so bad, what’s she going to do once both the brothers she loves are as broken as the one she didn’t?”
“What— don’t hurt Natsuo!” Shouto yells. The bugs are moving the glass shards around through the ruined area of the prosthetic, making him shiver at the very idea of the pain he appears to be suffering— but it still isn’t awful enough, which is why Touya is bringing up psychological torture as well.
“It is far too late for that.” Touya says, rifling through the bag to take out yet another jar. “I got to him before I got to you.” The jar that Touya’s holding in front of Shouto’s face clearly contains a collection of (false) severed fingers. “These came off before he died, by the way.”
“You’re lying— you didn’t, you didn’t—“
“Natsuo never hurt anyone.” Touya says, unscrewing the jar. “He even tried his best to help me, you know? Way back when. Makes sense that he didn’t have a combative quirk, fit with his personality… immunity to heat and cold.” Touya says, picking up one of the fingers and engulfing it in flame. It doesn’t burn, as it was made to be fireproof. “Do you believe me now?”
“NO!” Shouto yells. “No, no, no, no…” he lets his voice trail off into crying. “You can’t have.”
“It was nothing personal.” Touya says. “Honestly, I liked him. But killing him was bound to make you sad, see. It’s your fault Natsuo’s dead, Shouto. I killed him to hear you scream.”
Shouto wonders what Natsuo will think when he hears about the fake torture. He’s never really approved of Touya pretending to be a villain, and this is an even farther step.
The camera-device, simultaneously filming the torture and hacking into Keroli’s computer, whirrs.
***
“This is the most fun I’ve had in a while.” Touya says, and he can almost taste the [LIE] indicator at the end of the sentence. “You guys enjoying the show?” he asks, spinning on his heel to face Eraserhead and Tsukauchi; he immediately regrets doing so, because of the horrified anger on Eraserhead’s face. The hero’s eyes are glowing red with a strange fire, and Touya’s forced to remember that the poor man thinks it’s all real. Tsukauchi mostly just looks disgusted. Touya can’t blame him.
“It’s unfortunate that you don’t understand the inherent joy in the pain of others.” Keroli says.
“Shouto has a lot of dues to pay. And so do I, for that matter, which is the only reason anyone gets to watch this at all.” Touya says, turning back towards his brother, who is whimpering in agony. He looks miserable. Touya plasters a smile on his own face— Shouto’s doing impressively well with his part of the deception. The lengths they’ve decided to go to are ridiculous, and only the inherent amusement in how insane all the torture methods are is allowing him to laugh. Because, like, who would do this frick to another person? It was horror movie levels of unnecessary drama and gore.
Touya glances briefly at Keroli, who’s watching with great interest and a genuine smile. Right. That kind of person would do this, and has had it done many, many times. Thus; the reason they were doing the fake torture at all.
Touya sits back down in the spinny chair, and pats Shouto on the head.
“I really ought to thank you, for being so accommodating. I appreciate that you’re suffering in exactly the ways that I’ve been wanting.”
“It hurts, Touya!” Shouto cries. “And Natsuo… you killed him…”
“Just for you.” Touya says. “You should be grateful.” He searches through the bag of props, trying to decide what they should do next; his fingers pause on something.
He unfolds a bundle of fabric, full of small bottles and syringes.
“Ever had drugs?” he asks, and can’t stop himself from grinning at the inanity of the question. “I really went all-out in collecting this stuff… it was needed to give you the best possible torture experience, of course.”
“I wouldn’t accept anything less.” Keroli says. Touya waves dismissively at her.
“I’m not talking to you.” he says, and jabs the needle of one of the syringes into the fake skin covering the inside of Shouto’s elbow. The dark liquid inside very visibly spreads through the “veins” of the prosthetic, lancing and spidering across Shouto’s neck, face and chest between the bloody stripes of acid burn. As he starts twitching, Touya passes his hands over Shouto’s face to pat his head again, using the motion to secretly drop a condensed unit of soap about the size of a penny into Shouto’s mouth. (Food-safe, they checked.) Now, to complete the illusion, all Shouto’s got to do is create water in his mouth to activate the… oh, there we go.
Shouto’s twitching turns into full-on convulsions, and his eyes roll back in his head; howls of pain are muffled by the bubbling foam pouring out of his mouth.
