#Ignore the horrendous quality these are photos of my computer

[aroacespacerock]

I think I need to knit a replica of crystals bone shirt it’s so damn cool

Like look at it!!! Why is crystal always pulling up with the best fits, didn’t she leave all her clothes behind??

[reluctantly-plus-ultra]

Rei (PART TWO)

I literally finished my university paper a day early so I would have time to write this up and keep giving you guys the Good Content™. Thanks for the overwhelming amount of support on part one, everybody!

-When Rei first tells them her plan for taking down Endeavor, they don’t think there’s any way it’ll actually work.

-The LOV has always operated as a physical unit, out to kick ass and take names. They didn’t band together for subtle espionage and demolishing reputations through intellect.

-But Rei’s adamant that going into a brawl won’t accomplish anything. After all, even if they did manage to beat him in a fight, Endeavor be seen as a martyr to the public, still a symbol of hope, the number one hero that defended them to the end. That’s not what they’re going for. Beyond that, the only way to keep him from rising again, in that sense, is to kill him, and while Rei Todoroki wants some well-deserved justice, she doesn’t want his life on her hands.

-So, instead, she suggests ruining his image. They’ll air out all the sheets of the Todoroki household, let the world know once and for all the truth behind the man they’ve placed their faith in. Force him to step down, allow him to finally reach that number one spot that he’s ruined the lives of her family to achieve, and then strip it from him with the evidence of the horrendous acts he committed to get there.

-”He lit this fire,” Rei says coldly, and the chill in the room doesn’t come from her quirk, “Now he can burn in it.”

-Personally, Dabi still wants to torch Endeavor’s ass straight to hell, but even he has to acknowledge that Rei has a point. Their odds of success are a lot higher going into this from a tactical perspective. The rest of the league can at least somewhat come to that conclusion as well, but there’s one main problem barring the way.

-Kurogiri is the one to point it out, asking how they’re going to get evidence of events that happened so many years ago. At the best, they have two witness testimonies, and there’s not a single court around that would take the word of a hospitalized woman and a well-known villain over that of their number one hero.

-And it’s then that Rei’s face hardens into an expression that none of them have seen before, delicate hands balling into tight fists, jaw clenched.

- “I can get you that evidence,” She claims easily enough, as if it’s something that can be pulled from thin air, “But I’m going to need a laptop, or a computer-”

-The very nice thing about co-inhabiting with criminals that have loose morals is that they can get you things very quickly, and typically for free. Rei has a laptop sitting in front of her before the night is up, and is furiously typing as soon as they get her logged in.

-It’s common knowledge in the league that Rei has a habit of mumbling to herself when deep in thought; this has been particularly prominent while working on the Endeavor plan

-And this has actually been pretty unsettling for a lot of the members, because for someone so sweet, Rei has a novel of shit that Endeavor needs to atone for, and she hasn’t forgotten a single insulting incident in twenty-four years. 

-What this means is that sometimes, when she’s working deep on the planning, divulging information about the number one hero, she’ll give them a list of his weaknesses, things that will set him off, ways that they can target him that nobody else is aware of (potentially even Endeavor himself)

-But then after that, she’ll start listing incidents. Her eyes will gloss over, and the words will just start tumbling out of her mouth as she crosses situations out of that novel, offenses that are being reciprocated through her sabotaging the man

-Her last round of info had made up for six incidents, and while the league had gradually been getting used to these episodes, the last one had packed a punch.

- “The time you forced Touya to train so hard, he broke three fingers and you still made him keep going for an hour after.”

- Any time she mentions incidents with Touya, the tension in the room goes up four notches. Dabi can’t believe some of the details she remembers, can barely remember them himself sometimes, but his ring finger on his right hand has been crooked ever since that day, and it serves as a stark reminder of the past they’ve endured.

-While she works at the laptop, though, the things she mutters are not incidents, but random sequences of letters and numbers, her hands moving in sync with the mumbled symbols.

-And it takes them a while to pick up on it, but these memorized segments are the extremely distorted weblinks to clearly self-made web pages, at least six or seven in total.

- She doesn’t stumble once. Not on a single number, not in any of it, and every single one of those links are complete gibberish, entirely disconnected from one another.

