Touya was stressed enough before getting warped without any kind of pre-warning whatsoever. He was running late to go and collect Star from Giran's, and for some ungodly reason, there was an unsettled feeling deep in his stomach that he just couldn't seem to shake.
Johnny's quirk transporting him to a completely different area than where he had been was not helping the sick feeling that was gradually soaking in his bones.
Giran hadn't called. Giran always called to let him know how she was doing, even if Touya snapped at him and told him he was busy.
Giran was used to Touya snapping, having looked after him from time to time while he was navigating the streets in his youth. He always ignored it, knowing there was never any real malice behind it.
So, fairly or unfairly, Touya was a little irritable when he realised that he was overlooking a city with the rest of the League.
Tomura looked rough, dark bags under his eyes that only highlight how little he'd slept for the three weeks he'd been away fighting a losing battle, and he was pale, his skin almost tinted green as though he was going to throw up any time soon.
Sure, his body was looking healthier than when he was all skin and bones, he certainly didn't seem to be looking any better for it.
"Nice to see ya." Dabi sneers, his irritation at everything as well as Tomura's abandonment coming through in those four words.
Tomura seems unphased by both Touya and his tone, choosing to ignore him as crimson eyes scan over the town in front of them.
"So these people have taken Giran... How long until the giant wakes up?"
"An hour and a half." Mister Compress replies, checking a pocket watch that Touya can't remember him owning before.
"Wait, what?" Touya asks, his scowl deepening as the others descend towards the town ahead. "What?"
"Received a phone call from Girans' phone from someone calling themselves Re-Destro." Tomura replies as he trudges downhill, his voice even raspier than usual and thick with amused judgement. "They call themselves the Meta Liberation Army. They consider our name 'too big' to share the same ultimate goal with."
"They wanna fight!" Toga chimes excitedly.
"They took Giran!" Jin chimes in, sounding heartbroken. "It's all our fault! He shoulda been less cocky!"
"Giran?" Touya practically squeaks, feeling the colour drain slowly from his face.
The others don't seem to pick up on the clear problem with them all being together and in one place, missing the small presence that followed along with them.
"So none of ya are wonderin' where Star's at?" He finds himself asking, a lot more aggressively than he'd intended.
The reaction from the others is immediate, all of them freezing in place, Jin's hands flying to his head in horror and even Tomura has a dark look cross his face before turning to face Touya properly for the first time since seeing him after weeks apart.
"Sorry for not realising sooner, I've been distracted." Tomura apologises, swaying a little on his feet. "We'll get her back by any means necessary."
He moves his arm in a vague gesture for the others to continue closing in on the town before them. Tomura said the right things, sure, but it still left a bad taste in Touya's mouth that he'd forgotten about the little girl that Touya had rather foolishly assumed that Tomura had started taking a liking to.
Touya had been finding them cuddled up together at times playing games and half-woken up to the sound of her chatting to him during the sleepless nights the two had in common.
That was before the appearance of Gigantomachia, of course. Before they had to move again, and before Tomura disappeared with the others to try and tame the huge man.
Before everything started feeling out of place.
Toga links her arm through Touyas, looking up at him sympathetically which does nothing but piss him off more because he doesn't want sympathy right now.
He's busy planning about seven separate ways to torture this Re-Destro bastard who had taken Giran and Star when they approach the entrance, all of them on edge by the silence they're surrounded by and ready to attack within seconds when a hero appears, sliding towards them with a eerily static grin on their face.
"Not another step!" The hero calls, naturally, and Touya's about to completely disregard that order and fry the man alive when he adds: "I've been ordered to guide you into the town. If you want a face-to-face meeting with the Liberation Army's commander, then you best follow me."
Touyas face contorts at the mere mention of the 'Liberation Army', who were now nothing more than child snatchers in his eyes.
Tomura seems perfectly happy to skulk behind the uncanny man, however, the others obediently follow behind him with Touya right at the back, keeping a watchful eye over all of them.
