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….So far, they’ve been right. The future was everything they could have wished for and more.
Fuyumi looks away from her daughter and Rumi to turn to the young woman gaping at her.
‘ Go,’ she grins as she mouths it. She knows what she’s thinking—what she’s feeling.
And she knows that after everything, it will be worth it.
Fuyumi thinks back to that day. The day that changed her life for the better.
•••
Fuyumi is used to getting hit by quirks.
It happens sometimes—she’s a teacher, and when little kids are just beginning to develop their quirks and discover what makes them go off, sometimes things happen. It’s just something that comes with working with young kids. She’s been hit in the face with flowers stemming from an open palm, developed antlers for a couple of hours after a boy had a bit of a tantrum, and had her skin turn pink multiple times last year simply because a little girl found it funny.
She’s never been hit by a quirk in the grocery store before.
She knows it’s happened before the girl, who must be no older than seven, does. A shiver runs up her spine as she’s doused in a bout of frigid cold. Her teeth threaten to chatter as she jumps in surprise. The way it rushes through her… Fuyumi knows instantly that this isn’t like any other quirk she’s experienced before.
This one’s strong. Powerful. Even while underdeveloped and unpracticed.
She’s thankful that whatever it is, it didn’t kill her.
‘Oh no,’ Fuyumi thinks, just a little frantically. Today is not a good day for this. Rumi is waiting at home, and she had planned an entire date night out for tonight. They were supposed to cook dinner together and then watch a movie—
Fuyumi looks down at the kid with wide eyes for a moment.
She bursts into tears.
Fuyumi decides that her date night with Rumi can wait.
“I’m sorry,” the little girl cries as she bends down. “It was an accident, I—“
“Hey,” Fuyumi cuts her off softly, smiling warmly. “It’s okay, I’m not mad. You didn’t hurt me.”
She shook her head. “I h-have to tell you about what happens next. My mom and dad told me what to do if this happens.”
Fuyumi felt her heart drop again. Still, she kept the smile plastered on her face. “Okay, sweetheart. You can tell me.”
“It’s not dangerous, I don’t know why I’m so upset. My quirk is time travel—“
“A time travel quirk?” Fuyumi swallows. “I’m still not mad… but that sounds a little dangerous, are you sure—“
“It’s not,” the little girl says quietly as she wipes a stray tear from her face. “I can’t control when it goes off, Miss, but you can control what you do with it. Where you go. Or where you don’t. It’s up to you.”
Fuyumi feels herself freeze where she’s crouched. That’s… a huge decision for someone to make in however long the span of time her quirk stays activated is. “I…okay. Wherever? Whenever?”
“Yeah, for twenty-four hours,” she sniffles. “But don’t… don’t try to change the future too much. Don’t make big changes. That’s when my quirk becomes dangerous. You can talk and do other things—mom once went back in time to talk to dad, but…”
She looks up at her. “Mom says lots of people would want to use my quirk to save people. You can’t do that. Don’t even try. My dad tried. It didn’t work out for him…”
She falls silent, trailing off ominously.
Fuyumi gapes at her for a moment, unsure what to say. Eventually, she just thanks her and helps her find her mom again, collecting her groceries and heading out when she’s done grabbing everything she needs in the store. Her body still tingles with foreign energy. It’s a strange feeling, one she neither likes or dislikes. It’s just a constant awareness that she can go wherever she wants. Freedom.
Fuyumi hasn’t ever had the freedom of choice before. When she was a child, it was because she was trapped—surrounded by four walls that held ghosts of inexplicable trauma within them. As an adult, it’s simply because she doesn’t allow herself to chase after it more than she has. Why would she? There are still things that she feels obligated to hold onto.
She decides to try the quirk out, picturing the future in her mind where she’s just walked through the door of her and Rumi’s apartment and walked into the kitchen—
“What the fuck!” Rumi yelps, glass cup shattering on the floor as she knocks it over. Her eyes narrow. “How—who the fuck are you?”
Fuyumi looks at herself in a panic. Did the little girl forget to explain something about her quirk? But she looks the same, what on earth—
Oh. Rumi thinks she might be an imposter.
“I was hit by a quirk,” she hurries to explain. “A time travel one. I kind of used it to skip the walk home because well… you’ve been waiting for a long time already and I don’t really know what to do with the power I have for the next twenty-four hours—”
“You’re rambling. That’s definitely you.”