-The web pages are filled with images, all of them old, all of them pre-dating Rei’s hospital admittance

-And it’s with this that Dabi has to leave, storming out of the warehouse, and Rei gets this carefully blank look on her face, because they’re both reliving nightmares, and they’ve barely started scrolling the pages.

-There are scanned copies of journal entries written in different coloured crayons and a wobbly hand, more entries on some of the other web pages done much steadier and in pencil, but with the same printing. There are photos of bruises, scars, burns, four different children, one woman’s gaunt face. Personal accounts, typed and handwritten, short and blurry-quality video clips of Endeavor’s “training”. It’s a montage of horror, carefully collected and dispersed across the web through links that meant nothing, that would never come up as a result from a search engine, spread across multiple pages so that even if one page were found and deleted, there were many more to replace it.

-But none of them have been found, none of them have been taken down because Endeavor, man that he was, had assumed that because his wife never raised her fists, she wasn’t fighting back.

-It’s in that moment that it clicks with everyone else, too: Rei Todoroki didn’t come up with this plan to take down Endeavor in the few months they’ve known her- she’s been planning this for years.

-The way that Rei takes all of this in, and then almost too-calmly asks Kurogiri if he can please make her a cup of tea is terrifying, even to a room full of criminals.

-They all fall asleep restlessly that night, reminded of their own pasts and the demons that have led them to where they are- and as for Rei? Well, she gets to cross another twenty-seven incidents off her list, and when she falls asleep as well, the weight on her chest feels much lighter.

-When Hawks shows up the next day, it’s still early in the morning- early enough for most of the league to still be in bed, and a few hours before his time to patrol. He comes bearing a tin of sweets for Rei, her bitter, dark-haired son (she’s so happy he’s found a friend), and a USB stick.

- “I hear we’re raising hell,” He says cheerily by way of greeting.

-They go through the evidence quietly the hero scrolling through the pages with an increasingly scary look on his face.

-He doesn’t tell Rei what he and Dabi have already hashed out between the night before and six o’clock in the morning- that A) Hawks is definitely a spy, and damn did it ever piss him off to have Dabi out him so easily, because he was sure he had him fooled, B) Dabi won’t out him to the rest of the league so long as Hawks agrees to help Rei, and C) None of this can go through the Commission. Absolutely none of it.

-They’re both very aware that if the Commission gets their hands on this kind of info, it will be swept under the rug faster than either man can blink, and the people instigating the problem will probably disappear. Hawks has heard them use the sentence “It’s for the greater good” far too many times to cover up too many things, and a sickened part of him doesn’t want to consider if maybe they’ve used those exact same words to cover up situations like this before.

-And damn it all, he agrees even though he knows it’ll probably come around and bite him in the ass- because at this rate, if the Commission catches wind of him being affiliated with this plot in any way after it all breaks loose, he’ll be on the rack. But he tries not to consider what he has to lose, and instead focuses on the fact that he can help these people, and maybe others as well. Who knows how many “heroes” have ruined lives just like Endeavor and walked free.

-And really, in the heart of it all, he wants to help the Todoroki family. Sure, he doesn’t know Natsuo and Fuyumi and Shouto very well, but Rei has slowly warmed over a portion of his heart that he didn’t realize was lacking a mother figure, and Dabi means more to him than he’d like to admit. Growing up, he was never given the liberty of being attached to people, tangible people who were his equals and not his icons. Now, having grown so fond of these two in particular, he’s beginning to understand why some people are willing to lay everything on the line for family.

-So he goes through the evidence and does his best to ignore how Rei strokes her hands through Dabi’s hair as the two of them watch as well, not entirely sure who the action is meant to comfort more. All the while, he’s trying to match up the man in these entries, the man in these clips and photos, to the man he’s risked his life for, fought beside, trusted wholeheartedly.

-Betrayal has a bitter taste, and it lingers in his mouth.

- He’s just finishing up downloading all the files onto the USB drive, when Rei finally speaks.

- “If this works, you’ll be the new Number One.”

-His hands stumble on the keys, and a sinking sense of melancholy sets in. Quite honestly, Hawks has never aimed for the Number One position in the way that others do. He’s never gone after it like he needed to have the top position or nothing- in fact, he would be happy to settle lower in the top ten then where he is now.

