wincon | INBOX (NOCTIUM)

Good evening, Shigaraki.

This is Shoto, Toya's youngest brother. I feel bad messaging you now for a multitude of reasons, but I should have checked in sooner. It's not very in line with the way I spoke to you in the station at all. Though, I've already been more a menace to my brother than a help. That doesn't mean I should go back on my word or seem like I am.

Have you been well?

[ after consulting with the other relevant party and ignoring all other parts of the younger Todoroki's carefully-crafted message: ]

what 'word'

That alienating people based on our homeworld wouldn't be an issue. I admit I'm not good at person to person contact as it is, but I want to do better. I'm aware that you, nor anyone else needs help and in some ways least of all my help, but it's here and I was sincere in what I said.

even without the "homeworld," you're alienating people just fine.

[ he may have learned a thing or two about what you idiots have been bothering dabi over. ]

I know I have. I'm aware of what I've done, now, and I'm not proud of it. I'm not like my friends who would have handled any situation like this much better. Including following up, regardless of who we were back home.

[By 'bothering' does he mean being absolutely stupid? That's probably a better fix.]

they've handled it better by not messaging me.

[ he's about to leave it at that, but then he has another thought. just to see how much of it the kid is actually "aware" of. ]

none of us are interested in your idea of what's good or right, in the other world or this one. even if the setting's changed, our values still remain the same as well.

[ "die if you get in my way" is the outcome of a certain value too. not only heroes can make lofty declarations about keeping theirs. ]

[Shoto would've taken that one. Instead there's a follow up and he's being told things he already figured he knew, but it's a nice reinforcement when it comes to the villain side of things.]

I don't expect a change in personality or motives. Imposing my ideals and myself is wrong, unintended as either of those were. I stand by wanting to follow up, but I know what my mistakes were. I won't repeat them.

*Are.
What my mistakes are.

[Maybe one day that might be an outcome for any of them, and not just from home world threats on either side.]

[ Tomura wonders if he really does know. All that shit about saving them (or at least Dabi), all that shit about not having to be "heroes" or "villains" suggests that he doesn't. Villainy isn't some awful fate they're desperate to be pulled from by the hands of some idiots who think the sun shines out of their asses.

But whatever. Tomura isn't here to talk a teenager out of his idol worship. What Dabi and himself have chosen is incomprehensible to someone who's never been on the flip side of the coin. Unless anything else comes up, Todoroki Shouto is just going to get a read✓ marker. ]

Good evening, Shigaraki.

I came back to learn my brother might have been sent home. I don't see him on the network list. Is it true?

[ would you look at that—the Todoroki he would prefer not to see. ]

I know heroes struggle with deductive reasoning, but try to put two and two together.

I wanted to make sure. Either he was gone, or somehow he took himself off. I think you wouldn't bother lying to me because it's fruitless, so I asked. I appreciate being called a hero though.

[ and how the hell does one get themselves taken off because Tomura could use it. ]

you're just as dense and self-absorbed as the rest of them.

[Villain magic probably? Or a private number. Maybe. Possibly. Likelihood is Villain magic.]

If that's true or not, I made you a promise and I'm going to keep it. I know that Toya and you were friends. In the very least I'm sorry about you losing a friend to this place and its whims.

1. your promises mean nothing to me, and the last thing I need is help from someone like you.

2. we are allies. if dabi's returned to the place we came from, he's only closer to achieving his goal.

[ so. Tomura isn't going to waste his time feeling some way about it, period! ]

They mean something to me, and if the last thing you need is my help, then I'll be there when the time comes. It's selfish, but I won't lie.

I've been there and saw him myself. He's safe. If he stayed there, he's still safe.

of course none of you think beyond your own desires. you're doing a great job following in the no 1's footsteps.

he can take care of himself. I don't need to be told.

Please don't put any of my mistakes on anyone else. What I do is because of what I do, not my actions reflecting on them. As for the rest I can understand I'm not the person you wish was here.

