Chapter Text
It’s not my fault. How could it be his fault? The plan was thoughtful, seamless. Everyone was onboard, they cooperated and moved as one well-oiled machine, despite lacking their usual heavy-hitters. No noumu. No Kurogiri. Sensei was in prison, but he thought this would still meet his standards.
So why is she looking at him like that? Red eyes burned into his own. Confused. Sorrowful. Accusatory. But it’s not his fault.
“What…” The words grate through his vocal chords, a dry rasp echoing into the barren room. He licks his lips. Breathes deeper. His heart is still pounding, ribs aching—but he regains his calm. “Who are you?”
The figure lets out a warbled sort of gasp, curling farther into the corner of the room. A tiny voice whispers back, nonsensically, “P-Please… I didn’t… I’m s-sorry, I-I… quiet n-now..”
“What.” Tomura finally slouches into the room, hand releasing the dusty remnants of the wooden door. The small figure wails softly, but there’s not much else to do. He squints. “I said, who are you?” He repeats impatiently, but the more he looks, the more confused he’s getting. His first guess is that the yakuza were dumb enough to keep their kids in the base.
Bandages over thin limbs. A ragged gown. Long, stringy hair. Tomura’s second guess is something much uglier, and somehow more fitting for those yakuza pests.
The figure lifts their chin high enough to reveal a round, young face—female—and bright red eyes, shining with unshed tears. She presses her lips together, and then answers his question obediently. “E-Eri. I am Eri.”
He waits for more, but the little kid just dips her head back down, hiding behind knobbly knees and gray hair. That’s it? What the fuck? It doesn’t make sense. She doesn’t make sense. This was the yakuza, this is the mission where his allies could go all out, seek and destroy, obliterate their competition—so what is she doing here? He feels cheated. They’re cheating. The thought is sinister and boiling under his skin, poison in his veins, rage beneath his fingertips.
Shigaraki reaches a hand up towards his neck, the itch becoming unbearable—and the girl squeaks in fear, hands twisting into fists as she braces herself.
It’s enough to make him forget the urge to scratch at his skin, and Tomura freezes himself, looking down at the small, pitiful thing before him in utter bemusement. He puts his hand down.
The little brat remains tense, and her eyes flicker up to scrutinize him.
“Why are you here?” Shigaraki demands suddenly, startling her with the fury dripping from his voice. He doesn’t care. He needs answers.
“I…” Her brow furrows. “Chisaki-san... keeps me here.” He doesn’t know who Chisaki is, but it must be one of the yakuza bosses. The girl blinks, suddenly reevaluating the towering figure before her. “Y-you don’t have a… beak.”
Shigaraki’s eye twitches. Took her long enough to notice. “No, I don’t work for those fucking birds, I’m here to wreck their shit,” he snaps, uncaring of how cavalier he’s making it sound. No need to justify his mission to a five year old. “Especially that germaphobe dick.”
Her eyes go wide at his raised voice, but she—does not cry. Does not wail. “You… stopped him?” There’s awe in her voice now. And there’s only one ‘him’ she could be referring to.
“Who, Overhaul?” Tomura sneers. “Duh. That was the whole point.” He cocks his head to the side, assessing. The girl looks skeptical. His chapped lips curl from a sneer into a smirk. “What, you don’t believe me?”
She bites her lip, looking down. “Chisaki-san is very bad,” she whispers. “And very strong.”
“That's Overhaul’s name?” She nods. Huh, go figure. Tomura feels a grin stretch over his face. “Do you want to see him now?”
Her head snaps up, eyes full of terror. “No,” she gasps, but Tomura’s already lunging for her. “No!” She screams, but she doesn’t fight. Doesn’t thrash. He finds it odd, but she simply goes rigid as a board, which makes it a simple task to scoop her around the torso, his fingertips curled away from her. “P-Please. Please. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please—“ she babbles through shaky breaths.
He takes vicious pleasure in hearing her beg. She still doesn’t get it, does she?
“Shut up,” Tomura snaps, and she goes quiet, shaking like a leaf. She weighs next to nothing, though, so he has no issue hauling her through the wrecked hallway, out into the decaying ruins of the courtyard where Overhaul’s birds made their last stand. A few of his allies look up at his approach, but he ignores them.
“See for yourself.” He releases the girl unceremoniously, and she yelps as he tosses her to the floor—it wasn’t that far of a drop, but maybe that was too much for her. She scrambles away from him, past crumbling bricks and torn up bushes into another pile of ruins, fear and confusion still prominent in her gaze. Shigaraki gestures around them, face impassive. “You wanted to know where the beak bitches were. Look around.”