-But there’s really no avoiding it, and while he’s not sure what kind of complications it will have in his career, in his mission, in his growing relationships with both Rei and Dabi, he determines that’s a problem for another day.

-“I’ll be better than him.” Hawks says, the words coming out as more of a promise than the assurance he intended. Rei’s answering smile is caught somewhere between satisfied, bittersweet, and proud.

- “Good.”

-He takes the USB stick, gives Rei a quick hug and demands that she eat at least three of the chocolates herself before passing them around to everyone else (because he absolutely knows that she will) and leaves a shared parting look with Dabi that means everything and nothing all at once.

-Rei notices of course, but it’s really not her place to pry and she’s honestly not even sure that Touya himself has any idea what his current situation is with the winged hero, so she chooses to let the matter drop. The fact that the chocolates Hawks brought her happen to be her son’s favourite doesn’t entirely go over her head either, but she chooses to let that slide as well

- In the end, true to their collective nature, the LOV still agrees to also attempt a physical attack on the Number One hero, if only to bolster their media image. After all, they’ve been lying low long enough that the hero world needs a reminder that they’re still alive and kicking.

-And honestly, maybe just a little, they also want to give the world an image of Endeavor being taken down in more ways than one.

-Dabi volunteers immediately, that much kind of being a given, but everyone’s surprised when Rei offers to go as well. So far, everyone aside from the league and Hawks is still under the impression that Rei’s hospitalized- her image still isn’t tarnished, and if she wanted to, she could walk away from the league that minute and never suffer consequences for it. The instant her face is shown in correlation with them? There’s no going back from that.

-But she’s adamant, and it’s with some reluctance that they give in. In some ways, it’s only fair- this is personal for her after all, so it makes sense that she’d want to be involved. They settle on letting the mother and son handle the fire hero, and make plans to have everyone else ready to back them up if needs be.

-Besides, they’re out to absolutely destroy his image, and what better way to do that than have Endeavor’s own family do so? Bonus points for dramatic flair, nobody will be forgetting this for a while.

-Before long, it’s the night before the whole operation, and everyone’s restless as hell. Twice and Toga watch five consecutive episodes of some awful cake-decorating show that neither of them can stand before calling it a night, Spinner’s gone for most of the evening, and in a rare show of caring, Shigaraki puts down a steaming cup of soothing tea in front of Rei, the kind that she always steeps for him when he starts getting antsy and in his head. It’s a kind gesture from the young man, and she makes sure to smile warmly when she thanks him for it, pleased when he chooses to stay and sit at the table with her. They don’t make conversation, but just knowing that the other is around is comforting in itself.

-Rei ends up staying up later than he does, and it’s with a somewhat awkward and unpracticed motion that the man reaches out to pat her hand before heading to his own room, the action jerky like a rusty machine, but still appreciated. Rei smiles into her cup when she notices that the leader of their rag-tag little group has been gradually getting more tactile with those around him, wearing those gloves she made for him at almost all times. He still has a long way to go before he’ll be able to handle true contact, but she can see the effort he’s making, and every little bit of progress marks a new milestone.

-Dabi also spends the night away from the league, but Rei isn’t too worried about her eldest child. She knows exactly where he’ll end up, knows that he’s in good hands. After all, there’s probably nowhere safer for him to be than with the one other person in this world who cares for him just as much as she does.

-And on that note, Hawks spends most of the night discreetly flying all across Japan, dropping off printed files of incriminating evidence under an anonymous cover and using several fake emails to reach out to news agencies, freelance journalists, newspapers, magazine editors- anybody he can think of who would take this on as a scoop and spread the proof like wildfire. By the next morning, he knows that he’ll be seeing this stuff all over the media- he just hopes it’s been enough.

-When he returns home to find the door already unlocked, he doesn’t even bother turning on the lights. Instead, he locks the door behind him and makes his way over to the couch, not surprised at all to discover a familiar lanky figure passed out unawares.

-Normally he’d just leave him, maybe toss a blanket over the other man in passing, and continue on his way. But… After tonight, everything was going to change, and who knew what was going to happen to all of them, yes, but especially him and Dabi and this… Well, whatever it was that they were building.

