Mystery from Another World

Part 34: Dabi's Tour de Hell

Following Dabi was interesting. He moved through shadows like a cat and kept his head down. No one ever gave him second glance. Shine saw it was because no one wanted to. She'd seen the same thing in Skid Row in LA near where she lived in California. People didn't want to see things. They didn't want to be accountable.

Dabi led her around corners of very run down, dingy buildings and ugly apartments.

"What are we looking at, Virgil?" Shine asked.

"Just keep it quiet," Dabi said. "I've got the street cred, but they'll eat you alive. Keep your head down."

"I think I'll be fine," Shine said. "Are we going to where all the rejects live?"

"Not bad, smarta--," Dabi said. "This is the part of the country that pros don't come to, ever. Pretty much guarantees you won't be seen."

"If that's so, wouldn't they look for your League here?"

"We move locations too fast. Besides, we're not that stupid. Our main HQ is always around places the pros wouldn't think we would be. The Kamino Ward hideout isn't that far from city living, is it?"

"I see," Shine said. "That does make sense, and I can't find you any faster for that. I know nothing about the layout of this city or which city we're in."

"And we'll keep it that way. You don't need to know that information," Dabi said. "I just want to see the look in your eyes when you actually get a glimpse of what goes on."

A few more minutes and they were where he wanted: a bunch of small streets of the most ugly part of Japan Shine had yet to see. It looked more like San Francisco to her than Japan. "Wow... you don't see this in anime," she said.

"People prefer to forget it exists," Dabi said. "Now, take a good look at the people around here. What do you see?"

Shine looked. The few people milling about had very visible quirks. One was a bug-like thing, another was very unsettling in a more ghost-like way... One was just spines sticking out like a porcupine... Others she couldn't make out well from a distance.

"They have ugly quirks," she said aloud.

"Bingo." Dabi shrugged. "They don't fit in with regular people, so they end up here. Those are just the stable ones, though. They get by. The people around here are used to it. The ones who aren't outside, those are the real interesting cases." He pointed to a building. "There's someone in there who breathes toxic fumes, has to wear a mask all the time... Drives you a little nuts when you have to do that. Someone around the block can't talk normally--they have a siren-like screech. Hard on the neighbors, so they just don't talk much."

"How do you know this?" Shine asked.

"I used to live around here," Dabi said, "among other places. I moved a lot. But I heard the word on the street. There's spots like this all over the country. The world has no use for people with quirks like that. They were born that way, but they get punished for it. Bullied." He glared at the buildings. "The pros don't do anything about it."

"I've heard you talk disparagingly of these people too," Shine said.

"Oh, I won't deny they're bat crazy," Dabi said. "I can't say I like them, personally. But we're alike in some ways. There are people like me too--they just were never strong enough to cut it. Or they were too strong and weak on control. The joke is, I'm plenty powerful--" He looked crazy when he said that. "--but now I hate heroes and wouldn't be one for anything. Ironic, isn't it? I could have been. My old man never believed that though, after Shoto came along. I was just the failed one. You can bet there's hundreds of people like that around here."