He can. We all can. By the tone of it, you know what happened to Toya and I can understand the lack of trust in me because of it. I wanted you to know that he was safe and being taken care of, not that he was incapable.

how carefree, that attitude that you'll never have to account for anyone else's mistakes. all you heroes are rotten to the core.

[ Unfortunately... he's full alert with the following text. "What happened to Toya?" What, if not waiting it out back in that dreary cave? The creep of tension begins crawling up his shoulders, until his fingers are pressing harder into the device than they should. ]

what are you talking about?

I didn't say that, I said they shouldn't have to live for any of my mistakes. There are heroes that are exactly as you say and should never been able to continue being heroes.

[Who that may be, he's on the fence on. Endeavor has done so much, but he did just as much to their family and especially, specifically, the one that they're both tied in by. The next question sort of catches him off guard.]

Asking you what you remember from back home won't help. We live vastly different lives but I thought he would've told you about his childhood. I was too young to understand, but that doesn't excuse me. Toya tried to prove to my father he could still best All Might when he was younger by showing him the blue flames that consume his body to this day. He burned himself to death on Sekoto Peak so we thought.

Edited (whoops wording lmao) 2022-07-05 03:28 (UTC)

they make plenty of their own "mistakes" to account for.

[ Don't want your own sins added to the pile? Fine—all other heroes have more than enough of their own. ]

I know that.

[ Half the world knows that. ]

the hero you all rely on not only failed to protect his eldest son but sent his own wife to the hospital. dabi was the one to tell the whole story, the truth about what kind of people heroes are
and here you are anyways, wasting your breath backing up the world that stood by and let it happen.

They do. Some even more than others.

[At least, and at last, Shoto gets the confirmation that Shigaraki at least knows about his family.]

He did fail. He failed his wife and his children, all of us, but at worst Toya. I'm not coming to you as a hero and I could talk myself out of breath telling you that I want to change things. I'm coming to you because my brother must have valued what you did for him, or maybe what your movement represented. It's not an attempted favour or a handout, it's because I wanted you to know he was alright. It seems like we left at the same time.

[ Well, that wasn't a secret. He wouldn't be taking "Toya" this and "Toya" that in stride otherwise. ]

what makes you think you can speak for him? you haven't seen dabi in more than 10 years. what do you know about what he wants or values?

[ If Dabi ever wanted to tell him anything, the asshole should do it himself. Hell— ]

how would you even know how he's doing?

That doesn't take away the obvious. It's my observation, not his words that I don't have the right to put in his mouth.

The last memory I have is from seeing my brother. I was sent home.

[ "The obvious"... Dabi would hate this conversation. ]

then your assumptions are as idealistic and misguided as they come

[ Despite everything, he's under no illusions about Dabi's objectives and what the villain actually cares about.

Then, frowning at events that make no sense to him. ]

when did you see him?

Maybe. We can ask him one day and he can tell us himself what word he'd like to use where you're concerned. Then we'll all understand better.

[If only Shoto could think that way, or at least some of it because he doesn't exactly have an illusion cast over his eyes about his brother.]

Only a few days ago, he was being tended to by medics. He's alive and will continue to be. Aside Kurogiri, who is alright as well, I don't know about any other of your friends or your fate. No one announced any deaths, if that helps.

~~[No, Shoto. It likely doesn't.]~~

what the fuck are you talking about?

[ It's more or less an actual question. The pieces he's being given don't make the picture real easy to put together, but Tomura can surmise a hazy one. The only possibility for Todoroki to witness Dabi being tended to... It's an obvious conclusion to reach.

It's not unexpected. They've already lost two to heroes, and every one of them understood the unspoken risk that they could be next. They weren't unprepared for death, nor to rot away in a cell in the equivalent to death—they weren't unprepared for it to happen to someone else. They wouldn't allow that to rattle their resolve—not faced with the sacrifices of their own, who fought with every drop of blood and every last breath to bring them as far as they did.