He chooses to ignore Tomura making lazy conversation with their guide, his mind completely distracted by the matter at hand, his original fear turning into anger, his body temperature creeping higher and higher when he thinks about how terrified Star must be in a completely alien place to her.
He can see faint wisps of smoke beginning to leave the seams of his body when he considers the possibility that they may have hurt her somehow.
He's so distracted that he doesn't really even register the clean cut looking man, suited as though it was some kind of special occasion, and the long haired and dark eyed woman that introduce themselves.
In fact, he either wants them to get to the point or fuck off.
But when he grumbled internally about getting to the point, he didn't mean getting ambushed.
Tomura takes it in his stride, as he always does, leaving behind nothing but dust as he heads straight for the largest tower in sight, pointed out by the suave-looking man to be where Giran and Star were being kept.
At least he was making up for forgetting about her earlier.
It all starts going wrong though as they all move to follow behind, but Toga ends up getting separated from them all thanks to some explosive that none of them had picked up on.
Jin notices almost immediately, the two practically inseparable these days, asking where she could have gotten to while Touya, Spinner and Compress are all trying to hold off attacks made by the army surrounding them that don't seem to be dwindling in numbers.
Touya's in a bad enough mood to snap at him for not taking down any of the members of the Liberation Army.
The appearance of an election van, and the sound of a voice calling out the loss of one of the members of their little gang pierces through the air and seems to get the army more riled up, sounds of anger and despair echoing even in the distance.
Dabi spots the suited man from earlier atop the van, encouraging the crowd's behaviour from mere words alone.
"Like some kinda fuckin' cult leader." Touya sneers disapprovingly, grabbing a citizens face with his hand ablaze.
Touya realises that suddenly, Spinner is gone too, and he can faintly hear the sound of 'Shigaraki' being called despite the screaming from his current victim.
He spots the two, a fair distance away, Tomura running his hand through the huge crowd running towards him, his decay seeming to affect the people he hadn't even touched.
Touya's eyes widen as he drops the man he'd been clutching onto.
"Well, if he's goin' all out, so am I." Touya states, momentarily distracted by the view of his partner running off with Spinner close behind.
"When have you ever been a pacifist?" Compress quips from behind.
Touya's lips pull up into a smirk, and he's about to quip back when he's suddenly knocked off-balance by a wall of ice, unable to see the face of the person creating it.
If he hadn't been annoyed already, he probably would have appreciated how impressive it was that the owner of the ice quirk had such good control of his quirk that Touya had barely noticed his appearance, and somehow had made himself huge arms solely out of ice. A little creepy, but impressive all the same.
"Ice, huh?" Touya comments dryly.
"Dabi." The hooded person comments. "Your flames make you the only long-distance fighter in the League... and yet you've made no effort to unleash them."
He can practically hear the mocking smile in his voice as he continues. "Are you waiting for something, or unconfident in your meta abilities?"
Something deeper than annoyance twinges in Touya. He didn't care for being made to feel weak or lesser than. He was strong. He had confidence in his abilities, even if the state of his body made him appear less than able.
"Hate to break it to ya, kid. But ya shouldn't be out here soundin' so smug when ice melts!" Touya snaps, flames shooting from his body, and making quick work of melting the icy arms that his counterpart had created.
"That could be a problem." The kid replies, using more ice to propel himself into the air.
Touya watches smugly, knowing that he'll be out of commission the second his body lands on the floor.
Except, cubes of ice, and even frozen treats begin flying towards the airborne man, forming a platform underneath him.
Touyas smug look turns into one of irritation, his tongue clicking in his annoyance.
"Since you didn't seem to know, I manipulate ice. All ice." He announces proudly, creating icebergs up in the air alongside him. "I've been perfecting my ability for quite some time. Even ditching school. I'm better with my quirk than even heroes are."
"How sad." Touya mocks.
He tries to swallow down the jealousy. He didn't need to add that to the mix of the ugly emotions that were already muddying his mood.
