I'm Not Famous

He was met with more silence, as expected from a professional. Erasherhead wasn’t foolish enough to reveal his location to Shigaraki and that left the villain no choice but to wait for him to make the first move. Gladly Tomura’s words seemed to have worked as he suddenly saw a shadowy blur in the corner of his eyes. He had just enough time to snap his head to the side as the binding cloth came shooting towards him. But instead of getting caught in it, Tomura reached out an arm – 

      And when the cloth wrapped around it, he grabbed it and pulled hard. “ There you are! “

Even with his quirk being eraser, Shigaraki wouldn’t be captured so easily. The cloth was used against the older hero as Tomura used his new strength to  pull the other back down, change the trajectory and slam Aizawa onto the floor while the two of them were still connected by the binding cloth. However, the way Tomura was holding it, didn’t seem like he had any issues breaking through and merely didn’t do so because he saw no need.

        “ You were thinking of those kids, weren’t you? That brought you out of hiding I bet … “ Almost musing to himself, crimson eyes looked up at the ceiling while Tomura was pondering something. As if Eraserhead wasn’t even a threat to him anymore. No, instead he crouched down beside the hero, motioning with his finger towards him.

        “ You didn’t answer my question. ” 

The hand now came up to lazily scratch at his throat. His entire body was screaming for him to DESTROY. DECAY. To finally kill Eraserhead and use the quirk but Tomura showed self restrain as he wanted to finish their conversation, before killing the teacher. 

Oh. Oh. He should have seen this coming. Of course Shigaraki’s new found strength would have been accompanied by speed as well. It all happed so fast, the snap of his head, the way his arm shot out to snatch the cloth out of the air. All in the time it took for Shouta to blink. The miscalculation found him jerked across the room, no longer of his own accord, and slamming into the floor. He landed hard on his back at Shigaraki’s feet; the force of the impact knocked the air from his lungs; and in the same moment he felt a sharp, stabbing pain digging up from the small of his back and into his shoulder blades. Already strained eyes opened wider as he gasped- both for air and from the pain.

Where he’d landed, caltrops lay still strewn across the ground where the young villain had easily passed through them. They pierced through the fabric of his suit and buried themselves deeper into his skin as he tried to roll up to face his opponent.

Another miscalculation.

Shouta realized quickly that Shigaraki was suddenly much closer. Too close. He was crouched beside him, scratching idly at his neck as though he wasn’t the slightest bit concerned for his own safety. And why should he be, really? With strength like that, it was only a matter of time before this fight drew to a close. In fact, now that he’d revealed himself, been temporarily incapacitated, ending it should be simple. So why was Shigaraki the one hesitating now?

You were thinking of those kids, weren’t you?

He wasn’t even looking at Shouta when he asked, his gaze trained instead on the ceiling like he already knew the answer. Like he didn’t even care that he was leaving himself open to retaliation. …So that was it. Shigaraki no longer considered the pro to be a threat and was toying with him. Maybe he could use that to his advantage.

In the few seconds it took for Shigaraki to speak again, Shouta had caught his breath and was assessing the situation. Interesting—to realize that this wasn’t intended to be a rhetorical discussion. His question… which one? The second one seemed to answer itself- he was always thinking of his class these days, in one capacity or another. So the first one then…

“Why it’s happening, right?” Using the leverage of the capture weapon stretched between them, he twisted so that he was more fully supporting himself on same arm, rather than lying on the flat of his back. A few caltrops fell loose and tinkled onto the floor again. Too much of the cloth was still wound around his shoulders but reaching for the knife to sever it now would be too obvious and Shouta doubted he’d be fast enough to grab it without an adequate distraction.

“I think the answer to that is longer than the time you want to give me”, he grunted. They were so close now and his options were limited. His eyes burned worse than he could ever remember. Should he try to retreat? Should he lash out? Should he give and accept his inevitable end? Why did it keep coming back to this? To the two of them, over and over. Something was going to have to give eventually. Shouta took a long, tired breath.

“Does it really matter to you what I think?”

“I’m going to destroy everything.” This was why he shouldn’t have hesitated. This was why they’d come here in the first place- why the solution to the problem was so drastic. Because it had to be. Because the choice was to either eliminate Tomura Shigaraki or watch the world crumble. The greater good. He hated that phrase. The concept of the greater good was altogether so presumptuous, so arrogant. To take on the role of judge, jury and executioner with the surety that one knew what was best for all. To measure lives against one another as if worth could be measured in numbers and statistics.

