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Dabi watched the dozens of villains fleeing from the explosions, from bright bursts of quirks, like little rodents with a critical eye. Many were injured from their battles with the heroes, while others were simply cowards wishing to avoid inevitable conflict.
It was pathetic really.
Pathetic, but Dabi had expected nothing less from the Paranormal Liberation Front.
It was only in situations such as these where one could see who truly believed in their cause and who only spilled sugary-sweet words from their rotting mouths to please them. Those who ran, who trembled in fear and hid away while the heroes picked off their ranks, deserved to burn until they were nothing more than a pile of ashes stomped beneath his feet.
Death was too kind for cowards.
Dabi turned on his heel, racing up the stairs with measured steps.
He had caught glimpses of the original members of the League in the crowds, fighting heroes, causing the usual bloodshed. Toga was causing a panic somewhere with Compress, Spinner was probably leading the evacuation, and Twice was currently with Hawks in the upper levels of the compound.
And Dabi knew for a fact that Shigaraki was at Jaku Hospital with the doctor; for how much longer that would remain true; he wasn't entirely sure.
That only left one member unaccounted for.
Deku.
No matter how hard Dabi had searched the war zone below, he couldn't catch sight of their tiny analyst anywhere. He wasn't fighting with Toga and Compress. He wasn't with Gigantomachia or evacuating the PLF with Spinner. There was no reason for the young boy to be in the conference room with Hawks and Twice, and he most certainly wasn't in some vat of liquid with Shigaraki.
Deku was nowhere to be found.
It wasn't that surprising, Dabi thought as he used the railing to propel himself up the stairs faster. Deku was often singing to his own tune rather than following what the rest of the League was up to. It was what kept his existence hidden from the heroes for so long.
That all changed a few months ago, however, before the PLF was formed, before the battle at Deika City.
The brat disappeared for two weeks for a mission.
Dabi knew nothing of what he did, what his objective was, or the reason behind it all. It was like one moment the brat was sitting at his usual spot in the bar, and the next he vanished for days. Deku hadn't contacted any of them during that time, and when he returned, seeming no different from when he left, he didn't say a word about what occurred. He acted as if he was never gone in the first place.
It had grated on Dabi's nerves, but many things about Deku did.
All he knew was that whatever happened on Deku's 'mission' had announced his presence to the heroes, the world even.
But nothing else changed.
From then on, Deku still sat at the bar, writing in his notebooks with those toxic, calculative green eyes. He still watched over the Nomu and played with them as one would their pets.
Dabi didn't like not knowing what happened.
Because when Deku was involved, it usually meant that a calamity was coming.
Dabi had seen what happened to Kamino after Deku had planned the attack on U.A.'s training camp. Even if it had been written off as a hero's victory, Dabi knew that everything had gone according to Deku's plan, maybe even to the T. All main objectives had been completed, and that's all Deku ever cared about.
Deku paid special attention to detail; he never missed anything.
So the fact that he was currently missing while their base was under attack by heroes galore, was silently terrifying.
There was no doubt in his mind that Deku had prepared for this outcome. It was obvious, expected, but Dabi had no idea what countermeasures the boy had set in place for this situation. In all the time that he had known the brat, Dabi still couldn't figure out what the hell was going on inside his sick little mind.
He didn't know what would happen next.
He didn't know what he was going to do with Hawks.
He didn't know that Deku was sharpening in knives in his room, a blank expression blanketed across his face.
Perhaps if he knew what was running through the analyst's mind, he would have done things differently.
But no one knew, and when Dabi reached the top floor, his arms were already burning with bright blue flames.
Izuku was never a particularly sentimental person.
Even back then when he was a stumbling toddler playing with worn All Might figurines and scribbling with broken crayons on notebook paper, material possessions meant little. He was naturally selfless, giving all he had to and for others without thinking about himself or the consequences of having nothing. Once upon a time, others' joy outweighed his misery, and if something of his could make someone else happy, why wouldn't he offer it?
There were a few things that he might've valued, but his feelings went ignored in the face of his flawed selflessness.
