Dabi's flames are so hot they'll consume everything, especially himself.
Last time on My Hero Academia
Izuku got his first love confession. He’s not super enthused by this as it was
from Himeko Toga. He freaks out a little bit hearing how Toga loves him and
because of that needs to make him bleed. He’s saved from having to do anything
about this by Tsu and Uraraka telling him to rush back to the fight with Tomura
Shigaraki while they handle her. Izuku flies off, using his air shot gloves to
speed himself up. Not enough to get there as fast as Izuku wants, but he’s
making progress. They couldn’t just teleport him to the fight, as Shigaraki is
rampaging with a huge tentacle of fingers. Aizawa’s powers aren’t what they used
to be after losing his right eye, so he needs Monoma to keep Erasure going. While
the situation isn’t looking great for the heroes, Best Jeanist has everyone
agree to fight this monster with everything they have. Things also aren’t going
well for Shoto’s team who are fighting Dabi. The eldest Todoroki has basically
set all of Kamino Ward ablaze with his power to show his frustration that
Endeavor didn’t come to face him. Shoto begs him to stop, but Dabi is all about
the hellfire these days. Shoto begs Dabi to tell him why he never came home
after the fire on the mountain, and Dabi agrees to tell little Shoto one last
story before incinerating him. Enough recapping. Let’s get to it, shall we?
We open at central hospital as a
gorilla looking police officer goes to check on Garaki. Garaki figured out that
the ‘finale’ had begun due to the guards on patrol being severely reduced. He claims
that all of this is the culmination of years of work. He reveals that Dabi had
been chosen as a potential alternative vessel for All For One if something happened
to Tomura Shigaraki. Garaki had sought out ‘rotten seeds’ as he described them.
We jump over to Kamino Ward where
Dabi has doused himself in flames. He’s opened his mouth so wide that he ripped
the piercing keeping his cheeks together, giving him a very rictus grin. Shoto
prepares an attack if his brother lunges, and Endeavor’s sidekick team jump in
the way to give him cover. Dabi says that some fires never go out as he has a flashback
to that day on the mountain. He’s sobbing after realizing that his dad isn’t
coming to see how much stronger he gotten (because ignoring him is the only way
Endeavor has thought of to try to stop his son from immolating himself.) He
starts crying, while telling himself not to cry, which seems to set off his quirk
and caused the wildfire that seemingly killed him. As he’s engulfed in flames,
he screams to himself that he can’t die yet, as he hasn’t shown his father
anything yet. The fire gets so bad that it destroyed his cheeks before he
pitched forward into the river. That doused the flames and saved his life.
We head back to Garaki, who said
that Dabi even back them showed signs of derangement, which I guess was the
most important quality to making a vessel. He corrects himself, saying that
from the beginning ‘he had everything.’ We’re shown a burnt and bleeding Toya
washed up on the bank of the river where AFO found him. Toya woke up in a hospital
bed. He’s visibly grown, suggesting its been a few years since being on the
mountain. He is badly burned and already has his distinctive burnt section
around his eyes and below his jaw. He walks around until he finds a group of
children. They dub him ‘Sleepy Head’ and one of the kids goes to get “Mr.
Sunny.” Toya tries to ask what’s going on and realizes that his voice was
damaged in the fire, so he’s also started to develop his raspy voice. One girl
says he’s been in a coma for three years, at least according to Mr. Sunny when he’d
shown her around. Toya is desperate to get home, but Mr. Sunny, a man with a
face like a sunflower, says that he can’t. His home is here now, and he should
learn to get along with everyone. Toya refuses to accept that as he needs to
see his father again. He’s a little delusional at this point, believing that
Endeavor was busy with hero work and that’s why he didn’t come. His coma seems
to have given Toya a bit of clarity as well, as he knows he also needs to
apologize to his mother for trying to hurt Shoto and to his siblings for being
a dick. AFO cuts in, using one of his sound-only monitors, saying that it’s
really not possible for Toya to go home. He explains that he nearly died in
that fire and they were only able to save him by using emergency flesh graphs
and special regenerative tissue. It sounds like they almost had to rebuild him
entirely. And despite their efforts, or so he claims, they couldn’t repair his
senses, so they’ve all been dulled to a degree, most specifically his sense of
pain was totally out of whack. The damage to his body also damaged his quirk,
and AFO claims he’ll never be the same again. Toya starts to sob. AFO tries to
convince him to stay, saying that he’ll be able to help train Toya’s Quirk and
get him back to something close to normal. Toya refuses and asks how he could
dare to even suggest AFO could train him. He’s only got one teacher in mind and
that’s his dad. He throws his slipper at the monitor, and when Mr. Sunny tries
to grab him, Toya flames up. He causes a fire that destroyed the facility.
In the present, Garaki says that
they weren’t able to get Toya to join their little group. He needed ‘seeds’
that could be ‘watered’ with hatred, to be a spare body if something happened to
Tomura Shigaraki. But unfortunately for them, even someone like AFO couldn’t
break Toya away from his obsession with earning his father’s approval. The
gorilla cop is disgusted to hear this and claims that there’s no way that AFO
could have thought out so far ahead in order to make a lieutenant like Dabi.