-So he wakes the other man up instead, smiling as blue eyes catch on his own, and they talk. They talk about everything Hawks can think of to talk about, every little question he’s ever wanted to know about this mysterious person who’s taken up such a huge portion of his life recently. And for once, Dabi doesn’t meet him with resistance for his curiosity, seeming to have come to the same conclusion. 

-Eventually they end up in Hawks’ bed, still just talking, laying side by side. There’s a strange sense of rebellion in the intimacy of it all, and the part of Hawks that has always loved pushing boundaries, fighting his leash, is basking in this. The Commission had wanted him to get close to Dabi, but he doubts they’d intended for him to get close enough to press a brave kiss to the other man’s forehead as they both start drifting off, to be close enough to hear his breath stutter before he hesitantly drapes an arm over the hero’s waist. If they could see him now, they’d expect him to be luring Dabi into some kind of trap, stabbing him in the back after earning his trust.

-But for now, the greatest “fuck you” he can send their way is by choosing to be gentle over violent, by choosing this person over his mission, by going after what he wants for once, damn it-

- “You won’t be there tomorrow, will you?”

-No, no he won’t be. As a hero, if he were present, he’d be expected to step in, and that’s the last thing he wants to do here, especially if it means facing off against not only Dabi, but Rei as well. The thought of even acting threatening to the woman is enough to turn his stomach.

-And honestly, if anyone had ever told Hawks that at twenty three and well into his professional career, he would find himself cradling a villain in his bed and whispering promising words of encouragement about the upcoming takedown of his childhood idol, he would never have believed them.

-Eventually they fall asleep this way, and Dabi has never really known, in all his life, what safety feels like but he’s pretty sure this is it.

-Skipping ahead to the next morning, Endeavor is already out on patrol when the news bombs start dropping. And of course, the reaction from the public is… Explosive, to say the least.

-There’s a lot of shock and a lot of horror, and absolute outrage. The only thing to really do in a situation like this, as far as news is concerned, is to go for a follow-up, so there are people all over the city trying to track down their Number One to get some answers.

-Meanwhile, Endeavor has no clue this is happening. At this point, the worst part of his day is not yet the fact that his hero career will be over in the span of a week, but that he ran into a familiar crispy edgelord and just… Doesn’t have time for this shit again.

-He expects Dabi to start monologuing to some degree, so when the villain starts off with, “Do you remember me?” it’s not really any kind of surprise.

-But it’s when Dabi responds to his irritated retort with a more firm, “No- do you remember me?” that Endeavor halts in his tracks a little bit. He’s not entirely sure what this creepy asshole is going for, but it’s setting him on edge, like there’s something in this situation that he has missed observing.

-And, for starters, he’s missed seeing the film crew behind him, although he will notice them eventually. 

-But then this criminal starts talking about his children. Shouto, Natsuo, Fuyumi. He talks about how Shouto was kept separate from them, how he isolated the other two like they were never good enough, how he pushed his youngest so hard, the boy cried himself to sleep every night. Dabi starts listing events, scenarios, as if he gave a shit about them, as if he was there-

-And that’s when it clicks.

-When it does, he just outright cuts the other man off, a scowl working its way onto his face, disgust curdling in his gut. Part of him can’t believe it, that his long lost son has returned to him in the form of a ghoul, and the other part doesn’t accept it at all.

- “You’re not Touya.”

-At first, Dabi stares at him incredulously and starts to laugh, because how the hell could he not be, given the list of offences he just spouted off, but Endeavor corrects him, voice chillingly cold. “You might’ve been, but you’re not anymore. I gave you that name, and I can just as easily take it away. I set you up for greatness, and you chose this?!”

-The rage is bubbling over now, and the look on Dabi’s face has gone from one of irritated humour to a sheer blank slate. “You’re not my son. No family of mine would be so weak as to fall into villainy.”

-And, well, that line basically digs his grave for him, because from out of the shadows steps Rei Todoroki, and in the ways her eyes are blazing, one could’ve sworn she’d stolen Endeavour’s Hellfire right out of his hands.

-Instantaneously, half of Japan is losing their collective shit. In the span of six whole hours, Endeavor’s been exposed, Touya Todoroki is back from the dead (and is, as it turns out, one of the most prominent LOV members), and Endeavor’s wife has not only escaped the hospital she was admitted in, but has apparently sided with the villains as well? And this is all being filmed on live television?

