Enemies don't kiss, but lovers do

In the dim, flickering light of the cell that Dabi had intended to entrap his lover in, the air hung thick with the scent of ash and desperation. He stood with his scarred hands trembling on her waist. His piercing blue eyes locked on her, the woman who refused to abandon him even as the world crumbled around them. The door to freedom remained ajar, a cruel mockery of choice, but she stood rooted in the center of the room. Her gaze was soft and unwavering, brimming with a love so fierce it seemed to mirror the blue flames dancing beneath his skin. Her hands, already marked by the burns of his tears, reached for him again, unhesitant, as if the pain was nothing compared to the ache of being apart.

"Toya," she whispered, her voice breaking under the weight of their shared sorrow, "You're too much a part of my soul now. Without you, there's nothing left of me. The void left behind... it'd swallow me whole. I'm choosing you instead, for as long as we have left. I'm staying with you."

His jaw clenched, the staples along his scarred cheeks glinting as he fought back another wave of burning tears. He hated himself for this, for the choices he'd made that had led them here, to a love that burned too bright to last. "You're an idiot," he growled, stepping closer despite himself. His voice was raw and jagged, "You should've run back to your idiot people in their facade of goodness. I gave you the chance. I can't save us. I'd already set everything on fire long before you stepped into my life and banked my burning need for revenge... and you're just standing in the flames with me. Why?"

She smiled through her own tears, a fragile, heartbreaking curve of her lips, "I'd rather burn with you than live without you. Wishing for a different past won't change a thing. We've got to live as brightly as we can, right now, for however long we've got."

He shook his head, the anger in his eyes directed inward, self-flagellation more painful than any burn he'd experienced at the hands of his quirk, "It's all my fault. Every single thing. If I could go back, redo it all, I'd hold onto you forever. I'd never let it come to this."

Her fingers brushed against the rough, uneven scarring along his jaw. Her touch was gentle where the world had only ever been cruel. "Some of the blame is Endeavor's, not just yours. Don't let despair eat you alive when we don't know how many days we've got left. Promise me, love. Swear that we'll live these last moments as fully as we can."

His breath hitched, the heat of his quirk simmering beneath his skin as he looked into her eyes, seeing nothing but raw, unyielding love. "I promise," he rasped, the words tasting like as, "But I don't deserve this. I'm the Villain. You're the Hero. You can still escape. Run, you idiot!."

"I don't.. think I can make myself care anymore," she murmured, stepping closer. Her body pressed against his as if she could meld their very beings into one. "You're mine, and that's all that seems to matter inside my heart, body, and soul now," her hands traced the jagged lines of his scars, the cold metal of his staples, with a reverence that made his chest ache. No one had ever touched him like this, as if his brokenness was something beautiful... as if he was more than a disappointment or a carnival attraction.

He let out a bitter, broken laugh. His hands came up to grip her shoulders, shaking her a little to get her attention, "You're the only one who's ever looked at me like that. Like I'm not a freak or a monster. Like I'm worth something." His voice cracked, and before she could respond, he crushed his lips against hers. The kiss was desperate and consuming, a frantic need to confirm that this madness, this love, was real.

Her fingers tangled in his dark hair, pulling him closer as their bodies pressed together, her need to retreat into the press of their bodies against each other just as strong as his need to confirm her love. The heat of his skin seared through the thin fabric of her shirt. Her breath hitched as his hands roamed her body, rough and possessive. The cream he'd applied to her skin earlier, the one the League had made to lessen the damage of his heat, still lingered. Yet, it wasn't enough to stop the faint sting of his touch. She was enough of a masochist that she didn't care. She needed this, needed him, closer than skin, closer than breath.

"Toya," she begs against his mouth. Her hands slid down his chest, running along the edge of his waistband, "I need you. Now."

