Chapter Text
A rock.
It’s the first thing Dabi sees when he comes to awareness. An ugly rock; mottled, lopsided, the surface littered with dents.
The second thing he sees is his body drenched in blood, flooding the floor of the cave he’s awoken in.
At the sight of the wound, his sluggish brain catches up and the pain hits him like a truck. Fuck. His veins feel like they’re on fire and there’s a huge, gaping hole in his torso, skin torn apart like a flimsy zipper. He... he thinks he can see his own lungs steaming against the frigid air.
His body spasms and a screeching voice rings in his ears.
“Transmigration complete. Body assimilation accepted. First task: Hatch the hero.”
Knowledge floods into his aching, foggy brain; memories of the past, the present and the future, carved into his mind like the plot of a book; all the paths that lead to the total ruin of the cultivation world. He also unwillingly learns that the stupid rock is actually the unhatched egg of the hero in question.
His mind reels, crammed with new information. But more importantly, he feels… rage.
It boils within him. White-hot, a familiar feeling he knows so well. He loathes this situation, loathes the pain, loathes that he has to live again, and more importantly, loathes the main character of this world. Another fucking hero. Lifting his hand, he just barely manages to instinctively gather spiritual energy into his palm, ready to destroy the hero for daring to constrain him here.
“WArNINg D O _ N O -T DEVIAT E ‘ FR OM TH E P̴L̷O̸T̸ .”
Alarms suddenly blare in his mind.
The sirens ring so loud that he feels the vibrations under his skin and blood pours from his ear drums. He screams in pain. The wound on his chest suddenly rips further and erupts with fresh blood, his whole body punished for his rebellion.
His body seizes involuntarily, vision going black as the agony of a thousand needles pierce into his heart. Cold sweat erupts over his body, as he senses the ominous presence of a higher-being looming over him, the weight of his puny life in their hands.
Dabi blacks out.
𓆩𓆪
When Dabi opens his eyes again, he’s crumpled in an uncomfortable position on the stoney ground, robes caked with dried blood and that detestable rock still settled snugly right up against his side, pulsing with heat. He’s not sure how much time has passed but the wound has miraculously clotted over, which is certainly saying something about this body’s natural healing abilities.
He looks at the rock once more, shoving it away and his body instantly throbs with phantom pain, heart squeezing with agony. (A warning.)
The rock rolls closer.
His wound threatens to re-open.
And… Dabi gives up.
He guesses he’s going to have to protect the fucking rock.
Sighing he throws his head back and feels a deep resignation setting over his soul. It seems in both this life and his last he was never destined to live as he pleased. It’s nothing new, despite feeling a deep lament and agony at the thought that he would never be free, no matter the universe. This body shares his original name too, which is odd.
Touya Todoroki in every universe, he can never escape that fucking fate.
He allows himself one last mournful moment for the life he could have lived, before forcefully packing those feelings away, moving past them and turning to the task at hand, compartmentalizing.
He pushes the egg over onto its side with a fierce glare, but it merely rolls back to his side and finally, he gives up and lets the stupid egg latch onto his body heat, throwing his head back to thunk on the ground behind him and stare up at the grey stoney ceiling.
Not that this body has much heat to leech off of though. Similar to his constitution in his old world, this body is freezing cold, despite the innate spiritual fire root this body’s core contains. Nothing changes in the end.
His hand is still stained with fresh blood as he reaches over and pokes the surface of the egg, surprisingly warm.
The blood he smears on the egg absorbs into the shell immediately and he makes a disgruntled face. The hero is greedy at a young age, it seems.
“Task: Prevent the hero’s heart blackening.”
A robotic voice suddenly speaks, crisp and clear but somehow not echoing in the cave. Dabi startles, heart racing and jolting upright as he searches the cavern for the source, but it’s eerily empty. He’s the only living being in here.
“Hey! Who the fuck are you?! Why am I here?”
"To complete the ordered Tasks.”
The voice continues on its explanation, neatly ignoring his questions. Rage boils over inside him.
“Why the fuck did it have to be me? Why did you bring me to this world?”