***
“Don’t worry, he won’t die from it. This isn’t anywhere near over.” Touya says, watching in satisfaction as Shouto shudders and screams, body jerking around and seizing seemingly uncontrollably.
“What are you doing to him?” Eraserhead yells, and Naomasa still hasn’t said a single thing. What can he even say? If Keroli suspects for a moment that the torture isn’t real…
“The drug set his nerves afire with pain— his entire body is tormenting him.” [LIE] Touya says.
“I’ve seen this type of thing many times before, but it’s always excellent.” Keroli comments.
“You monster.” Eraserhead growls.
“I’m not a monster.” [LIE] Touya says, and the lie indicator on this statement surprises Naomasa. Touya is a wonderful young man, and he needs to be more confident in himself.
“All this? It’s only what Shouto deserves.” [LIE] Touya reaches over to hold his brother’s uninjured hand; Shouto doesn’t even react to this, still convulsing wildly and shrieking. Naomasa sighs. He’s going to give them the longest lecture of their lives once they all get out of here.
After a minute or so, Shouto collapses, breathing heavily and spitting out the remnants of the foam that had somehow appeared in his mouth. Naomasa wonders how he managed that, watching as Shouto’s face screws up with pain and tears. He’s not allowed a moment of relaxation, though; Touya shoves an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose that’s connected to a container of… well, judging by the lie indicator after Touya’s words, it’s not really poison gas. Shouto starts shaking and shivering again, Touya keeping the mask firmly pressed to his face as he struggles, crying out for relief.
“You’re doing this because you sick freaks think it’s fun, right?” Eraserhead asks. Touya and Keroli both look at him. “I said this before, but— torture me instead. Keroli, I know you have a healing quirk. Heal that boy, and then you can do anything you want to me in his place.”
“I told you.” Touya says. “I’ve got a deal with Keroli, and with Shouto it’s personal. Besides, I owe someone your life.” [LIE]
“Do keep begging, though.” Keroli says. “It’s funny. Should I heal Shouto, though? So that you can start over?” She holds up a hand, and wreaths it in a sparkling pink glow.
Naomasa freezes— if she uses her quirk on Shouto, she’ll realize that he’s not hurt at all.
“Didn’t you say that you didn’t want this to be boring?” Touya asks. “Doing the same thing over again would be lame— no, I have a lot prepared, and trust me when I say it’s interesting. Don’t heal him, that’ll ruin all I’ve done so far.”
“Nothing I say will make you quit, will it?” Eraserhead asks. He hangs his head.
“Don't feel bad.” Touya says. “It’s not your fault… oh, but it must hurt, to see someone be tortured in front of you. Isn’t that right, hero?”
“That was uncalled for.” Naomasa says, speaking for the first time since he’s been brought into the room. Eraserhead is the only person who is actually suffering here, and Touya doesn’t need to dig in the knife.
“He speaks!” Keroli says. “Have anything to say, Detective?”
“There’s nothing I could do to stop this. I won’t give you the satisfaction of asking for otherwise.” Naomasa says. Never mind Keroli’s twisted desires, Shouto being fake tortured was the only way to prevent someone actually being tortured, at least until Keroli’s organization could be defeated. Therefore, the event needed to continue until she was happy— and then, Touya could get them all out of here.
***
“You’re tired, aren’t you, Shouto?” Touya asks. Shouto nods frantically.
“I didn’t let him sleep, since I caught him. He’s been awake for two days— awake, and waiting for me to bring him here. Had to make sure he was in the right mindset, hah.” Touya says. Thanks to the mask over his face, Shouto knows he looks the part; pale and drawn, with dark circles under his eyes.
“One eye just like mom’s… one eye just like mine. Like dad’s.” Touya says, placing two fingers softly on Shouto’s scar, underneath his blue eye. There isn’t anyone who doesn’t know that the villain Dabi is the son of Endeavor, after all.
“You’re… worse than dad.” Shouto coughs out, pressing his tongue against the loose tooth in his mouth. “I hated him, but he— he would never— and Natsuo!” Shouto wails, and Touya stills, a smile quirking at his lips. He knows he isn’t actually hurting Shouto any, after all.
“Oh, now that isn’t nice.” Touya says, hissing. He grabs Shouto’s face, and tilts it until their gazes meet. “Not at all. I think we’ll have to do something about this, don’t you?”