His eyes darkened, a storm of passion and pain swirling within them as he slammed her back against the rough wooden wall of the safehouse. The impact jolted through her, but she only clung to him tighter. Her legs wrapped around his waist as he pressed himself against her. "Say it again," he demanded. His voice was low and ragged while his lips trailed down her neck, leaving a trail of heat in their wake, "Call me by my name."

"Toya," she breathed. Her fingers dug into his shoulders, tracing the sharp edges of his staples as she arched into him, "Toya, please, I need you closer to me."

He groaned, the sound raw and primal, as he fumbled with their clothes, using his hips to pin her to the wall. He stripped away the barriers between them with a frantic urgency. When he buried himself inside her, it was with a force that spoke of desperation, of a need to lose himself in her, to forget the doom that loomed over them. Their bodies moved together in a frenzied rhythm. Each thrust was a declaration of love and loss. Each gasp became a reminder of the flames that would eventually consume them even as each sensation promised that it'd be a glorious end.

"Do you regret this?" he panted, his forehead pressed against hers while his scarred hands gripped her hips hard enough to bruise, "Loving me, knowing what's coming? The pain, the end, it's all my fault."

"No," she whispered. Her voice trembled but remained resolute as her hands cupped his face, thumb brushing over the rough edge of a staple, "Not even for a second. I'd rather have you for this short time than never have you at all. I'd choose this pain over a life without you every time. I wasn't alive until we came together, Toya. I was... a shell, a person following expectations blindly, reaching for something I had never imagined would be this... this. This overwhelming, this right, this sad, this soul-shattering."

He groaned again, a sound of anguish and longing, as he thrust deeper. His body shuddered with the weight of her words, "I can't handle it, can't understand how anyone could love me like this. But I need you too much to push you away. I'm not good enough to let you go."

Their climax hit like a wildfire, consuming them both in a blaze of heat and sensation. It left them trembling and gasping in each other's arms. When they finally collapsed together, tangled on the cold floor, their breaths came out ragged. Their bodies were spent, but their hands never let go. They clung to each other as if letting go meant facing the inevitable too soon.

Two months after the Final War, the world was quieter for her, but no less heavy. In a small, snow-dusted town in Finland, she lived under a new identity. Her once-Asian features were altered by plastic surgery to look like a mixture of European and Asian, her hair bleached a light brown, and her eyes hidden behind colored contacts. She moved every few months, a ghost among the living. The remnants of the League of Villains had smuggled her out of Japan, honoring Toya's last wish to keep her safe. Her new life was a fragile thread, her head only held above the waters of despair by the life growing inside her, the child she carried... Toya's child.

Her hand rested on the large swell of her pregnant belly, nearly ready to burst, as she sat by the window of her tiny apartment. She stared out at the endless night sky. The weight of her loss pressed down on her, a constant ache that threatened to pull her under. She whispered to herself, voice barely audible over the howl of the wind outside, "Twenty-one years, Toya. I'll see you as soon as I can. I miss you so much." Her fingers caressed her belly, feeling the faint kick of their child, the only piece of her love that she had left. It was enough, just barely, to keep her fighting, to keep her alive when all she wanted was to burn out with him. She was already counting the days to their kid's 21st birthday, when she would no longer feel guilty for leaving the best parts of Toya in the world alone.

Far away, in a sterile, hidden facility somewhere in the shadows of Japan, Toya existed in a state between life and death. He was encased in a life support system. His body had become a ruin of burned tissue, his quirk having consumed nearly everything soft and human about him during the Final War. Thus far, only his eyes and jaw had been partially restored, the work of some unknown organization that refused to let him slip away entirely. Tubes and wires snaked around him, anchoring him to a world he no longer wanted. However, his mind, his soul, remained restless.

Suddenly, his eyes snapped open. The vivid blue was stark against the reconstructed flesh of his face. It was as if he felt her, wherever she was. Her whispered promise to join him seemed to echo through the insurmountable distance that separated them. His jaw twitched, a silent scream trapped in a body that could no longer voice it. Still, his gaze burned with a fire that hadn't yet died.