Rumi grins shakily as she moves her wheelchair over. Fuyumi finds that a smile is tugging at her lips. It’s taken a long time for her girlfriend to get used to living with none of her limbs, and she is so unbelievably proud of her for persevering through all the hurt she’s been through, learning how to use her prosthetics and remaining just as stubborn as she’s always been. Life is mostly good now, after everything they’ve been through. Fuyumi is grateful for everything she has. Only now with the quirk she’s been hit with… well. If she were to use it… “Get down here, you fucking giant,” Rumi demands, and Fuyumi laughs. “I want a kiss.”
Fuyumi does as she’s told, gently moving a strand of silver hair out of her face as Rumi cups her own and kisses her so softly, warmth spreads throughout her entire body.
“You’re gonna hate me for this,” her breath fans across Fuyumi’s face as she presses their foreheads together. “But I know you want to test that quirk out, and I’m sure as hell not gonna stop you.”
“ What,” Fuyumi breathes. “But I took the day off so that we could spend it together. You were looking forward to this—“
“Darling,” Rumi cuts her off quietly. “This is a chance to get the closure you’ve always dreamed of. You know what I’m talking about. I hate it when you wake up screaming, you know? I wish you weren’t so haunted by something that wasn’t your fault. But that’s just who you are. You take the pain of holding up the sky so that others won’t.”
Touya. She’s talking about Touya.
Fuyumi squeezes her eyes shut. Her throat grows tight as she repeats ‘ don’t cry’ in her head over and over again. “We abandoned him.”
She has nightmares of it, where he’s crying and begging her to stay with him as his skin burns off of his body and all she does is shut the door on him, lock it, and throw away the key as the roar of his flames deafen her ears. Those ones are the worst, she thinks. According to Rumi, she always wakes up screaming afterward.
Rumi rests her prosthetic hands on her shoulders. “You didn’t abandon him,” she whispers soothingly. “That was out of your control.”
“I still should’ve done more,” and oh, her voice is trembling and growing more high pitched as she continues speaking. “He was my brother.”
Rumi shakes her head, “There was nothing more for you to do back then than what you did. Nothing. You did all that you could.”
Ever so gently, Rumi wipes the stray tear falling down her cheek away, and Fuyumi feels her eyes flutter closed again. She loves her life with her girlfriend—she really does, but sometimes she feels as though she doesn’t deserve to. It’s in moments like these where she thinks of her brothers more often than not. She thinks of Natsuo, who once confessed to her that he looks in the mirror and hates that he sees their father staring back in his reflection. She thinks of Shouto, who makes comments about how abnormal he is compared to his peers, and how scared he was when Dabi’s hair turned that striking colour of white because he wholeheartedly believes that it could’ve been him up there instead of Touya, desperate and manic for vengeance and revenge. Retribution.
‘I saw myself in his eyes, Fuyumi,’ he had whispered to her the day they visited their father in the hospital, when the wound of Dabi revealing himself as their older brother was fresh and not yet scarred. ‘When he was fighting me. I had that same look, once. That could’ve been me up there.’
‘You’re too kind to be a villain, Shouto,’ she had responded gently. She remembers the look he had given her so very clearly—a look of exhaustion and resignation. A look that was meant to look foreign on a sixteen year old boy’s face, but one she had seen too many times to count.
‘…I’m not,’ was all he had said in response, so sure of himself in the moment that it still sends a chill up Fuyumi’s spine when she recalls his tone of voice and the way he had held himself in front of her as the admittance left his lips.
Touya had been too kind to be a villain once.
She thinks of Touya, cold and dead and abandoned because it hurts too much to visit where he rests most days, nothing more than an urn in his old childhood bedroom. Past memories of children tackling each other and laughing together echo in those walls, the ghosts of their childhood innocence long dead to the world.
And what about her? Fuyumi doesn’t look in the mirror and see their father behind her blue eyes. They’re not as bright as his, nor were they ever as sinister. Not that her father’s eyes are even sinister anymore, just dull. The guilt of his past actions eats him alive. She never once looked at Touya and thought that she could see herself committing the crimes that he did, finding comfort in the world’s portrayal of her as a monster. She thinks, compared to her siblings, she got off easy. She’s just a teacher who comes from a broken family, once simply frayed at the seams but now incapable of ever being fixed. But she’s somewhat away from it all now, and it doesn’t haunt her like it haunts them.
The memories linger for her, but the guilt is what haunts her.
“I know you don’t believe me. I know nothing I say will get you to believe me, but I’m just saying… using this quirk might be good for you, you know? But it’s up to you, baby. Whatever you decide is okay with me. Do what you want.”
Fuyumi exhales shakily. “I want to, I just don’t know if I can go there exactly. It’s too much. I think maybe if I… I don’t know, build up to going to that moment maybe I’ll be okay with it? I just want to help , Rumi. I want to be useful.”
