Chapter Text
Tomura Shigaraki hated repeating the same grocery trip.
On his return to the hideout, and once Kurogiri’s fretting was satisfied, it turned out that he forgot to buy cheese of all things. Shigaraki vaguely remembered that position on the list, and he could have sworn he bought some – but chose to attribute this strange lack of cheese to Mirko’s sudden appearance. Of course, there was also a question why he only had two packages of beef jerky and not three. That too he lamely excused with the konbini not having more at the time.
Thus, he had to make one more trip. The good news was that Toga wasn’t too bothered by her tub of icecream. The bad news was that now Dabi wanted something from the store. Tomura posited the staple-face did this on purpose just to be a dick. Oh well. Of course, Kurogiri warned him from going to that konbini again. The fighting might have died down by now, but that place would no doubt be still swarming with cops. The second shop was some distance away from the first one, but such were the breaks. Shigaraki grumbled about it, as he did, but at least this let him get some more air and not look at Dabi’s smug burnt steak of a face.
The whole dog situation was omitted. None of them needed to know about it.
Thus, Shigaraki embarked on another epic side-quest, grumbling under his breath. The sun had set by now, which helped in maintaining anonymity, but also resulted in more people prowling the streets, be they drunken salarymen having a merry good time or some gossiping schoolgirls or, worse, overeager pros on patrol. Tomura kept his head low and squeezed through the crowd, hands in his pockets. This was a little too populated for his tastes.
Finding the second konbini proved easy enough, but unfortunately for him, the cashier on the stand was a chatty type. Just to rub his failure of procuring cheese in. With a head like an onigiri, he kept prattling and prattling and prattling and even the other clients looked weary of the guy. Still, he didn’t make any trouble otherwise. Before long, Tomura was out of the store with the cheese, a single KitKat (Dabi must have been doing this on purpose) and another package of beef jerky. He didn’t plan to make a detour at first, but hey, might as well enjoy this freedom of movement while he still had it. Once he earned enough Prestige, NPC’s would be recognizing him left and right, and no one would let him feed adorable little corgis again.
...a brief thought in his head entertained asking the Doctor for a Nomu-doggo, but that would probably get him laughed off. Plus, Nomus were not for pets, the icky things. The mere thought of petting an exposed brain had Shigaraki’s hands get clammy. Oh well. Surely, the doggo wasn’t going anywhere…
----
The first thing Tomura heard upon walking into the alleyway was laughing.
Two distinct voices, both men, chuckling between themselves as if they just finished telling off a good joke. Some local thugs skulking around, so close to the fight site? Maybe they thought they can get away with it now that everyone’s attention was on the poor bastard grounded by Mirko. Some would argue this was a worthy way to go, but Shigaraki could only raise an eyebrow at them.
And then a third sound reached him: a pitiful whining of a dog, followed by a hard THWACK and a pained yowl.
…
Tomura walked onto the scene. Two men – one a redhead, with a tacky yakuza shirt displaying two dragons climbing up the blue background; the other a stocky guy with a pug-head and stubby hands in leather gloves – were having the time of their life abusing the corgi from earlier. The dog had bruises over its head and body, its ears pinned down and its tail almost coiled around itself in a meager attempt to protect itself from harm. It tried to crawl back to its improvised doghouse, only for the redhead to tug him back in onto the pavement. Some kind of telekinetic Quirk, Shigaraki thought even as his face darkened and he slowly set his bags down.
The pug-face had a length of iron pipe in his hand – and he wasted no time using it. “Take that!” The dog yowled at being struck again, curling in on itself. “Man, this thing’s like my shit sis’s fleabag. I’m getting nostalgic.”
“Yeah? You never mentioned that.” The redhead laughed, adding his own torment to the dog’s suffering by kicking at it lightly. The pupper yowled in pain again, giving up on trying to escape its abusers.
“Never came up, but it squealed the same way. Ah. Old times. Alright, one more for the road! Say goodnight, fleabag!” The pug-face raised the iron pipe to strike the pupper down for good – only to be interrupted by a conspicuously loud throat-clear. The two miscreants turned to face the third party: a lanky man in all-black, his face largely obscured from beyond the hoodie.
“Got a problem, slim?” The redhead glowered at Tomura, a few centimeters taller and a whole lot more muscular. Not particularly threatening, in Shigaraki’s opinion: these types of trash mobs might have hit hard, but lacked the speed to actually score a hit. Frankly, Tomura had another problem on his hands now, saving the pupper aside. He couldn’t afford to just dust these assholes and be done with it; that could put the hideout at risk. He had to be more creative this time, find an exploit to flawless this event.
