Chapter 447 - My SI Stash #47 - Blue Flame by BANIX (MHA)

-We already got a SI!Endeavour so here's the obligatory SI!Dabi~ SI!Shoto is next/

Synopsis: Todoroki Toya, that's my identity in this life. A life that I shouldn't be living. Even so, I still try my best to live. I don't have much of a goal other than trying to live for the people that I had grown to care about. I don't remember everything from the series but I will try my best to help those who needs my help, one person at a time. (Reincarnated OC as Dabi, Slow Updates)

Rated: T

Words: 13K

Posted on: m.fanfiction.net/s/13742475/1/Blue-Flame (BANIX)

PS: If you're not able to copy/paste the link, you have everything in here to find it, by simply searching the author and the story title. It sucks that you can't copy links on mobile (´ー｀)

-I'll be putting the chapter ones of all the fanfics/originals mentioned, to give you guys a sample if you wan't more please do go to the website and support the author! (And maybe even convince them to start uploading chapters in here as well!)

Chapter 1

Cremation, that's the quirk that I am born with in this world. A world that is supposed to be fiction.

Todoroki, that's the family I am born into in this world. A family that is a classic example of domestic abuse.

Todoroki Toya, that's the name I am gifted with in this life. A life that I shouldn't be living.

I still try my best to live, nevertheless. I don't have much of a goal in life other than trying to live for the people that I had grown to care about. My mother, my siblings, and the people that depend on me to make a living. For them, I continue to walk this earth in this sickly body.

I don't remember everything from the My Hero Academia series but I do remember a popular fan theory speculating that Dabi is Todoroki Toya, the eldest of the Todoroki siblings. Being reincarnated as Toya in this world, I can safely say that this theory is true. After I dyed my hair black the moment I left the Todoroki household my resemblance to Dabi is uncannily similar.

I have no idea what happened to canon me, but I didn't turn to the dark side despite the tempting thought. I did suffer damage to my own body from the overuse of my quirk though, resulting in me having similar injuries to canon Dabi. I guess some things stay the same.

No matter how much I tried to turn him around, my father in this life, Todoroki Enji, is still the same abusive man as depicted in the series. I didn't read any further in my past life to see if he did anything to redeem himself but at least in this life, he is still a sorry excuse of a human being.

I don't want to have any association with him if at all possible. Alas, I had decided to be a hero to spite his ideals with mine, so there were a rare few times that I had to work with him much to my reluctance.

The one thing I dislike about this world is the criteria that defines what a hero is. Saving people had turned into a popularity contest. Instead of focusing on what a hero should do many heroes now focus on fame and wealth, ignoring what the word hero truly means.

I had decided early on not to be that kind of hero. After all, one such "hero" is my father. I don't aim to be the best hero there is, but I strive to be a better man than he will ever be. This is the only thing that is driving me forward in my hero work, to learn how to be a better man so that I can be a passable hero.

Frankly speaking, my quirk is more suited to villain work. It's too destructive, making non-lethal takedown extremely difficult. My hero costume places emphasis on toning down my power so that I can conduct non-lethal takedowns and so that it would reduce the chances of me burning my body from the inside out.

I managed to set up my own agency after working as Best Jeanist's sidekick for a year after graduation from U.A. He was my mentor when I did my internship as a U.A. student. Interning under him was the best decision I could have made. He taught me many things, not just how to properly use my quirk and how to conduct proper hero work, but also what it means to be a hero.

Heroes don't make excuses no matter the situation. Heroes must maintain a positive influence. Heroes must spread a sense of peace to all people. Heroes must be selfless, brave, and charismatic.

That is what I had learnt from him.

Best Jeanist's quirk requires him to have very fine control, something which I lacked when I first started out as a hero-in-training. He has my eternal gratitude for helping me to learn how to properly control my quirk by imparting his own experience to me. Till this date, we still keep in close contact despite us being a decade apart in age.

My work experience with him led me to notice that while many of the top heroes are active in solving high-profile cases, many of the petty crimes tend to fall through the cracks. Crimes that are often not noticeable enough for top Pro Heroes to notice, but also too much for the weaker Pro Heroes to handle.

Ever since I decided to aim to be a better man instead of striving to be a top hero, I decided to focus my hero work on solving this category of crimes. I want to help make this world a better place. I want to spit on my father's ideals, I want to show him that being the strongest hero means jack shit if he does not know how to be a proper human being.

I believe that to be a hero, one must first learn how to be a proper human being.