Resolve is strengthened by anger. Anger flares hotly in Tomura, bursts against the confines of his skin, begging to be released to make its own way towards peace. With whatever presence of mind he still has, he throws his phone aside before Decay touches it, slams his hands down against the coffee table instead. It cracks and disintegrates near-instantly, and it's—not enough, nowhere near enough, and it's his only regret that Todoroki hadn't told him this in person. Such a fucking shame.

If Todoroki was looking to aim for his heart, he wouldn't find it. The hate will drive Tomura on, just as it always has—every failure, every loss is fuel for his will, making it ever more imperative that he succeed. For every one of them that couldn't, for every one that would never come back.

When he retrieves his (remarkably sturdy) phone, the words that breeze onto the screen come coldly. ]

you think you're gaining ground in this war, is that it? do you even understand what bullshit you're peddling? coming here to talk up your brother before saying you've sealed his fate and thrown him into the dungeon anyway. safe? what a fucking joke. some family you are.

hold on to those events you said you've seen. they'll be your last glimmer of hope before it all turns to dust. I'll make sure of it. every prisoner you've taken, every life you've saved, I'll change it personally - until you're left standing in the ruins of your society, wondering how you could have failed so spectacularly.

that's my promise to you, todoroki. the next time I see you, I'll kill you.

[Well, at least it's something more than two words, and nothing stings more than losing someone to the other side. Even though it sounds like if Shoto had said he had died, that would've stung less. Another day another threat. Not that it's any LESS threatening, just that it's nothing different.

What's different is the prospect that he's sealed his brother's fate. If they were all prepared to die, then they were all prepared to lose as a possibility, weren't they? The threat is, again, nothing new for him. Shigaraki is a force to be reckoned with as is.

But he is momentarily of thought. Why not just kill him now? Destroy until he can't and then force the heroes out of hiding. Why hadn't they? He's prepared for the general 'go fuck yourself', none the less—]

No one is gaining ground, least of all us. In the end no matter what we do, we've all already lost a long time before this war. I won't leave him to rot or be forgotten. For all he's been through, for anything he's been through, I won't let that happen to him. He is and always will be my brother; not a dirty little secret, my brother.

Be it at home, here and now or back in the carriage, or the first day you got here, I've been prepared for you to try to kill me. I offer you the same thing I always have. If I'm the last person on these islands you would go to, I'll still answer. That's the same thing I would do for anyone.

I'm sorry the news upset you, but he is alive and if you want to reclaim him, then do it. We can worry about you killing me when we meet head on, when it actually matters, versus here where it doesn't.

[ It's not as though the suspicion hasn't lingered in the back of his mind, it's just that it takes on full clarity now: why Todoroki pursued Dabi so doggedly while they were here, why he swore up and down to keep his promise to Tomura, why despite all of that his words and actions rang as empty as a death knell. None of this was ever for Dabi's—or any villain's—sake—they were all for his own.

So that Todoroki could feel like a good hero. So he could feel like a good brother.

Perhaps, at some point, Tomura had imagined the connection Todoroki wanted would have yielded some kind of understanding, some respect for his own brother's desires. But it's clear now that Todoroki made no such effort, that he sees nothing of Dabi aside from a rag doll to be manipulated at his own whim: to be a brother, against his will, to be "saved," against his will, to fulfill the delusional destiny Todoroki has already set out for him.

The stupid idiot won't even admit it. Same as every self-righteous, egotistical hero, putting every dissident in cuffs "for their own good," unable to admit that they're willing to forsake the other side to protect their own. The demand that every ultimatum, every arrest, every kill they make be met with vows of self-improvement, and Dabi now caught in that quagmire through the selfishness of one who insists on being his brother. Tools of oppression who expect to be thanked for it.

Well, Tomura can't be surprised or disappointed. He's done more than enough kindness in laying out the consequences of Todoroki's choices—anything more would be expecting chicken not to squawk like all the rest. Heroes can kill the individuals who refuse to change, so Tomura will do nothing more but follow that example.

Such a brilliant, glittering world there is, waiting for their return. ]

INBOX (NOCTIUM)

Text; un: Thermodynamics - Bad life decisions are go

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Text; un: Thermodynamics

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#because you're in a text based game, Todoroki that's why

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