Silence.
“… And what if I ignore your commands?”
“Failure to follow instruction results in extermination.”
The robotic voice is emotionless and succinct, falling silent once more, no matter how much Dabi continues to try and needle it, tries to squeeze out more info. Just silence.
With a sigh, Dabi gives up, turning to look at the egg. Interesting how one small egg is the start of a disaster for the cultivation world, sect after sect torn apart for revenge. It seems the system wants to prevent this future, but Dabi couldn’t care less.
He’s just a glorified babysitter for now.
𓆩𓆪
After a day of recuperation, barely stirring from his original blood-stained position on the cave ground, he finally stands up. If there’s one thing he’s good at, it’s moving forward.
He’s inherited enough of the body’s inherent knowledge to send a small slip of paper with a message back to his sect, letting them know he’s been injured and will be back in a year after recovering. Luckily the entire cave is set up in a formation that no one can enter without permission. The previous owner set it up seemingly, because Dabi has no idea how to weave a spell that intricate.
After cleaning his body with magic and changing into fresh robes, he feels more human. More grounded. Irritatingly, the previous Touya seemed to have an absolute aversion to colour, only pure-white clothing in his storage ring, with the rare pale blue embroidery or inner-robes. He manages to find one single set of dusty clothing in a navy blue colour and changes into that, forgoing the stuffy inner robe the body seemed to prefer, instead wearing the set loosely to leave his chest bare.
The sound of distant running water entices him and Dabi finds a beautiful stream that flows through the epicenter of the cave. Dipping his fingertips into the stream to rinse his hands, the smooth surface of the clear water ripples. Suddenly a freezing cold pierces his skin, his breath releasing in a plume of cold white smoke. Hissing, he removes his hands from the stream immediately.
A sudden memory bursts forth of the previous Dabi training in this cave, meditating in this exact frigid steam to temper the fire that permeated their soul. Ice-cold and painful, the memory hurts as it overtakes him and is blurred at the edges with desperation. Strange.
A rolling sound brings him back. The egg follows him around dutifully, never leaving his side for a second.
Embarrassing to admit, but it’s almost comforting hearing the rolling sound of the egg scrambling to catch up with him, a little endearing.
It might just be a sign of his decaying mental fortitude, considering a rolling rock is the only other creature he’s seen since entering this world.
He continues exploring the cave after recovering a little spiritual energy in his dantian, following the stream to a tunnel with a faint light at the end.
He steps through, until the tunnel suddenly widens into an open ledge and he can’t control the gasp that escapes his lungs at the sight. He had assumed he was deep underground, but it seems he is actually at the precipice of a mountaintop, the stream falling into a waterfall below, the depths unseen.
The sight steals the breath from his lungs. The ledge is so high that thick, fluffy cotton- candy clouds float at eye-level, lazily swirling across the tops of a dense forest thickly dotted with trees of deep purple and pink. The sky is so blue it looks like an oil painting, a bright cornflower-blue expanse as far as the eye can see, with a crystal-clear sapphire lake shimmering in a clearing below. Bird-like creatures circle below, playfully dipping in and out of formation within the clouds, feathers of a sparkling silver hue.
The fantasy view somehow affirms that he has truly entered another world, as if his brain hadn’t fully accepted that fact until now.
The egg snaps his attention away, rolling to nestle against his ankles, as if it wants to enjoy the view too.
Feeling strangely lighthearted by the scenery, Dabi scoops the egg up in a good mood.
“You want to look too?”
Admittedly he feels kind of stupid the second after talking to an egg, but surprisingly the egg vibrates in his arms, as if responding merrily and he freezes.
It understands him?
…Well, now he feels doubly stupid.
Dragons were a highly intelligent species, developing sentience at rates much faster than mortals. It stands to reason that a dragon having awareness even in its egg wouldn’t be beyond belief, even though it had never occurred to him. He chuckled uncomfortably. The egg surely wouldn’t hold a grudge at his attempted murder, right?
He patted the surface of the warm egg, a hasty attempt at an apology and it wriggled again in his arms happily.