-Every building with a functional TV is tuned in. Hawks is in line for coffee when he catches sight of the news channel and decides he’s going to slow down for once in his life, and not take it to go. Natsuo is watching the whole thing go down while munching on a bowl of cereal in his apartment, and as shocking as the whole situation is, it’s immensely satisfying as well.

-Shouto Todoroki watches from the dorm common room, and nobody knows what to say.

-And let’s just talk about Aizawa for a moment, shall we?

-Aizawa is a stoic man of few words, and even fewer needs in life. He’s simple, pragmatic, a slightly pessimistic rationalist through experience, and pretty laid back as far as most things go.

-But you don’t ever fuck around with his students.

-If anyone is going to react poorly about this, it is Shouta Aizawa, hands down. Unlike Hawks, Aizawa has never looked up to Endeavor as a hero. He’s never even liked the guy. And therefore, he has nothing to lose when his manageable contempt for the hero escalates to seering, undiluted hatred. Aizawa does not have a fuck to give; Endeavor just made it onto his shit-list.

-And the worst part of it is that he didn’t really suspect anything. He probably would’ve assumed that Endeavor was hard on his son, but he would never have guessed even remotely close to everything that’s been uncovered. And this is Shouto, Shouto who is always so polite and aloof, and so eerily unshakable for a boy his age.

-Hell, his classmates just got him to partake in his first Disney marathon four days ago, and he couldn’t stop grinning all the way through Frozen. The boy’s made so much progress in being here, has been finally opening up and making friends- but now he’s staring blankly at the TV screen while the news feeds roll, and Aizawa is literally quaking he is so pissed off. 

-So while the rest of his students gather somewhat uncomfortably in the common room, watching the television with wide eyes, all of them clearly trying to decide between going to comfort the youngest Todoroki and leaving him be, Aizawa walks in with an extra blanket and two mugs of tea and just… Chills with him? The rest of the class is shook.

-And Aizawa doesn’t say anything either. He just gestures towards the TV and asks if Todoroki would like it left on, and when the boy gives him a silent nod back, he’s content to leave it at that. 

-Gradually, the rest of class 1-A begins to gather as well, quietly collecting around their shaken classmate. The couch is not near big enough for all of them, but they make it work.

-Midoriya’s curled into Todoroki’s other side, Iida and Uraraka sitting by his feet on the floor. Surprisingly enough, Bakugou chooses to stand, but directly behind where Todoroki’s seated on the sofa, hovering at his back and looking silently livid, which is even worse than when he’s loud. There’s students gathered around on the floor, standing like the blond, sitting on the arm of the couch like Kaminari is perched. 

-And it’s bad enough going through the Endeavor twist, but when Dabi reveals himself as Touya, Todoroki just blanches. There’s a million things running across his face all at once, and half of them are crushed. 

-Even Aizawa doesn’t really know how to react to that, and the room falls into a hushed silence until Bakugou finally speaks up.

- “I can’t believe your fucking brother kidnapped me, Icy Hot.”

-And then suddenly, noise. Kirishima is squawking and smacking Bakugou’ arm and telling him not to be insensitive, and Midoriya is overanalyzing, and Aoyama’s saying something about the woods and the Summer Camp attack, but nobody can really hear him-

-And over it all, Todoroki is laughing. It’s not an entirely wholehearted laugh, but it’s a laugh nonetheless. 

-When Rei steps up, though, that laughter fades quickly. Suddenly, Shouto Todoroki is four years old again, watching his mother face his raging inferno of a father, and all the previous boisterous life in the room gets sucked out at the sight.

-Throughout all of this, Aizawa’s been trying to keep his distance somewhat. Shouto’s never been a very affectionate student or individual in general, and neither is the erasing-quirk hero. But seeing how tiny and frail his student appears, shrinking in on himself as the drama keeps unfolding- well, Shouta doesn’t hesitate to put a comforting arm over the boy’s shoulders, noting with approval that Midoriya has snagged one of Todoroki’s hands as well, and is trying to keep him grounded.