“Fuck. You are,” she replies so softly it nearly brings her back to tears. “But your worth isn’t measured by how useful you are. It took me forever to learn that, but it’s true. You matter because you’re you. But… If you want to use the quirk, Fuyumi, then use it how you’d like to .”
“Okay,” Fuyumi whispers. “Okay, I’m gonna use it.”
•••
The quirk works fast. Faster than she can comprehend.
She closes her eyes and pictures her family’s home—not how it currently is but how it was just slightly after she was born, when it was just her mother, father, and two children not even born a year apart from one another and briefly thinks that she wants to go there when, sure enough, she’s doused in that same icy feeling and—
Fuyumi looks down at herself and almost expects to have just transported her adult consciousness to her child body. But she’s an adult standing in her old room—one that very obviously belongs to a much younger version of her.
Maybe she only fuses with her past or future body when the amount of time she’s travelled through is minimal?
Either way, it feels like she’s just entered a dream.
The nostalgia hits her like a freight train.
There’s a rabbit plushie in the crib that catches her eye instantly. Fuyumi remembers being so attached to it, taking it with her everywhere only to one day lose it and never see it again. She didn't know she had that thing as a baby, though. She feels her lips quirk upward.
If Rumi knew about her little rabbit plushie that she absolutely adored , she would never hear the end of it.
She freezes when she hears a little coo. Her eyes dart downward and widen as she stares at… herself. She can’t be any older than a few months, tiny legs wiggling around as she awakens, big blue eyes filling with tears and—
She winces as baby Fuyumi starts to wail, voice loud and just as annoying as dragging nails down a chalkboard. She remembers one time where her mother off-handedly joked that for growing up to be the most soft-spoken and calm of her siblings, she sure was the worst as a baby. Admittedly, she hadn’t believed it was this bad. She can’t ruminate on that thought much longer though, because sure enough, she hears footsteps growing closer to her and baby Fuyumi.
“Oh no,” Fuyumi whispers, frantically looking around for somewhere to hide. She throws herself into the closet, leaving it open only a little—barely enough for her to see through. She holds her breath as she waits for her mother to walk in, so much younger and happier—
“There’s our little ‘Yumi.”
She has to choke back a surprised gasp.
It’s not just her mother in the room. Her father is there too, equally as young as his wife and not yet the terrifying man Fuyumi remembers from most parts of her childhood. There’s still a little bit of baby fat clinging to her parents’ cheeks, a youthful shine in their eyes she can’t ever recall seeing before now.
It hits her then that they’re around the same age as she currently is, maybe even a bit younger.
“Enji,” her mother’s voice is so soft , but not yet timid when she utters her father’s name. Wordlessly, she outstretches her arms with baby Fuyumi in them, and he takes her without a single complaint. Her mother moves gracefully, elegantly and poised. Her features remain mostly blank in what would look like a frigid expression to those who don’t know her, but Fuyumi sees the warmth in her gaze. “She’s freezing herself again. I’m worried she’ll give herself frostbite one of these days.”
Her father brings her up to his chest, cradling her so gently that Fuyumi thinks that even if she had to, she wouldn’t be able to look away. She’s transfixed. If she tries to remember hard enough, she thinks that he might’ve still been like this with her when she was a toddler, but not for very long. The obsession of beating All Might had poisoned his heart for the longest time.
Fuyumi nearly jumps out of her skin when her father lights his hands, currently holding onto her, on fire. She knows she’s always been resistant to heat—even more so than her father—but to use his flames like that?
But baby Fuyumi just clings onto him tighter, eyes drooping as she begins to fall asleep in her father’s arms. Without any anger in his voice, he grumbles out: “you just had to go and inherit my constitution and your mother’s ice quirk, didn’t you?”
Baby Fuyumi coos ever so quietly in response, a stark contrast to the yelling she was doing just moments before.
“She’s a troublemaker,” her mother sighs fondly. Her father’s lips twitch.
“She’s going to make me go fully grey before I turn twenty-five.”
Her mother genuinely laughs at him, head thrown back as her hands grasp the bassinet behind her to steady herself. It’s the most blatant display of contentment she’s ever seen on her face. “That’s if Touya doesn’t make it go grey first.”
Her father shakes his head. “I think he’s more likely to burn it all off instead. Did you see what he tried to do at the dinner table, Rei? He lit his hand on fire, grabbed me by my hair with that very same hand while I had him in my lap, laughed, and said ‘ dada red.’”
Her mother looks endlessly amused. “Oh, bless him, he’s learning his colours.”