And she does. When her eyes land on the first body—burnt and blackened, courtesy of Dabi—her hands slap over her mouth in shock. She doesn’t stand, but twists her head this way and that, taking a mental count of the bodies strewn around the yard.
Toga and Compress are the first to notice the girl, and look ready to demand answers from Shigaraki, but he just holds a hand up to stop them. His eyes are fixed on the white-haired girl, intrigued by her reaction. Slowly, her trembling subsides, and Shigaraki picks his way back to her side, crouching in front of her.
“Believe me now, brat?”
Finally, the girl meets his gaze again, eyes wide. “Oh... You stopped him,” she says in wonder. Tomura gazes back evenly, expecting the inevitable meltdown, and her eyes begin to fill with tears. She gasps loudly, hunching over on herself again, and then she says the last thing he ever expected to hear.
“Th-thank you for s-stopping him!”
Tomura stares down at the sobbing girl in front of him, rather dumbly. They aren’t touching, but she’s within range, her head turned away from him completely as her body is wracked with tears. It’s a total mess. Kind of gross. Disgusting. Loud and irritating and unbearable. He could rid himself of all this with a single hand.
Slowly, he reaches out to her. The girl doesn’t notice. Someone shouts at him, but Shigaraki ignores it, feeling his heart pounding, that ever-present static in his mind growing insufferable—itching, his skin is crawling—her sobbing turns into screams of confusion—
At the last moment he lifts his ring and pinky finger up, holding her shoulder with only three fingers and shaking her. “Oi. Stop it.”
The girl gasps loudly, rubbing her face with tiny fists, but she does as he asks, meeting his gaze with glassy eyes. “S-Sorry.”
Tomura grunts, still holding her shoulder. Her clothes are grimy as fuck. And those bandages… the only thing Overhaul had going for him was that drug he was supplying. The quirk erasing one, something no other group had synthesized. So there had to be some kind of experimentation involved in its production. Shigaraki had figured he could snatch up their research and send it along to Sensei’s doctor.
I didn’t think it came from a person, Tomura muses. Because that has to be it. If she were just a subject, there’d be more… victims. But the girl’s room was just that—her room, and her room alone. No evidence of other kids, other test subjects for the drugs. So he had to assume she was involved in making the drug itself.
I wonder what her quirk is. He eyes the small white horn protruding from her forehead.
“Heey, Shigaraki! Don't ignore meee! Who’s the cutie?!” Toga asks again, not for the first time, but it draws the little girl’s attention for a moment. It’s all Tomura needs to lunge for her again, scooping her up with both arms this time to hold her against his chest. The girl gives a little gasp, but nothing else. She isn't shaking anymore either. Maybe she hadn't noticed his quirk yet? He used it on the door of her room, though...
Compress is closest, but he only has one arm. Hm. A marble? He wonders, but the thought is... distasteful for what Shigaraki plans to do. His red eyes drift past Mr. Compress, to their resident burn ward bitch. Dabi’s eyes are already narrowed, like he knows what’s coming.
Tomura walks towards him. “No,” Dabi snaps preemptively, still glaring at the girl.
He feels the girl flinch at Dabi’s tone. “I can’t keep holding her," he tells the fire user flatly, stretching his fingers for emphasis.
“Then fucking put it down.” Dabi hisses coldly, but whether he means kill her or stop carrying her is hard to say.
He lifts the girl towards Dabi anyway, practically shoving her into his chest—and Dabi curses, awkwardly avoiding the leader's hands, but he does at least catch her when Shigaraki drops his arms away. “Keep her from running,” he gives the command in a clipped voice, leaving no room for Dabi to whine, and walks away.
He can hear Dabi whine anyway. "Fucking crusty bitch... what's your name, brat?"
Shigaraki eyes the decimated yard, smoldering in place, and decides it’s not enough. He picks up his phone long enough to bark out an order. “Spinner, bring the van around. We have one extra passenger.”
He answers no questions about the child in Dabi’s arms, but snaps at his underlings until they all shuffle into their getaway vehicle. Shigaraki is last. Not because he needs them all to make it in the van, but so none of his useful pawns are in the way.
All of them are probably watching, though he doesn’t check to see if the girl is. They’re at the back entrance of the base, and he’s familiar enough with its entire layout now. The courtyard, the winding corridors, the sub-levels for research and drug production. The blood-stained rooms, the half-decayed artillery, the pitiful half-dead fucks Toga left in the front. He looked through it all.
Tomura slaps a hand against the wall.
And then there’s no more base.