Sighing, he lets his legs dangle over the edge of the ledge, the chill of the clouds prickling his ankles and settles the egg in his lap, where it burrows closer to his chest.
Maybe it was ready to hatch soon? He sure hopes so at least, if he has to be stuck in this cave alone any longer he might just go stir-crazy.
𓆩𓆪
Dabi’s taken to sitting on the ledge during the day, enjoying the pure air as he meditates, learning the ins and outs of the cultivation left for him. Luckily, the system seems to have managed to assimilate his soul to this body well and he can use the cultivation with ease. But the complexities of certain spells and sword techniques evades him, so he sifts through the memories of the body as he meditates to recuperate his wound.
He contemplates the storyline and the memories imparted on him. A young dragon prince, considered a failure after being unhatched for 300 years. And Dabi has taken over the body that’s just slayed the hero’s father, the Dragon King, in an attempted genocide against the dragon clan. In return, the king gave him this barely-healing wound. Once the hero is older, he’ll join the LOV sect as his disciple to take revenge and destroy the dragon-slaying sword, as well as a majority of the cultivators currently protected within the sect’s innermost walls.
It’s all new and yet somehow, nauseatingly familiar. He wonders distantly what the original soul of the body is doing. Maybe they swapped into his old body. A dry snort escapes his nose. Poor guy.
This continues for at least a month, the egg stubbornly never leaving his side as he meditates, sunbathing all day in the warmth from the ledge, forming a daily routine.
On one particularly beautiful day, the egg begins to vibrate suddenly. The sun is just creeping over the horizon, warm orange light spilling across sprawling clouds. The air is exceptionally cold and pure, filled with more spiritual aura than usual.
The egg starts to crack.
Dabi considers this for a second, before making a split-second decision to conceal his identity for the moment with a spell. With a dragon’s intelligence, there’s no telling if the hero might recognise him as his father’s killer.
His default choice is his original appearance, something comfortable to lessen the spiritual energy required to maintain it long term. When he peers into the clear mirror-like stream, his reflection is familiar. Inky dark hair, spikier and longer, and his usual scarring. Deep purple swathes of scarred skin gruesomely connected to pale, healthy skin with gleaming staples across his entire body, including under his eyes.
It feels like coming home, yet also pricklingly unfamiliar after being in an un-scarred body.
He also conjures a mask after a moment of thinking, a pure-white mask concealing his features and leaving only his eyes exposed.
In this moment, the egg crackles and splits down the center, the ugly mottled edges revealing a golden light from within.
One claw creeps out, a tiny ruby-red dragon paw reaching from the egg’s depths, stretching towards Dabi.
He considers helping it momentarily, but knowledge from his old world reminds him that assisting in the hatching process could weaken the baby, so he watches on.
The eggshell cracks further, the entire surface shimmering now with a faint golden light and vibrating as the clawed hand creeps out further. Minutes pass agonizingly until finally, out crawls a tiny baby dragon.
The baby is teeny and covered in a slick liquid, concealing the shine of its scales. It seems dazed, looking around before it focuses on Dabi, pupils dilating suddenly, perking up. Like a dog shaking water off its coat, the baby dragon shakes its body, drenching Dabi and the nearby surroundings in thick anatomic egg fluid.
Dabi is unamused at the sudden mess, but his heart softens when the dragon sneezes suddenly, falling onto its backside from the force, looking up dazedly like a newborn puppy. He can’t help his heart squeezing at the confused, sweet face of the dragon. He’s definitely gone soft after his long-term isolation.
The scales of the dragon’s body are red and gleam like precious gems, reflecting the dim light with a rainbow hue, akin to an oil-slick. But surprisingly the dragons’ little wings are feathery rather than reptilian, sprouting soft red downy fluff.
The dragon’s sweet face is composed of chubby cheeks, a little snout, and two almost transparent horns on its head, glowing with a faint golden light from within. Big, golden eyes peer up at him, brighter than gold of the highest purity, slanted upwards and lined with draconic black triangular markings elongating the outer corners.
“Task complete. Hero hatched.”
