Chapter Text
Shigaraki
Tomura was in a bad mood.
This whole business with the Hero Killer had really pissed him off. Made worse by the fact that the media was still looping his arrest footage, his oh so tragic backstory. Every convenience store and outlet on the way back from the mall was running it.
But what about his Nomu? They’d terrorized Hosu. They should be on the front page. He’d attacked the USJ. His master had promised that the world would learn to fear him. This was bullshit. Fucking Stain .
Tomura ducked his head low beneath the dark shadow of his hood, keeping to the alleys and deserted side streets on his way back to the bar. The sun was dipping below the horizon, night rising, but it was still best to be careful. After all, he’d just held that Midoriya kid hostage at the mall and there were bound to be heroes looking for him by now. They could look all they liked, with Father in his pocket instead of on his face, he’d be unrecognizable. Unlike Stain, his face wasn’t being blasted on TVs across Japan.
At least that little mall trip had helped. Tomura was still pissed, but now he had some clarity, something to work for. Killing All Might and forcing this rotten society to question just how secure its sense of peace and justice was. Yeah , he liked the sound of that.
He grinned and kicked a can down the street. It clanked against the pavement in a hollow roll, but its tin-rattle was quickly drowned out by the voices Tomura heard in the next lane over.
He slipped around the corner and raised a brow at the scene before him.
There was a woman on the ground in a pile of rubbish and a blanket, looking wide-eyed up at two guys standing above her. She looked like shit, but that didn’t seem to phase the men. They were practically licking their lips as they leered down at her ragged figure. Gross .
Tomura thought he might have seen them around before, they were pretty generic looking; just two NPCs playing at being villains. Clearly low level. The taller one had no obvious quirk, and his hair stuck up in pineapple spikes, sleeve tattoos plastered to his skin. The shorter one, who was now grabbing the woman roughly by her shirt and yanking her up, had massive radio-dish ears – a hearing quirk of some sort. Potentially useful.
“Pretty stupid of you to be sleeping out here where anyone could grab ya!” said Radio-Head.
The woman leaned as far back as she could. “Let me go!” she said, in English.
Tomura raised his other brow. He could understand English well enough, though he was better at reading than speaking. His master had wanted him prepared to make allies with whomever it took, Japanese or foreigner. Still, it was jarring to hear her English against the familiar Japanese of the two men who had her.
“Foreigner?” said Pineapple-Head. “No way. This is great!”
“Yeah, means she won’t go to the heroes. They’d never believe her!” Radio-Head yanked her close and she yelped, kicking out at his knees only to be pressed against the rough brick of the alley wall. “Isn’t that right lovely?”
“Fuck off! Let me go!” she said, again in English. She bit Radio-Head's fingers when he tried to press a palm over her mouth.
He jumped back and Pineapple-Head pinned her arms instead. “You good?” he asked.
“Fucking bitch bit me!”
Tomura had had enough of watching this cutscene like some creepy vouyer. He shoved his hands in his pockets, pinkies tucked into his palms, and slipped out of the shadows, heading down the alley toward the bar. The two men startled, caught like misbehaving kids. Pineapple-Head almost jumped out of his tattoos. Radio-Head pulled out a knife and stood in the way. He hid his throbbing fingers. Tomura smirked. Heh . The woman was clearly pretty stupid if she let herself be caught sleeping out here, but at least she wasn’t just rolling over for these losers. Even now, she was trying to wriggle free as the men glared Tomura down like he was a threat, a bigger dog who might wrench away their bone.
“Fuck are you doing here?” Radio-Head said. “Can’t you see this alley’s taken?
“Yeah, piss off man!” said Pineapple-Head in the lamest gangster voice ever.
Tomura scowled. Who the hell were these bastards to tell him to leave? Did they have any idea who they were dealing with?
The woman called out this time. “Help!” she said and strained towards him.
Tomura’s scowl only deepened. What, did she think he was her hero or something? This was her own mess. He needed to get back to the bar before Kurogiri bugged him. Plus, he had those new recruits to deal with – the crazy girl and the ugly guy with patchwork scars.
“Get going before I make you!” said Radio-Head, brandishing his knife. It gleamed white in the rising moonlight. The bastard was all confidence as he barrelled closer.
Tomura didn’t like that. Didn’t appreciate being threatened .
He huffed. “You really think you could make me leave?” And he took a step forward, fingers itching in his hoodie, the weight of Father suddenly heavier. He was just going to leave; this woman wasn’t his problem. But these cocky assholes were just begging to be destroyed.