Who cared if useless Deku was happy or not when others were sad?
Izuku certainly didn't.
So he gave and gave, and when he had nothing else, he continued giving.
Then he had less than nothing.
So no, Izuku had never been a sentimental person. Less so now than ever before, and perhaps he should have realized in retrospect that he'd end up like this. Perhaps he should've realized that if he valued nothing, then his apathy would spread like an infection, but he was naïve back then. He was just a small little kid with dreams too big for his fragile body.
Even his dream of becoming a hero, his hopeless, pathetic wish that he latched onto with a child's stubbornness, had eventually been abandoned.
There was no room for daydreams and kind fantasies where he ended up.
He knew that he was a villain now, the exact opposite of what he once wanted, but he couldn't find it in himself to care.
He had a purpose now. He had a job and a mission, and he couldn't stop until the curtains fell.
And the curtains would be falling tonight, one way or another. He wished he could say he was excited for this little farce to be over, but it had brought him slivers of amusement the last few months. This dangerous game of manipulation and keeping his cards close to his chest, even from those he could call allies if he cared enough to, it had been amusing.
Not fun. Not happy. Simply amusing.
Other, saner people would have called it sickening, but Izuku was not one of those people.
No, he was the loyal sort, the kind that obeyed every order given without hesitation or question because he had nothing. And when one had nothing, there was nothing to lose, so what was the point of hesitation? He was the sort to watch from afar, scheming all the while the lead actors' plans played out. He worked in the shadows, cutting their strings, re-wiring the ones he wanted, and snapping the joints off the puppets that became annoyances.
Izuku was the sort who would destroy everything and build it anew all for the sake of Sensei or Tomura.
And if Tomura ordered him to do something like this . . . who was he to question it?
Izuku may have been loyal, loyal to the League of Villains, loyal to Sensei, to Tomura, but he was not blind. He understood the consequences of following every order, knew that what he was doing was morally wrong and hurting people.
He knew that he was a villain.
A monster dressed up in the pretty, innocent clothing of a young victim.
It was something he was quite proud of, actually. His quiet, soft demeanor meant that others would often let their guard down around him. They'd spill information like water from a facet before him, and Izuku would use it to drown them later on. No one would believe that he could be so cruel, and Izuku always enjoyed the looks on their faces when they realized just how wrong they were.
He'd already seen the look on Hawks's face enough times over the last few months to fulfill him for the next decade or so.
Hawks. Keigo Takami.
That was another thing Izuku was going to have to deal with before he met back up with Tomura at Jaku Hospital.
Izuku hated cleaning up others' messes, but he supposed it was necessary on occasion. Especially when everyone else was incompetent enough to let it come this far in the first place.
He wished he could just send out the Nomu to do the dirty work, but unfortunately, they were all with Tomura at the moment. It was truly a misfortune, but Izuku wasn't going to let a disadvantage stop him from completing his mission.
Nothing would stop him from doing his job.
No hero. No villain.
No traitor.
Izuku wasn't smiling, he was positive he had forgotten how to somewhere along the line, but there was a small burst of giddiness residing in his chest. Nothing extravagant, just a small flicker that added a bounce in his steps as he trekked through the concrete of the upper levels of the compound.
Everything was finally coming to a close.
The curtains were falling now, and it wouldn't be long until the actors took their final bows.
Whether their finale ended in death, defeat, or victory, Izuku wasn't entirely sure, but it was a conclusion all the same.
He didn't bother to make his footsteps silent as he approached, as the sudden heat prickled at his pale skin. The air burned with smoke, the familiar scent of cremated ashes the closer he got. If he strained his hearing, over the shouting and blasts of quirks, he swore he could've heard laughter.
Izuku knew who it belonged to long before he came upon the hellish scene.
The world was dyed blue with flames so hot, even from a distance, Izuku could feel his skin threatening to peel back from his bones. Gray smoke danced lowly in the air like fog on a dreary day, and the bitter scent of burnt flesh permeated his senses. The laughter was louder now, followed by a booming, manic voice like a man clutching on to his final string of sanity.
