March came quietly, trailing the scent of thawing earth and blooming flowers. The snow had mostly melted, but the cold lingered in the corners—still clinging to the railings and windowsills.

  The first blush of cherry blossoms had started to appear in the parks and along the quieter streets of Musutafu. Pale petals budded on bare branches, not yet fully bloomed. A soft pink haze stretched between power lines and rooftops, like spring was arriving on tiptoes, careful not to wake the world too soon.

  Aldon noticed them on his way back from patrol, a streetmp casting soft light over a single blooming tree tucked behind the agency. He paused beneath it, shoulders slumped, hand brushing the petals that had fallen onto the bench nearby. They felt too delicate for a month like this.

  He’d always loved this time of year—the gentle change in the air, the way everything felt like it was beginning again. It used to be the month of new student intakes and seasonal cafés switching to floral teas. He remembered promising himself once that he’d take someone special to see the blooms. Walk with them beneath a canopy of pink, maybe even sit together beneath the trees with a thermos of sweet tea and quietly exist.

  Now, he wasn’t sure he’d ever get that chance.

  The thought slipped unspoken toward Touya.

  He imagined him there—grumbling about the pollen, squinting at the sunlight, trying not to care and failing miserably when Aldon offered him a sakura dango or pointed out a butterfly nding nearby. And it hurt in the quietest way. Because with everything that was coming, there was no space for moments like that.

  Not yet. Maybe not ever.

  Weeks had passed since Touya’s birthday, and though nothing was defined between them, something had changed. He still came and went like smoke through cracks, but there was rhythm to it—enough that Aldon started leaving the window unlocked without thinking.

  Sometimes, Touya would show up in the middle of the night, a soft thump on the hardwood floor, murmuring Aldon’s name. Other times, it was te afternoon, slipping in while the kettle boiled, eyes tired but steady. He never stayed long.

  Aldon never asked for more.

  But he worried.

  Especially now.

  The news had started trickling in—rumors shifting into facts, headlines whispering about an impending storm. Words like covert infiltration and strategic takedown began surfacing in quiet reports, while the Commission stayed tight-lipped. But Aldon wasn’t blind.

  He’d seen this coming.

  He knew the Commission had their hands full, and he knew Keigo was one of their best. The te replies. The vanishing acts. The silence wrapped in half-smiles and passing jokes that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

  And then, slowly—painfully—it all clicked into pce.

  This was what Hawks had been doing all along.

  Aldon knew his friend well enough to read between the lines, to feel the weight behind every deyed text and every rooftop lunch that never happened. The emptiness had a shape now.

  And it terrified him.

  Because if Keigo had been undercover this whole time—if the target was the League of Vilins, the Paranormal Liberation Front…

  Then Touya—

  Aldon rubbed his hands over his face and let out a slow breath, fingers trembling.

  Keigo was good at reading people. Too good. He’d once said Aldon wore his heart in his voice—too soft, too open, too easy to unravel. If he ever noticed the way Aldon had stopped flinching at Dabi’s name… if he pieced together the timing, the absences, the shift in Aldon’s eyes whenever the League was mentioned…

  If he knew.

  If he’d already figured it out—

  Aldon’s stomach twisted, a sharp, sick sort of panic winding through his ribs. Because this wasn’t just about loyalty anymore. This wasn’t just about missions and reports and picking sides.

  This was personal.

  He hadn’t told anyone. Not Endeavor. Not the Commission. Not even Mirko. The only person who knew, really knew, was Touya. And they’d kept it in the dark, let it grow in the quiet, in the stolen hours after midnight when no one else was watching.

  But Aldon was still a hero. He still wore the uniform. Still stood in briefing rooms with earpieces and protocols and paperwork filled with things he never said out loud.

  And for months, he’d been harboring a wanted man.

  A man the Commission had beled dangerous. Irredeemable.

  A man who was also Shoto’s brother.

