Chapter 167 - Fight To Death
The moment the first flame burst from his fingertips, Hawks accelerated.
A wave of blue flame exploded from Dabi's palm.
Hawks, two steps away, suddenly dropped to his knees and slid to the ground, his pants rubbing against the warm cement.
Flames grazed his hair and rushed behind him in a torrent of fire that rolled like a wave and crashed against the roof door.
The burning blast blew up Hawks' clothes and pulled his hood over his head.
Hawks, carried forward by his speed, slipped between Dabi's spread legs, feather in his right hand held in an inverted grip, gaze cold and focused.
He sliced through Dabi's left heel in one swift motion.
A spray of blood splattered the ground.
Hawks lost his running speed and rolled onto his side.
Dabi's legs caught fire as he collapsed.
Hawks jumped to his feet, legs bent, arm raised to shield his face, his sweaty palm frantically clenching and unclenching his improvised knife, and moved slowly away from Touya.
The softness of the feather rubbing against his skin with each breath unnerved him.
Dabi, back to him, was on one knee, gritting his teeth, blood rolling from his ankle until it formed a murky puddle beneath his foot.
His whole body was on fire and, despite his cautiousness, he kept an eye on Hawks who was calmly backing away to the left, away from the edge of the roof, trying to find the best angle for his next attack.
Dabi brought his hand to his left ankle, lips tight, gaze dark.
His palm took on a fluorescent bluish hue but did not catch fire.
He placed it on his torn ankle and pressed down hard ; a smell of rotting flesh, cooked to a crisp, crinkled Hawk's nose in disgust.
For a split second his eyes darted to the ice stalactite Dabi had left behind, still keeping the villain in his peripheral vision.
All that remained was a puddle of pink water mixed with blood, steam rising from it in white wisps.
Footprints of blood retraced Dabi's course to his current position.
Under his feet the blood puddle started to boil, bubbles bursting from its surface with a high-pitched hiss.
Dabi, covered in blue flames from head to toe, was a veritable human torch, a beacon in the dark night that must have been visible for miles around.
Hawks needed to get this over with quickly - or at least that's what Dabi wanted him to do by setting himself ablaze like that.
Dabi had always had stamina problems : his body wasn't built to withstand the use of his Quirk, let alone to the extent he used it - it had been a problem since they were kids.
Finish the fight quickly, be clumsy and reckless in your execution ; this was exactly what Dabi wanted to force Hawks to do, and why he made himself such a visible target.
If a Hero - or the police - came to check about the weird fire, Dabi would be safe.
If Hawks got careless in order to finish quickly, Dabi would roast him like a pig.
A prolonged fight was a double-edged sword for Hawks.
"What did he told to you ?"
Dabi stood up, obviously leaning on his right leg, dragging his left foot limply on the ground.
"What did he told you to get you to do his dirty work for him ?"
The flames died down but sparks continued to dance across his arms, illuminating his face with a bluish light and casting moving shadows on the roof.
Hawks, too, had reasons to stall.
"This isn't about him, it's personal"
Then he raised his hand.
Dabi, eyebrows furrowed, took a second too long to react.
The air whistled.
He turned his head sharply back, eyes wide, and saw a feather split the night.
He raised his hand, and a jet of flame shot out, charring the feather, a shower of ash falling to the ground, but the white calamus continued to fly through the flames like a rocket.
Dabi, mouth agape, stepped back and stumbled, raising his forearm to shield his face.
The sound of rubbing clothing made him turn his head to the side.
He caught a glimpse of a shadowy figure, legs bent, who had suddenly appeared to his right, a red feather glinting ominously in his hand.
Dabi's right side erupted in flames.
The calamus struck his right shoulder like a bullet.
Something snapped in his shoulder.
The force of the impact knocked him sideways, sending his left side -his exposed side - toward Hawks.
Hawks slipped through the opening and stabbed Dabi in the left thigh.
Blood splattered his fingers.
Hawks jammed the tip of his weapon in until only the top of the feathers were visible, then twisted sharply to grind the flesh.
The pain was so intense that, for a moment, it paralyzed Dabi.
Hawks pulled the feather down and tore through the thigh to the knee as if disemboweling an animal.
Dabi screamed and burst into flames like a human torch, an explosion of flame shooting from his body like a bomb.
Hawks widened his eyes, dropped the feather, tucked his chin into his neck, folded his arms in front of his face, and was blown away like a leaf by the force of the impact.
Swept by a tornado of almost white-blue flames, he flew across the roof like a rocket.
His back hit the burning metal door so hard that it knocked all the air out of his lungs.
He collapsed onto his right side, his elbow hitting the floor.
For a split second, he was unable to breathe.
Hawks, sweaty, his vision blurred, gasped for air, inhaling and exhaling superficially as shockwaves - like jolts of electricity - surged from his lungs whenever he breathed too hard.
