….
On their way back to U.A–
The atmosphere inside the vehicle is quite different.
Himiko, still clutching her bunny bag like a shield, spent the first ten minutes diligently practicing her 'toe-eating growl' in the rearview mirror until she fell asleep.
However–
Eri stayed fully awake, and her expression was quite serious; her hands folded neatly over her lap as she quietly practiced the rhythmic breathing Dabi had taught her.
Inhale: calm the pulse.
Exhale: tether the light.
When the vehicle reached the outermost barrier checkpoint, the towering automated gates scanned the vehicle, and only once confirmed the identity did the doors open into the tunnel beneath the campus grounds.
Dabi cut the headlights as he rolled into the private bay adjacent to the underground containment block.
"Stay here with 'em, Bunny." He murmured, clicking off the ignition.
The cabin went dark. "I will call you guys once I have got everything ready. Shouldn't take long."
Rumi turned her head. "Don't flatter yourself, Patchwork. I am not playing babysitter in the car while you do all the scary posturing. I am coming to make sure the little grape doesn't faint."
She reached into the back, unbuckling a half-asleep Himiko and hoisting the girl onto her hip. Himiko let out a drowsy, muffled squeak, her arms immediately locking around Rumi's neck.
"Guard bunny... reporting for duty..."
"Damn right you are." Rumi grinned, nudging Dabi's ribs with her elbow. "Lead the way, Teach."
Dabi stepped around to open the opposite door.
He extended an arm, and Eri slid down smoothly into his side, immediately slotting her small hand into his grip.
….
The elevator descended into the U.A. 's deepest sub-level.
When the doors opened with a hiss, the sight that emerged was unlike anything the containment facility had ever witnessed.
Stepping out of the elevator was the country's most powerful Hero, wearing an oversized hoodie with his hands jammed into his pockets, with Eri tucked close to him.
Flanking him was the Number Five Hero, Mirko, balancing a toddler on her hip.
Waiting at the end of the corridor was a welcoming committee that had clearly not anticipated their presence.
Principal Nezu, paws neatly folded over his tailored waistcoat.
Standing beside them was Recovery Girl. It was the very first time the faculty brass had seen Dabi in the wild with his actual family.
Nezu, however, beamed.
His small black eyes glittered with genuine satisfaction.
In all his calculated simulations of how the fractured Todoroki heir might evolve, seeing the untamed dragon arrive flanked by a sharp-toothed hero and two children was perhaps the most delightfully absurd yet deeply stable outcome imaginable.
"My, my." Nezu chirped, tilting his snout with polite delight. "What a remarkably charming sight to grace our subterranean vaults! It is truly wonderful to see you in such good spirits, Dabi-kun, and in such lively company. Mirko-san, it seems motherhood suits your boundless energy."
"Don't start with the mind games, rat." Rumi scoffed.
Recovery Girl didn't wait for pleasantries.
She hobbled forward, stopping right in front of Dabi. Her wrinkled face scrunched in furious exasperation as she pointed the tip of her cane directly at his chest.
"You are the worst patient I have ever had to treat." she snapped–
"...And at this point, I don't even care what happens to you, but don't you dare drag these two precious angels into an underground holding wing! Do you have a single grain of common sense left in that skull of yours, Dabi Torino?"
Dabi didn't flinch, merely looking down at the tiny elder with a flat, half-lidded smirk, completely unfazed by the tirade that could have reduced even All Might to a stammering mess.
"Good to see you too, old lady." Dabi drawled smoothly. "The kids wanted melon buns, and the rabbit refused to stay in bed. Blame her."
"Hey! Don't throw me under the bus!" Rumi barked, flashing a sharp grin.
"Himi had strawberry!" Himiko piped up suddenly from Rumi's arms, rubbing her eyes with a chubby fist and glaring down at Recovery Girl with adorable suspicion. "And Himi is on guard duty! No hitting Papa with the needle, granny!"
Recovery Girl puffed out her cheeks, the fierce lecture instantly deflating beneath Himiko's wide golden eyes and Eri's respectful bow from beside Dabi's hip.
The elderly nurse let out a long, defeated sigh, shaking her head. "Good grief. Wrapped around their little fingers... absolute hopeless cases, the lot of you."
"Now, now, Chiyo-san." Nezu smiled gently, resting a paw against his chest. "We are all quite aware of why they're here. The Ministry has already dispatched multiple inquiries regarding the asset in Room B-4."
Nezu's tone subtly shifted, the jovial demeanor giving way to cold intelligence.
"The boy's condition is deteriorating rapidly." Nezu explained, gesturing toward the reinforced viewing glass just beyond the corridor. "Minoru Mineta's cellular structure has suffered irreversible necrotic collapse from illicit Quirk-enhancers.
"The Commission has already drafted his transfer orders to a maximum-security juvenile hospice. If we are to act, it must be now…"
"Paperwork is Hawks' problem."
Dabi replied, sliding his keycard through the terminal.
The lock disengaged with an echoing clack.
Dabi looked toward the door of the containment cell, the warmth in his face receding into stillness.