  Aldon’s chest tightened at the thought of him—Shoto, who looked up to him. Who had once called him 'one of the good ones,' and gently smiled. Shoto, with his quiet observations and thoughtful silences, who’d never asked too much but always paid attention.

  If he ever found out...If he realized that Aldon had known all this time, had stood beside him during drills, training, agency patrols—while hiding the truth of Touya just a window away...

  Would he ever forgive him?

  Aldon didn’t know.Didn’t want to find out.

  Aldon’s breath caught in his throat. The guilt burned at the edges of his lungs like smoke. He’d justified it every time—he’s trying, he’s healing, he’s more than what they say he is. But now, with war creeping closer and everything unraveling too fast to stop, the weight of that secret pressed heavier than ever.

  He looked at his phone.

  No new message.

  Touya had been quieter tely—still showing up, still leaning against his kitchen counter with tired eyes and scraped knuckles. But something about him felt… dimmer. Like he knew. Like he felt the tension in Aldon’s hugs, the way Aldon’s fingers lingered just a little longer when they touched, as if memorizing him just in case.

  As if time was running out.

  Aldon didn’t know what scared him more: the idea of Keigo finding out and turning against him, or the idea of Keigo finding out and never saying a word—just doing what he was told.

  Because war was coming.

  And his best friend might be walking straight into the arms of the man Aldon was quietly, helplessly falling in love with.

  A few days had passed.

  The preparation building felt hollow now—an echo chamber of anxious breath. Heroes moved like ghosts through narrow halls, their armor clicking into pce, voices hushed as they reviewed tactical pns and strapped gear to their chests. No press. No spectators. Just anticipation and the weight of what was coming.

  Aldon stood near the back of the room, tightening his gloves slowly. The wristwatch on his arm blinked its quiet rhythm—heartbeat, temperature, fme capacity. All green.

  He should’ve felt ready. Focused. But his stomach twisted as he scanned the room—faces familiar and not. Seasoned pros, rookies barely out of their internships, and—

  Students.

  He caught sight of a few UA uniforms before they put on their hero costumes, their youthful eyes shadowed by nerves they were trying hard to hide. And he knew among them somewhere was Shoto. Standing tall, standing steady—but still too young for this. Too kind. Too brave. Aldon’s heart stuttered.

  This wasn’t supposed to happen.

  They were kids. Still learning. Still figuring out who they wanted to be.

  And now they were being lined up like soldiers for a war they didn’t ask for.

  He rubbed the heel of his palm against his chest, trying to push back the ache. If anything happened to Shoto… if he had to fight Touya—and Aldon knew, deep down, that possibility was real now—

  Would either of them survive it?

  Would he?

  His hands trembled slightly as he finished strapping the st piece of his gear. He exhaled through his nose, steadying himself, forcing the thoughts into a locked box for now. He couldn’t afford to fall apart. Not yet.

  He didn’t know how this would end.

  But the way things were moving—the way students were standing shoulder to shoulder with pro heroes, the way the air thrummed with urgency and dread—he knew one thing for certain.

  No one was coming out of this unchanged.

  He exhaled through his nose, flexed his fingers, and tried not to think about what came next.

  Then—thump.

  A rge hand cpped down on his shoulder, nearly knocking air out of him.

  “Jumpy today, huh?” came Fat Gum’s voice, low and unusually gentle.

  Aldon startled, then managed a crooked smile. “It’s either jumpy or numb. I’m not in the mood for numb.”

  Taishiro let out a small ugh, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Yeah. I get that.”

  Aldon didn’t say anything for a moment. Just adjusted the wrist monitor again.

  “You’re in front, right?” Taishiro asked, more carefully this time.

  Aldon nodded. “They said with my Quirk, I’m best suited to counter anything involving fire. Just in case… you know.”

  He didn’t say the name.

  He didn’t want to.

  Taishiro shifted his weight, rubbing the back of his neck. “You gonna be okay if it’s him?”