What’s coming up next, Shouto knows, is quite possibly the most disturbing part of this entire thing. Touya fumbles in the torture tools bag again, and comes out with a (plastic) knife— and all the necessary tricks up his sleeve. He bends over Shouto’s face, with one hand cupping around his eye and the knife in the other.
“You hate dad, you hate me… I think you’ll appreciate this, Shouto. I’ll just take out the part you don’t like, won’t that be good?” Touya sneers, and Shouto lets out a strangled cry, grasping vainly at nothing as Touya carefully presses a painted covering over his eye. Actions hidden by his hands, Touya slips a small packet of fake blood and a certain something into his palm, using the knife to slit open the packet. Red liquid splatters all over his fingers, Shouto’s face, and over the horrifyingly realistic “nerve endings” of what appears to be Shouto’s severed eyeball.
Shouto screams some more as Touya leans back, revealing the illusion that one of his eye sockets is bloodied and hollow.
***
“Oh, this is perfect.” Dabi says, a note of awe in his voice as he examines what he’s holding, gripped softly between bloody fingertips. “The same color as mine. Isn’t it better to have it out, Shouto?” Dabi asks, holding the boy’s eyeball over his face. He turns it back and forth, the nerves coming out the end flopping over his knuckles, a bright blue iris visible in the dull light.
“You— you—“ Shouto gasps out, tugging against manacles that won’t release. Blood slides down his cheek from the darkness of an empty socket, a horror at the center of a scar.
“There is no enough for you, is there.” Aizawa spits. He’s given up on hoping the villain will let his brother go— and he can’t do anything to help. Forced to watch a child get taken apart for the amusement of two of the most horrible people in existence.
“It’s only enough once he dies of it.” Dabi says, still looking at the eyeball. “What should we do with this, hmm?”
“Squish it?” Keroli asks. Dabi smirks, and grabs Shouto’s chin.
“I’ve got a better idea.” he laughs. “Open up.”
Aizawa realizes in an instant what’s going to happen, staring as Dabi fights to pry open Shouto’s jaw.
“They’re not going to…” Tsukauchi whispers; he’s as trapped to watch this as Aizawa is, but has been far less vocal throughout it all. Maybe he simply knows when to give up.
“Got it!” Dabi says, forcing the eyeball into Shouto’s mouth— Shouto twists around, whining, but Dabi holds his mouth and nose closed until he swallows.
“How’d that taste?” Dabi asks, stepping back. Shouto stares up at the ceiling, breathing heavily, and does not reply. [3]
He bursts into tears.
“Aw, don’t cry.” Dabi says, wiping away a tear from underneath Shouto’s remaining eye. His finger leaves a bloody smear. “You’re doing a wonderful job, Shouto. I’m proud of you.” There isn’t a single hint of mockery in his voice; he sounds horrifyingly genuine. “I almost feel bad!” [4]
“You are disgusting.” Aizawa hisses.
[3]: it tasted like marzipan and fondant. Shouto was fond of the former, but not the latter.
[4]: the only thing Touya should feel badly for, in Shouto’s opinion, was not thinking of a different option than the aforementioned fondant.
***
Shouto looks broken. There’s a blankness to his one remaining eye; he seems like he’s completely given up.
“That was… unnecessary.” Naomasa says, quietly. He feels sick to his stomach; yes, it’s obvious that Touya didn’t really force-feed Shouto his own eyeball, but still.
“Not at all! The goal is for the torture to be as dramatic as possible.” Touya says, no lie in his voice, and though Naomasa hates it, it makes sense— the more amused Keroli is, the likelier they all are to get out of here. Touya hadn’t been lying when he’d said he was proud of Shouto, either.
“That was beautiful!” Keroli says, eyes sparkling. “I haven’t seen something so incredible in a while. And look at his face…”
“I’m sorry.” Eraserhead says. He sounds defeated. “I’m so sorry.” God, he has no idea this isn’t real, Naomasa feels terrible. Eraserhead actually thinks that Shouto just got fed his own eyeball, never mind everything else being done to him.