-He gets a few notifications that he’s being paged to head out onto the scene, but he ignores them. Aizawa’s priorities are and always have been his students. If some other hero cares enough about hauling Endeavor’s ass out of trouble, they can rush in and help him, but Aizawa’s never been shy about making his opinions clear. He’s right where he needs to be, and he’s not moving.

-Rei is not afraid.

-That’s the first thing she realizes when she makes a move to stand by Touya, and sees Enji’s eyes widen in disbelief. She has stood in this exact position so many times, has stood before this man on too many occasions to be afraid of the wrath in his eyes. She is not afraid, she has evened the playing field, and she will not let him break her again.

-The worst part of the whole thing isn’t even seeing him again, meeting like this with the remains of a shattered family falling down around them. The worst part is that he sees her, narrows his eyes, and tells her to get out of the way. The first words out of his mouth are an order, same as they’ve always been. And right now? She has no intention of complying. Never again.

-When she doesn’t move, he repeats himself, angrier this time. He’s pouring flames, a spectacle that would have instilled her with enough terror ten years ago to do whatever he said, and not speak a word. But as she sees Endeavor winding up to attack, eyes fixed on Touya, the young man, her boy, reaching out to pull her behind him-

-Endeavor lunges. Rei shoves. Dabi ends up on the ground well out of harm’s way, and for a moment, the world stops on its axis.

-Enji Todoroki did not bribe over an entire family to win a woman with a run-of-the-mill ice quirk. Were that the case, he never would have wasted his time. Rei was a meek woman with a powerful ability that she barely used, and never in extremes; a little bit of frost to cool a juicebox, a cool hand to soothe a scrape.

-So when an absolutely terrifying, guttural roar of a sentence reaches him, seconds before thousands of pounds worth of ice go shooting up in a very obviously threatening display of power, he’s inclined to stop dead. 

- “Don’t you dare touch my son.”

- Rei’s teeth are clenched, eyes hard, hands still braced to fight. The exertion of putting up so much ice hasn’t even seemed to affect her, a simple flick of the finger compared to the full-handed slap she could deliver.

-For once, Endeavor hesitates.

- “You won’t lay a damned hand on him,” She hisses, and a collection of icicles shoot forward at her words, though they stop a good four meters away from where he stands, “I’ll never let you do that again. Because you were right about one thing, Enji- he’s not your son. He’s mine. Natsuo, Shouto, Fuyumi, Touya; they are all my children. You haven’t done a single thing in this life to deserve them.”

-Endeavor sputters at this, but only for a second before Rei’s ice is growing again, eyes cold and dangerous.

-He manages some kind of threat about having her rehospitalized, still unsure how it happened that she was out in the first place. Rei’s smile is not a pleasant one.

- “I don’t recommend you try that.” She says quietly, and in seconds, there’s ice everywhere, Rei unleashing her powers for the first time in well over twenty-five years. It shoots up in an enormous plume, cutting itself short before reaching the reporting camera crew, but forcing Endeavor to leap out of the way and scramble to safety.

-Rei and Dabi slip away in the confusion, regrouping with the league who were hoping to see some more general ass-kicking, but greatly appreciated the display nonetheless.

-And across the rest of Japan, people notice. Hawks chokes on his coffee when the ice flares up, stunned to disbelief that sweet little Rei, who had been so careful preening out his bad feathers that time he got stuck in a storm, was effortlessly capable of this. Natsuo drops his bowl, Shouto sits agape. None of them have ever seen Rei use her powers to her full capability, and the effect is stunning. 

- “That explains… A great deal.” Aizawa mumbles eventually, voice barely audible over one Katsuki Bakugou shouting “Fuck yeah!” at the top of his lungs from behind the sofa, very nearly scaring Midoriya off the couch. The news roll continues, but there’s nothing more to see aside from Endeavor shouting at a group of heroes that have arrived suspiciously late.

- “I… Yeah, I guess so.” Todoroki manages. It’s overwhelming, all of it, and while he has a billion questions in his mind, there’s one that sticks out more than the others: what on earth does all of this mean for them now?

What this means is that I guess we’re doing a part three now too, because I don’t know how to cut things short. Sorry guys. Thanks for the support, if you’ve read this far, and hopefully I’ll have some new content up for you all soon!