  Aldon’s eyes drifted to the far wall where evac pns were pinned, color-coded and covered in scribbled notes. He stared at the routes marked high risk.

  “I don’t know,” he said honestly. “His fmes are stronger than mine. But I’ll do what I have to.”

  Taishiro didn’t reply right away. The silence between them felt heavier than the gear hanging on every hook in the room.

  Then he spoke again—quieter this time, more hesitant.

  “Aldon…”

  Aldon turned to look at him, surprised by the tone.

  Taishiro’s eyes weren’t teasing. They weren’t protective in the usual big-brother way. They were vulnerable. Like something unspoken had been sitting behind his ribs for too long and was finally cwing its way out.

  “I, uh…” he fumbled, gncing away, then back again. “I’ve been thinking. And I didn’t want to say anything before, but—”

  He swallowed hard. His mouth opened, barely a breath between words.

  “Aldon, I —”

  CRACKLE.

  The speaker above the doorway burst to life, cutting through the moment like a bde.

  “All units to briefing. Repeat—this is the final strategic call. Please report to the west hall immediately.”

  Taishiro’s jaw snapped shut.

  Aldon blinked, the moment shattered like gss dropped on tile. He stared at Taishiro, caught between confusion and… something else. Something almost afraid to ask what that almost had been.

  Taishiro looked away, his expression tight, like the words he hadn’t finished saying were stuck in his throat now.

  Aldon adjusted his gloves again, letting the silence settle where meaning had almost lived.

  “Well,” he said softly, forcing a breath into his lungs. “I better go.”

  Taishiro gave a stiff nod. His voice came a beat ter—quiet and rough.

  “Just… don’t die out there, alright?”

  Aldon paused. Then gave him a small, tired smile. “I won’t.”

  And with that, he turned toward the hallway, his boots echoing against the floor as he made his way to the briefing room—shoulders straight, heart heavy.

  Behind him, Taishiro stood frozen in pce. Still holding the words that didn’t make it out.

  The signal came like thunder.

  A rumble tore through the ground—Cementoss’s quirk splitting the walls of the Liberation Front’s headquarters like they were nothing but old bark. Concrete cracked and peeled back, forming makeshift corridors and exposing steel frames that shrieked as they bent inward.

  “Now!” came the shout through their comms.

  And just like that, the heroes surged forward.

  Aldon ran with the front line—boots hitting the ground hard, heat sparking in his palms as he drew fire through the gloves. His heart pounded, not from fear, but from pressure. From focus.

  He didn’t know if Touya was inside.

  But someone was.Dozens of someones.And they were ready.

  The moment the first wave hit, chaos bloomed.

  Liberation soldiers poured from the cracks like hornets, some wielding bdes, others quirks ranging from smoke manipution to reinforced skin. The csh of battle was instant—shouts, heat, sparks, lightning.

  A bst of electricity screamed toward the front—fast and wide.

  Denki ran forward. His arm lifted, and the arc of energy smmed into him, lighting his silhouette in blue and white before redirecting in a brilliant burst toward the enemy line.

  The bst short-circuited their front—three men dropping instantly, weapons scattering, bodies twitching.

  Aldon charged through the gap Denki left behind, fmes gathering in both hands.

  He was fire wrapped in motion.

  His boots skidded across the floor as he met the first wave head-on. No hesitation. Just heat and movement. Aldon ducked beneath a swinging bde, rolled forward, and reached up—not for a weapon, but for the fire flickering in a shattered overhead mp. The moment his gloved hand brushed it, the fme leapt to his palm and disappeared into the veins beneath his skin.

  Stored. Controlled. His.

  He spun, the glow building in his wrist, and released it outward as a coiled whip—fmes snapping through the air in a spiraling arc. It cracked hard against two incoming enemies, the heat knocking them off their feet without igniting their clothes. Smoke curled. One of them groaned, disarmed.

  Another charged from the fnk.

  Ice user.