They’re so young. All of them are. And completely unaware of the future ahead of them. Fuyumi starts to feel a little sick, and is glad when her father puts baby Fuyumi down in her crib, both of them walking out together after bidding her a quiet ‘goodnight.’
“Our darling Fuyumi, our pride and joy,” her mother had called her.
Our. Not just hers. Both of her parents’.
She leans against the closet door and begins to weep silently the moment she knows she’s alone, grieving, stomach twisting as she listens to the baby version of herself snoring. And Touya, just around two years old, is probably sleeping soundly in the room next to hers, both of their fates already set in stone. In around twelve years from now, Fuyumi will lose her big brother, her rock, for the first time. In twenty-three years, it will happen again, but by then, the world will see it as the death of a monster instead of the death of a boy in pain.
They’ll say what Natsuo says himself out of rage and grief—that Touya still died at thirteen, and that it was only Dabi who died at twenty-four because their brother never had the chance to live long enough to get to that age.
‘ Dabi was Touya!’ She had screamed one time, inciting quite possibly the biggest argument she’s ever had with Natsuo. ‘ He was our brother, don’t- don’t—‘
‘Don’t tell me who he was, ‘Yumi!’ Natsuo had spat back. ‘ I knew Touya best, and he would have never even thought of trying to hurt me or becoming Dabi—‘
‘Well he did, Natsuo! He thought of it and he did it, but he was still our brother!’
‘Touya was my brother!’ He had snapped. ‘Dabi was no brother of mine! He was just a monster wearing Touya’s body as a disguise and fucking it up further so that he could hurt our family by poisoning our memories of him!’
‘He was hurt and afraid just like the rest of us! He just dealt with it in a way he shouldn’t have!’
They didn’t speak to each other for months after that fight.
Fuyumi doesn’t know if Natsuo remembers Touya childishly asking him if he wanted to play while he attempted to turn the entire family to ash. She thinks he might’ve hidden it deep in his mind to protect himself from shattering, and she leaves it there because she’s not willing to lose another one of her brothers, mentally or physically.
“Oh my god,” Fuyumi whispers to herself as she shuts her eyes. Touya is barely two years old right now, and here she is in a closet with the knowledge that he will die young and in unimaginable pain, and the farthest thing from the hero that he wants to be.
She can’t change that. But maybe she can make the grief she’s sure to feel after using the time travelling quirk she was hit with a little… easier on them all. Maybe—maybe she can even find closure in travelling through time, somehow. Rumi thought so, at least. She might as well give it a try. Through trial and error, perhaps she will find an answer eventually.
After all, Fuyumi is most happy when she’s helping others. Comfort feels best when she gives it, in her opinion. It’s something she’s been trying to do all of her life. Giving. Not something that’s typically been done to her.
•••
She reappears in the same house in front of her mother years later, not planning on being seen and yet—
Her mother, frail and so different from the lively woman she had seen before, stares at her with wide, sunken-in eyes as she cradles the newborn baby in her arms feverishly.
Shouto stares at her too, just as blankly as ever. He’s such a quiet baby, it’s almost scary.
“I’m hallucinating again,” her mother whispers to herself. “Oh, no, go away. You’re not my daughter. Don’t hurt me with Shouto in my arms, Fuyumi. Please don’t turn into your father—“
Fuyumi feels so small where she stands, very much like the child version of herself who she distantly hears annoying Touya in his room, messing up his toys and bouncing up and down on his bed. Her eyes flicker over to the clock on the wall. 3:10 PM. Natsuo must be at his soccer game—she remembers him starting sports really young. Their father is most likely away at work.
And yet her mother looks into her eyes and sees him standing there instead of her. Fuyumi knew that she used to suffer from hallucinations, only… well, she hadn’t known it started so early.
And then she realises that it’s just the two of them and a baby too little to understand much of anything in the kitchen of their house, and that her mother must’ve carried the burden of her declining mental health on her own until she broke under the pressure and hurt Shouto in the process.
“Mom,” Fuyumi says softly. “It’s okay, I’m not gonna hurt you.”
Her mother flinches as if she had just been hit by her, but then relaxes and… starts to cry, gasping out great, heaving sobs as her knees wobble and weaken. Fuyumi hates seeing her like this.
“I can take Shouto if you’d like,” she offers, carefully making her way over to where her mother has fallen to the ground. “Just for a bit while you calm down?”
She pales, eyes staring off at nothing as she tenses again. “A-already? But he’s a baby! He’s not ready for training, I’m begging you, please don’t—“
Fuyumi has never once looked at her own face and seen her father and his blazing fury behind her eyes.