"Time to get this over with."
He said, his grip gently tightening around Eri's small hand.
….
The doors hissed open, admitting them into the deepest holding section beneath the main facility.
An isolation sector built out of reinforced titan-concrete, outfitted with dampener fields originally engineered to house lethal payloads before the HPSC's collapse.
At the end of the corridor, leaning against a door, stood Shota Aizawa.
He didn't look surprised to see Dabi, as he simply dragged his tired, bloodshot gaze across the little parade.
"Took your sweet time." Aizawa muttered, scratching the stubble on his jaw. "He woke up nearly an hour ago and the medical staff stabilized his vitals, but the cellular rot from the black-market boosters has eaten through most of his nerve endings. Without radical intervention, his lower motor functions are completely dead."
"Good thing we aren't here for a routine checkup, then." Dabi stepped up to the reinforced viewing window.
Inside the isolation room, strapped to a mechanized hospital bed tilted at a thirty-degree angle, was the ruined husk of Minoru Mineta.
He was unrecognizable from the boastful, slimy brat who had strutted onto the U.A. grounds on orientation day only to be expelled by lunch.
His skin had taken on a sickly, greyish pallor, his purple hair spheres shriveled, and heavy steel cuffs pinned his burned wrists to the frame.
His breathing is thin through an oxygen mask, his eyes blinking and closing with the despair of someone who knew he had flushed his entire life down the drain.
Dabi pushed the door inward, stepping into the room with Eri at his side.
Rumi stopped in the entrance, with Himiko still perched on her hip.
As promised, the second Himiko caught sight of the miserable figure on the bed, her groggy eyes snapped wide open.
She puffed out her cheeks, bared her tiny sharp canines, and delivered the fiercest, most comically terrifying glare her toddler face could muster, silently warning the prisoner.
At the sound of footsteps, Mineta's head turned.
He slowly lifted his bloodshot, sunken eyes, until he recognized the man who had expelled him without a second thought.
A muffled whimper hitched in Mineta's throat behind the plastic mask.
"C-Came... to gloat... Sir Eraser?" He choked out, his voice scraping against the inside of the mask, still carrying the same venomous spite that had consumed him in the woods. "Seen enough now? You made... this..."
Aizawa didn't answer.
Mineta's knuckles strained against the cuffs.
"My Quirk wasn't flashy... so you didn't even give me a chance!" he spat. "Tossed me aside! When they found me... they promised I'd get strong... that people would finally look at me... and I wouldn't have to be small anymore!"
His voice climbed into a hysterical screech.
"I just wanted! I wanted people to cheer! And girls look at me instead of laughing! But my Quirk was just sticky trash... so you threw me away like I was nothing! Like I wasn't even human!"
"So I drank it! I drank the whole damn bottle! HAHAHA! Just to show you! Just to make you look at me! Did you see me, Eraser?! Was I big enough for you?! Was I flashy enough?!"
The laughter collapsed into a violent, blood-flecked cough.
Mineta suddenly arched against the bed as a spasm of agony ripped through his body, his bravado shattering in an instant.
"It... it hurts..." he sobbed, thrashing against the stained pillow. "Eraser... it burns... My blood is boiling... Please... I don't want to die... I didn't want this... I just wanted to be someone... Please..."
Aizawa didn't look away, but beneath his capture scarf, his jaw was clenched so tightly that the muscles ticked, his dark, bloodshot eyes hollowed out not by anger but by guilt.
Because Mineta didn't know the truth.
Aizawa's infamous expulsions were never meant to be a permanent execution.
They were a pedagogical scalpel, a shock he called giving a student a 'taste of death', carried out under special, pre-cleared authorization from Principal Nezu that allowed Aizawa to process a student's formal expulsion papers while simultaneously signing their immediate re-enrollment.
The goal was psychological: to strip away their arrogant assumptions, force them to feel the failure of having their dreams ripped from their hands, and let them stare into the abyss without actually derailing their school year.
The only permanent consequence was the black mark of expulsion remaining forever on their U.A. transcript, a lasting scar reminding them of the fatal arrogance they had barely survived.
It was supposed to be a severe lesson…
Except with Mineta, the world had caught fire before the paperwork could clear.
The Quirk assessment had barely ended before the League breached the USJ.
In a single afternoon, Class 1-A was plunged into a war zone.
Then came the medical transfers, police inquiries, media circus, Sports Festival, and the constant threat of syndicates circling the campus.
Aizawa had been buried under a mountain of crises, running on zero sleep, fighting just to keep twenty children alive.
In the chaos, Mineta's quiet re-enrollment had stalled.
Aizawa had made the fatal call to delay it: Let him sit with the weight over the summer.
We will bring him back in the spring when the dust settles.
Aizawa had left a terrified, immature boy sitting in the dark of what he believed was absolute, hopeless failure.
And in that unattended void, the predators had found him.
I did this, Aizawa thought, his fingers digging into the fabric of his scarf…
"Shut up." Dabi said.
.
….
[To be continued…]
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