  Aldon’s instincts screamed. He pivoted fast, trying to avoid the spreading frost that rolled along the floor like a tide. His glove fred red, not with heat—but with warning.

  Wrong element. No absorption.

  He jumped sideways. The edge of the cold clipped his ribs, slicing through his side with the sharp bite of winter. His breath hitched—but he didn’t stop.

  Couldn’t stop.

  He threw out his arm toward a torch abandoned in a wall sconce—probably left behind by another hero mid-charge. The fme jumped to him like it recognized him, trailing behind his fingers in glowing ribbons. It twisted, reshaped, lengthened—

  A serpent of fire bloomed to life in his hand.

  “Move!” someone shouted behind him.

  Too te.

  Aldon unched the serpent forward, the fming chain snapping around the ice user’s arm and yanking them off bance. With his other hand, he tapped the floor and ignited a ring of fmes beneath the enemy’s boots—tight and hot enough to make them stumble, not enough to cause burns.

  Disable. Not destroy. That was his rule.

  His wristwatch blinked.[42% FLAME CAPACITY]Still good.

  He pressed forward—each step measured, each flick of fire calcuted. His gloves hissed faintly, repurposing residual fmes from the battlefield, cycling energy into his system with every controlled surge.Borrow. Shape. Recycle. Reuse.He moved like fire belonged to him—and in a way, it did.

  All around him, the battlefield roared.

  Heroes cshed with members of the Paranormal Liberation Front. Lightning carved the ceiling, shockwaves rippled through stone, sonic booms sent shockwaves through the corridors. Some enemies fought like zealots, eyes wild with fury. Others just looked scared—like kids dragged into something too big to escape.

  Someone roared and barreled toward him—heavyset, with jagged gauntlets of earth growing like armor from their arms.

  Aldon ducked low, caught a glimmer of a still-burning ember from debris, and flicked it toward the enemy.

  It erupted midair—two streams of fme twisting into a spiral, controlled by his fingertips. They crashed into the attacker’s chest, knocking them back into a cracked pilr. Without missing a beat, Aldon shed forward with a short fming chain from his opposite glove, coiling it around their wrist and anchoring them to the rubble.

  [38% FLAME CAPACITY]Still fine.

  He ducked beneath a fractured beam as smoke curled overhead. His boots scraped across scorched floorboards. He could feel the hum of stored fire traveling through his body like a second pulse.

  Behind him, Cementoss sealed a hallway with thick concrete—cutting off enemy movement.

  Aldon kept going.

  Not stopping.Not thinking.Not hesitating.

  He didn’t know where Touya was. But every fme he touched, every step forward… Felt like one step closer to him.

  The fight continued to roar like a storm through concrete walls.

  Fmes danced along Aldon’s shoulders as he weaved through hallways choked in smoke and debris. His chains crackled, his gloves hissed, and the air around him shimmered with heat. He had already taken down three more soldiers—one with a steel-reinforcement quirk, two with enhanced strength—but it was getting harder to pace his fmes. His storage was steadily dropping.

  [27% FLAME CAPACITY]

  Still usable. But not for long.

  He ducked under a colpsed beam, rolled across scorched floorboards, and charged into the next corridor—

  Only to stop dead.

  There was someone waiting.

  The air was still, unnervingly so. The enemy stood in the center of the hallway, dressed in patchwork armor—tattered robes hanging beneath heavy metal pting. Their face was mostly obscured by a cracked mask that pulsed with faint green light.

  Then the lights around them flickered.

  Aldon’s eyes narrowed. “You’re not just muscle, are you…”

  The figure lifted their arm—and the shadows behind them… moved.

  Not like the creeping kind from fme or smoke—but shapes. Threads. Thin, almost invisible lines connected to broken chunks of metal and shattered debris.

  The hallway shifted.

  Aldon barely had time to react before the floor beneath him groaned and bent. A sheet of warped steel ripped free from the wall and flung toward him like a discus.

  Telekinesis. No—worse. Vector manipution.

