𝑺𝑻𝑨𝑹𝑽𝑬𝑫 𝑨𝑭𝑭𝑬𝑪𝑻𝑰𝑶𝑵 ➣ Dabi

testing

"Up," Dabi says, crouching down. "You've got a long day ahead of you."

You rub your eyes as he helps you up, leading you downstairs where everyone sits.

Shigaraki stands, and looks at the warp man. "Kurogiri," he says. Almost instantly, a sort of portal appears and everyone steps through. Your eyes widened and fight back slightly as Dabi tugs you in. You've never seen something like this. It looks exactly like Kurogiri, purple and black but you can't see the other side. What's the other side? Some torture chamber? You squeeze your eyes shut, using your free hand to cover them too, and let Dabi take you through.

"Open your eyes, doll," he says. "We're here."

You grip his hand, slowly removing your other hand to see the room. It's just a warehouse. A few boxes placed in areas and stacked up. It's huge, a large empty space with obvious burn marks and blood splatters in the room. You tense up but Dabi just leans down and whispers, "It's okay. It's just a testing area."

You nod slowly, touching a finger to your lips as you take in the room. The team spreads out, Toga sitting on a box and sharpening her blades, Shigaraki scratching at his neck, Kurogiri next to him. The other few, whose names you still don't know, walk around, admiring the room.

"Y/n," Shigaraki says. "Come here." Dabi tugs you forward to him, pulling you along with him till you're standing in front of Shigaraki. "I want to know exactly what your quick can do. Understand?" You nod. "If you disobey," he says, wrapping a hand around your neck but leaving one finger up, "You'll pay for it. Got it?" You nod quickly, growing dizzy. "Good." He lets go.

Dabi pulls you back, slightly behind him, still holding your hand. You don't even realize you're still holding onto him but it's comforting because he's not trying to pull away.

"We know you can heal. But to what extent? Toga," he says. She runs up to you and slashes her hand, a bigger cut than Dabi and the man on the street. "Heal it."

You do. It takes more focus of course but it works, leaving behind a bigger scar than Dabi's on his hand. You can't erase the scar or put the blood back in but you can heal it quicker than normal. You just speed up people's regeneration, their cells, their strength, their metabolism, anything they could help them. Including their quirk. You don't know what extent however. You haven't had to heal someone on the edge of death and you haven't helped strengthen many people. You haven't had a need to.

"Deeper Toga."

She cuts along her forearm, deeper, the blood trickling down her arm and dripping on the floor. So, you heal her. Again, this one takes longer but you get there. You have to focus longer, harder, paying closer attention. You get a little dizzy, probably because of the no food intake you've had. And again, Toga goes deeper, making you heal her again. Then they switch to someone else so Toga can have a break from losing blood. Twice, whose name you've learned, can create doubles of anything, living or dead. So, he creates a double of Dabi. It's weird, looking at two different Dabi's. One holds your hand, the other stares coldly with a small smile on his face. Toga does the honors and stabs him. They command you to heal him but it doesn't work. He's not a real being. He ends up dripping to mud on the ground, making you gasp as you grip Dabi's hand again. Instead, they take a gun from Mustard and shoot him in the leg. You heal him, but only after Toga takes the bullet out of his leg. He screams in pain until you heal him. Then he pauses.

"That wasn't fun."

"Can you heal two people at once?" Shigaraki asks.

You don't have time to respond because Toga and Dabi have cut themselves. You frown, focusing on both of them. Surprisingly, it works and you heal them both at the same time. But you end up collapsing. Well. Almost. Dabi catches you.

"Chair," he says. "Now."

Twice grabs a chair for you and Dabi sets you down in it. After trial and error, you find out the deeper the wound, the harder it is to heal two people at once. For the most part, you can heal most wounds. Of course, they haven't tried anything fatal but they hope that you can heal those. After testing how many people you can heal at once, you move on to quirks and the strengthening of the body. Starting with Dabi. You close your eyes and start a deep breathing session, thinking of Dabi's quirk, the blue flames he's able to emit and making them stronger, making him stronger. He starts laughing, watching the flames on his hand. Swinging his arm back, he throws a ball of his flames at the wall. The impact leaves black ash behind and increases the temperature in the room. You take a shaky breath, gripping the sides of the chair so you don't topple over.

"Sick," is all he says before walking to stand behind you.

One by one, you let everyone enhance their quirk, letting them get the feel for how you work. And second by second, you get worse. You can barely keep your eyes open but every time you hesitate, Shigaraki will grab your arm, barely bringing his finger down. So you start back up again, working more, working harder. At the same time, they jump around, running in circles and barely breaking a sweat. They love it. But you hate it. You head kills, your body is trembling, and you can't think straight. The room is dizzy as you grip the sides of the chair, trying not to topple over onto the floor.

"All of us. Do all of our quirks," Shigaraki says.

"Please," you whisper. "No more."

"Do it," he demands.

"Shigaraki--," Dabi starts.

"Do it!" he yells back, clawing at his neck like always.

Sighing, you close your eyes and picture everyone, stronger, faster, healthier. They jump around the room, each of them smiling with a new power they didn't realize they had. They're all faster. They all have more strength. They can do anything. Twice and Toga bounce off the walls, running around. Your captor, who goes by Compress you've learned, picks up the crates and throws them across the room. Kurogiri doesn't do much besides make portals around every part of the room. And Shigaraki only needs three fingers to disintegrate something. Dabi is the only one who isn't doing anything. He stands, his eyes narrowed, his arms folded, and a scowl on his face as he watches you.

You take one last breath, one last push for them to be strong, and then you fall over on the cold, hard, dirty concrete. Everyone whines in sadness now that they can't do anything anymore.

For a moment, everything is dark. Black. Dead. It's quiet. Nothing but you and a dark presence, creeping in, wrapping you in their strong arms and whisking you away. It's warm. The way the darkness wraps you up, spinning you around. So quiet. So peaceful. Nothing but pure calmness.

And then it's the sound of people arguing.

"She's not done," someone says. A familiar voice. A raspy voice. A voice with a deadly quirk.

"Yes, she is," this voice is closer. Almost right in your ear and it sounds angry.

"Put her down. She's not done," they say again.

You slowly open your eyes, just a little, and you see Dabi. He's holding you bridal style, your head cradled on his shoulder. Shigaraki stands in front of him, his arms crossed as he stares Dabi down. Compress, Twice and Toga stand behind him but Kurogiri stands behind Dabi, along with Spinner and Mustard.

"Kurogiri," Dabi says.

"Don't do it. She's not done here. She needs to be stronger," Shigaraki fights back. "She has to keep working. We need her to be stronger if we want to win! Don't you understand? The heroes don't stand a chance if we have her on our side."

Kurogiri shakes his head. "I don't think that's a good idea. She can't even keep her eyes open. She needs a break, Tomura."

You sigh, shutting your eyes and curling into Dabi, who tugs you closer without looking at you. "She's done. Period. Let's go."

Kurogiri creates a portal and Dabi walks through. Then everything gets fuzzy and you have no idea where you are, what's going on, and what's going to happen to you.

All you can focus on is the steady heartbeat of Dabi's. Each breath he takes. You focus on the little things until you can no longer think. Until you let that sweet, blissful darkness take you away.

Then it all goes silent.

word count: 1.4K