Build Me a Funeral Pyre

The Art of Kidnapping

A sea of orange fire rages, flickering and blazing. Popping and sparking with stray embers who drift too far from their brethren. A flume of smoke rises into the sky, enveloping everything in a shroud of darkness and fear. He can only watch as the fire grazes everything he had loved to the ground. His family. His house. His friend. Everything becomes nothing in the grand scheme of life. His heart clenches and he shoots out a hand, wanting and needing to save those who he had turned his back to so many years ago.

From the ground, a figure rises. Towering over Dabi, he suddenly feels so small and helpless. Weak and futile.

"You're pathetic. A failure, you'll never be good enough. You'll never amount to be anything in life. You'll become nothing more than dirt that'll be walked upon by people who actually want to rise to the top. No. You won't even be dirt, you'll be nothing more than a mere worm. A worm shriveled up in the sun." The large shadow sneers down at him, speaking long repressed words that had been seared into the very crevices of his mind. It speaks no more and neither of them move for what seems like a millennium. Slowly, the shadow reaches a hand down towards Dabi and engulfs him in hellfire.

"You are nothing."

Dabi shoots up in bed, taking in deep breaths- he calms himself down. Within his heart, there is an ache. A soul wrenching and tear jerking ache that refuses to be no longer quelled beneath years of oppressed emotions. The type of ache that takes away his breath and leaves him with stinging eyes as he clutches at the front of his shirt, asking why? Why after all these years, scars from a lifetime ago seem to rip open, throwing him in a spiral of asking why. Begging, crying and screaming for a hidden answer that remains from his sight.

In his mind, there has to be another answer.

In reality, he has known his answer the entire span of his lifetime.

He was never good enough. He was almost perfect. Yet, in his world, the word 'almost' was a death sentence given to him by his own father- the judge, the jury and the executioner.

All that settles deep within in his soul is the emptiness of a familial spurn.

His mood plummets and he lights a cigarette, staring up at the ceiling that offers him no solace. There is no comfort for a villain, no soothing words to take away the pain from a different lifetime. Only rage and sorrow is befitting for the cruel path of life that he had been given to walk.

Such is the cruelty of this world. Scorned by those who were supposed to only give love, instead he had been ignored and pushed back, broken apart and torn to pieces like a vase shattering against the floor. Falling through those cracks and the feeling of drowning never leaves. There's a fear of not knowing what to do in life and being lost in one's thoughts can push even the strongest to the brink of their own self destruction.

Deemed as failures the moment they had taken their first breath in life. Slipping through the fingers of society and only those with similar wretched and dystopic upbringings can pick up the left over pieces and glue them back, seeking and needing solidarity from others. Turning their backs to the world, filled with hate and disgust for the unfairness given to them. Gnashing their teeth and every single one of them always ask 'why?' in the dead of each lonely night as demons bubble up from their own thoughts.

Such unfortunate origins would have been entirely avoidable if they weren't living in a world that is hellbent in controlling everything and quashing those who try to lead an uprising to a more just world.

Because of that, Dabi will douse the world in his fire- razing everything wrong in this world. He will ensure that there will no longer be another Touya to live as he had. He will take the heroes and hold them in his hands, watching them turn to nothing more than charred corpses. Working under Shigaraki, they will ensure total destruction. All of them banding together under the banner of League of Villains, they have found that they truly exist to only destroy.