  He smmed both hands against the fme running along his gloves and ignited a wall of fire, catching the flying metal midair and redirecting it just in time. The sb crashed into the ceiling above him, raining sparks and dust.

  He unched forward, fmes spiraling around his arms like ribbons, forming into cws with jagged edges. “Let’s see what you’re really made of.”

  They cshed.

  Hard.

  Aldon’s fmes met flying debris, twisted steel, and suddenly disappearing ground. The enemy used momentum like a weapon—redirecting even Aldon’s own jumps by shifting the angles beneath his feet. He hit hard, got up harder. His cws sshed wide, creating waves of fire, forcing the enemy back—but they never broke rhythm. Every time he struck, they adapted. Every time he moved, they anticipated.

  A rusted pipe ripped free from the ceiling and tried to impale him.

  He bent backward, sweat pouring down his neck, fme bursting from his shoulder to throw it off course. Another chain shed out from his glove, catching a loose fme nearby and throwing it in a wide arc toward the masked enemy.

  They spun, avoiding it—and in that brief moment of opening, Aldon struck.

  He unched forward, his gloves fring white-hot as he brought his fists down in a double strike—

  But the enemy pivoted and threw both hands downward.

  The floor tilted.

  Gravity shifted sideways.

  Aldon’s boots slid across the warped hallway, his bance thrown off, his fmes scattering as he lost traction. He smmed into the wall with a grunt, the wind knocked from his lungs.

  He scrambled upright—

  But too te.

  The ground exploded beneath him.

  Chunks of tile burst upward, unched like missiles. One caught his side, the impact rattling through his ribs. Another hit his shoulder, throwing him to the ground hard.

  He gasped—air gone, vision swimming.

  His glove sparked weakly.

  [14% FLAME CAPACITY]

  Still burning.

  But the enemy was already there—arm raised, fingers twitching like a puppeteer.

  Aldon twisted, reaching for the fme curling up a half-burned banner nearby, his fingertips just brushing the heat—

  The ground cracked.

  In an instant, steel cords shot up from the floor like snakes, wrapping around his ankles, his legs, his waist—smming him down. His back hit the debris-strewn ground with a bone-rattling thud. The breath was knocked clean from his lungs.

  Another twist of the enemy’s hand—his arms were yanked outward, pinned at awkward angles by those same constricting cords. One looped tight around his throat, not choking, but holding—threatening.

  Aldon gasped, his cheek scraped against the concrete, and all he could do was gre up through a fringe of sweat-damp hair.

  The masked figure stepped forward, casual. Unhurried. And then—

  Crunch.

  A heavy boot pressed down on his chest.

  Hard.

  Aldon grunted, pain fring along his ribs. The weight wasn’t crushing, but it was enough to say: Don’t move.

  The figure tilted their head slowly, the green light on their mask flickering. Then, at st, a voice—distorted, low.

  “Not bad,” the masked figure said, voice calm, almost amused. “You move with purpose. Precision. Most of the ones I’ve fought fil around like angry children.”

  Aldon didn’t respond. His breath hissed through clenched teeth, eyes darting between the distant fme he couldn’t reach and the shifting pressure against his ribs.

  “But you…” the enemy continued, crouching slightly, head tilted like they were studying a piece of art. “You’re different. Trained. Refined.”

  Their tone darkened.

  “Restrained.”

  They let the word hang.

  “You don’t fight to kill. You don’t even fight to win. You fight to contain. Like you’re afraid of what’ll happen if you let go.”

  A gloved hand tapped against the metal cords binding Aldon’s wrist. “That’s what this world does to people like us, isn’t it? Teaches us to pull our punches. Chains us with rules. Labels. Hero codes.”

  Their gaze dropped to Aldon’s hands—still twitching, fingers strained. The gloves hissed faintly from residual heat, scorched at the seams.

  “These gloves... Specialized tech. Designed to help you manage your Quirk.”

  They leaned in closer, voice dropping to a near whisper. “You absorb through skin, don’t you?”