“Don’t beat yourself up. You’re doing all you can. Which is nothing!” Touya says; he raises his hands in the air, and spins around, grinning. “And we’re not even finished!” he laughs, pulling two more things out of the bag he’d brought with him. “Unfortunately, the setup I’d need for waterboarding is a bit much to carry around, so we’re doing dryboarding instead. Not as classic, but still pretty fun. Don’t you agree, Shouto?” he asks. Shouto only answers with desperate choking, probably because Touya is stuffing a cloth down his throat.[5] This is followed up by duct tape over his nose and mouth. “Airways: sealed.” [LIE] Touya says, clapping his hands together as Shouto’s eye grows wide with terror, body writhing as he seems to slowly run out of air. Incoherent sounds of desperation reach Tsukauchi’s ears as Shouto’s neck arches in search of a breath that won’t come.
“Coming up next is something I probably should have started with, since it’s the easiest, but things are what they are, I suppose.” Touya says. He stands up and places a finger on the head of one of the many nails stabbed into Shouto’s chest. Finger glowing blue, Naomasa watches as the metal of the nail “impaling” Shouto shines gold with heat. Shouto, though, can regulate his temperature on a whim. He’ll be fine— despite all appearances to the contrary, and his wordless shrieks greatly increasing in pitch.
The next thing Touya does is take out a small weird-looking generator machine with many wires coming out of it; he attaches all the wires to the nail-heads, and then turns up the dial on the machine all the way. Naomasa hears the sound of crackling electricity, and the noises Shouto makes are muffled, but terrible all the same, his fingers twitching as he tries to scream without breath, eye wide with fear. He seems to be in excruciating pain, and Touya doesn’t let him rest for a single second— he packs away the electrocution once Keroli deems it boring, and pulls even more instruments of torture from the seemingly bottomless bag he’s brought with him.
“You have quite the variety of options, don’t you? I like creativity.” Keroli says, leaning closer as Touya presses a heated metal pole against Shouto’s collarbone.
“I told you,” Touya says, “this is personal. Of course I’ll be doing the most.” [LIE]
“Personal versus transactional… yes, there seems to be a difference. This is certainly one of the better tortures that I’ve seen.” Keroli says, adjusting her glasses. “There must be something about true hatred, when compared to the simple desire for violence.”
Smoke, and the smell of burnt flesh, is rising into the air; Shouto’s mostly stopped struggling at this point.
“You think?” Touya asks, jabbing the metal pole into Shouto’s ear to the sound of a keening wail.
“The viciousness of your fury. It’s so… tangible, up against the mediocrity of the usual pain-caused-for-money that I so often see.” Keroli says. Touya grins, and then slowly pulls the pole out of Shouto’s ear before using the serrated knife to slice his ear from his skull.
“It seems more real, is that it?” he asks.
“An excellent way to put it.” Keroli answers, and Touya nearly falls off his spinny chair with laughter. Naomasa recognizes a stifled grin in Shouto’s facial expression, as well.
“How can you do this to him?” Eraserhead asks, voice laced with an emotion Naomasa recognizes as grief.
“It’s funny.” Touya says, and he’s not even lying, because of course he thinks it’s funny. His hand closes around Shouto’s severed ear, incinerating it; Shouto himself is staring up at the ceiling, face twisted with tears. “It’s hilarious.” [LIE] Oh, so there was a difference?
When Touya takes the tape off Shouto’s mouth, he erupts into hacking coughs and gasps; Naomasa wants to gag, watching Touya pull the cloth from his brother’s mouth.[6]
“Don’t think you’re free.” Touya says, grabbing Shouto’s forearm while his hand ignites in blue fire. The screams that follow are more along the lines of pathetic, breathless whining than anything else. Once Touya lets go, a handprint is seared into Shouto’s arm, burnt black and bleeding.
“Put the cloth back in.” Keroli orders.
“I can do you one better.” Touya says, searching through his bag, and taking out a cloth made of metal wire. Keroli’s face practically splits with her smile, and when Touya heats the wire up, her vicious joy is indescribable. She acts like someone watching a football game when Touya shoves the wire cloth down Shouto’s throat. He doesn’t even scream this time, just cries in pain, tears falling down one side of his face and blood down the other.
The sounds he makes when Touya starts strangling him are the worst thing Naomasa has heard in a while.
It’s brutal; Touya’s eyes shine with madness as he laughs at Shouto’s terror and suffering. Naomasa knows it’s all fake, feels his quirk calling out Touya’s lies, but that doesn’t lessen the horror of the scene playing out before him.