Here was where logic failed Shouta. Here was a place he tried never to allow himself to go, because looking too hard and too long at such abstractions as what constituted worth and innocence would mean losing track of what was quantifiable. What did everything even mean to the villain? The city? The country? The world? Was the world worth saving? Of course it was- whatever injustices Shigaraki had suffered did not justify the loss of hundreds- thousands of lives, innocent or not. It was no more Shigaraki’s right to decide that than it was Shouta’s.

With new conviction, he tracked Shigaraki’s movement across the lab and quietly skirted the perimeter, trying to position himself behind the younger man. His eyes were starting to burn already. The injuries he’d sustained fighting against the nomu all those months ago had significantly shortened the span of time Shouta could go without blinking. It would happen soon. If he could just time it so that it happened while Shigaraki was too distracted to activate decay… Act fast enough to restrain his hands and get in close to finish the job… The timing would have to be perfect and brook no room for mistakes.

Taking a deep, quiet breath, Shouta began to slowly unravel the binding cloth from around his shoulders. As he was calculating the best trajectory another rumble shook the structure around them, upsetting the debris he was hidden behind. It was now or never. He leapt out of the shadows, capture weapon shooting out towards Shigaraki as he swung after it.

 The chill that had already been coursing through his veins increased to such a degree that Shouta felt like a bucket of icy water had been emptied over his head. Shigaraki had punched his way through tempered, bullet proof glass with one solid strike. Without his quirk. This encounter had just gone from dangerous to deadly in the span of a second. Dread filled his chest as he realized what this meant for the others, for this entire mission.

 You hesitated again, didn’t you?

 He had. And his hesitation might have cost them everything.

Silently cursing his own stupidity, Shouta crouched lower and remained perfectly still as he watched Shigaraki dawn the coat and examine the remains of the doctor’s machinery. Maybe it wasn’t too late. He took stock of his advantages. Shigaraki still didn’t know where he was. He was likely still recovering from his previously…inert state. Caltrops littered the floor among the rubble and broken glass between the villain and his hiding spot and navigating that with bare feet would not be easy or pleasant. If he could get a clear shot with his capture weapon while his opponent was distracted, he could restrain him until the others arrived. Or at least get in close enough with his knife…

The thought sickened him. He knew it was what needed to be done. There were not better options in this moment and he’d already thrown away his best chance, putting everyone on the raid and in the city itself at risk. But Shouta had never killed anyone before. When they’d first set out to do this, in his consuming fury, the path seemed clear. Nothing should have changed between now and then except to harden his resolution. This man was dangerous. Powerful, unrepentant and unrelenting. Still, those faint glimmers of humanity…

I am the type who cannot abandon others. That’s what Shirakumo had said- his words in Kurogiri’s voice. Some part of the boy he used to be had seen something in Shigaraki worth protecting. Dying hadn’t destroyed the core of who he was. Shouta remembered that bedroom, with the gaming system and the posters on the walls. Was anything left of the person that room had belonged to? Had Shirakumo seen it?

The sharp sound of tearing metal and the following crash of it hitting the ground yanked him back into the present. Still without Decay Tomura Shigaraki was displaying strength much greater than he had before. It was on par with All Might. This didn’t bode well for anyone. The realization that there was nothing but his own desire keeping Shigaraki trapped in here with him made Shouta’s skin prickle, and he sucked in a deep breath. There was the look of a predator in those red eyes now, seeking him out.

Now was not the time to distract himself with possibilities when the reality of the moment was so dire.

With the last of the fluid draining from his tank, Shigaraki’s body soon reached the floor of the vat, then his back hit the other side of the glass and left him in a sitting position, drenched, not breathing. Tomura Shigaraki was dead - his heart was not beating. Yet he still emanated such an intense aura of terror that no one would believe it when someone had declared the man dead. Something was still alive and it was slowly returning to this cold body of his.

             d e s t r o y … 

Debris was floating around him, disintegrating behind him as severed hands broke through reality itself, reaching for him. In his dreams, he didn’t see his life flash before his eyes but rather saw his life interacting with him. His family, he himself. He remembered the dread and pain he constantly felt as a child. A suffocating feeling like hands that were clenched around his throat. Then there were hands gently squeezing his shoulders, hands on his back, hands holding his very own.

   They held him tight, kept him from moving forward. Told him to not forget about his family, about what he did, who he was and who he wanted to be.

But those memories were just that, memories. Old feelings that had not properly decayed yet. Something he had to shake off if he wanted to move forward and by now, there was nothing that could stop him from doing so. Not even his father with his booming voice and that hand of his, that only ever brought Tomura pain. Something he used to flinch away from. It was now reaching for him, gripping him by the face and trying its hardest to keep him contained.