Izuku didn't particularly like cutting those kinds of strings. Unhinged soldiers were nearly impossible to control. Sure, he could just shove them in a direction and let their bloodlust and drive for destruction to take over, but there was still the risk of getting bitten in the process. It was a calculated risk that, normally, he'd be willing to take.
Nothing about this finale was normal, however.
It took five more steps around a corner before Izuku could see them.
There were three men.
One standing, two fallen.
One stood like a stubborn shadow amongst the fire and burning flames, a grim reaper sent out to take the lives of any who opposed him. Another with charred crimson crumbling from his ruined back much like trees that shed their leaves in the fall. Izuku watched as the once beautiful feathers fell and disintegrated into dust and ash and all things that were dead and gone.
The final one was frozen in time.
His body was still as though time had simply stopped moving for him. He was drenched in the same crimson the other had lost to the fire, and it was splattered onto his too-pale face. He should have been splitting apart at the seams without his mask to protect him, but he wasn't. He was quiet. No, not just quiet, he was completely silent.
Izuku did not recognize the man frozen in time.
(He did, but he didn't want to.)
He did recognize the red red red liquid slowly pooling around him though; it was the only thing about him that still seemed alive.
Izuku was not a sentimental person. Nothing mattered more than the mission, not even the lives of the villains he'd lived with for the past year.
Yet, he could not take his eyes off the frozen man.
Not even as the stubborn shadow and fall leaves fought on and on and on. Not even as the fires raged and destroyed and burned around them. Even as the smoke clogged his throat and infected his lungs with soot. Even as the man with crumbling leaf-like feathers noticed him amongst the chaos, his molten gold eyes widening in horror.
"Deku?" he hissed, pain dripping from his bloodied, cracked lips like the shock from his sharp eyes. He was quiet, but the shadow man still heard his whisper, whipping around to see Izuku standing just a handful of yards behind their war.
He felt ice trickle down his spine, but it was not fear. It was the sort of icy numbness that drowned everything else, leaving behind only an empty, hollow feeling in his stomach. The sort of numbness that made him feel as though his insides had been dug out and he was nothing more than a porcelain doll to play with.
The sort that was beaten into him the first time he tried to escape Sensei.
The sort that he ignored because it was a pitiful weakness, and he could never afford to be weak.
Izuku cocked his head, his eyes wide as the growing pool of blood reached his shoes.
"Why is Jin lying on the ground?"
His voice was small, vulnerable in a way he did not feel. He sounded like a desperate child searching for broken pieces of hope where he knew there was none. What hope was left were shards of glass; if he picked them up, he'd surely get cut.
The fire sputtered out like a dying light.
"What are you doing here, Kid?" Dabi demanded, his voice rough like sandpaper scratching at the inside of his throat. Izuku tore his eyes from Jin to see the smoke pouring from his seams, his lips, his fingers, his skin. He looked like patchwork moments away from falling apart, whether it be from torn staples or burnt edges, he didn't know.
Izuku blinked slowly, no quite comprehending the venom lacing the villain's tone. "Are you three playing a game?" he inquired, innocently, little more than a curious child. His hand moved to his waist where a blade was sheathed at his belt, the same blade that Toga had given him to ward off anyone who saw a weak little boy and thought they saw an . . . opportunity to take advantage. "Can I join?"
Dabi's turquoise eyes narrowed dangerously, a thousand threats flashing in between each spark of color.
"Don't be a brat. Get out of here and go play with Toga or something."
Izuku's gaze fell from the burning man to the wingless one. His tan face was scrunched in what must have been unbearable pain. He wondered what it was like to have one's wings clipped.
How would Hawks ever get out of his cage now if he couldn't fly?
(Maybe the cost of Hawks's freedom was his wings. Maybe he finally escaped his cage after all this time and suffering.
The optimistic, childish part of his brain hoped so.)
It should've been a sad thought, but Izuku had been preparing for this moment since that day in the bar all those months ago.
