•Manipulation• [BNHA × Male!OC]

Chapter 171: Dancing Toothless

(continuing from Chapter 164)

Nora stared blankly down at Katsuki's body.

Endeavor had landed not far away, but mostly unscathed.

Shoto looked back and forth between Katsuki and the battle between Shigaraki and Midoriya still ongoing.

Some how, despite their earlier fight, Nora seemed to not be looking to finish off the injured Katsuki.

In fact he was just... staring.

Shoto grit his teeth and turned his eyes back to the sky just as Shigaraki's hand is placed on Midoriya's face.

"Midoriya!" he screamed.

His heart sank.

Would it end just like this?

But then, a flash of light.

And now both boys are falling.

Shoto rushes over, managing to scoop up the boy before he landed and places him on the floor.

"Katsuki! Midoriya! Endeavor!" It seemed like everyone around him was dropping like flies.

"Ka...cchan..." Midoriya grits out.

"Yeah," Shoto hisses, looking over at the blonde, twitching and grimacing in pain, but still breathing.

"He's alive."

"Hang in there, we'll treat you right away-" Shoto is cut off as a nasty crack sounds from behind him.

He whips his head around.

Shigaraki had gotten back up, using those same black barbs that stabbed into Katsuki to lift himself up like a spider.

"Tomura... you can't- don't-" a voice that sounded like Shigaraki's and yet vaguely different came from the boy.

"I... won't do... as you say...!" That was Shigaraki's voice.

He was fighting against something.

Something in his own body.

A wave of energy spirals and slams into the barbs, breaking them, sending Shigaraki's charred body crashing to the floor.

"Hado!" Shoto called after the girl.

It seemed back up had finally arrived.

Iida suddenly appears before him as well.

"The giant villain is heading this way!" he warned. "We've already told the heroes fighting the Nomus on the other side as well!"

"Iida, carry Midoriya and the others!" Shoto instructed as they began planning their escape.

"What's that?" Iida quirked a brow over at the ball of white energy on the floor.

Shoto furrowed his brows.

How would he respond?

Ryo, or rather Nora, hadn't moved in a while.

Was he like Gigantomachia? Unable to move without explicit commands?

Whatever it was, he'd be dormant for a while.

"I'll handle him, just get the-" "No..." Midoriya croaked, cutting off the half-and-half boy.

"I need to... be with Shigaraki... he's still after me..."

Shoto clenched his jaw, turning to the villain still on the ground.

"His regeneration slowed down a lot, he must be getting weaker. Hado, stay on him!" he called up to the girl who nodded, training her hands on the villain.

He rises from the floor once more, jagged black barbs jabbing out of his back.

The heroes launch at him, when from behind, a deafening crash.

To everyone's horror, Gigantomachia had finally arrived on the scene, tearing through the final few buildings in his way.

Shoto tore his eyes from the giant.

'We can't let them work together...!'

He readied his flames just as Hado readied her spiral attack.

In a combined effort, they knocked Shigaraki out cold once more, however...

"GET BACK!" Endeavor yelled just as Machia barrels through them, sending both heroes flying back.

They scramble back on their feet.

Thankfully, with his master unable to provide instructions, Machia is motionless, simply holding Shigaraki's limp body in one and and staring down expectantly.

"Oh, there you are!" a voice rings out from atop the beast. "From up here, everyone looks tiny."

Straining his eyes against the sun, Shoto manages to see Dabi, shaking a bottle of fluid.

"Oh Shoto's there too? That's good!" he grinned.

"Dabi..." Endeavor hisses up at the villain.

"That's mean, don't call me that," Dabi muses, dumping the contents of his bottle all over his pitch black hair.

Slowly, the black runs off, revealing a grey-tinted white.

"I've already got such a splendid name, Toya, after all."

Both father and son's eyes blow wide as they struggle to process the information.

"My face is like this, but I at least expected my family to recognize me," he smiled in a feign disappointment.

Perhaps at one point it had been real, but now there was nothing left for the boy to expect from his family for him to be disappointed.

"It's so cruel... so sad really, but still I've followed you all this time," the villain sighed before the grin quickly returned to his face.

"Right now a broadcast of my personal history is being played on all the TVs in the country and online." he announced gleefully.

"Oh no, what do I do...?" his voice lilted with laughter as he begun to spin and clap his hands. "I don't know why, but I'm starting to have fun...!"

"How could I trample on your life? How could I make you suffer? It's all I've been thinking about since that day! I didn't know why I existed, and I cried clinging onto Natsu every day. You didn't know that, did you?" he stumbled about on the back of that giant, his clumsy but euphoric dance.

"At first I thought I'd kill your puppet, Shoto, after he'd been completed. But then you unexpectedly became the number one hero! I-!" He raised his hands up as though worshipping a God.

"...wanted to make you happy..."

He covered his face with his hands, but it wasn't enough to hide the manic smile behind it.

"I was afraid you'd die in Kyushu, I led those villains to you one after the other. You were soothed by the public's admiration, right? The time you spent talking to your kids mads you feel the bonds of family, right?" He leaned back, dropping his arms.

"You thought you could live a happy life if you just moved on, right? Looks like you have no clue so let me tell you!" he screamed.

"The past won't go away."

Dabi leaned forward, pointing at himself.

"You reap what you sow. Now, let's fall together, Enji Todoroki! Come dance with me in hell, won't you..." he smiled.

"Father?"