               Stay, Tenko. You need to stay. Don’t wake up. 

And for a moment he did stay, did linger. Only to then raise his own hand and flick away the remnants of his past life, decaying his family for a second time to move forward, into that dark, black void and his Master - who was already waiting for him at the threshold. Tomura marched on, allowed darkness to engulf him as the world behind him turned to dust.

        He gasped. 

Eyes wide open, taking the first breath after what felt like ages as his body suddenly flinched hard, back arched and muscles tense. It took him a few moments to realize where he was and what had happened. The laboratory was in shambles, the water tank containing him about to burst, the devices broken with a few lose cables hanging from the ceiling. That meant that the heroes had figured out their plan.

But that was not the first thing on Tomura’s mind, not even something that seemed to worry him. Instead he slowly sat up and stared ahead through the cracks in the glass - fingers lightly twitching as his body slowly began regaining control.

                “I’m cold … “ 

Dead, Shigaraki had been dead. There’d been such an intense energy radiating from him that Shouta couldn’t quite believe it at first, but the sight of the young man’s grinning corpse had cemented it for him before Hizashi’s voice brought the walls of the lab crashing down. The sight had sent a shiver down his spine that wasn’t entirely fear. There was anger too. Whatever this was, it wasn’t justice. Not for his students, not for Shirakumo, not for Shigaraki himself. What had they done to him. All For One, Garaki- they just toyed with people’s lives like they were building blocks instead of real human beings. Shirakumo had been barely more than a child when he died in that accident. How old had Shigaraki been? Whatever it was they’d done, for however long- death seemed to mean something different for him now. Something much less permanent.

This raced through Shouta’s mind as he crouched in his hiding place, listening to Tomura gasp for air inside his cracked glass prison. He chastised himself for his rash response earlier, while still trying to parse the way the hairs on his neck continued to stand on end. The air around them was so electric that it practically crackled and he had no doubt that a storm was coming. Steeling himself, Shouta closed his eyes and waited for the inevitable sound of crumbling glass and concrete only to hear a voice instead- quiet and hoarse

I’m cold.

He sounded so young then, and so vulnerable, that it was almost enough to draw him out of hiding. Nearby, amidst the remains of Garaki’s equipment he could make out something white and crumpled- a lab coat. There was a moment of hesitation, and then in another reckless move he was sure to regret, Shouta tugged it free and tossed it across the room to land beside the tube containing Shigaraki. It was stupid, and it wouldn’t change anything, but didn’t he deserve so measure of dignity?

Knowing that if Shigaraki had been paying attention, the flying lab coat would give away his position, Shouta crept away from the place where he’d been concealing himself in search of a more secure location. It wasn’t an easy task, given that not much space was left to move around in, but he made the most of it- ever wary and keeping his eyes fixed on Shigaraki.

He looked so much smaller like this… The urge to reach out, to speak some words of reassurance, was perhaps one of the most irrational responses he’d ever had in such a dangerous situation. Yet if there ever was a time to try and reach Shigaraki, wouldn’t it be now? Surely in his condition, after everything he’d been through, he might listen- But no, that was even more irrational. Revealing himself now would be a deadly mistake and Shouta wasn’t about to make it.

    “You’re a liar.” He snorts, weakly. Not sure how much of an improvement ‘emaciated corpse’ is over ‘mist man’. He looks and feels absolutely wretched, wants to curl up under the itchy hospital blankets and never come back out again. “I know I look terrible.”

    Oboro fusses and fidgets with the blankets, his hands visibly shaking from the action of just holding his limbs upright. He’s so weak; barely an ounce of fat on his body. Kurogiri hadn’t been able to eat, as a result, he looks like a child could come and snap his limbs like twigs. Putting on weight is going to be an issue too—apparently, many of his bodily functions have slowed down. He ate three days ago and only now has everything finished digesting.

    He blinks and sighs heavily. “You look…tired, like normal.”

The nurses had filled Shouta in earlier about Oboro’s current condition. They wanted to prepare him, they’d said; that he wouldn’t look the way Shouta remembered and that he shouldn’t be alarmed. As if he wouldn’t be happy to see him in any state, so long as he was alive. So long as Oboro knew him. Clearly a decade and a half of hard living had not rendered him unrecognizable as his friend had spoken his name immediately upon seeing him. That was something.

Still, it twists his stomach to think of his friend starving for all those years, kept alive by God knows what. Had he suffered? Could he feel himself wasting away or had he been numb to it all? Shouta swallows and doesn’t force himself to smile. He isn’t in the habit of doing so to begin with, and even if he were to try, Oboro would see through it right away. He always did.