My Hero Academia Reveals More Hints About How Toya Todoroki Could've Become Dabi

Update: Chapter 290 of My Hero Academia has finally confirmed that the Dabi is Toya Todoroki! Afte that revelation this article may detail how that terrible transformation came about: One of My Hero Academia's biggest (and most long-running) mysteries took another possible step toward a big answer and/or reveal this week. That's because Chapter 252 of the My Hero Academia manga once again dipped into the dark history of the Todoroki family, and opened the door a little further on the theory that the League of Villains' firey psychopath, Dabi, is in fact Endeavor's eldest son, and Shoto Todoroki's brother! My Hero Academia Chapter 252 drops that hint by once again bringing up the mystery of Toya Todoroki, the eldest child whose dark fate seemed to be the main catalyst for the Todoroki family's big falling out with Endeavor!

Warning: My Hero Academia Chapter 252 SPOILERS Follow!

The latest chapter of the My Hero Academia manga sees Endeavor and his new trainees Izuku Midoriya, Bakugo, and Shoto Todoroki all cleaning up the aftermath of the attack by Ending, a villain who had a personal grudge against Endeavor and his family. Ending took Shoto's older brother Natsuo as a hostage, which gave Endeavor the rarer moment of weakness in stopping the villain. Thankfully the Class 1-A students working with Endeavor fulfill his mandate to take down a villain before the No. 1 hero can, and rescue Natsuo.

In the aftermath of the attack, Endeavor reveals a much more vulnerable and emotional side to himself, telling Natsuo that, "You might feel like you couldn't stand up to me... Natsuo. Believe it or not, I was never trying to neglect any of you. But all I could do was blame other and dodge responsibility. With Toya too... I might as well have killed him myself!"

This latest line from Endeavor, combined with all the prior clues in both Shoto and Endeavor's storylines, strongly hint at a likely origin for Dabi:

1. From the very beginning of Shoto's storyline we've seen how obsessive Endeavor is with pushing his children's quirks to their most powerful limits. That obsession both drove Shoto away from his flame power, and caused his mom's mental breakdown.
2. Dabi's fire quirk clearly carries the risk of burning his body when it gets out of control, hence the extensive burns all over his body.
3. Endeavor's guilt-heavy wording suggests that even if he didn't kill Toya, it was his actions - or influence - that was part of his son's tragic fate.

It's not hard to imagine that before Shoto, Toya/Dabi's flame powers were Endeavor's first focus. Either he pushed Toya too hard before the boy had proper control of his quirk, causing an inferno in which Toya was seemingly incinerated, or Toya tried to face some kind of villain threat to be like his dad, and ended up injuring himself. Either way, if his family thought he was dead, and his dad was the source of his downfall, and the destruction of his firepower became too enticing, it would be understandable why Toya got twisted into Dabi - and set up a nice connection between Dabi and Shigaraki's origin stories.

Most of all, the inevitable reunion between Endeavor, Dabi, and Shoto would be one of the biggest events ever in My Hero Academia!

My Hero Academia was created by Kohei Horikoshi and has been running in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump since July 2014. The story follows Izuku Midoriya, who lives in a world where everyone has powers, even though he was born without them. Dreaming to become a superhero anyway, he's eventually scouted by the world's best hero All Might, and enrolls in a school for professional heroes. The series has been licensed by Viz Media for an English language release since 2015. My Hero Academia will also be launching its second big movie, Heroes Rising, in Japan this December.