  Aldon didn’t move.

  The figure chuckled, low and knowing. “You could be so much more. If they let you. If you let yourself.”

  They reached down, grabbed Aldon’s wrist, and yanked his arm upward—holding it up like a trophy. Their fingers tightened around the joint, voice steady now. Cold.

  “You rely on your hands too much.”

  Then, with no warning—CRACK.

  Aldon’s scream ripped through the corridor as the bone snapped under pressure, sharp and merciless.

  The figure stood, unshaken.

  “You should've been free.”

  The hallway burned.

  Feathers y scattered across the floor—torn, bckened, twitching where the fmes hadn’t yet devoured them. Smoke slithered between the cracks in the ceiling, coiling through shattered beams like a serpent. The heat pulsed like a second heartbeat, suffocating in its weight.

  Hawks crawled forward.

  Every motion was agony. His wings—those once-proud bdes of freedom—dragged behind him, charred and useless. His fingers scraped along debris, struggling for leverage he no longer had. Pain settled into his bones, deeper than the fmes.

  And above him, wreathed in hellfire—stood Dabi.

  A phantom sculpted in blue light and fury. His silhouette rippled behind rising embers, arms glowing with wrath. The fire crawled up his sides, elegant and wild, like it worshipped him.

  "You killed him," Dabi said.

  His voice was too calm. Too even. It didn’t match the bze tearing through the room, nor the fury sparking in his eyes.

  Hawks didn’t answer. Couldn’t. His breath came in shallow bursts. Blood burned down his temple.

  "How could you?!" The words came like a whip.

  Fmes burst beneath them, cracking the floor with a deafening roar. And then—impact. A boot smmed into Hawks’ ribs, sending him sprawling across the scorched tiles.

  His body curled inward. Breath shallow. Every nerve screaming.

  These fmes… he realized, eyes flickering. They’re getting hotter… faster…

  He lifted his head—just barely. “Is that…” he rasped, voice gravel. “…the face of a man who just watched his friend die?”

  Dabi’s expression twitched. And then twisted.

  "With Twice around," he said, voice curling like smoke, "my dream had a way better chance of coming true." He grinned, too wide, too sharp. "So of course I’m sad he’s gone."

  His tone dropped, shifting into something low and cold. “I haven’t cried since my tear ducts got burned out.”

  His grin widened—monstrous now.

  "So, sooo sad."

  FWOOOM—

  Another explosion of heat. Hawks barely rolled away in time, boots scraping across melted floorboards. His costume—already scorched—was nothing but ash and fabric now. The feathers on his back had vanished.

  "You and the League…" he hissed, forcing words past the pain. “Shigaraki…”

  He looked up, trembling. “I looked into your backgrounds. All of you.”

  “But I came up with nothing…” His voice cracked. “Except you and Shigaraki. Only you two.”

  Dabi stepped forward, blue fire spiraling from his heels like wrath made visible.

  "You should’ve kept both eyes on me."

  Hawks’ mind staggered under the weight of it. The years of service. The Commission’s orders. The boy he once was—sitting in a sterile room, holding an Endeavor toy, dreaming of becoming a hero.

  He blinked against the sting of smoke and tears. "Who are you?"

  Dabi tilted his head, smile never fading as he whispered his true name. Todoroki Touya.

  Hawks froze.

  “A single person,” Dabi said, voice smooth as oil, “with conviction… has the power to change the world.”

  His fmes pulsed higher.

  “I pn to make Stain’s will a reality. There are no true heroes.”

  The walls groaned. Distant cries echoed from the battlefield outside. Somewhere above, more fmes rained down.

  “Your life,” Dabi said, turning his back to the broken man on the floor, “is another thing I don’t care about.”

  Fmes rose like curtains around him. Tall. Final. His silhouette flickered at the edge of the inferno—blurred, untouchable. The hallway trembled under the heat.

  He was walking away.