But her mother has.
“Mom,” Fuyumi’s voice shakes. “Mom, I’m not gonna train him or hurt him. I’ll only hold him. I promise. I’ll stay right beside you.”
Hesitantly, she hands Shouto over. Fuyumi holds him in her arms, looking down at him and gently tracing her fingers around his left eye, completely unscarred for the time being.
Another example of innocence that should’ve been protected but wasn’t.
“I’m sorry,” her mother rasps. “I- I don’t know how much longer I can do this and stay sane, what with Touya growing more obsessed with proving himself and becoming a hero as the days go on a-and your father doesn’t seem to understand that I need help. I can’t raise you all on my own.”
She buries her face in her hands as she croaks: “I know the real you is with Touya, but I’m so sorry that I’ve burdened you with taking care of your younger siblings, Fuyumi. You shouldn’t have to sacrifice yourself for them but y-you just keep on doing exactly that to help me and I swear , sometimes you’re just like Touya, so adamant on what you want to do and so stubborn when someone tries to stop you. Except instead of heroics, it’s helping out around here—“
Another sob escapes her lips. “—You shouldn’t. You’re too kind, Fuyumi. You should be enjoying your childhood, but I’m condemning you to the same fate I’m suffering now. I’m so sorry—“
Fuyumi wants to hold her, comfort her even more. Tell her that it’s okay as she hugs her, but her mother believes her to be a hallucination. Allowing her to physically hold Shouto is one thing. Her personally feeling that Fuyumi does indeed exist might push her over the edge years too early.
“—I’m so selfish,” her mother eventually decides to say. “Because I’m just glad you’re not one of the ones that yell at me and… and…” she trails off, wiping at her tears furiously.
“You look like you’ve grown up to be a good woman, despite having to deal with our family. I hope what my mind sees in front of me right now… I hope it’s true, and this is what you’ll be like in the future. I hope your brothers follow you down that same path.”
Fuyumi can’t change the future.
But right now, she can be of some comfort to her mother. And that’s what matters.
Fuyumi brushes a strand of white hair on Shouto’s face away. He makes a little sound—the first one she’s heard from him this entire time. “Why don’t you go take care of yourself while I watch Shouto and the other kids?”
She sees the stains on her dress and her matted hair. She looks like she hasn’t been able to do anything for herself at all since Shouto’s birth.
She’s still so young—so scared and confused and tired.
Her mother’s face twists in confusion. “But you’re not really here, how can I just leave him—“
“You’re right,” Fuyumi says. “Why don’t I help you put Shouto down for a nap? Then you can go rest!”
After about a minute, her mother nods slowly. It doesn’t take very long at all to get Shouto to fall asleep—just a few gentle words is all it takes for him to start dozing off in his bassinet.
“He’s such a heavy sleeper,” her mother shakes her head fondly, seeming ever so slightly more like the woman she had been when her and Touya were babies. It wouldn’t last, and that knowledge stung . “Nothing in the world can wake him when he’s like this.”
“Ah,” is all Fuyumi can come up with in response, because she knows that Shouto will grow up to be a very light sleeper—trained to wake up at even the slightest sound, only made worse by the war.
Eventually, her mother grows comfortable enough to finally take care of herself, muttering that she’s headed off to take a bath and brush her hair, and Fuyumi is left alone to wander. She drifts in the hallway for a bit before she finds herself making short, confident steps towards his room with the door left ajar.
She peaks in from around the corner, and—
Oh, he’s tiny. And so is she.
They’re around the age of her students—Fuyumi doesn’t think she’ll ever get over how weird it is to see herself at that age.
…And how heartbreaking it is to actually see Touya like this, still youthful. Alive.
This is the first time she’s seen him since the day he nearly exploded his body, face burning off, fire licking at his skin as he screamed their names with vitriol.
“Get out, ’Yumi,” Touya hisses. “You’ve been in here for like… I dunno, an hour.”
“But Touya ,” little Fuyumi pouts, legs crossed where she’s plopped herself down on his bed. No matter how hard her older brother tries to get her off of it, she doesn’t move an inch. “I’ve only been here for half an hour. Look at the clock on your wall. Don’t you know how to tell time? Because I do.”
Little Fuyumi is a bit of a smartass, apparently.
“Of course I know how,” Touya crosses his arms defensively. “If you know how to then so do I, because I’m the oldest.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” she says slowly. “But okay. Can we play story now?”
Fuyumi has to stifle a wheeze. She feels like she’s been punched— story, the game her and Touya came up with when she was three and he was four during a particularly rough storm where neither one of them wanted to admit that they were terrified out of their minds. The game they used to play together back when Natsuo was too young to join in on most of their games, back when she was Touya’s rock just as much as he was hers.
