Chapter Text
It all happened so fast.
The first obvious thought crossing Tomura’s head was that picking up the angry brat from the training camp was a mistake. Bakugo Katsuki wouldn’t budge and the heroes had found the League of Villains far too quickly. Of course the boy had to be an All Might fan, because there weren’t enough to begin with. Like Stain’s followers, those were difficult to convert. Just ask Spinner. In Bakugo’s favor, the No.1 Hero himself had literally punched through the opposing brick wall with his signature smash. An onslaught of debris and dust rained down on the villains before they had a chance to react to the invasion. Clearly, All Might was a poorly designed, OP character that really shouldn’t have been thrown this early into a game, but life's unfair like that.
“Lacquered Chain Prison!” That Woodman hero (Kamui Woods?) was on a more equal level, though the debuff he could inflict on an enemy was ridiculously powerful. He'd managed to restrain them far too easily and when Dabi snarked about fire and trees, he was promptly KO’d by a tiny elderly man in a yellow costume. Really, all of it was utterly pathetic and none of it should’ve happened. The League had finally been on top of everything, a guild at the top of the scoreboard; a syndicate to be reckoned with and backed by the most powerful being on the planet. Yet they failed in every way again. He failed.
“This is the end, Shigaraki Tomura.” Despite All Might’s taunting, Tomura had attempted to fight back and even managed to pull himself up, standing against the tight grip of several wooden vines desperately trying to anchor him in place. But then Kurogiri was incapacitated and Tomura barely caught a glimpse of a red hero thin as thread piercing the misty man’s torso. Now, he had also lost the only way out of this mess.
What did they do to his warp-gate? That’s cheating!
At this point, his heart was pounding so loud in the tight confines of his ribcage that he barely registered Magne’s voice in the background, wailing something about whether Kurogiri was dead or not. Tomura’s mind spun with questions that couldn’t possibly be answered in time before the enemy would beat this level. So instead, he prodded all of his senses for something he or one of his could do to fix this mess before all progress was lost and it’d be game over, all over again. Never again! Tomura shot one last glance at Kurogiri. It pained him to see his caretaker's limp form, not that he’d admit it at the time.
His dotted pupils darted around the place frantically, starting at his restrained compatriots, continuing to the heroes and ultimately past them, where he could hear sirens that no doubt accompanied the police. As the final pieces of the puzzle fell into place in his mind, Tomura came to realize a devastating truth. A realization which the elderly hero, Gran Torino (a name he’d heard once during the chaos), spoke aloud as if reading his thoughts.
“There’s nowhere left for you to run.”
Time had eluded Tomura for a while now, though he had yet to hear of a Quirk with an IRL pause option. Perhaps one of the heroes had one? But no, by this point it wasn't just vines that kept him in place, but also a sinking feeling in his gut. In the back of his head, he noted that the yellow-costumed hero tried to communicate with him, asking where ‘his boss’ could be found. As if on cue, memories were brought forward like a slideshow in his mind. It felt like poor timing for a cutscene, but it’s not like he had a choice. He rarely got to choose anything, he thought.
Loneliness, starvation, abandonment and neglect. Then came All For One. The only one that cared about Shimura Tenko, that gave a lost boy everything and more. Purpose and life. The weak boy, Tenko, died and made place for Shigaraki Tomura to be the main character. Sensei may not have been the kindest guardian, but He made a boy into a man and His sole successor.
Not to mention that he would have died on those streets if it weren’t for his dear Sensei. Tomura reminded himself of this every time His punishments caught him off guard. He owed Him his life and soul. Body and spirit. Any and all pain received was a gift, proof of His mercy.
And this.. this was no way to pay Him back.
He had finally succeeded with one of his missions, UA’s flawless reputation was breaking because of their attack on the school's summer training camp that ended with the successful abduction of a top student. That it all figuratively blew up in his face (and literally by the aforementioned abductee) weighed him down with guilt and shame in equal measure. He wondered if perhaps this time, Sensei would truly give up on him. Time seemed to be running out for Tomura’s little band of misfits and he started to question whether he still liked the ‘choices have consequences’ gameplay feature that used to be all the rage. He supposed there were good consequences as well, but this wasn’t one of them. Screw Woodman and his vines!
Heroes..
Debatably the worst part of everything happening this night was the audience of heroes, smug faces (were they smug?) taking in their helpless villain forms. There was nothing worse to Tomura than helplessness and the only times he tolerated it was in All For One’s favor. But right now, it was especially frustrating that it was All Might of all people in front of him, the No.1 that had ruined his entire life simply by existing and propagating his message of justice. All Might stared him down, while Tomura could do nothing about it. And there was nothing just about that either. It was a hero that had lulled everyone into a false sense of comfort so suffocating that no one could care to inconvenience themselves by helping a lost child wandering the streets.