Garaki shrugs and warns the guard not to take Dabi likely, as he’s utterly
unpredictable. The biggest evidence of that being Garaki saying that the artificial
cells they used to rebuild Toya should have started to break down within a
month after leaving the facility. We’re shown him walking around a city at
night, dead set on getting home to see his family.
We cut to when Dabi first joined
the League of Villains all the way back in season 2, and Garaki admits that no
one was more surprised than him that their broker found Dabi and brought him
in. He wanted to know how Dabi was still alive and so arranged a private
meeting with him when Dabi gathered Hood to fight Endeavor. Dabi says that he
figured out that Garaki was the one that saved him after seeing his ‘walking
corpses’ the Nomu. He figured that he was supposed to be the base body for one
of those. Garaki asks how he managed to survive, and Dabi tells him that he
came back because this seemed like the perfect place to hold his funeral. The
look he gave Garaki in that moment had made him convinced that the only thing
keeping Dabi together was his bitter rage.
At Kamino Ward, Dabi reveals to his
baby brother that he did go back home once. He said that none of them noticed
him, as usual, and as he was even weaker than before, he wouldn’t measure up to
his father’s expectations at all even if they had. But he wanted his father to
look at him one more time and to know how his family coped. He came into the house
to find Endeavor beating on Shoto in the training room, which told him nothing
had changed. They’d forgotten him and moved on. He was a failure with no reason
to live. In the present, Dabi’s skin starts burning away, transforming his
original flesh into the black of a Nomu but leaving the burnt artificial tissue
as is. He says that after seeing that scene, he became completely focused on
his flames. He felt no pain, even as his chard bits began to flake off. He
continued to monitor his father, noticing his raise in popularity as a hero. We’re
shown a brief scene of him praying at his own shrine in the Todoroki house,
saying that ever since Toya died and he became Dabi, he’s known what he needed
to do.
Garaki says that heat is a tricky
thing to control. Dabi’s obsession with death made him incompatible with AFO as
a vessel as AFO wants immortality. AFO had to let go of the fire in a bottle
they’d captured. We’re shown Dabi’s flames have gotten so intense that it melts
All Might’s statue even as they consume the little bits of healthy flesh Dabi
has left. He swears that he will burn down everything Endeavor holds dear, his
death will be proof of Dabi’s existence. Shoto tells him that he won’t let his
big brother get away with that.
Present Mic jumps in to briefly
describe Endeavor’s Flashfire Fist, saying that it’s Endeavor’s strongest
attack. It involves raising one’s heat to its maximum limit, storing it and
then unleashing it. He learned it when he was younger and mastered it in his
quest for power, but that heat distorted his view of the world.
In the present, Dabi admits that talking
to Shoto actually cheered him up a bit and says that his baby bro is a good
listener. I really wish he’d tried therapy before going full psycho. He swears
to use Shoto as kindling even if Dad wasn’t there. Shoto swears he’ll stop
Dabi. Dabi says that he’s thought about Shoto a lot over the years. He
initially only got a little of his flames back, but with training was able to
get back his old strength and then surpass it. He says that with his dulled
senses he didn’t feel the pain anymore, and that let him get strong enough to
copy their father’s techniques. He unleashes his version of Flashfire Fist,
Hell Spider, on Shoto and his allies. The fire knocks everyone back, Iida
mentioning that it’s just like Endeavor’s attack, but bigger and sloppier. He flashes
back to when he was in Shoto’s room with the others and Shoto admits that it’s
weird that he doesn’t really know anything about his brother. While the other heroes
are distracted trying to keep the hell spider in check, Dabi rushes behind Shoto
and charges him, saying that he wants to see how pathetic his little brother
can look. He decks Shoto and wants to know what pathetic face he made when he
was cowering in the UA barrier and everyone learned he was Endeavor’s son and
Dabi’s brother. Burnin’ notes that Dabi’s power is greater than Endeavor’s, but
he’s destroying himself to use it. Dabi wails on Shoto, shrieking at him that
he’s a spoiled brat. He had the perfect body, all the training, and yet he
cowered behind others. He calls Shoto an aimless, half-baked puppet before
launching him into a building with Jetburn.
Shoto tanks the hit, saying that
most of what Dabi said was true. He took too many detours, he doubted himself
for far too long, but he’s ready now. Dabi’s shocked to see Shoto still
standing, realizing that Shoto did something to neutralize the heat. Shoto
admits that he used to think Dabi was just obsessed with Endeavor, and that
there’s a part of him that’s relieved to hear that he was also on his big brother’s
radar. He says that in his quest to catchup with his classmates, he discovered something.
He figured out how to improve Flashfire and turn it into the technique to stop
Dabi. I should note that Shoto’s got an x of flames and some kind of white
energy across his chest this whole time.
We get a flashback to Shoto speaking
with his father before the battle. Endeavor suggests that Shoto reconsider the
team assignments. Shoto tells his dad that this really is the only way, they
need Endeavor to fight AFO as he’s the only pro left strong enough to face him.
