Fire and Flames - OCxDabi BNHA FanFic

Chapter 11: Fractured Pieces

The faint hum of the ceiling fan was the only sound filling Hawks' apartment, its blades slicing through the thick, tense air. Outside, the city sprawled under dark clouds, neon signs casting fractured reflections across rain-slick streets. Inside, the glow from Hawks' monitor bathed his face in an eerie bluish light. He hadn't bothered to turn on the overhead light; it would have felt too harsh for the grim work ahead.

For days, he had been sifting through documents, piecing together fragments of a story that resisted being told. His fingers hovered over the keys, his eyes scanning encrypted files, the details blurring. With each new discovery, the walls around Yuna's life seemed to grow taller and darker.

Something was terribly wrong with her family's past. The deeper he dug, the clearer it became that someone had erased every trace of it. But why? Why was her lineage buried beneath layers of government-level encryption? Even his Hero Commission credentials were barely enough to access these secrets.

Frustration gnawed at him. Yuna had let her guard down with him, revealing pieces of herself she had shown no one else. She was a storm of contradictions—fierce and resilient, yet fragile, scarred by a life she hadn't chosen. Her father, Haruto Kuroyami, was at the heart of it—a ghostly figure—and her mother, Amaya Kuroyami, the legendary Radiance, was an even deeper mystery.

Amaya had been a beacon of hope, a bright star in the hero world, yet her personal life was buried under a suffocating layer of secrecy. Officially, her death was a mission gone wrong, but Hawks could smell the deception. The deeper he looked, the more suffocating the silence around her became.

Fatigue blurred his vision, and his wings twitched involuntarily against the back of his chair. But sleep wasn't an option. Not now.

"Dammit," Hawks muttered, running a hand through his tangled hair. His fingers grazed the red ring on his left hand—a subtle reminder of Yuna and the complex web they were both tangled in. The ring seemed like a silent witness to everything happening between them—the deception, trust, lies, and fragile understanding.

He closed his eyes, trying to clear his mind, but all he could see was Yuna's face—her dark eyes filled with confusion and pain, searching for answers he didn't have. She had begun questioning his motives, sensing he wasn't being fully transparent. And she was right—he was hiding more than she realized. But how could he tell her the truth when he himself was still grasping at the edges of it?

His eyes snapped open with a sudden thought—La Brava. She was a hacker, a master of the digital underworld. If anyone could break through the encryption, it would be her. But involving her meant stepping further outside the law.

Hawks grabbed his phone, his thumb hovering over her name. After a brief hesitation, he dialed.

La Brava answered on the second ring, her voice singsong, as if she'd been expecting him. "Hawks. What a surprise."

"I need your help," he replied, voice tight. "It's sensitive."

"What kind of trouble are you in this time?"

"It's not about me," Hawks said. "It's about Yuna."

La Brava's interest piqued. "Yuna? You mean Dabi's Yuna, Ember Shade?"

"That's the one. Her family's history has been erased, and I need you to find out why."

There was a pause before she responded. "Alright, send me what you have. But this is going to cost you, and I don't just mean money."

"I figured as much."

Hawks hung up, a heavy weight settling in his chest. He had just made a deal with the devil, but La Brava was his best shot. If she couldn't get in, no one could.