  And Hawks, barely conscious, barely breathing, let out a sound that wasn’t quite a word—more breath than voice.

  “…What about Aldon?”

  It wasn’t a threat. Wasn’t a tactic.

  Just a name. A whisper pulled from bloodied lips that still had something left to lose.

  Dabi froze.

  He didn’t turn. Didn’t speak. For a heartbeat, he was just still—dangerously, deafeningly still. The fire around him roared like it wanted to keep going, but its master hesitated.

  “…Say that again,” Dabi said, barely above a growl. His voice no longer calm. No longer composed. There was something feral in it now. Something uncertain.

  Hawks coughed, winced, pushed himself an inch higher from the floor. “You don’t care about me” he rasped. “Fine. But don’t lie to yourself about him.”

  Dabi turned slowly, and this time the fire bent with him—coiling down, tense and waiting. His expression was unreadable. Not a snarl. Not a smile. Something in between.

  “…How—?” he asked, a question ced in disbelief.

  Hawks didn’t answer that. He stared up through the smoke with something sharp behind his eyes. “Does he know what you are?”

  Dabi blinked.

  And then—he ughed.

  It was short. Dry. Bitter like ash.

  “Yeah. He knows,” he said, stepping back toward the fallen hero. “He’s known since Kamino.”

  His voice was low, steady now. Controlled in a way it hadn’t been before.

  “He came looking for me after the raid.” He smirked faintly. “Persistent little firefly.”

  Hawks’ brow furrowed, but Dabi kept talking—like once the words started, they wouldn’t stop.

  “I let him find me,” he said, not meeting Hawks’ gaze. “Didn’t pn to. Didn’t pn anything. Just... watched him stand there, shaking, asking for answers with those goddamn soft eyes.”

  He flexed his fingers, fme curling around them like it was listening.

  “And he stayed. Even after I pushed him. Burned near to breaking.”

  There was something bitter in his throat. And something else beneath it.

  “Even now, he leaves the window open.”

  Hawks’ eyes flickered—hurt, surprised, something.

  “You care about him,” he said quietly. Not as a statement. Not quite a question. More like he needed to hear it out loud.

  Dabi looked at him then—really looked.

  And for a split second, he didn’t look like a vilin. Didn’t look like the man who burned cities for ideology. He just looked... tired.

  But it didn’t st.

  The fme surged again as his eyes narrowed.

  “You wanna talk about caring?” he spat. “Then you can be the one to look him in the eyes after this. You can tell him what you did.”

  He stepped back into the fire, the heat rising with his fury.

  “You can tell him you killed someone who just wanted to protect his friends.”

  The fire climbed the walls. The ceiling cracked.

  Dabi’s voice came one st time through the bze—rough, shaken, angry in a way that wasn’t all hate.

  He sent one st bst towards Hawks.

  Pain didn’t come in waves—it came in a single, white-hot scream that tore from Aldon’s throat before he could bite it back.

  His vision blurred. His head snapped back against stone. The broken arm throbbed with molten fire—not Quirk-made, but real, raw, human pain. The kind that rattled the lungs and crushed the breath from your chest.

  His body reacted before his mind did.

  Something deep inside him snapped open. A lock, a seal—whatever it was, it gave way.

  And then—

  A roar.

  It didn’t come from his mouth.

  It came from within.

  The metal bindings hissed against his skin, glowing red. The floor beneath him cracked, scorched bck in a widening circle. Heat rolled off him in waves as every stored ember ignited at once—no longer contained. No longer controlled.

  [12% FLAME CAPACITY — OVERRIDE]

  The watch on his wrist blinked once. Then died.

  And from the fmes came a sound—a low, guttural growl that echoed off the walls like a beast rising from slumber.

  The enemy took a step back.

  “What the—”

  Too te.

  Fire burst from Aldon’s body in a massive wave, bsting outward in a ring of blinding orange and gold. The temperature spiked violently. Embers swirled like fireflies caught in a cyclone, but at the center—at the eye of the storm—stood Aldon, lifted slightly off the ground by the sheer force of the release. His eyes glowed. His veins pulsed with fme.