"You know, Tomura isn't going to be happy that Jin is napping on the job," he continued as though the shadow man hadn't spoken at all. Izuku stepped forward, his shoes squelching in the blood that painted the floors as he approached Jin's prone figure. "Did you finally manage to tire him out? That would be the first; he usually has bundles of energy to spare. Was your game really that intense?"
Hawks seemed to flinch, and Izuku knew he was being heartlessly cruel. Children were always honest to a fault, and despite his actions, he was still very much a child.
At least, he should've been.
"This isn't a game, De-"
"People often refer to war as a game of chess," he interrupted, kneeling down by the fallen man, not caring that his knees were now soaked and sticky. Izuku's scarred fingers brushed against Jin's frozen cheek, his skin still vaguely warm, but it was fading quickly. Jin had never been a human furnace like Dabi was, but Izuku could still remember the warmth he radiated whenever he slung an arm over the boy's shoulders.
None of that was felt now.
Izuku didn't think he liked this Jin very well.
He wasn't even smiling anymore.
"We move around pieces to our benefit, sacrifice pawns when we deem it necessary, kill others when the order is given, all to please and protect our king," Izuku murmured, brushing Jin's blonde hair from his pale face. He was too quiet, too cold, too . . .
Too dead.
Something in Izuku's chest thrummed at the thought.
He didn't think it was a good thing. It made him want to rip something apart.
Out of the corner of his eye, a blood-stained handkerchief sat silently, the edges blackened with soot.
"This is a war; we are just a few more pieces in Tomura's arsenal to do with as he pleases," he hummed, crushing Toga's handkerchief beneath his fingers as something hollow and bitter boiled in his stomach. "You may not care about the League, but we don't tolerate traitors. You'd do well to remember that, Hawks, Dabi."
For a moment, there was only silence. Not the quiet, gentle kind, not the kind that dripped anxiety and panic and clenched around one's heart, squeezing and pulsating until it finally snapped. This was the buzzing kind. The sort of silence that vibrated with white noise and echoed inside their skulls.
It buzzed with anticipation, not fear.
A twisted scowl stretched across Dabi's stapled face, blood flowing from the edges like scarlet rivers. "If you knew that Hawks was a traitor this entire time, why didn't you do anything about it?"
Izuku turned his gaze towards the fallen hero who was pushing himself up on his elbows. His once sun doused face was now pale, almost sickly. It was probably caused by pain, maybe blood loss, maybe having his wings stolen by pretty, blue flames.
"That's a bit hypocritical of you, isn't it," Izuku hissed, not bothering to even pretend it was a question. They both knew the truth anyway. They all did. "The day you first brought him back to our base, you said he was 'committed', not that he wasn't a traitor. You must have known he was a spy sent by Madam President long before you introduced him to the League.
"You're hung up on your own tragic backstory, yes, but you're nowhere close to blind. Metaphorically, at least. Physically . . . well, I'm sure your quirk's just eating you up inside."
Dabi's eyes gleamed dangerously, and Izuku was tempted to push and push until it all shattered to pieces. He wanted to see what Dabi was like when he was unhinged, finally letting loose all his restraints. He was one step away from a rabid animal, and Izuku was deathly curious.
No one ever liked it when Izuku was curious.
No one but Izuku anyway.
That always made it more fun.
"Did you come here to make sure that Hawks died or something, Kid?"
Slowly, Izuku rose to his feet, his clothes sticking uncomfortably to his skin with blood. He felt the saturated parts scratching against him, a ping of disgust and pity echoing in his chest. He stole a glance at the fallen hero. A grounded bird, unable to take flight. A broken toy soldier, useless, damaged, expendable.
So pitifully human.
"Oh no, I had no doubt that you'd kill 'Hawks'," he stated, trying for a smile, but Izuku knew that it looked as fake as it felt. He never did know how to smile. "I just didn't think that you'd be able to kill 'Keigo Takami'."
