Work Text:
Tenko stared at his reflection, idly noting the washed-out color of his once pitch-black hair.
Bathed in the ashes of his family and grime from scavenging, he wonders if this is the universe's way of telling him he cannot be a hero. It's then that a hand reaches out, ruffling his hair. Tenko does not hear the man's first words to him, but what he does hear makes his eyes widen.
"The world may not acknowledge you as such, but I'll make you a hero—a hero for those like yourself. How about it? You want to learn from me?"
Tears slip down his face as he unwinds his body from the stiff, protective crouch he had been positioned in before. He takes the man's hand.
"Make me a hero."
The man gently pulls Tenko's body into his, and Tenko feels safe. He falls asleep to the man stroking his hair and murmuring to him.
"You may call me Sensei. From now on, you shall be my son. This is your rebirth, Shigaraki Tomura."
Growing up, Tenko has always had to control his reactions. Showing too much irritation meant he was insolent; showing too much blankness meant he was angry; showing too much sadness meant he was ungrateful. Instincts, to Tenko, are not second nature, much less first nature; rather, they are third if not fourth nature.
Surprisingly enough, the first lesson Sensei tried to teach Tenko was not to respond to his new name—Tomura—but how to understand his own emotions.
"It's a little like this," Sensei explains, "When you were young, your parents told you not to pick your nose or suck your thumb, right?"
He continues at Tenko's nod. "And, well, it was hard at first, right? There was an itching feeling at the back of your throat, one that wanted you to scream out your desires, but that never got you on their good side, did it? Instead, you learned to ignore the itching. You learned to suppress your true self. What I'm asking you to do is the opposite. I want you to tune into that itching, to start feeling for it, to accept it and scratch it when you need to. Do you understand … my boy?"
"I'm not quite sure I do," Tenko responds with a frown, hand twitching, stilling, then hesitantly reaching to his throat, "But I'm willing to try, Sensei!"
Deliberately, purposefully, naturally, he scratches his throat.
It's tough the first few years, re-integrating his instinct to want, that is. The years have blurred that idea to the point where he does not remember what it's like to make it a priority. It's why he started scratching at himself, a grounding sensation that reminds him it's okay to scratch his itches—to follow his own desires.
However, somewhere between his voice cracking for the first time and his second growth spurt which made him lankier than a giraffe, Sensei congratulates him.
"Well done, Shigaraki Tomura," a sharp burst of static, followed by Sensei's silky voice baritones out from the television the moment he returns from a grocery run. "I believe you've just passed your first lesson."
Tenko is still picking the dust out from under his nails from the robbers he had disintegrated earlier at the Seven Eleven he had gone to. He shrugs his right shoulder. "Those PKers were pissing me off, strutting around as if NPC's aren't a vital part of the game."
"And you did it without thinking," Sensei points out.
Tenko cocks his head slightly. "I don't see what the big deal is. I've been stuck on this tutorial for years. Can we move onto the next level, Sensei?"
He can hear the smile in Sensei's voice, the fondness his father had never—
"Yes, of course. I'll put together the rest of your—ah, what do you call it—tutorial by tomorrow. We'll make it a speed run."
Tenko smiles sharply, teeth bared. "Excellent."
Tenko waits for the sound of static before he whips around to see Kurogiri who had been polishing a gleaming glass cup the entire time.
"Holy shit, I just killed people without a thought?" Tenko states distantly, unsure if he should be horrified, proud, or blank.
"Holy shit," he repeats again as Kurogiri pushes his shoulder gently, forcing Tenko into a seat. His caretaker grabs the apple juice from below the counter and starts pouring.
"You were wise to wait until Sensei left to react," he states first.
"Yeah, no shit," Tenko snorts, brain still not caught up to the present, "He's, like, the dad I never had, but he's even more out of touch with his emotions than I am."
Kurogiri huffs amusedly in agreement. "He means well."
"I know," Tenko says softly, eyes staring at his hands. They lapse into silence.
"I'm assuming you have some questions for me?" Kurogiri prompts gently after a moment.