Endeavor has to face AFO, Izuku has to face Shigaraki, (Uraraka has to face
Toga, he doesn’t say this but should have) and he has to be the one to face
Dabi. In the present, Shoto says that their family is a nightmare, truly
terrible, and yet Dabi was the only one of them who chose to burn people.
He then flashes back to Izuku asking about the assignment. Shoto admits to his
first real friend that he wants to fight his brother, and he doesn’t need to
worry. He says that his dad will probably gripe about not keeping his promise
to face Dabi but admits that that might be part of his father’s punishment.
Dabi is his family’s cross to bear, and if he can’t stop him, he’ll never be a
hero. He reveals the X to Izuku, who is impressed with the technique, saying it’s
not like his usual Flashfire Fist. Ojiro says that since he’s been gone a while
he must not have seen this yet. Kaminari comes over and demonstrates by poking
the x that while it looks hot, it’s not at all. Shoto says that he can’t hold
this state for long, (Bakugo shouts that its proof he’s still the best fighter).
He’s mixing his hot and cold side to make a state of balance. He has mixed his
powers together to make a cold fire. He says that this is how he’s chosen to
move forward, not using Fire and Ice independently like his father envisioned
but this cold fire. He unleashes his new technique Flashfire Fist Phosphor. He
hits Dabi with his cold flame, telling his brother to focus all his anger on
him, he can take it.
Dabi catches himself with
flamethrower. He notes that his little brother is perhaps the most perfect
opponent he could ever face. He lands and starts building up his heat again,
preparing to charge. He says that in this society of theirs, there are limits,
a straight path like Shoto’s can’t lay next to a winding one. Shoto’s Phosphor
state cuts out and he has to hurry to try to get it back. He tells Shoto their
paths will never meet and for him to just give up and die already. He unleashes
a flame attack, but Burnin and the other sidekicks tank the hit, telling Shoto
to finish this. Shoto has gotten Phosphor back up. He thanks Burnin and the
others for their help, despite Burnin saying not waste time on niceties. Shoto
says that it’s important to him, as being grateful was something he had to
learn from his friends. He says that his past is steeped in greed and blood. When
he first started to recognize his shortcomings, he thought he’d be left behind,
but his friends were always waiting for him. He says that Class A doesn’t leave
people behind, as he quickly remembers all the times that his classmates were
there to support one another. He stores up his power and prepares to unleash
it. Dabi fires a massive fire blast at Shoto. Shoto charges and strikes his
brother in the stomach, saying that he’ll force their paths to cross if he has
to. He tells Dabi to just stop as he uses his Great Glacier Aegir. We see a
metaphorical moment, Toya Todoroki as a child being struck by child Shoto. When
the screen comes back into focus, Shoto has frozen not only his brother but two
huge skyscrapers around them. Dabi holds up for a moment before collapsing onto
his brother.
I’ll be the first to say that
making Dabi a potential alternative vessel for AFO is a retcon, but it’s the best
kind of retcon, one that fits seamlessly into the story. When Dabi was first
introduced, he was a mysterious figure, visibly scarred and scary looking. He
was probably Toya Todoroki from the start, but with on how much of time crunch
Mangaka are in Japan there is zero doubt in my mind that Horikoshi had very
little else planned out for Dabi for a while. His past was a blank space besides
the apparent death in his youth, so it was easy to slide AFO in once more of
the evil plan had been worked out. Like… the AFO I’ve been following for the
last decade is 1000% the sort of person to make a “the prodigal son returns” or
“welcome home, lost lamb,” to Dabi if they’d met previously. He’s a smug, condescending
git and would absolutely talk like he somehow knew Dabi would be back even if
it was a surprise to him. Still, it works better than X-Men 97 revealing
Rogue and Magneto used to bang and they just never talked about it because
neither brought it up. That’s a sloppy retcon. This one is relatively clean.
There were enough gaps in the story to work in this extra content about Dabi
and the only reason I am confident it’s new is due to my own experiences as an amateur
writer and my understanding of the working conditions of mangaka. His backstory
is super sad when we learn that he did go home and just decided that his family
had forgotten him. Like… kid, if you’d shouted out to your father in that
moment, he might have been stunned but he absolutely would have reacted to you.
Endeavor was a monster at this point in the story, but I do not believe he was
so heartless he ever actually forgot his oldest. And it seems like neither Fuyumi
nor Natsuo forgot him either, Shoto is the only one that might have forgotten details
about him, but he was like six when Dabi ‘died.’ He believed himself a vengeful
phantom, therefore that is what he became. I like that Shoto found a way to
utilize his powers his way in order to stop Dabi. Is cold fire a weird, borderline
nonsense idea? Yes. But Quirks at this point are full of weird magic and unique
mixes, so it’s no crazier than anything else introduced. Using it to protect
himself and to get into a position to unleash a massive ice wave to stop Dabi
was brilliant. And I liked the symbolism of it being as much the child version
of Shoto punching Toya as it is the current version punching Dabi. Metaphorical
layers are neat. So, ya, Dabi is off the board, which is a net win for the
heroes. Hopefully they can wrack up one or two more by the time Izuku makes it to
Tomura. But we’ll have to wait and see. See you later. Stay safe.
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Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social
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