His boys are ridiculous.
Touya reaches to drag the metal cloth from Shouto’s throat, but he’s stopped.
“Wait.” Keroli says. “Leave it in— I’ve got an idea.”
[5]: Touya was actually stuffing the cloth up his own sleeve, and therefore fulfilling his non-existent goal of being a backwards magician.
[6]: further sleight of hand. So too with the wire.
***
“You mentioned waterboarding earlier.” Keroli says, and Aizawa feels the chill of terror engulf him in its entirety.
“I couldn’t bring the set-up, it would be too unwieldy to carry around.” Dabi complains, letting go of Shouto’s head. Keroli grins, and the side door opens again, blue light dashing into the room followed by the rattling of a cart pushed by one of her henchmen.
“Luckily for you, I’ve got it all ready myself.” she says, and Dabi’s expression lights up.
Beside Aizawa, Tsukauchi suddenly looks panicked, more so than the inexplicably neutral sort of appalled he’s so far been.
“God, they aren’t—“ he says, and then cuts off, eyes following Dabi’s face. “Oh. They are.” He sounds more taken aback than anything else, and Aizawa can’t help but wonder what kind of man he’s next to, because Tsukauchi hasn’t reacted to very much of the torture at all.
“This is great, this is great!” Dabi says, running over to push the contraption towards Shouto himself. A water tank wobbles at the top of it. “I didn’t think that we’d— that I’d get to do this, hah, and Sh— I wanted to, so badly.”
Tsukauchi mutters something containing the word idiot under his breath.
“Shouto— my dearest little brother whom I love with all my heart— you’re in luck! One waterboarding, coming right up.” Dabi laughs, and Shouto answers with a wheezing, desperate cry.
“Don’t— don’t do this to him.” Aizawa pleads, though he knows his words are useless. Waterboarding was a horrific torture, and these people were going to inflict it on a boy who was already in more pain than Aizawa could imagine. He’s seen a lot of different types of evil in his years, but this is certainly the worst of it— the kind of demon that would smile with such genuine joy at this didn’t even deserve to be called human.
Dabi checks and re-angles the camera’s he’s got running, making sure it’s pointing directly towards Shouto.
“Hey, Shouto, what d’you think Fuyumi will say when she learns about this?” Dabi asks; Shouto’s response is more painful coughing that sounds like laughter in a terrible, terrible way.
“You’re doing wonderfully.” Dabi says. “Don’t mess things up now.” He presses a button on the torture table that tilts it backwards slightly, and then puts a cloth over the lower half of Shouto’s face, reaching up to move the water tank into position. “This is gonna be so fun.”
Shouto splutters uselessly against the torture, gasping and begging for freedom, but the water continues to drip without stopping, and every sound he makes is a strike to Aizawa’s soul. The dim light in the room glances off the tank of water, throwing Dabi’s face into sharp relief; his smile cuts the air like a knife.
“Touya…” Shouto cries, in a voice wracked with pain.
“You want this to be over?” Dabi asks, pushing his spinny chair until he’s sitting beside the other. Reaching up, he slides the water tank to the side, granting Shouto a moment of pause.
“Please.” Shouto says, breaking off into wailing, choking grief. Dabi leans forwards, and Aizawa realizes with shock that he’s wrapping his brother in a hug; Shouto pushes weakly against Dabi’s hold, but doesn’t have the strength to prevent the mocking embrace.
“You know I love you. I’d never want to hurt you, Shouto, not for anything.” Dabi says. Shouto just cries louder, his face covered in blood and tears.
“This is so messed up.” Tsukauchi suddenly says. Dabi giggles, pressing his face into Shouto’s shoulder.
“His pain is truly exquisite.” Keroli says.
“You’re depraved.” Aizawa says. Dabi moves the water tank back into position, and continues holding Shouto as he suffers under the weight of the water that’s seeping into his lungs. “I hope you die.”
Aizawa’s not the type to wish death on people, but these two villains really, really deserve it.
***
Once Keroli has had enough of the waterboarding, Touya secretly removes the breathing tubes/water protection device in Shouto’s mouth under the guise of ripping the wire cloth from his throat. Touya slides it out of his sleeve alongside another blood packet, and the cloth is practically dripping in the stuff, looking for all the world as though it’s shredded Shouto’s windpipe. Touya next unclips the manacles that are holding Shouto down; he lets himself fall from the table as he coughs up fake blood, spattering it everywhere. On his hands and knees, he curls up into a ball of misery, sobbing on the floor.
