dabi| toyai todoroki

Night had blanketed the city in a thick blanket of darkness, with only the occasional streetlight casting dim circles of light on the asphalt. Dabi and I walked down the deserted street—he, as always, ahead, as if the darkness itself were parting before his flame. The mission seemed simple: check out an old warehouse where, rumor has it, a group of villains with experimental matter-warping technology was hiding.

"Keep up," Dabi snapped, not even turning around. His voice sounded sharp as usual, but I knew that this sharpness wasn't indifference, but a way to keep everything under control.

I gripped the radio tighter and quickened my pace. The warehouse looked abandoned: broken windows, a sagging door, rusty gates. But it was precisely in this silence that I felt a tension—as if the air were taut as a string.

We stepped inside. It smelled of dust and something acrid and metallic. The flashlight's light revealed empty shelves and scattered crates.

“Someone was here,” I whispered, pointing to the fresh footprints on the floor.

Dabi nodded, his eyes scanning the room, scanning for any threats. And just as he took a step forward, a figure darted out of the shadows.

This was no ordinary villain. He wore a strange suit with shimmering plates, and in his hands he held a device that looked like a miniature generator. He pressed a button, and a thin beam of purple light erupted from the device.

I wanted to jump back, scream, warn, but I didn't have time. The beam touched me, and the world seemed to turn upside down.

At first, everything around me seemed enormous: boxes grew to the size of houses, shelves turned into walls, and the dust on the floor into dunes. Then I felt my body become light and unruly, and my clothes suddenly became too big and heavy.

When the dizziness passed, I looked down and froze. My hands were tiny, with chubby fingers, and the sleeves of my jacket hung almost to the floor. I became a three-year-old child.

Panic gripped my chest, and what came out of my throat wasn't my usual voice, but a childish, frightened sob:

• Dabi...

He turned around abruptly.