"I have no delusions about who you and Sensei are," Tenko begins slowly, "I know you're villains. I know you're villains and that I wanted to be a hero. … But now, I'm a villain because it is what my master has wished it of me, the path he has laid out for me. Without Sensei, I would not have a life now, so is it not … heroic … of me to pay my debts to my savior? Is it not the right thing to do? Why do I still feel conflicted over this?"
"Shigaraki Tomura. All that is ordered of me is to keep you healthy. Sensei's instructions do not give me the duty to push you towards being a villain or hero. But what I will say is this: What does it mean to be a hero? That is something each person must answer for themself. Does it make Sensei any less of a Hero to you because he's a villain? He is the one who saved you—who picked up the slack of the professional heroes who had ignored you all this time. Does that, in turn, make the professional heroes who left you to rot in the gutters villains? The answer is not so simple. Before the advent of quirks, heroes and villains were a subjective label, something judged based on everyone's own morality. Is that not a better way to think of these words? As a label deeply personal, something which cannot be encompassed by a profession or legal definition? Is being a professional hero really the only way to save someone? If you want to stop feeling so conflicted, these are the questions you must ask yourself. "
Tenko puts down his empty cup, not cognizant of when he started drinking the apple juice, only that there was naught but a drop or two left stubbornly clinging to the edge of the glass. "I—"
"You don't need an answer now," Kurogiri cuts him off. "Go to bed, think about this over the next few days. Think about it as you play games. Take breaks in thinking about it. These questions aren't answered with only a single contemplation."
"Kurogiri," Tenko rasps, "I— Than—"
"And," Kurogiri grins a mischievous, terrifying grin, one which splits his cloud-like body in two, "Who knows, maybe you'll reach the enlightenment your martial manhuas always talk about if you do."
Tenko instantly scowls, a faint dust of pink washing over his face. "Never mind, I take it back. You suck. I'm never talking to you about my interests again. In fact, I'm never venturing out of video games."
"Ah, but who would buy 'the good stuff' if you didn't tell me what you want?" Kurogiri continues to tease.
Tenko makes his escape quickly. "I'll go out for it myself."
He slams his door shut before Kurogiri can get another quip in.
Tenko doesn't know how to deal with the sinking sensation in his stomach. It's an unwelcomingly familiar feeling—one that he is out of practice in dealing with. He chooses, as he has the option to now that he's met Sensei, to avoid it, heading out to an arcade. Games always cheered him up and the arcade was just the right amount of a break from his routine to be exciting but stay within his comfort zone.
He slinks into the greasy establishment, hood pulled up on his favorite black hoodie. Tenko starts from Pac-Man, making his way up to higher intensity games—like Whac-A-Mole and DDR. He's mid adjusting a claw machine game to win a plush dust mite (he wants to throw it at Kurogiri when he gets back to the bar) when a yell causes him to jerk his whole hand in the last second.
"Goddamnit, this game for sure rigged!"
"Shut up!" someone else yells before Tenko can get to it.
Tenko sighs, amusement ruined. Fuck it. He's done with the claw games.
He moves onto DDR, knowing he can brag to Sensei that his game-obsession is actually good for training too. Tenko checks the high score list for Paranoia Survivor Max ONI only to swear when he realizes someone called GentleDaddy beat his last high score. By 12 points.
He swears under his breath punching a random song to start warming up. Whoever that fucker is, he's going down. Tenko puts a little stomp into his steps, working out some of his aggression.
He's seven songs in, a hell of a lot more cooled down and one more combination away from getting perfect score (ha, beat that, GentleDaddy) when another yell makes him jump, missing the last combo accidentally disintegrating the handles he was holding onto.
"Game Over! High Score! Would you like to enter a name?" The machine chirps cheerily.
"No, the fuck I won't," Tenko snarls as he brushes the dust off of his clothes.
He turns around once he's got as much of it off as he could. "Alright, NPC, I know you're the quest target. Where are you? I'm going to get a speed run record with how quickly I kill you." He stomps towards the sound of the yelling to find a balding man sitting by a pachinko machine. Tenko marches straight into the man's personal space, immediately grabbing him by the throat and lifting him off the ground. He doesn't even give the man a chance to say anything, digging his pinky deliberately into the man's throat.