“You let him out?” Keroli asks.
“I don’t think he has much fight left in him.” Touya says. “Besides, there’s nowhere to run. Isn’t that right?” Touya crouches down to Shouto’s level, and pokes him in the forehead. Shouto flinches away from him. “How’re you doing, huh?”
Shouto doesn’t answer, since he’s trying to act as much of a ruined mess as possible.
“I thought you’d last longer before you broke.” Touya sneers. “I would have liked some more fighting on your part.”
“Told you.” Keroli says. “Children die too quickly. Or break down, as the case may be. They’re so easy to destroy, which is its own kind of fun, but it ends too soon, you know?”
“I’m not done with him yet.” Touya says. More rifling through the bag of equipment, and Shouto soon hears Touya smacking something into his palm. Shouto smiles, the upturn of his lips hidden by how he’s curled into himself. He knows what this is.
“No.” Tsukauchi says, from across the room; sounds like he’s recognized what’s coming, too.
“Yes!” Touya cheers.
“Anything to say, hero?” Keroli asks.
“Both of you are filth who will one day burn for what you’ve done.” Aizawa growls.
“Fair enough.” Keroli says. Touya just laughs, and then whacks Shouto with a length of “metal” tube.[7]
Shouto throws himself to the side, feeling the fake skin on his back rip into a bloody laceration. He yelps as Touya continues whacking him, beating him across the floor.
“This is basic.” Keroli sighs.
“It’s fun, though!” Touya says, hand in his pocket on the sound effects device— when the tube thwacks Shouto in the side, he makes sure to scream in accordance with the crack that follows. “Ooh, I think I broke a rib!” Touya’s foot presses lightly against Shouto’s back, and he follows the cue, acting as though he’s being pushed to the ground. He’s sure his back and arms are covered in bruising and bleeding slices from all of Touya’s bonking him around with the tube; they’d made sure the fake skin was extra delicate, so it could be injured easily. The tube thunks against the side of his head; again, and again, and again.
Shouto spits out a tooth, and he can feel Touya freeze at the same time he does.
“That wasn’t supposed to happen.” Touya blurts, like an idiot.
Touya had better not jeopardize this entire thing over a single tooth, Shouto thinks; it had been loose, and bound to come out soon anyway, so no real harm done. Another frozen second passes, and the tube smacks into Shouto’s shoulder this time, with another crack.
[7]: spray-painted and stiffened foam
***
Touya lifts Shouto up by his hair— well, by the fake hair attached to the mask over his head. Jeez, he hadn’t meant to knock out Shouto’s tooth— the tube he’d been slapping his brother with had the strength of a poodle noodle.
“I think I beat the brains out of him.” Touya says, as Shouto’s looking back at him with a slack face and a dulled eye.
“Let me see.” Keroli says, getting up from her chair avd walking over. Touya drops Shouto, and he falls onto his knees, staring straight ahead into nothing. “Oh, marvelous.” she sings. “You really broke him now! Look!” Keroli takes Shouto by the shoulders, and he doesn’t resist as she spins him around to face Eraserhead and Tsukauchi. “I love it when this happens, it’s always so wonderful. Every human has a point where they simply can’t take any more, and retreats into what is left of their broken mind. Even if I healed his body now, he’d still be shattered beyond repair.”
Touya grabs Shouto’s forehead, and tilts his face upwards. His brother looks like living death.
“What d’you wanna do now, Shouto?” Touya asks. Shouto doesn’t answer; the only sound in the room is the slow drip of fake blood. “Aw, really? You’re done for?”
Maybe Shouto’s tired. Heaven knows that Touya is himself.
“Don’t worry.” Keroli says. “This was great fun; you’ll be paid in full.” Oh, good, they’re finished! Touya points fingerguns at Eraserhead and Tsukauchi.
“You guys are mine, now. Oh! One more thing before I end this.” he says, skipping over to where the video camera is recording. He lets a huge smile cross his face— the device in the camera lets him know that Keroli’s computer has been successfully hacked into, and all information collected. Touya just has to get the info— and Shouto, and Tsukauchi, and Eraserhead, and himself— out of here, and then Keroli is going down.