Eventually, ‘ story’ grew to be a game all three of them played together, where they would sit in each other’s rooms and come up with dramatic storylines for their hero personas. Touya named himself Pyre, and naturally, he was the number one hero. Fuyumi was Snowfire, and Natsuo was Frostbite. The number two and three heroes respectively.
And they were heroes together . At least in their imaginations.
“Fine,” Touya groans as if he isn’t vibrating with pure unbridled excitement when he sits next to little Fuyumi. “But I start the story. So there’s this guy called All Smite—“
Little Fuyumi giggles. “Touya, are you turning All Might into a villain again?”
“ No,” he says petulantly, even though he most definitely is . “Let me finish. Anyways, he’s really strong and dangerous, and his main target is Endeavor—“
“—This is just a villainous All Might.”
“Be quiet, ‘Yumi, you have to trust me. The story is about to get really good. So then because he’s targeting our father, me and you uh…”
Little Fuyumi tilts her head. “Decide to take him down together?”
“Yeah,” Touya nods his head. “Because you can handle fire better than I can, but I handle ice better than you can. We’re the best hero duo ever, and so we make our way over to All Smite and beat his ass—“
“Mom said naughty words like that are bad—“
“— We beat his butt,” Touya emphasises. “And our father is so impressed that we get an offer to work in his agency, and then I become the number one hero the next day. And dad decides to kick Shouto out, and we never have to see him again.”
“He’s a baby!”
Touya frowns. “He looks funny. I don’t trust him.”
“He can’t even hold his head up on his own!”
“He’s stupid then.”
Sensing that she’s not going to be able to change his mind, little Fuyumi’s eyes go wide. “Wait. Do you think it’s possible to become number one that fast?”
“Yeah,” Touya scoffs. “It’ll be easy for me, just you wait and see.”
“…Okay,” she eventually says. “What about me? What happens to me?”
“You become my sidekick.”
Fuyumi glares at him. “ Touya! That’s not fair! You’re the number one hero! I don’t wanna be your sidekick!”
“I was joking, ‘Yumi,” Touya rolls his eyes. “I said we’re the best hero duo, right? So yeah. That’s what we are. Now we just have to do it in real life.”
She blinks. “Oh. But Touya…”
“Don’t,” he cuts her off, voice so flat it sounds unnatural coming from a child. “D-don’t repeat what mom and dad tell me. I can. I know I can. I can be a hero, right? I can grow up to be Pyre. You believe in me right, ‘Yumi?”
Oh god.
No—
No no no—
Fuyumi shuts her eyes with the single goal of getting away from the past and into the future. Seeing Touya so young is just so—
He can’t grow up to be Pro Hero Pyre.
Because he grows up to be the Villain Dabi instead, and he dies alone in a villain hospital with no one there to wipe his tears away or hold his hand as he passes. The staff there don’t give him any dignity—they simply transport his body to the morgue and leave it at that because he was written off as bad and wrong the moment Sekoto Peak happened all those years ago, or in the case of the Touya who sits with a younger version of herself, what will happen in the future. And in the future, Fuyumi just allows it to happen—she doesn’t even question what exactly is happening with Touya until the news reaches her that he’s gone. Well and truly gone this time.
And in that future she screams. She cries. She throws things and bloodies her knuckles as she punches a hole in the wall with strength she wasn’t aware she possessed. She experiences the type of rage that she has never felt before until there’s nothing left for her to feel except for the debilitating guilt that’s continued to weigh her down ever since that day.
She’s been through therapy. She’s been told it’s not her fault, but it’s not enough. It never will be.
In a way, she understands Touya more than most people would guess. They both inherited their father’s stubbornness, after all. But where Touya sought for retribution, she sought for her family to begin finding the path toward healing.
It all comes back to that guilt surrounding his death, because Fuyumi was there for many parts of Touya’s life. She had been there for his first training session, first day of school, and first loose tooth. She was there when he began to descend into that obsession with proving that he could be a hero even as his skin sizzled and burned and he hurt himself and tried to hurt Shouto. She was there to live through his first death, and his funeral, and she was there to celebrate all the milestones she’d thought he had missed, sitting with Natsuo by his altar as they chatted and pretended they would eventually receive a response.
And then Touya returned. And for arguably one of the most important points in his life where Fuyumi should have shown up—should have been there for him… she hadn’t been. She had been too afraid to see everything go wrong again.
She opens her eyes and finds herself staring at a family of three at the park in confusion. A little girl with dark skin and white hair sprinting across the playground as two women holding hands watch over her fondly.