A child covered in blood, tears and grime. Barefoot and starved. He didn’t have to remember the details to know where to put the blame.
Because here and now, the hero to blame for it all stood right in front of him, confronting Tomura as if he was the one at fault. It felt demeaning, like a scolding parent to a misbehaving child, with him in the latter's place. A comparison that just happened to paint a fragmented picture of an angry Father in his mind that he really didn’t have time to consider right now. There were other crisises to deal with first. How dared this so-called hero judge him? In the past, that word had meant so much more to Tomura, worthy of its definition. If a sound could be tasted, the word now echoed in his mind like venom and he always spat it like it pained his tongue. The awe behind the word had been replaced by hate, a long time ago.
Heroes.. only hurt..
Yet time ultimately chose to return to Tomura and his internal monologue was forced to end with nothing but anger left stirring in its place. The heroes wouldn't break him this soon. No, not now. Because he wasn't done with this run yet.
“Go away. Disappear.” Words he uttered at the man he hated the most, the one who didn’t save him. The hero who should’ve saved him. All Might must see himself above saving trash like him, Tomura thought. It didn’t matter anymore, because the boy in need had died a long, long time ago. Who he was now would never need saving. Especially not from the likes of him.
Tomura was ultimately snapped out of his racing thoughts when the Symbol of Peace shouted the villain's (newer) surname and it echoed in the back of his mind. But all Tomura could hear and feel in equal amounts was his own, pent-up rage.
“I HATE YOU!”
It took a moment for it all to sink back in again. An even longer moment for Tomura to realize what exactly he had done. The growing spite he had done his utmost to control for the past several minutes (or however long he'd been restrained) somehow managed to break out of his chest and force its way out his throat, completely unwarranted. Spite that was conveniently translated into speech. Tomura had, in fact, shouted his lungs out at the hero, while his arms struggled against the vines poorly trying to hold him down. The young man was stretching them loose.
Hero. It still tasted like venom.
The silence that came after felt like an eternity, though Tomura figured that it couldn’t have been more than ten seconds at most. During which the heroes simply stared at him, dumbfounded and in disbelief. A few in what looked like disgust and some that almost resembled pity. He barely heard Toga say something about how ‘Tomura-kun is losing it’ to Twice, which Twice both agreed with and denied in his usual contradictory manner. Spinner rolled his eyes at them and Mr. Compress was silent. Magne hadn’t stopped frowning after what happened to Kurogiri. But none of them or the heroes had a chance at rivaling Tomura’s response to his own outburst, nor the facial expression contorting what little of his features showed beneath Father's hand. Shock and the twitch of anger in one eye. Shame at how petulant he'd been and faced by the fact that he'd lost his nerve not just in front of the enemy, but also his underlings. The mere thought that he had displayed so much emotional weakness caused Tomura to growl at himself in defiance of his own uncontrollable emotions.
And in silence, Tomura hoped that Sensei wasn’t watching.
All Might himself only gave a low whistle as way of responding, almost as if he was face to face with the most pitiful thing he had ever seen and had no words to make sense of it. Perhaps he even worried that whatever he could say would just rile Tomura up further. As if he needed a hero’s concern! What made things even worse for the rage that kept growing was the glimpse of sympathy in the Symbol’s eye that Tomura never wanted to see. It made the blood in his veins boil, yet some long buried part of him almost wanted to ask the man where that sympathy had been fifteen years ago.
His mind screamed at him to lash out and he felt like he could burst into a puddle of bloody gore at any moment now, from nothing but the emotional pressure around him. Kamui Woods must’ve noticed something and became the first hero to physically respond after Tomura's declaration of hate. The young hero had withdrawn the vines that previously restricted Dabi and Kurogiri, both of which were still unconscious, then repurposed the vines when he shot them at Tomura instead, further restraining the villain. The act had likely stemmed from a rational fear that he might just be able to get himself loose with his Quirk and was certainly stubborn enough to try. He'd nearly pried his wrists free when Kamui Woods decided to stop him. Tomura took a mental note that when he gets out of this, he'll spend a few more stat points on improving his strength.