Seeing that my ideologies are closely similar to Spiderman's ideology from what I could remember about him in my previous life, I decided to call myself the Neighbourhood Hero: Dabi. The name Dabi means 'Cremation'. Not the best name I could have used for a hero name, I know. I chose the name Dabi as a reminder to myself on who this person could have been if I didn't inhabit this body for some unknown reason. A reminder to myself that I am constantly toeing on a fine line that separates heroes and villains.

As Best Jeanist often said, heroes and villains are both cut from the same cloth.

My hero agency is located in Hosu City. It is close enough to home so that my siblings can come and find me whenever they want, and it is also fairly close to the hospital which my mother is now living in. I never gave that man my number or address to my home. I don't wish to see him.

His deeds are horrid. The manga and anime series had seriously downplayed the severity of his actions. I loathe that man. I couldn't save Shoto from him, which is still my biggest regret.

My typical working day goes something like this: Wake up, eat breakfast, check some email and go through some doc.u.ments that my staff deemed important enough for me to go through personally. Go patrol, check on people that I need to check on, eat lunch. After lunch, continue patrol and beat up some villains if I have to, eat dinner. After dinner, either train or go through more doc.u.ments, then give a quick call to my siblings and my mother before calling it a day.

Boring life with the occasional excitement in the form of beating up villains, but I'm fine with this arrangement as long as the area I am in charge of is safe.

My ranking as a hero isn't that high, which is to be expected since I am not interested in fame or the likes. I just want to do my job properly. On the bright side, it seems that I am highly popular among Hosu citizens despite my disfigured looks since I interact with them regularly.

I can remember a fair bit of canon. Not everything and certainly not in detail, just bits and pieces of it. Even then, I know my youngest brother will definitely be in a lot of shit when he finally enters U.A.

I have no idea what I can do to help from the outside, but I can try.

In fact, I already did help, considering who I employed in my agency. Little by little, I will do what I can to help to change whatever bad canonical fate of whatever people that don't deserve it.

Starting from those who can be saved.

Hey, wassup! Jin Bubaigawara in the house, yo! Pro Hero Dabi's sidekick and trusted assistant, Twice, at your service!

Wait, what?! You don't know who I am?! Eh, that's reasonable, I guess. Not many who are from outside of Hosu know who we are. In that case, let me introduce myself!

As mentioned, my name is Jin Bubaigawara, Hero name: Twice! I was a no-good lazy thug that inflicted insanity onto myself. Parents died, got fired, nowhere to go, used my quirk on myself, nearly killed myself and to this day I still don't know if I am a clone or the original… Yeah, you get the drift. I'm certified insane.

There's no place for insane guys like me in society, I know that. Even then, what I want to do is to be okay with me being me. I want a sense of belonging; it doesn't matter if it is a hero group or a villain group. I just want to… not be an outcast. I want a place where my mental state wouldn't need to be scrutinised and I can just be me.

And then he found me.

Todoroki Toya, also known as Pro Hero Dabi. He is my saviour even if he is quite some years my junior.

We first met when I was having an existential crisis. Nothing new there. The paper bag which I was using to cover my face got torn, I was gonna split. He found me at my most vulnerable, in the dark alley filled with trash. Trash like me.

He saved me when he used his jacket to cover my face, preventing me from splitting.

We sat down and talked after I got my shit together. In that forsaken alley, we each sat on the top of a heap of rubbish bags, munching on some kit-kats and he just listened without judging. I told him all I wanted is to find a place where I can just be me.

"If you don't mind the fact that my agency is some no-name agency, I can hire you. I just started out on my own and I would need someone to help me with all the paperwork anyway. If you accept, I can guarantee you that you will have a paying job, a roof over your head, and three meals a day at the very least. Pay rise will have to wait until the agency gets going for real though."

How can I say no to such kindness?

He had only just opened his own hero agency one week prior to meeting me. No one had signed up for any of his job offers he posted. I became the first staff member that he had recruited. With my quirk, I copied him and it allows us to handle the paperwork with close to little problems. My presence helped the agency cut down significantly on manpower costs in its early days. Toya always laughingly said that recruiting me was one of the best choices he had made, right up there with learning under Best Jeanist.

I am flattered.

Working under him gave me a new sense of purpose in life. The pay was just okay, not too high but not too low. Job is nothing too exciting, but I have been given a second chance to live a proper life. A life without crime.

I am determined to not turn back to crime. I will grab this chance that I was offered. I will not let Toya down.

My mental trauma had never truly disappeared, but I made significant progress. Toya used the agency's funds to ensure that I have regular consultations with a psychiatrist. It helped somewhat. He helped me clear my bad records. It helped that the crimes I had committed prior to our meeting were just minor crimes that could be easily brushed off. I returned what was stolen using my own money, money that I had earned through my own merit, and completed whatever community service that was my punishment.

