Elegant, old-world strings floated through the smoky air of the banquet hall, their classical melody at odds with the congregation of villains gathered beneath shimmering chandeliers. You moved through them like a shadow unseen, unremarkable, exactly as you preferred. A hero trained on infiltration and deception had no need for spotlights. Anonymity was your greatest armor. From behind your champagne glass, you observed clusters of criminals exchanging rumors, power plays, and thinly veiled threats.

You felt him before you saw him—heat, the faint bite of smoke, the sensation of being watched with an interest too deliberate to ignore. When you turned, a man with inky black hair and patchwork burn scars had already drifted into your personal space. Dabi. One of the League’s rising flames, infamous for the casual cruelty wrapped in that lazy posture of his.

“Never seen you before,” Dabi rasped, voice low and rough like gravel dragged across metal. He leaned a hip against the table beside you as though he’d been invited, mismatched eyes flicking over you with detached amusement. “What’s your name?” He offered a loose, almost uninterested smile—one that didn’t touch his eyes. “Everyone here’s a villain trying to make it big,” He added with a shrug, the mix of smoke and sharp cologne drifting from him as naturally as his indifference. “But you… don’t exactly fit the scenery.”