Ashes and Feathers

Chapter 3: Wings of Ash

The night had turned colder since their rooftop confrontation. Hawks couldn't shake the eerie silence that followed Dabi's disappearance. The once vibrant city lights below now felt distant, blurred like ghosts of the life he was supposed to protect. But more haunting than the city's stillness was the emptiness in his chest—the hollow space where his loyalty had been torn apart by conflict and betrayal.

Hawks perched atop a high-rise building, his wings hanging limp at his sides, feathers damaged from the heat of Dabi's flames. The burns on his skin stung with every shift, but the physical pain was nothing compared to the ache inside him.

He should have flown away. He should have let it go. But something dark gnawed at him—an unsettling pull that he couldn't ignore. A part of him wanted to save Dabi, to somehow stop his descent into chaos. But another part of him, one he wasn't ready to face, wondered if it was too late. Perhaps Dabi had gone too far, and maybe Hawks was fooling himself into believing that the man he once loved could be redeemed.

In the distance, a soft sound broke through the quiet. Hawks' eyes narrowed, scanning the city below. There, amid the labyrinth of alleys and crumbling buildings, a flash of blue fire. It was distant but unmistakable. It was Dabi.

Hawks tensed, heart racing as he readied his wings. Despite everything, despite the danger, he couldn't let this go. He couldn't let Dabi destroy himself. Not yet.

With a powerful beat of his wings, he took to the sky, the wind whipping through his hair as he descended toward the flickering light below.

The alley was narrow and suffocating, the brick walls pressing in on both sides. The further Hawks ventured into the darkness, the more the air thickened with a strange, unsettling energy. The faint smell of burnt wood clung to the air—an ever-present reminder of the power Dabi wielded.

As Hawks moved deeper into the alley, the world seemed to shift. The shadows stretched unnaturally long, twisting and curling like tendrils of smoke that wrapped around his legs and arms, tugging him deeper into the darkness. The city around him felt different—warped. It was as if the world itself was bending under Dabi's influence, responding to the flames of his rage.

Suddenly, the air grew colder, unnaturally so. Hawks' breath came out in small puffs of condensation as frost began to coat the walls around him. The eerie temperature shift made his instincts scream that something was terribly wrong.

And then, he saw him.

Dabi stood in the middle of the alley, his back turned to Hawks, flames flickering from his fingertips like the dying embers of a funeral pyre. But there was something different about him—something... otherworldly. His figure was bathed in an unnatural glow, the blue flames casting eerie shadows that danced across the alley walls.

Hawks hesitated, eyes narrowing as he observed Dabi's strange, unnatural stillness.

"Dabi," Hawks called out, his voice echoing off the walls.

Dabi didn't turn. His flames crackled louder, flaring briefly before settling into a calm, controlled burn. For a long moment, the only sound was the soft roar of the fire and the faint rustle of Hawks' feathers as he shifted uneasily.

"You shouldn't have come," Dabi finally said, his voice low and strange. It was deeper, more distorted than Hawks remembered, as if something else was speaking alongside him.

"What's happening to you?" Hawks demanded, taking a cautious step forward. His instincts were screaming at him to leave, to fly away and never look back. But he couldn't. Not yet.

Dabi finally turned, and Hawks felt his blood run cold.

His eyes—once a searing blue—were now glowing with an unnatural, almost ethereal light. The scars on his face seemed to pulse with dark energy, the black stitches twisting as if alive. His smile was cruel, predatory, and there was something behind his gaze that chilled Hawks to the bone—something ancient and malevolent.

"I warned you," Dabi said, his voice laced with venom. "I told you that you couldn't save me. But you didn't listen."

Hawks took a step back, his wings instinctively flaring out. "What have you done?"

Dabi laughed, a cold, hollow sound that echoed through the alley like the tolling of a death knell. "I've embraced what I am. You should've known better than to think you could change me."

As he spoke, the flames around Dabi began to change. They grew darker, shifting from blue to an inky black, crackling with an unnatural intensity. The air grew colder still, the frost thickening on the walls as the flames licked at the ground, leaving no heat—only an unsettling chill in their wake.

Hawks' heart pounded in his chest. The air was suffocating now, thick with a dark energy that seemed to sap the strength from his limbs. This wasn't just Dabi's Quirk. This was something far more dangerous—something Hawks couldn't understand.

"You've tapped into something you can't control," Hawks said, trying to steady his voice. "You're going to destroy yourself."

Dabi's smile widened, but it was no longer the smug grin Hawks was used to. This smile was twisted, filled with something dark and terrible. "Maybe I want to," Dabi said softly, his eyes gleaming with malice. "Maybe that's the point."

Before Hawks could react, the shadows around him surged, curling and writhing like living creatures. They snapped toward him, tendrils of darkness wrapping around his legs and arms, dragging him to the ground. Hawks struggled, his wings beating furiously as he tried to free himself, but the shadows only tightened their grip, pulling him deeper into the cold, suffocating darkness.

"Dabi!" Hawks shouted, his voice strained as the shadows closed in around him. "Stop this!"

But Dabi only watched, his black flames flickering brighter as the shadows consumed Hawks, pulling him into a void of cold and despair.

As Hawks struggled, the world around him seemed to warp, twisting into something unrecognizable. The city faded away, replaced by a bleak, desolate landscape—an endless expanse of ash and darkness. The sky was a deep, unnatural purple, and the ground beneath him was scorched and lifeless.

Hawks staggered to his feet, disoriented. His wings felt heavy, weighed down by the thick air. He scanned the horizon, but there was no sign of Dabi. Only silence. Only the cold.

"Where am I?" Hawks muttered to himself, panic beginning to set in.

The landscape shifted again, the ash swirling around him in strange, unnatural patterns. He could hear faint whispers on the wind—voices, soft and distant, like the echoes of the dead.

And then, out of the darkness, Dabi appeared again.

But this time, he wasn't alone.

Behind him, towering figures emerged from the shadows—dark, twisted shapes that seemed to defy reality. Their eyes glowed with the same unnatural light that burned in Dabi's gaze, and their bodies were wreathed in black flames, flickering like shadows against the scorched earth.

Hawks' breath caught in his throat as the figures drew closer, their presence oppressive and overwhelming.

"What have you done?" Hawks whispered, his voice trembling as he stared at the creatures surrounding Dabi.

"I've found my true power," Dabi said, his voice calm, almost serene. "And now, Hawks, it's your turn to burn."

The creatures lunged forward, their claws outstretched as they descended upon Hawks. He barely had time to react, his wings flaring as he tried to take to the sky. But the shadows were faster, dragging him back down, their cold claws sinking into his flesh.

As the darkness closed in around him, Hawks realized with a sinking horror that this was no longer just a fight.

This was the beginning of the end.