It takes a moment for the recognition to seep in.
She wanted to go to the future, and so here she is.
The Fuyumi who sits up ahead on a bench isn’t a younger version of herself, but rather quite the opposite. She has prominent laugh lines on her face and wrinkles around her eyes from the way they crinkle when she smiles.
Oh.
Oh.
She’s in the future— and she’s alright. Both her and Rumi look like happy middle aged women with wedding rings on their fingers and a little girl who they so obviously adore with their entire being .
Fuyumi stares hungrily at it all—at the happy family that she’ll create with her girlfriend when, all of a sudden, the older Fuyumi turns and—
Their eyes meet.
Fuyumi has never seen her father behind her eyes, but sometimes she’s seen her mother—the same fear, worry, and guilt reflected within herself, symbolic of the burdens that they’ve carried over the years.
Fuyumi doesn’t see any of that now. She sees nothing but warmth and contentment in her gaze, and as her lips twist into a bright grin—
‘ Go,’ the older Fuyumi mouths, and she continues to smile so brightly, so confidently that she almost wants to wonder if that’s really her.
Originally, Fuyumi hadn’t been there for Touya’s final moments. And it destroyed her.
But she can be there for him now. She can fix it—that was her goal for using the quirk in the first place, she just hadn’t been sure of how she was going to go about it. She has a much better idea now, and her chest feels so much lighter when she realises that she isn’t abandoning him anymore.
When she goes back to that day, she won’t ever have abandoned him. Only she will be able to recall a time where she shut that door and locked him out—but it won’t be real to anyone else but her anymore. It’ll be like a bad nightmare, not a lived reality.
Sometimes, things go wrong. Sometimes, things hurt. But now she’s seen it with her own eyes—there is hope, after everything she and her family have been through. There is a light at the end of the tunnel.
With tears welling in her eyes, Fuyumi smiles back.
She’s not afraid anymore, even as the playground fades away and she reappears somewhere much, much darker. A time right before her biggest regret.
•••
Natsuo opens the door to his dorm room and just stares at her for a beat, blinking slowly. He looks exhausted. “… Fuyumi?”
“ Hey,” she looks at the bags underneath his eyes and his stained white shirt. “Sorry for the short notice, Natsuo, but we need to go see Touya. Right now.”
Natsuo’s eyes darken. “You mean Dabi? He’s in the hospital. Why would I—“
“You know why,” Fuyumi cuts him off gently. Natsuo’s glare flickers away, and she sees the sadness he hid behind it.
“He’s lived through an injury like this before, it’s not his time yet—“
“ Natsu,” she whispers, and he flinches at the childhood nickname. “…It’s time.”
“ No,” Natsuo inhales sharply, and then all hell breaks loose as he collapses against Fuyumi. She grunts as she holds him in her arms, his fists clenching onto her blouse not unlike how they used to when they were little and trying to tune out the sound of yelling, of fighting. “ No, no no no—“
“I’ve got you,” she says gently. Natsuo makes an anguished noise that has her heart twisting in her chest. “Oh, Natsu—“
“—I don’t know how to hate him and love him at the same time yet,” he sobs. “He can’t die yet, ‘Yumi. I don’t want to say goodbye to Dabi, I want to say goodbye to Touya. I want to talk to him one last time, that’s it . I—I just want my big brother—“
He clings onto Fuyumi like he’ll die if he doesn’t. “He’s still in there,” she tells him. “Maybe deep down, but he still recognised us out there as he was burning up. He’s still our big brother, Natsu.”
Natsuo’s legs shake as they threaten to give out on him.
Fuyumi holds onto him and doesn’t let go until he’s ready for her to—until he looks at her and nods once, and they walk to her car side by side in silence.
The idea of going to say goodbye for the last time is difficult to cope with.
Fuyumi knows that never getting to say goodbye at all is even harder.
•••
Unbeknownst to her, as her and Natsuo’s cries merge into one, three people walk away from where Touya lies resting. And they join in, sobs escaping their mouths as their eyes begin to water.
As frayed at the seams as they may now be, they cry together as one.
As a family.
•••
The doctors and nurses at the hospital let them in without much of a fuss, their faces sombre as they mutter their apologies before showing them to their brother’s room.
Fuyumi takes a deep breath, steeling herself, before she walks in alongside Natsuo.
The smell of antiseptic hits her first. She notices the tubes and the monitors shortly after. Touya lies in the middle of it all, badly burnt and breathing laboriously as his eyes turn to them. She feels Natsuo stiffen beside her.