It was like the frozen man's power encased the entire world then. Everything seemed to stop, stop breathing, stop moving, stop existing. Their bodies comprised of boiling flesh and red-hot ashes seemed little more than fractured statues carved out of tragedy. Solid stone rather than living skin another burst of flame away from sliding off their bones.
Silence breathed in, tense and terrified.
And Izuku . . . well, Izuku unsheathed his blade, pointing it at the poor traitor who never stood a chance in hell of achieving victory.
"H-how-"
"Don't give me that philosophical bullshit," Dabi growled, smoke spilling from his bleeding lips. Despite the aggression practically oozing out of his gravelly voice, his eyes were glued to the blade that Izuku held in his hand. "'Hawks', ' Keigo Takami', they're the same no matter what way you look at it ."
Izuku stepped forward until he could no longer see the blood seeping from Jin's body. The compound shook of the force of battle and destruction raging down below, but he had expected that. He had contingency plans set in place just in case the heroes invaded, planned on it even.
(He didn't plan on Jin's body being painted red like roses or for the color and life to be sucked from his body. He didn't plan on losing a valuable piece from their chessboard.)
"Sure, they're technically and biologically one person, but there's a reason they have two different names. Their personalities and values are nowhere close to the same. It's why 'Keigo Takami' isn't public knowledge; the Hero Commission doesn't want anyone to know who and what he was before he was a hero," Izuku murmured, his brow furrowing. He distantly recalled the handful of weeks it took to dig around the Commission's files, searching and hunting for any source of information to help Tomura. The dozens of blacked-out documents he'd stumbled upon. "That's why it was so hard to dig up any files about his past. Why it was so hard to confirm the connection between you two."
"'Connection'?" Hawks whispered, pushing himself higher up onto his elbows with a low groan of pain. Confusion bled into his words alongside a deep ache that Izuku dared not name, but Dabi . . . Dabi had gone still. He had quieted as though he wasn't sure whether he should cremate the hero or Izuku next. "What the h-hell are you talking about?"
Izuku blinked, whatever expression he had been attempting to replicate slipping from his face like sand between one's fingers. "You've been trying to infiltrate the League of Villains since Kamino through Dabi, and you still haven't figured it out?" Izuku spat, his eyes narrowing before snapping towards the fire-user. "I was so sure that Dabi would tell you considering your . . . relationship."
"If you don't shut your goddamn mouth, I'll burn it shut, Deku."
The boy scowled, the hand holding the blade falling back to his side as he contemplated the men before him. He was wasting time, that much he was sure of. Tomura would be waking up soon, and Gigantomachia would be on the move, rushing towards his 'master'. He had to deal with this quickly before time ran out, hopefully with the least number of losses on their side as possible.
"You know what I realized after all these months playing together?" he asked no one in specific, just musing his thoughts aloud. "We all make a rather strange trio, don't you think? A justified villain, a murderous hero, and a loyal victim all trying to appease their kings-"
Izuku was pulled forward by his shirt front, the collar digging painfully into his neck and choking the air from his throat. The smell of smoke and burnt flesh was stronger now that Dabi was just mere inches away from him. He could even see the blood crusted between his scar tissue and healthy skin.
"I appease no one!"
Izuku didn't flinch, didn't move, didn't offer any indication that he heard the words spewed from the man's raw throat like poison.
"You are ruled by your vengeance and hatred against those who have wronged you," he stated simply, the point of his dagger poking at Dabi's exposed side, a quiet threat, but nothing more. He wouldn't dare make it anything more. "Your anger is your king, and you follow its will spectacularly . . . Touya Todoroki."
Fire.
Blue, burning fire.
Izuku was sick of it already.
It blistered his skin where the scarred man touched him, but Izuku did not flinch. He'd lived with flames haunting him his entire life, since long before he met Dabi or Sensei or Kacchan. They lit his nightmares with horrifying oranges and reds and yellows so bright they hurt to set his gaze upon.
He still had the scars on his back.
His father had a fire-breathing quirk after all.
As quickly as it had come, the blue was gone.