His ears were ringing.
Dabi's angry growls came from behind a curtain of hazy, yellowish flames, that burned all around him.
Hawks blinked furiously until his vision cleared.
He struggled to his feet, his right elbow tingling painfully. The roof swayed beneath his feet.
His face was hot but not painful, and something in his back prevented him from standing properly.
He blinked and forced himself to focus on the shadow sitting in the middle of the burning pyre.
Dabi was sitting on the ground, his hands engulfed in flames, trying to glue the two sides of his torn thigh together as he cauterized the wound. It looked like a rictus of puking flesh had been carved in his thigh.
Hawks shook his head and tapped his ear with one hand, trying to drive away the sound that was parasitizing his hearing.
He stared at his bloody left hand in amazement, blinking three times too much before the information reached his brain.
Dabi's moans of pain pierced his veil of apathy.
A film of sweat covered his pale skin.
His left hand was glued to the top of his thigh - the femoral artery - that Hawks had shredded with his feather.
His pants were so soaked with blood that it looked as if he'd pissed himself.
Hawks blinked.
Dabi lay in a growing lake of blood that resembled a mirror opening onto a parallel world.
Steam rose from it, but there were no more bubbles bursting on the surface, only scabs and blood clots scattered like islands.
No matter how much he cauterized his wounds, Dabi would still be bleeding to death inside.
Hawks struck his right ear with the flat of his hand until the hissing stopped.
Then, almost by chance, he lowered his hand to his right and saw that his fingers were on fire.
He calmly tapped the charred fingers against his pants until the flames were extinguished.
Hawks, never looking away from Dabi, calmly unzipped his charred jacket.
As he bent his forehead forward, bits of burnt hair fell on his hand.
He looked at them for a second, surprised, then let them fall to the ground and threw off his jacket before cracking his neck and rolling his shoulders.
Dabi looked up at him sharply as if the noise had jolted him back to reality.
His pupils were so dilated that the black practically ate up the white.
Hawks wondered if that was due to blood loss or the drug Shoto had supposedly injected him with.
Dabi stared at him, unblinking, then suddenly shook his head as if to wake himself.
The hands gripping his thighs caught fire.
Without a sound - without looking away from Hawks - Dabi forced himself to his feet.
It was a move initiated by sheer determination, and one that Dabi was only able to complete thanks to the adrenaline pulsing through his veins in place of his blood.
His thigh quivered, his knee buckled and twisted on the side, flexing as if it would break at any moment. Dabi, with an almost miraculous stubbornness, remained on his feet.
They stared at each other, bloodied, wounded, and barely capable of a coherent thought that wasn't the instinct to kill the other.
Hawks had thought he'd want to talk to him, that he'd ask him to explain why he did that ten years ago.
He realized he didn't give a damn about his explanations.
"I'm going to kill you" Hawks said calmly.
It wasn't a threat - not even a promise - but the mere observation of a man who wouldn't stop at anything less.
Hawks circled Dabi, walking slowly and cautiously, careful not to get too close.
Dabi tilted his head back and smiled, chin up, teeth covered in blood, a gleam of terrifying, unadultered madness shining in his eyes, and suddenly Hawks thought he was facing Shoto.
"You look like you've been thinking about me for a long time" he said amusedly, his left leg convulsing as if it were about to give out. "You seem to have thought a lot about me... You want to know why, don't you ?"
Hawks felt them pierce the clouds swollen with rain and storm, heard them split the sky like bullets.
The rain that fell around Dabi turned to steam before it even hit the ground.
"I don't give a fuck"
Hawks was only two steps from the edge of the roof.
"You weren't my target. I just... There's some stuff wrong inside, you know ?" He hit his temple with a phalanx "My parents tried to tell me but when you're a kid, you don't really get it"
They entered Hawk's field of vision.
"I know you won't believe me, but for what it's worth, I'm sorry"
Hawks froze, foot raised, eyes wide, his next course of action unsure as he tried to make sense of what he'd just heard.
Then Dabi clapped his hands.
A tidal wave of blue flame erupted from his palms and swept across the roof like a supersonic wave.
The flames crashed to the ground, rolling across it like poison in wind, colliding with each other and bursting into bigger waves that destroyed everything in their path.
A searing wind slapped Hawks and pushed him backward, drying his skin as if he were turning to sand.
He spun awkwardly, his left foot hitting his right ankle, causing him to stumble.
His lips were chapped, his mouth dry, his clothes so hot he could feel them melting into his skin, his sneakers leaving puddles of melted plastic behind.
The flames slammed into him like a tornado from hell, licking at his ankles, devouring his pants.
He jumped from the roof without thinking.
*
A/N : If you want to read what happens next without waiting, go check the story's P@treon, Nar_cisseENG