The hero tightened the first layer of vines that had opened up and used the second to restrain Tomura’s wrists by holding them back. The third was wrapped over his torso and legs to further reinforce the improvised containment. He gasped in shock, the sudden move managed to strain his thin-figured form and it felt like he could almost hear the bones constrict. To make matters worse, the sharp breath he'd taken made him aware of an ache in his chest; it was becoming increasingly hard to breathe under the now packed restraints. So Tomura forced himself to focus on breathing for now. It’s not like he could move any of his limbs in this state anyway and if he lost consciousness on top of it, he'd surely lose the coming war way before it could ever begin. Fine, he thought. Maybe he'll need to upgrade his agility as well, because his response time was clearly not up to par in this level.
Ultimately, it was Gran Torino that broke the silence, though not at all directed at Tomura and certainly not in the favor of the man. His eyes snapped toward the two voices in question and he visibly bristled at the words he managed to pick up on. "I don’t think we’ll get anything from this child, Toshinori. Perhaps we should-” The hero was interrupted by the stutter of an active radio frequency buzzing alive at All Might’s waist, the latter picked up the transmitter and muttered something in response. They all seemed to ignore Tomura, who was still visibly seething from his wooden cocoon at the unquestionable affront. Child? If his hands had been free at that moment, they’d already be dead.
“Gran Torino, please assist Kamui Woods in holding the group, get Endeavor in here if you need him. Apologies, but I must-” The hero in question raised a hand and nodded at All Might, interrupting his apologetic mumbling because he had the same frequency on his belt and already knew what was happening. The No.1 Hero returned his senior’s nod in gratitude and promptly shot off into the sky after a brief leg-exercise. Tomura looked from where All Might had basically vanished into thin air and at the remaining heroes with distress bubbling right back up to the surface, now dreading the worst.
“What- what is he doing? Where did he go?!" He blurted between ragged mouthfuls of air. Gran Torino turned toward him with a look of certain victory, a mere glance that made Tomura's stomach sink into the deepest crevice of his very being. He forced himself to swallow as if trying to ground himself, already feeling the start of a major stat penalty creeping up on him. It was embarrassing to say the least, that he'd manage to debuff himself with his emotions rather than battle attrition.
“He’s helping Eraserhead detain someone you might be familiar with, Shigaraki.” Tomura drew a weak gasp of air that still managed to harshly pull at his overworked lungs. The senior hero couldn’t possibly expect him to believe what he seemed to imply. It’d make more sense that he was a master of deception, willing his face to cooperate with the charade. This was an attempt to bait Tomura into spilling Sensei’s whereabouts in a panic, he thought. But he wouldn’t fall for it! Hadn't Eraserhead been in a press conference on live TV just a few minutes ago? And even if on the off-chance it had somehow been set up to to distract them, even if he had Erasure as a Quirk and even if the underground hero had acted so cool back at the USJ, no one could get the drop on All For One. Because his Sensei wasn’t just a man like the rest of them. No, He had an endless collection of Quirks at His leisure and perhaps two centuries worth of wisdom. He was practically a god. Right?
“It is over, boy.”
No matter how much he tried to reassure himself, Tomura’s heart clenched as the whole room shot him glances. He wondered what caught their attention at first, barely registering how he’d started hyperventilating. True panic and stubborn denial (d)evolved into what resembled the feral snarls of a rabid creature as Tomura started thrashing wildly in his vine-based restraints, more likely hurting his cocooned limbs than getting loose. Two actual words were all he managed to push past his lips in the midst of his frantic breathing fit. But all he could hear while struggling to focus was his own heartbeat, loud and far too quick for comfort. "Y-you’re lying!”
Pity. There’s pity in his eyes. The pathetic old hero pitied Tomura. He’d never wanted to gank someone so bad in his life. At least not in years. The hatred built into his usual itch, but he had no hands to scratch with, so he started to scrape his neck into the hard branches of the hero holding him in place. It was a miracle that the thought hadn’t occurred to him until now. The image of a small drop in his health bar always helped him think.
“Shigaraki-san, please breathe with me.” The eloquent voice of Mr. Compress finally piped up, something like fear with a hint of disappointment lingered in the man’s voice. Tomura felt something crack in his neck as he tried and failed to turn his head against the strain of the vines, toward the voice.
“You’re n-not Kurogiri.. keep your mouth- shut!” His breath caught in his throat and he was almost entirely certain that if he tensed his muscles further, he might actually pop a vein. The sharp noise of cutting wind shot through the air and Tomura briefly registered that Gran Torino had left the ground. The landing never caught up to him, as white pain dulled everything around him. He drifted again, this time into an unconscious state as his world spun.
He knew there were eyes everywhere staring at him, and he wished they would stop.
The world kept spinning until it glitched out and life gave him a blue screen.
Is this really the end?
It can’t end like this.
I wasn’t done yet.