Hawks was in front of Izuku now, pushing Dabi back with what meager strength he had left. A human shield, a pitiful hero, a damaged soul trying to protect a poor child. Dabi stumbled backward a few steps, and Izuku was faced with the mess of blood and feathers and burnt stumps that were once vermillion wings.
Hawks's wings had never particularly interested Izuku, not as much as the man's eyes, but he knew a tragic sight when he saw one.
If this wasn't a tragedy, Izuku didn't want to find out what was.
"Touya?" Hawks gasped, gently, weakly, as though the name would shatter in his hands if he spoke too roughly. Izuku couldn't see the hero's expression, but he could see Dabi's. See the way his turquoise eyes misted over, eyes that resembled his father's so much it pained the man. See the way the tension coiled beneath endless scar tissue and blood and remains of a boy long since sacrificed to a pyre.
Izuku wondered how many people would have to die before the world noticed its own cruelty.
How many people would have to fall and break and never rise again before things changed? How many children had to become monsters for everyone to realize what was wrong?
Those questions had haunted him for a very long time; he doubted they'd ever go away.
"Get out of the damn way, Birdie," Dabi growled, his knuckles gripping the metal railing so tightly they were almost white. Murder flashed in his eyes, whole and encompassing. Maybe Izuku was imagining it, but he could almost see the lines of hurt Dabi's words caused painted across the tension of Hawks's bloodied shoulders. They carved their way into his skin, beneath his thick, heroic armor, and chipped away at the human beneath it all.
Izuku hated it.
He hated the dark glint in the shadow man's eyes, hated how he couldn't even tell who was betraying who at this point.
Hated how all it took to calm the fire, even if it was only a fraction, was a fallen hero rising up from his own ashes.
Hated how the curtains were falling and falling fast and he wasn't even the one pulling the strings.
"Oh?" Izuku intoned, his voice hopelessly blank, his face expressionless as he watched silently on like some sort of strange spectator. "Are you going to try to kill me now?"
"Deku-"
"Touya," Hawks whispered a bit breathlessly as though he was still in shock over the reveal. Izuku couldn't understand why it was so shocking; it was obvious from the very beginning, wasn't it? Yet, despite it all, Hawks looked moments away from keeling over, and Izuku didn't think it was just because of his wounds. "This doesn't have to end in bloodshed. We can figure something out. There can be another way."
Dabi's eyes snapped towards Hawks's, disbelief and incredulousness etched upon his features. A hesitance that blanketed the vengeful wrath and boiling hatred for a few precious seconds longer than Izuku thought possible.
Dabi was a man who breathed revenge, who only woke up for a chance to pay back the hand life unfairly dealt him. It dripped from his seams alongside the loathing and disgust and anger so bitter, so putrid that it rotted everything in its inevitable path. He was a man poisoned by his own vivid memories that seemed more like nightmares to the naked eye. A past comprised of misery and a broken society forcing a young child to be something he could never hope to be, it was the hand he was dealt.
Izuku had always believed that it would be his unquenchable thirst for vengeance that got Dabi killed.
Not once did he think it would be the poisonous memories coursing through his ashy veins that did him in.
Dabi wasn't supposed to be a sentimental person.
He shouldn't have been a sentimental person.
Izuku didn't like being wrong; he hoped he was wrong.
(He so rarely was.)
"'Bloodshed'?" Dabi repeated, laughter spilling from his mouth. The noise grated Izuku's ears and he had to repress a cringe. It was an ugly sound, dull and lifeless like the corpse Izuku was pointedly ignoring. "That's rich coming from you . There's already bloodshed; why should we stop now? Why not go all the way?"
Izuku was never a sentimental person either. Not when he was young, not when he wanted to be a hero, and definitely not when he became a villain.
He was a selfless kid back then.
He was not selfless now.
He was tired of this game and tired of playing.
There was no longer any value to be found within this little act.
There were strings to be cut now.
Izuku didn't hesitate.
But he was almost sad to see this particular puppet fall.
They had a lot in common after all.
Shame.
The blade was already buried to its hilt by the time Izuku realized he had moved.