Touya swings the bag of torture instruments around his shoulders, shoving the pipe inside it, and picking up the plastic knife, flipping it around between his fingers.
“Say goodbye, Shouto!” he laughs, sneakily putting a packet of fake blood in Shouto’s mouth while holding the knife to his neck. “Any last words?”
Shouto says something garbled and unintelligible, a tear falling down his face; Touya can only make out his final word. “…sorry.”
“Really? Sorry? That’s pathetic.” Touya jeers, and then he slits his brother’s throat. Blood sprays from the cut in the prosthetic skin, and spills from between Shouto’s lips; his hands come up to his neck as he chokes, shuddering until he falls silent and still, eyes closed.
“You can leave him here, my lackeys will clean the place up.” Keroli says, calling a few of said lackeys to bring Eraserhead and Tsukauchi to Touya’s car.
“Nah— I’ve got to drop his body on his sister’s doorstep.” Touya says, bending down to scoop Shouto into his arms. Keroli shrugs, and Touya stands his brother on his feet. Or, well, tries to, since Shouto is playing dead. His head falls forwards into Touya’s chest, arms dangling at his sides, and his feet slide against the floor; fake blood drips from his mouth and neck, getting all over Touya’s clothes. Ah, it’ll wash out.
While waiting for Keroli’s followers to get the others, Touya amuses himself by dancing with the “corpse.” It’s awfully macabre, and hilarious— Touya laughs the entire time, making sure to support Shouto properly as they spin around. Shouto does an excellent job at impersonating his own dead body, entirely limp in Touya’s hold, but he can’t stop himself from briefly smiling at the event. Touya panics slightly when he sees, but thankfully no one else notices.
“What— what are you doing?” Aizawa asks.
“I’m insane, don’t you know that already?” Touya asks, pausing in his dance. Tsukauchi makes a noise of fond exasperation before he can stop himself, so Touya lifts Shouto over his shoulder into a fireman's carry. No more ridiculousness, unfortunately, or someone’ll give the whole thing away.
The front passenger seat of the car has a plastic covering over it; Touya dumps Shouto into it unceremoniously, and holds the door open for a handcuffed Eraserhead and Tsukauchi. They’re almost out.
***
After Aizawa gets shoved into Dabi’s car, there is only quiet. Shouto’s body is lying still in the front seat, bloody and mutilated, and Aizawa has failed again. A child was viciously tortured and then killed in front of him, and despite how much he fought against his chains, he was useless the entire time.
“Why didn’t you do anything?” Aizawa spits to Tsukauchi, who just shakes his head as the car begins to pull away from Keroli’s hideout. Shouto’s dead face is peaceful, but Aizawa can’t find it in himself to be grateful for the mercy kill. Even with the look that was in his eyes, before Dabi had ended it all… Shouto had been put out of his misery, but he was too young to have his life so brutally cut short.
Dabi taps the car’s steering wheel in a way Aizawa might categorize as nervously, and as the car rounds the corner, Tsukauchi takes a deep breath.
“Both of you have paperwork duty for a month—”
Aizawa blinks, because what?
“—for subjecting Eraserhead to that. And me. I also didn’t want to see it.”
“It’s not our fault Keroli made you guys watch.” Shouto says, and Aizawa doubletakes so hard he slams his head into the car window.
“Nah, I think we deserve it. Sorry, Eraserhead.” Dabi says, and Aizawa’s still frozen in confused shock as Shouto leans over to open Tsukauchi’s handcuffs.
“You’re not dead.” he finally manages to say, barely noticing Tsukauchi releasing him in turn. Shouto peels off the wrecked skin on his arms, revealing hands free of any injury; and then he splits open his face, making it clear that he’d been wearing a mask. He runs his hand through his hair, blinking two unharmed eyes, and then pulls the skin of his torso over his shoulders as well.
“Feels so much better to have that stuff off.” he sighs.
“Get that off the dash, I don’t want to scrub fake blood off the wood!” Dabi says. Shouto rolls his eyes, and shoves the entire mess to the floor.
“It was all fake.” Aizawa says. He’s not sure if he feels like laughing or crying, and either way, the relief filling his system is incredible.
“You— you weren’t really torturing him!” How is he even supposed to respond to this kind of revelation?
