My Hero Academia‘s Dabi might be one of the most mysterious villains in the series, but the latest chapter clued us into the limits of his quirk. As the war between the heroes and Paranormal Liberation Front continues with each new chapter of the series, Dabi has taken center stage at several of its biggest moments thus far as he has gone one on one against the pro hero Hawks. But perhaps this war will tear down Dabi in ways we wouldn’t quite expect as his quirk continues to reach its limits.
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Chapter 271 of the series sees Fumikage Tokoyami try and scramble to get Hawks away from Dabi after Dabi burned away his wings, but Dabi continues to relentlessly chase after them. But Hawks figures out that Dabi isn’t using his flame quirk as much because not only has Dabi’s flame got weaker but he can’t use it many times in a row.
As fans have come to expect by his brutal look, and teased through an earlier chapter of the series, Dabi’s quirk is tearing away at his own body. As confirmed in this latest chapter, the more he uses his flames the weaker they become. He puts up a brave front by taunting Tokoyami and Hawks, but Hawks deducts that he’s only doing this to buy time because he was unable to completely kill the hero.
Dabi even confirms that this is the case himself as he chases after Tokoyami with a few smaller blasts of flame. He notes how he “made those last two blasts weaker to save some gas in the tank” because he figured that Hawks would try and escape somehow. Dabi’s been noticing this weakening of his quirk for some time, and we might soon see how that plays into his role in the war going forward.
There are lots of theories about who Dabi really is, and who he might be potentially related to, but seeing his quirk destroy his own body and grow weaker over time is definitely going to throw a wrench into those theories the more we begin to learn about who Dabi truly is. But what do you think? Did it surprise you to see Dabi’s quirk weakening to the point where he has to “save gas in the tank”? Let us know your thoughts in the comments or talk to me directly about all things anime and other cool things @Valdezology on Twitter!