Unfortunately, Touya had never been any good at regulating his feelings, and it shows when his next burst of flames are nearly as large as the ones he'd produced at Seketo Peak all those years back.
It knocks down several of the smaller frys that Touya had ditched interest in, and he almost burns Compress, who had stayed by his side too.
"A little moderation please?!" Compress asks irritably.
"My bad." Touya replies, wiping his burned arm over his face.
The apology isn't entirely meant, it wasn't like Compress was providing anything to the fight, and certainly hadn't dashed off with Tomura and Spinner to go and help find Star as soon as possible.
He cared for Compress enough to half-mean it at least. He didn't want the man to be hurt, he just wanted him to be a little more useful.
He was doing an alright job at keeping the smaller grunts at bay, he guesses. He would probably admit that to his face once all this was over, and Star and Giran were safe again.
His skin is beginning to smell of burned meat by the third wave of flames released. He has no idea where his foe keeps pulling ice from, but it's getting a little more than irritating now.
He's momentarily distracted by the distant sound of thundering and yelling, glancing out of the corners of his eyes only to see hundreds of Jin clones storming the town, punching, kicking and throwing the lower-level grunts.
"Well that's new." Touya comments under his breath before drawing his attention back to the matter at hand. "My flames are bigger than your ice now."
He clicks his tongue in false sympathy. "Your precious ice is nearly all gone."
"If you're winning so easily then give me a hand!" Compress demands, clearly struggling with getting out of the way by other members of the army and looking a little disheveled considering his appearance was always well kept.
"Why should I help?" Touya asks, smirking.
"Are you seriously that cruel?!" He replies, sounding genuinely offended.
"Nah, I mean, ask them." Touya replies, jutting his thumb towards the army of Twice's that were approaching.
The closer they get, the louder they become, hundreds of Jin's talking over each other.
"What a racket." Compress complains. "Whatever happened to your issue with creating more of yourself?"
"Love and courage is what the doctor ordered!" One of the clones replies, not explaining the situation at all.
Touya tunes them all out as he focuses on the fight at hand, ignoring the discomfort that always came with overusing his quirk. He'd probably be out for the count tomorrow. Really hopes that Star doesn't need him too much, and could be soothed with Jin and Tomura's presences too.
The ice would just not stop fucking coming, though. And Touya really wanted to be with Tomura and Spinner right now, advancing towards where Star was.
"You guys manufacture ice?" Touya scowls. "Somethin's fishy."
"As I said. I manipulate ice." Is the bland response. "Including the temperature."
"Lead with that, then." Touya snaps petulantly. His patience was running thin. He needed to make sure Star was okay.
"In the future our army foresees..." His faceless counterpart continues. "One's rank in society will be based on the power of their meta ability. If you aren't strong, your life will hold no value."
His little tirade about strength rubs Touya up the wrong way. Sounds far, far too similar to some of the things he'd grown up hearing his father say.
His patience is about through, too. He wants this fight over with now so he can go and find Star and hold her close and fry the fuckers that caught her to a slow and sorry death.
"Do you ever stop talkin'?" Touya asks, his eyebrows pulling together as he flicks more flames his way. "That all sounds miserable. I'm gonna need you to die now."
"You're going to be the one that dies." The hooded man retorts childishly, sounding smug about it. "I can smell your body burning up from here."
That's about it for Touya.
He had barely been holding it together knowing Star had been taken, and was currently in the hands of someone he didn't know and absolutely could not trust not to harm her. He had been tested with the appearance with all the Liberation Army grunts, all of them ultimately making his goal of retrieving his little girl harder.
And then all the preaching from someone who didn't even want to show their face threatened to tip him over the edge, but the mocking of his body's inability to handle his quirk was the straw that broke the camel's back.
And so he ignores the screaming of his wounds, old and new alike, continuing to fight harder and harder, refusing to give up until he gets his stupid, dysfunctional but loving found family back in one piece again.