  And then it rose.

  From the circle of fire—a shape.

  Massive.

  Feral.

  A lion, forged from pure fire, cwed its way into the air. It towered over the wreckage, mane crackling, fangs bared. The heat distorted its edges, but its eyes were fixed. Purposeful.

  It didn’t think. It didn’t reason. It burned.

  The figure who had pinned Aldon took a step back—then another. “No—wait—”

  The lion roared. The corridor shook.

  The lion pounced.

  Its body was fme and fury, cws like molten bdes, mane whipping like wildfire in the wind. The enemy raised a shield—metal cords reforming from the floor in a desperate wall—but the lion tore through it like paper. Sparks flew. The heat alone seared the mask from their face as they stumbled back, coughing on smoke and panic.

  Aldon didn’t move.

  He stood in the heart of the inferno, arms sck at his sides, head bowed, fmes spilling from his skin like blood.

  He wasn’t controlling the lion.

  He was the lion.

  The enemy screamed—sshing forward with jagged weaponized metal, trying to bind it again, to grab control—but the lion circled, faster. Each time they turned, it struck: cws to the shoulder, a swipe to the leg, a bite across the ribs. Not to kill. Not instantly.

  To punish.

  Fmes curled along the enemy’s arm. They screamed again, tripping over a beam. The lion rose above them, shadowed by its own light, and lunged one final time.

  Aldon’s body twitched.

  A spark danced from his fingertips.

  And then, in a burst of blistering heat—the lion bit down.

  Fmes engulfed the enemy, twisting around them like chains, branding their limbs, their chest, their mask with searing force. They colpsed beneath the weight of it—smoke rising, armor cracked, body twitching in a pile of ash and flickering cinders.

  And just like that—

  Silence.

  The lion turned back toward the center of the circle. Its burning gaze found Aldon’s still frame, shoulders trembling, knees locking to stay upright.

  It took one step closer.

  And nuzzled against his side.

  The fmes that had once roared… began to flicker. Fade. The lion’s body dissolved into golden embers, rising slowly like fireflies toward the ceiling, leaving behind the faint smell of ozone and scorched stone.

  Aldon exhaled once—just a whisper of a breath.

  Then colpsed.

  His body hit the ground with a soft thud, limbs loose, breath shallow. His watch—fried. His gloves—torn. One arm bent wrong, twisted where the bone had snapped. His pulse was steady, but faint. The corridor around him was bckened and scorched—every surface kissed by fire and left trembling in its aftermath.

  But he was alive.

  Unconscious.

  And somewhere beyond the rising smoke, the war still raged on.

  Ability Note: Roaring Fmes

  Roaring Fmes is a high-risk, high-power ability tied directly to Aldon’s emotional state—particurly pain and anger. When triggered, Aldon releases all the fire stored within his body, forming a bzing ring of fmes around himself and his opponent. From this inferno, a massive lion made entirely of fire emerges—roughly the size of a Nomu.

  This lion behaves like it has a will of its own, operating on two instincts: protect Aldon and eliminate threats. Its cws and fangs don’t cut—they burn, inflicting deep scorch wounds rather than traditional injuries. The lion’s movements are quick, brutal, and relentless.

  Even when Aldon is unconscious or unable to fight, the lion will continue until the fmes burn out. The attack sts one minute for every 1% of stored fire in Aldon’s body (e.g., 12% storage = 12 minutes of active attack time). Even 2 minutes can cause devastating damage.

  This move is incredibly dangerous—not just to Aldon’s enemies, but to Aldon himself. It completely depletes his stored fmes, leaving him exhausted or unconscious, and if activated without care, it could hurt allies or burn through surroundings uncontrolbly.

  Roaring Fmes is raw emotion made manifest. A lion born of fire, pain, and the heart of someone still learning how to hold both.