Just a year later, I became a free man after I had redeemed myself in the eyes of the law.

"Why not try to be a hero?"

"You gotta be kidding me, Toya. Me? A hero?"

"You found yourself. You accepted you as you. You decided to not fall back to a life of crime. I daresay that you are already a better human being than half the population out there. So why not?"

Upon his suggestion, I enrolled in a school that offered a private course to be a hero. I was the oldest student there. People laughed at me. An ex-criminal? Becoming a hero?

I still did it. I got top grades and was offered jobs by various top hero agencies across Japan. I didn't pay them any mind. I went back to Toya's agency.

As long as he will have me, I will always be his sidekick.

A year later, I overcame my fear of myself and managed to clone myself. It was my biggest achievement; I had overcome my greatest fear. If it wasn't for Toya, this would never have happened.

Patrolling became much easier after that. I would leave a few clones behind in our little office to settle whatever paperwork there is to settle whenever the both of us went out on patrol. I would clone ourselves and send them out in pairs to patrol the streets. I would talk his ears off and he would try to make witty comebacks. Sometimes he succeeded, many times he failed because talking is my thing, not his.

It is still a great partnership. The area we are in charge of isn't that big, but we managed it well.

Toya is a firm believer of the notion of doing things personally. Even with my quirk helping him, he insists on doing the important paperwork himself. He believes that to first be a hero, one needs to learn how to be a proper human being. He doesn't seek fame or wealth, but he does ensure that we earn more than enough to get by because he said that to first help others, we must be capable of looking after ourselves.

All he wants to do is to do his job properly. I can respect that.

It is because of this belief that he started to get popular with Hosu's citizens without him realising it. People started noticing him for his various deeds, no matter how big or small they are. His disfigured looks didn't stop him from slowly rising up to fame.

And with that me too! I started to get popular just from being his sidekick! Can you imagine that? Me, a no name ex-criminal becoming famous among the ladies? It is a dream come true!

Slowly, but surely, people started applying for jobs at our agency. I can produce as many clones as I want, but the fact is that my skill set is limited and I don't have the expertise to handle everything. We soon got ourselves a secretary, an accountant, so on and so forth. Whatever and whoever we need to keep the agency running.

Do you know what's the interesting part? Come on, take a guess!

Eh, you don't want to? You are no fun at all.

Every single staff that Toya hired, either they were ex-criminals like me, or they are people who struggled to find jobs for various reasons. Very often, these reasons are societal prejudices.

Let it be said that Toya is also a firm believer of second chances. However, you blow up that second chance, he becomes merciless. Some random dude who was an ex-convict once betrayed that trust and now he is spending the next five years behind bars.

Toya is powerful, even if he never flaunted that aspect of himself. His quirk is so strong that it inflicts damage upon himself if he ever overused it. He overused it once when he was working under Best Jeanist as an intern. He was alone, trying to save civilians from a villain attack and was about to be overrun. He didn't hesitate to go all out to save the people he was protecting, disfiguring himself in the process.

He got staples on his face for God's sake, just to keep his skin together.

Over time, the agency slowly got bigger and bigger. Interns from various Hero Academies actually started to apply for internship positions here even when we are not in the top ten. Toya started to earn some big bucks but he only kept the necessary amount for himself, usually only the bare minimum he needed to pay his bills. The rest, he either invested it in some stocks or donated it for charitable causes under another alias. He also used another huge sum of his own money to open an eatery to create more jobs so that people who used to be like me will have another option instead of going down a path of regret.

According to him, there is a limit on how many jobs his hero agency can offer. Him venturing into business is his method of creating more job vacancies for people like me, like most of the staff in our agency who had once lost our way. He left the running of the business to a guy we trust, also an ex-convict who turned over a new leaf. Toya didn't really interfere with the running of the business since to him, its main priority is to just provide income to those who need an honest job. As long as it breaks even he is fine with it. If it made profits, then it is a plus.

Nobody knew that eatery belonged to him at first and upon Toya's request, we didn't publicise that fact too. But somehow, the public found out. It only boosted Toya's popularity even further.

Funny thing is, Toya didn't even bother to check his hero ranking. He is ranked at 18 right now among the Pro Heroes and is exceptionally popular among Hosu citizens for what he did for them. He showed that the proper way to fight crimes isn't through force, but by addressing the root of the problem in our society. He showed that sometimes, all that is needed to stop crime from festering is to just give a little helping hand when someone needs it.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is what I Jin Bubaigawara call-

The act of a true hero.