"How about a compromise?" Izuku offered, tearing the knife from Hawks's back with a pained hiss escaping the man's lips. Crimson seeped from the wound, finally adding that special red that the hero had lost to the fire. It was a pathetic replacement, and perhaps it wasn't better than nothing at all, but Izuku had orders.
The man crumpled almost immediately, his neck twisting to stare back at the kid. Maybe if Izuku was being optimistic, he could see trickles of betrayal glimmering within those golden pools, or maybe it was regret. He really shouldn't have turned his back to the enemy, even if they were sixteen and a child.
He could almost hear the creaking of Dabi's jaw as his lips parted.
"Deku-"
"Izuku, actually," he corrected, wiping the dirtied blade on his ruined pants. "Deku's just a codename Sensei gave me. It would be horrible if everyone knew I was just some poor, quirkless kid sold off to pay some debts. That would ruin my image, and we couldn't have that. Not that that matters now; we have a few other things to worry about. Like the fact that Gigantomachia will be on the move in approximately two minutes."
Hawks grunted, his hands attempting to reach around to put pressure on the stab wound. He glared up at the boy, the expression masking his growing horror. "Gig-Gigantomachia isn't s-supposed t-to move, not until Shigaraki wakes u-up," he stuttered, voice quiet and frail like a piece of paper in a hurricane.
Izuku cocked his head, his lower lip jutted out in a childish pout. "Aren't you just so informed," he mused, his brow creasing in fake sympathy. "Regardless of whether or not the transfer is complete, Tomura will still wake up if his capsule is disturbed. Sure, he might not be at full strength, but 75% of All For One is still 75% of All For One. The heroes invading Jaku Hospital stand no chance."
Whatever defiance Hawks still clung to spluttered out like a light on its last few moments of illuminance. He almost looked like the twenty-two-year-old man he should've been. Helpless and lost and broken in all the ways that mattered. Perhaps if their situations were different, he would have pitied the man more.
But things were not different, and Hawks's death was important for the next sequence of events.
"Y-you knew?"
Izuku sighed mournfully. "I know far too much sometimes," he acquiesced as though he was admitting all his wrongs and tribulations. "I know that the heroes are going to lose, and even if they do somehow manage to succeed, they will lose far more than the villains will. Countless civilian lives, fallen heroes, property damage, the faith of those few surviving citizens, maybe even a few quirks here and there. It'll be a disaster, just like Tomura wanted."
He turned his green eyes towards Dabi, not bothering to decipher the onslaught of emotion rushing across his bleeding face. All he needed to comprehend was the conflict brewing within those too-blue eyes. "Now, I'll leave you to it, Dabi. 'Finish him off' if you wish, or leave him to die, or save him if that's what you desire. I don't particularly care, but whatever you choose," he said, a scowl tugging at the corners of his lips, "make sure you're still around for the extraction. Tomura would be very disappointed if we lost two League members in a single day."
With one final look between the two men, he turned his back to them.
Only to be faced with Jin's stone-cold corpse.
Izuku allowed whatever falsified emotion to slip from his expression, something genuinely pained replacing it. He crossed the distance between them and clasped his hands in front of him in a prayer, one last proper send-off to a man who deserved better, to a chess piece that never needed to be sacrificed in order to obtain a win.
His sympathy could only last for a few heartbeats. He still had another battlefield to attend to after all. His hands fell limply to his sides, and then he was off.
No, Izuku didn't like that Jin, not at all.
He doubted Toga would either.
A few short minutes later, Izuku was standing upon Gigantomachia's back alongside the rest of the League and some member of Yotsubashi's inner circle, rushing through city after city.
Victory was in sight now that Tomura had awoken.
The curtains had finally closed, and the play was over.
Now it was all up to Tomura to finish off the final bows.
(Izuku was nearly trembling with masked glee to see what their leader had in store for the heroes.)
Dabi sat, his expression oddly thoughtful despite the scarlet staining his hands and face.
Izuku knew that Dabi wasn't that sentimental.
He really should have had more faith in the man.
Izuku loved to see that he was right all along.