And besides, he was still in a bad mood .
Pineapple-Head was starting to move his palms toward the woman’s chest when Radio-Head lurched forward. The knife swiped in an ungraceful arch, missing Tomura almost comically. Off balance, Radio-Head fell forward, caught only by four fingers.
“You know, you really should be more careful with that thing.” The knife clattered against the ground as Tomura pressed a fifth finger down. “Somebody might get hurt .”
Radio-Head couldn’t even scream as his body turned to ash.
“What the fuck?!” Pineapple-Head, finally catching on, forgot the woman and dashed for Tomura. He had no weapons, but he extended a palm and blinding light spewed out in an arrow. An emitter quirk, then.
Tomura ducked it but had to squint as he reached out and held Pineapple-Head's face in his palm. The creep struggled and gasped, a fish on the chopping block, as veins of decay spread over his skin. He didn’t turn straight to dust, but rather, fell to the floor in chunks. His blood ran in lines through the grooves of the pavement.
Tomura grinned. The thrill of destruction coursed through him, had his heart pounding. He’d killed them. The incessant itch that had bothered him since the Stain incident dissipated just a bit and he breathed deeply. Damn that felt good.
“You killed them.”
Oh, right. He forgot about her.
The woman had cowered back in her nest of squalor, palms pressed flat to the ground, back against the wall, eyes rimmed with the glass of coming tears. She cast her gaze between her villainous saviour and the two dead piles of men.
“Yeah, I did,” Tomura said in English. He grinned wider and stepped toward her. One more kill couldn’t hurt. Besides, this woman had seen his face. Seen him kill. It’s not like he could let her live.
But as he approached, fingers poised to kill, she suddenly stood up. “Thank you!” she said. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” She whispered it to herself, over and over, lowering her head in relief.
Tomura hesitated. His movements stuttered. Was she seriously thanking him right now?
She looked up at him, and there was something sickly about her that made Tomura almost feel sorry for her. A pallidness, a darkness. An otherness. She looked like she'd been sleeping in this alley for a while. She looked pathetic.
Tomura pursed his lips and shook his hood back on. “Whatever,” he said in Japanese. He walked away, reaching for Father, for the sick comfort of the hand over his face. He really should kill her. He headed back toward the bar.
“Wait!” Footsteps.
Tomura ignored her, feeling an itch creep up his neck. The woman jogged up beside him, following.
“Hey, please!”
He could feel her looking at him as she struggled to keep pace. Would she just piss off already before he changed his mind? He didn’t have time for this side quest. “Go away.”
“I need help.”
The itch grew worse. “Do I look like a hero to you?” Tomura hissed.
She stepped in front of him. "Please. Can you-" she paused, looked up at the hand on his face. Recognition lighted her eyes. She backed away. "Oh, you're..."
Her back was against the alley wall in a second, Tomura’s four fingered grip around her throat. He squeezed hard. He itched harder. This was more like it, the fear in her eyes, not that sappy gratefulness. Finally, someone who knew who he was.
He bared his teeth, scarred skin pulling tight. "Oh, you recognise me? That's nice."
The woman couldn't even speak.
“I did tell you to piss off,” he mumbled in Japanese, a little lightness entering his voice, a little laughter. He reached up and scratched, nails dragging coarse red lines over his neck. So itchy. “I'm glad to be noticed," he switched back to English, "but can't have you running to tell the heroes where I am, so...”
He pressed his fifth finger down.
And nothing happened.
No relief, no thrill, no death. The woman stared down at him, her pulse rapid in her throat. She didn’t decay. Tomura pressed in harder, as though he could tear into her flesh and turn her to dust. But she just wheezed. His quirk had no effect on her.
His bloodshot eyes went wide. Why the hell wasn’t she dying ?
“ Please ,” she said. "Don't."
Tomura sucked in a harsh breath; his eyes slitted into vicious papercuts. It must be her quirk. Some sort of immunity, like Eraserhead. He was touching her, skin to skin, hand on neck, and she wasn’t dead.
“What’s your quirk?” he demanded.
The woman grimaced, tugging at his hand. “Quirk?”
“Yeah. Tell me.” Tomura leaned closer, breath on her face. He needed to know. He needed...
But no amount of closeness could have prepared him for her response.
She took a weak breath and shook her head. “I don't have a quirk...”
Before Tomura could even understand what she meant, her eyes slipped closed and her head lulled into strangled unconsciousness.