The system finally speaks after days of silence, before growing quiet again.
And so, lo and behold, the hero of the story is revealed to be nothing but a sneezy baby dragon.
“My name is Dabi.”
The introduction escapes him before he thinks about it further and the dragon tilts his head cutely at him, before scrambling into his lap before he can react, emitting a milky scent like a baby.
Dabi freezes at the sudden affection, the dragon nuzzling his head into his chest.
Not happening.
He plucks the dragon up by the fluff on its wings, watching as it starts to whine incessantly and drops it aside.
The baby whimpers at the sudden abandonment, golden eyes brimming with tears before it barrels back into Dabi’s lap, whimpering and crying, turning its pitiful expression to him.
A second attempt yields the same results and Dabi is left with a sinking feeling of defeat as the hero curls up in his lap like a kitten.
…It seems the hero has imprinted on him.
𓆩𓆪
Dabi is losing track of time, day by day drifting by, the dragon growing bigger every time he blinks.
The first night after the hatching, he digs through his storage and finds swathes of an intricate brocade silk, clearly bought to be made into clothing later. But instead he sets it up in a little circular pile for the baby dragon to sleep in.
However, no matter what, he finds the dragon nestled onto his chest when he wakes up, snoring away. He tries to move him back to his own bed, but it’s a useless endeavor.
Tonight is the same. Dabi stirs from sleep, feeling pinpricks of little claws crawling over his torso. Drowsily, he half-opens an eye to see the dragon curling into a little ball, tucked snugly onto his bare chest just under his chin, hiding his little nose under his tail. He considers moving him, but the warmth given off is immense, so relaxing he can’t be bothered to move a fingertip and soon drifts off too.
In the depths of the night, he can maybe almost admit to himself that it's... nice (not being alone).
𓆩𓆪
Raising a baby dragon is almost interesting. There's a lot of behaviours that Dabi isn't sure whether to place as normal for the species or extreme talent. At the start, Dabi fed the dragon exclusively fasting pills from his storage ring, too lazy to go out and do anything more. However, at almost 2 weeks old, the dragon began to dip below the ledge without instruction, tiny wings beating fast, and brings back meats and fish that he hunted alone. Monsters twenty times bigger than the kid and strong enough that even high class cultivators would struggle alone. Which is… frightening. At two weeks old.
(Luckily the dragon hasn't realised he's his father's killer… or that his father is dead yet.)
The dragon has also created its own small horde of treasures, which Dabi definitely assumes is an innate behaviour of the species. Gleaming rocks, polished like precious jewels, intricate and beautiful, as well as some of the more beautiful, transparent spiritual cores of the monsters he’s hunted. The baby seems to have a preference for the shiniest of the treasures, only fond of the most reflective ones. He lets Dabi touch them when he's in a good mood, even when he starts to visibly twitch when Dabi jokingly drops them.
However despite the hunting talent, there are still startling reminders of the kids' age. Like right now for instance.
The baby has managed to catch a fish. Well, fish is a bit of an understatement. It's a mammoth thing, as long as Dabi himself with razor teeth the length of his forearm, and he's been roasting it over the fire, seasoned with some basic spices pulled from his storage ring. The crackling fire bathes the cave in a warm light and the smell of the food is fragrant and smoky, stirring ones appetite.
Dabi lets the kid eat first, watching him feast on the soft, fatty underbelly while he lounges nearby. The dragon's tail is twitching happily, face buried in the food, completely absorbed. Dabi allows himself a small smile behind the mask at the muffled chirps of delight.
It's very sudden when the dragon suddenly yelps, jolting back from the meat and turning to Dabi tearily, flapping little wings to curl up by his side. Seemingly he choked on a thin fish bone, tears watering as it spits out a mouthful of fish. Immediately he’s pouting up at Dabi betrayed and making little petulant whines, like Dabi did it on purpose.
Dabi pats the dragon on his rump soothingly with a soft sigh and indulgently starts picking bones out the fish, feeding the baby chunks that he deems safe. The baby cheers up, eating excitedly from his hand in return, tears dried up instantly.