“I’m, uh, actually an underground hero, like you.” Dabi says. “Not a villain.”
The relief at Shouto being alive finishes flowing through Aizawa’s mind, and then he actually thinks things over, remembering exactly how in pain Shouto had seemed. He can’t stop himself from shivering.
“You knew about this.” he says, turning to Tsukauchi.
“I did.” Tsukauchi says, in the voice of a man who is tired of existence.
“And you two—“ Aizawa says, looking from Shouto to Dabi, “—you acted out all of that. What in God’s name...”
“We’ve got the info needed to destroy Keroli’s organization, saved you two, and took the place of someone being tortured for real on her payroll. I think we did well.” Dabi says.
“It was a smart plan.” Tsukauchi says. “But it was horrifying— what you did with the eyeball—“
“That was revolting.” Aizawa says. He’d felt like he was going to throw up.
“It wasn’t, really. I like marzipan.” Shouto says, and the mundanity of this statement compared to the atrocity he’s talking about makes Aizawa laugh, despite himself. He shakes his head, overwhelmed by crushing relief and incredule.
“I didn’t hurt him at all.” Dabi says, something warm in his voice that’s at drastic odds with the cold cruelty from earlier. “He’s my brother.”
“You knocked my tooth out.” Shouto says.
“That was an accident!” Dabi says. “I’m sorry!”
“Wait, wait, what?” Tsukauchi asks.
“Yeah.” Shouto huffs.
“Again, though, Eraserhead. I apologize for—” Dabi waves his hand in the air. “—well, everything. Being a disgusting piece of monstrous filth, and whatever else you said.”
“Touya, that is the most backhanded apology—“ Shouto says, and Dabi groans. “Sorry about him. And... I’d like to apologize, as well.”
Aizawa has no idea what to say, because there’s no way he’ll be able to erase the events of the past hour from his mind. Objectively, he understands that it was an intelligent and well-executed plan, and that they saved his and Tsukauchi’s life with it— however, he would have appreciated knowledge of said plan. He glares at the brothers. “You waterboarded him.”
“Oh, yeah; we wanted to do that, but then I couldn’t figure out a way to bring the stuff needed with me. Still gave Shouto the protection device against it— and good thing too.” Dabi says.
“Fuyumi’s going to be so mad at us… at least Hatsume will be happy.” Shouto says. “Her inventions did an amazing job.”
***
“So that was… well, it happened.” Touya says.
“It certainly did.” Shouto says.
“I can’t believe you put in all that effort to save me.” Tsukauchi says. He’d handed the stolen information off to All Might, who would arrange a proper hero raid, and finally end Keroli’s menace.
“Course we did.” Touya says. “What kind of hero would I be if I let you get killed?”
“We didn’t want to lose you.” Shouto says.
“I wasn’t going to—“ Touya says, suddenly ducking his head, and Shouto can see the embarrassment on his face. “—to lose another father.”
“What?” Tsukauchi asks.
“Yeah.” Touya says.
“Me neither.” Shouto says. “I don’t know if I see you as a father figure, exactly— but you’re family. Without a doubt.”
Tsukauchi wraps his arms around both of them. “I’m honored that you see me like that. Not sure what to say, really.” he says. “I should hope I’m at least better at this father thing than your last one.”
“You think we’d ever do all that we did for you, for him?” Touya asks, shaking his head.
“No,” Tsukauchi says. “I suppose not.” He looks at both of them. “Should I be more concerned by the fact that you managed to successfully pretend to enjoy torturing your brother—“
“It was funny ‘cause it wasn’t real.” Touya says.
“—or that you, who has no prior experience with acting that I am aware of, managed to successfully pretend to be tortured.” Tsukauchi shudders. “I could have gone my whole life without seeing that.”
“The special effects did most of the work.” Shouto says. “Though I guess we didn’t need to make it as elaborate as we had.”
“You did not.” Tsukauchi says.
“It worked, though.” Shouto says.
“I guess I can’t argue with that.”
“Can we go get ice cream?” Shouto asks.
“What?” Touya asks, blindsided.
“I got tortured for an hour. I deserve ice cream.”
“He has a point.” Tsukauchi says. Touya sighs, leaning his head back.
“Fine, we’ll get ice cream. Come on, Tsukauchi, you too.” he says.
THE END