"Shut the fuck up, NPC. Why do you feel like you have the right to make this day worse than it already was?" Tenko sighs again, shaking his head. Shit, he shouldn't have lost control like that. Now he's going to be forced to clean up.
Tenko resignedly picks up his phone. "Hey, Kurogiri, I need your help to clear this unexpected quest …"
"You did good," is what greets Tenko the moment he is finally teleported back to the bar.
"Thank you, Sensei," Tenko responds apathetically. He still wasn't quite sure what to think of it all—being a villain that is.
"Now, now, don't start doubting me now, Tomura. You did do good. Do you want to know the identity of the man you killed?"
Tenko shrugs a single shoulder, knowing that Sensei was going to tell him no matter his answer.
"Takahashi Kenji. Thirty-nine years old. Serial stalker, kidnapper, and murderer. Heroes were never going to intervene; after all, his victims were always children like you, Tomura, children of the streets, children without anyone to look out for them. Except this time, someone did, and that someone is you. Tomura, I know I said I would never force you to be what you aren't, but perhaps it is time that you thought about what it is you really want to be: a hero by definition or a hero only by name."
Sensei's words linger in Tenko's mind for the next few days. It's not that he doesn't believe Sensei, but that he's not quite sure what to think. After all, Father had told him what a terrible person Grandmother was and she was a hero. On the other hand, all Tenko had ever wanted to do was save people; and wasn't that the exact definition of being a hero? Yet—
No. Tomura shakes his head. He can't just keep thinking himself in circles this way.
"Kurogiri," Tenko shouts as he shoves a black hoodie on, "I'm goin' to GameStop to buy Animal Crossing: New Era!"
He leaves before his caretaker can answer. The entire walk over, Tenko purposely thinks about his plans for his character's house instead of his bullshit moral crisis.
The store employee doesn't even spare Tenko a second glance when he rasps his request. He probably looks like a typical NEET to this guy. The thought both irritates and slightly pleases Tomura. He idly scratches his throat to settle his contradictory feelings. The more he scratches, the itchier his throat gets, and pretty soon, Tomura is stopping mid-alley when he realizes the neighborhood looks … unfamiliar. It's a rougher place than Tenko has been in a while. He shifts uneasily; he doesn't remember what it's like to fight tooth and nail to survive anymore. Not since Sensei rescued him, and that makes him guilty. Because he hasn't even thought of anyone else that is currently in the same situation he used to be in.
Tomura turns around to quell his rising panic and guilt when he sees her.
"Hana?"
"Sure," the grime-coated teenager drawls, "I can be her if you … donate … a certain amount."
Of course it's not Hana. It's just another girl with black pigtails. Those are common in Japan, Tenko reminds himself.
"No need. I just thought you were someone I used to know."
"Well, will you consider donating anyway?" the girl shoots back, not having moved an inch. She seems one strong breath away from disintegrating the way things do under Tomura's quirk. In the silence, Tomura observes the abundance of people tucked into the allies, some with threadbare blankets, some with boxes, all with a layer of filth and eyes which have lost hope. A scuffle breaks out two alleys down where two people seem to be arguing about. One person is flung into a nearby cardboard structure and a third person immediately gets involved in the fight.
"Maybe, can you tell me something?"
The girl shrugs. Tomura cannot tell if it was meant as a go ahead or a refusal. He charges ahead.
"Why's this place like this?"
"Isn't it obvious?" the girl looks at Tomura like he's a child, eyes filled with pity for his naivety, his lack of knowledge of how the world works, "The heroes don't patrol here. They've abandoned Nabuu."
Tomura considers killing her for the unwanted pity in her eyes, but, ultimately, he understands what she means, knows how … unnecessary his question was. Silently, wearily, Tomura hands her a stack of bills.
Tomura thinks he has his answer. If the heroes won't help the weary and the downtrodden, then Shigaraki Tomura would. Even if he had to be a villain. He's sure Tenko would forgive him for it.