He lets the kid have his fill, his own appetite non-existent before clearing the remaining fish away, but leaves the fire smoldering as he settles in for bed, warm and full from the dinner. The baby is still active though it seems, wandering the cave, prodding at the fire and playing at the edge of the water.
The noise is keeping Dabi awake as he watches him lazily from where he’s languidly sprawled on the floor, chin resting in his palm.
“Come to bed, kid.”
The dragon stops immediately, sending a fiery glare over their shoulder, begging to be teased further. Dabi can almost hear his protesting voice in his mind. Can’t even talk yet and already being a brat.
The hero hesitates for a minute, before grumpily stomping over but leaving a gap between them, back stubbornly facing Dabi, eyes closed defiantly. The grumpy expression is simply too sweet, Dabi can’t resist the urge to pinch the chubby reptilian cheek, making the dragon more grumpy, tucking its face under its tail.
“Oh you still don’t like me calling you a kid, huh?” The dragon peeks one gold eye open at him crankily.
“But you are a baby aren’t you? See, you can’t even handle eating fish alone. Makes sense doesn’t it, babies should be drinking milk instead, right?” Dabi teases, voice silky with a sly smile behind his mask. The corners of his cherry blossom eyes are upturned and creased with laughter.
“I’m not a baby!”
A milky voice echoes through the cave, juvenile and sweet.
The voice shocks both him and the little hero, it seems.
“Dabi?” A soft, milky voice calls for him, golden eyes of the hero lit up in excitement. “Dabi! Dabi, I can talk now, listen! Listen to me!”
“I can see that”, Dabi smiles lazily. “I guess you’ve grown up a little. From a baby to a toddler. Maybe I’ll start calling you pipsqueak, huh?”
Keigo’s sunny expression darkens to a pout. “No!” He bites at Dabi’s fingers, nipping them and Dabi flicks him on the head in retaliation, pulling back from the little sting. “I’m an adult now, I’m even older than you!”
“Sure, sure, whatever you say.”
Dabi reclines back, closing his eyes in amusement.
“Hey! Don’t ignore me! I’m older than you!!!”
Dabi huffs amused, dropping the corner of his heavy robe on the dragon’s face to hear him sputter and try to escape the confines of the clothing.
“Quiet time, pipsqueak.”
Still recuperating, the cool darkness of his eyes being closed makes him a little sleepy, so he yawns and continues to lie there, ignoring the dragon’s angry mutters. He knew he’d be a chatterbox.
After a while, when Dabi is on the precipice, hanging between the border of sleep and wakefulness, he feels the little dragon crawl up onto his chest again, tucking his head under his chin. Little feathers tickle his jaw as the baby space heater settles down for a nap too, both drifting off together to a dreamless rest.
In the distance, a dark cloud looms over the horizon. A clock ticks faster.
𓆩𓆪
A flash of blue and Dabi jolts awake heart pounding.
His torso aches, but more importantly his head is killing him, like there's a thin spine drilling into his brain.
Thankfully, the dragon is out hunting. The sun is setting over the dense forest, staining the low clouds and pink and purple trees with an orange bath of light. Warm golden beams fall lazily through the cave's opening, making him squint, and yet his skin feels like ice. A cold sweat delicately pools at his brow.
He breathes slowly, lets his heart slow to a manageable place. It's reaching the eighth month of isolation in this cave and he's been sleeping more lately, often too tired to play with the kid despite his nagging cries. It's a bone-deep exhaustion which he assumes is related to the wound, but sometimes he's not quite so certain.
His dreams are strange, never quite make sense and slip from his mind when he wakes. Memories are sometimes startling clear and sometimes so distant, blurred behind a thick frosted wall. It always feels like he's on the verge of remembering something important before he wakes and it's gone.
He thinks he can remember a pillar, a chill over his skin, a… his head aches sharply and his vision blurs.
The cave is achingly silent and Dabi is alone. The wind hums eerily through the winding expanse of cave tunnels he chooses not to explore. He chooses to stay awake and train. He chooses… well-
The past has nothing for him now.