The doctors had warned them that it was highly unlikely he would be conscious. And yet here he is, awake and alert.
Touya makes a sound past the breathing tube in his mouth, blood pouring down his cheeks as his mouth twists. When he makes that same noise again, Fuyumi steps forward and plants herself down in the chair right next to his bed.
Natsuo joins her in the chair right next to hers shortly after.
“…Hey, Touya,” Fuyumi smiles sadly.
“You’re a fucking idiot by the way,” Natsuo says thickly, wiping at his eyes.
Fuyumi’s eyes go wide. “ Natsuo!”
Touya makes a strange gurgling sound, and Fuyumi whips her head back around to face him only to realise… “Oh my god. You’re both so stupid. Of course you two are—I have no words. ”
They’re laughing, both of them.
It’s short lived.
It’s Natsuo who sobers up first. “I don’t know what happened to you for you to ever want to end up like this. What made you want to hurt me… I loved you. I still might. I don’t know. Just… why did it have to be like this?”
The way Touya reacts next leaves Natsuo speechless. His hand jerks off the bed, trembling as he reaches towards him. He grows visibly frustrated when he can’t actually speak to them, and then distressed when Natsuo won’t move closer.
Fuyumi shuts her eyes as a fresh wave of grief rushes over her. Touya always did have so much to say, and now even that’s been taken away from him.
Natsuo hesitantly takes his hand, and Fuyumi watches as Touya squeezes it as hard as he possibly can. His eyes go wide. “…Are you apologising?”
Another gurgle, a slight shake of the head. A nod. Then a twisted expression. Touya doesn’t know. Or maybe he does. Maybe he doesn’t regret becoming Dabi, but the prospect of death isn’t an easy thing to deal with for anyone. And he must know he’ll be dead soon.
And yet Fuyumi can’t help it, with the three of them together like this… she thinks back to the days when they were young, sitting across from Touya as he told stories that had them gasping and chiming in excitedly. So she laughs, and then slaps a hand over her mouth.
They look at her, bewildered.
“I’m sorry, I was just… Do you remember that game we used to play? Whenever we wanted an escape away from all of the fighting and yelling. We used to sit just like this, and Touya… you never let us start the story. You always had to be first for everything—”
“—Because he was the oldest,” Natsuo snorts. “And therefore smarter and better than us both, even though he was a little bit of a dumbass compared to you. I remember that.”
Touya makes an indignant noise.
“I didn’t say you were a dumbass,” Natsuo rolls his eyes. “I said you were a dumbass compared to her. Literally everyone was until she hit high school and nearly failed physics. Then she became a dumbass like the rest of us.”
Fuyumi gasps. “ Hey!”
“It’s true—“
“ No, I was smart in other subjects, idiot—“
“My my, calling a medical student an idiot? Oh, how the mighty have fallen—“
Slowly but surely, the walls of the hospital fade away from view for both her and her brothers. They play story one final time—but instead of pretending to be heroes, they pretend that they’re not stuck in a hospital room as Touya grows more tired as the minutes go on, as his heart begins to slow and his eyes flutter shut and reopen painstakingly slowly. As they talk and laugh together, they pretend that they’re children, and the ghosts of their innocence revive for one final dance with each other in harmony.
When he falls asleep, Fuyumi lets her tears fall once more.
“Goodnight, Touya. We’ll miss you.”
His eyes never open again, but he dies with some semblance of a smile on his face, with the knowledge that he was not abandoned or alone. They had seen him.
The sun begins to set.
And just like that, Fuyumi and her siblings are free.
•••
When the quirk wears off, Fuyumi blinks. Rumi stares.
“…Did you do it?”
“I did it,” Fuyumi says. “I saw my mom. I said goodbye to Touya and—“
Fuyumi bursts into tears. Rumi swears colourfully in alarm. “Are you okay?”
“I-I’m fine,” Fuyumi stutters through her tears. “More than fine, actually.”
For the first time in her life, she means it. She feels so unbelievably light , and as she looks at her girlfriend—at the woman she loves…
“I’m excited for the future ahead of us.”
A future where she’s not haunted by the past. A future where she heals alongside her brothers, and hope persists in them all. A future without any burdens or regrets that lay heavy on her shoulders.
Rumi gazes at her so softly, Fuyumi feels herself melt. “You know what? Me too. And look at the time, we still get our date night.”
They fall asleep that night tangled in each other’s arms on their sofa, popcorn over the floor and movie credits playing on the television, slotted together perfectly because they’re perfect for each other.
At least that’s what they both like to think.
And hey, Fuyumi has seen the future. Maybe they are.
•••