Feathers and Flame // Dabi x Reader x Hawks

47: Toga

Hawks was right, though you were loathe to admit it.

You weren't doing this for him—at least not entirely.

Maybe it was because you were ashamed of yourself for falling for the enemy, and the guilt of it was eating you up inside. Or maybe you thought that simply killing him could erase everything—and like all others, he would become specks of blood beneath your nails that you would forget about when your head hit a pillow.

You could barely remember a single face from those you killed.

Even the very first of your kills had drifted from your memory until all that was left was a vague outline without any discerning detail.

In your selfish mind, you thought that killing Dabi would reduce him to but a number on your tally. That—with him—all of your guilt and pain and... everything else would just cease to exist. You would be free of the wounds still festering inside you.

And you wouldn't fall apart.

It was what they taught you. Whether it be your adversary or pointless human emotion that had no place in your world, the answer was always to destroy.

Maybe Hawks was right about that, too.

Maybe part of your drive to find Dabi—and part of the reason you kept running from Hawks—was because you were punishing yourself in place of your superiors for your failures.

If you were being completely honest, you might admit that it was self-sabotage, because how could Hawks still want you after everything? And if you let yourself need him, it would just be another example of how you've failed.

Your chest ached like a fresh wound and you pressed a palm over your heart as if that could staunch the bleeding.

No more of that, you thought. This isn't the venue for self-reflection.

And truly, it wasn't.

The house was torn to pieces. Bits of broken furniture and remnants of a life scattered the floor. The ceiling and walls were torn and broken enough that you could see completely through from one room to the next. But it was the slurs and insults sprayed over the walls in shades of black and red that captured most of your attention.

You squeezed the handles of your knives a little tighter.

Toga's family home was a shell where not even the ghost of happiness would dare to linger.

You knew her deeply enough to not blame her for what she became. She was too different to fit in amongst the smothering optimism and was without a desirable quirk for heroism. It wasn't her fault that she couldn't fight her nature. But in a society without any in-between, she was forced into a mould that would never fit her until the day came when she finally snapped.

If you had been born with her quirk, you doubted you would have turned out any different.

The floorboards creaked as you passed from the living room to the hallway. To your right was an open door to a room that was completely empty, without even bones of broken furniture to make it seem like it had been lived in.

Was this her room?

You took one step to enter, the groan of the floor the only sound that carried through the unnaturally still air.

Something wasn't right.

It was then you caught the glint of a sharp and silver object slicing towards you.

You immediately twisted, sinking your blade into the barrel of the syringe. Metal bit into metal and the weapon was tugged back towards the small, shadowy figure with a single knife in her right hand.