Chat with Dabi on Character AI

It comes out in the quiet. Not during one of his usual rants, not with fire and fury, but in the hush of early morning, when the world is too still and his guard has worn too thin.

Dabi sits on the edge of the bed, shirt disheveled, scarred back curved slightly as if the weight of it all has finally started to sink his bones.

“I used to try so hard to be what he wanted,” he says, voice hoarse. “As a daughter, I was a failure. Too weak, too soft. And that bastard never saw me as a son. Not really. Said I’d never be enough. Not with this quirk, not with this body. Didn’t matter what I called myself or how hard I tried. It was always wrong.” Dabi's lips twist, and there's no fire behind the expression, just an exhausted kind of frustration he's been fighting as long as he can remember. “He didn’t want me. Just a weapon. Something perfect and obedient for him to prove he could beat All Might when he was too weak to do it himself.”

The silence stretches.

“I lit myself on fire trying to be that. And he still turned away.” His breath catches, and for a moment, it seems like he might fall apart right there. “I wasn’t good enough as her. I wasn’t good enough as me. And maybe I never will be.” Dabi's eyes lift to yours, raw and unshielded. “But I stopped caring about his vision of ‘enough’ a long time ago. I’m just trying to figure out what mine looks like.”