“Aw, don’t be like that, Kaito-san~” The pug-head chuckled, stepping over to Shigaraki. “Maybe he wants in on the action. God only knows things get boring in this part of town. What’s your name, slim?”
“...Shimura.” Not inaccurate… “Wasn’t there Mirko around? Sounds like getting in trouble with her would be hard to get away from.”
“Oh please, like these big shots care for what happens in the dark alleys.” Kaito-san scoffed, shaking his head. The doggo tried to make a break for it now that its tormentors’ attention was on Shigaraki, but it seemed the redhead was more attentive than expected, dragging the poor pupper back onto the fray. This was as much a test of creativity as much as Tomura’s thinning patience. In this raid event, he was the raid boss with an enrage timer.
“Between you and me, Shimura-san, I bet she’s just eager to grab some of these muscleheads and put them through another kind of lock, know what I’m saying?~” The pug-head barked out a laugh before tossing him the pipe. “Anyway, if you’re in an alley like this at this hour, you’re no law-abiding citizen. Wanna get crazy? Beat this fleabag into the ground until there’s only a smear on the ground?”
“...hmmm.” Shigaraki weighed the pipe in his hand. Bit weighty, but good enough. He wouldn’t consider himself all that strong, but he was fast – and that helped with swinging. How gracious of the mobs to provide him with an easy way of dealing with them. “I am in the mood for beating a fleabag.”
He lashed out with surprising speed, impacting the redhead’s jaw with the iron pipe. It crunched satisfactorily and Kaito-san went flying into the trash bags, going limp as his consciousness left him. Had Shigaraki swung harder, he might have pulped his face with it – but that too could get him and the League in trouble, and the last thing he wanted was to get a game over because of some trash mobs. “W-w-w-what the fuck?!” The pug-head’s jaw went slack as he fumbled for something in his jacket. He just managed to produce a switchblade before another swing of the iron pipe broke his wrist and sent the knife flying away.
Another blow struck the pug-face’s knee and sent him on the ground with a pained cry. Shigaraki brought the tip of the pipe over to his chin, lifting it up not too gently. “A word of advice, NPC.” Tomura slowly lifted his hood off and let the trash mob realize just who he was dealing with. Judging by the look of confusion followed by a very satisfactory-to-look-at terrorized gape, he got the memo quickly enough.
“Y-y-y-y-you’re S-shigaraki…!”
“It’s one thing to be a villain or a hero, but no one likes a petty asshole. Especially the kind that beats up small dogs for no reason.”
“I’m s-sorry! I’m really sorry! Please d-don’t kill us, we promise we’ll be good!” Shigaraki’s face darkened.
“Oh, look at that. Now you’re sorry. I’m afraid I’ve ran out of aggro resets to give enough of a crap. But… you’ll live.”
“W-wha?! I mean, t-thank you, thank you so much!” The pug-face went down in a supplicating pose, his head touching the pavement without any sense of shame at denigrating himself so. Of course, just because Shigaraki wasn’t planning on killing him or his friend didn’t mean he didn’t have ideas.
He brought the pipe down, striking the pug-face right in the back.” Y-yeow! W-why, y-you said you—“ And again. And again. The fourth time the thug tried to get away, but Shigaraki opted to kick him right in the chin and have him flop on his back. The pug-face squealed in fear, weakly bringing his hands up to try and protect himself.
“I said I won’t kill you trash mobs, and I won’t. You’re not gonna give me any EXP anyway…” Shigaraki smirked. “But you’ll wish you were dead by the time I get bored of this.”
“W-wha…?! I’ll r-re-report this!” The thug whined lamely, before he realized what he just said. And yet, despite such incriminating words, Shigaraki only offered him a dry laugh before he brought the pipe down on his hands. Some of the fingers crunched from the impact, making the pug-face scream in pain.
“Report this? That the League of Villains’s ringleader showed up in some random alleyway, beat up two random NPC’s over a dog and didn’t even kill them?” He stomped on the pug-face’s knee, making it crunch too. Music to his ears. The thug too realized how improbable this story sounded, croaking out a sound of agony before another strike had him scream again. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
----
“...Tomura Shigaraki, what is this?”
“The grocery bags, Kurogiri. Use your eyes.” Shigaraki grumbled, setting the bags on the bar counter and the doggo on the floor. He managed to handle some of the wounds the poor thing sustained, though it was still dirty and bloody and Tomura wasn’t a veterinarian. It seemed neither Toga nor Dabi were around. Good; the last thing he wanted was for them to crowd the pupper. The doggo whined, nuzzling up to Shigaraki’s leg. He resisted an urge to pet it; he needed to put on some appearances for Kurogiri.
“You know what I mean.”
“Look, every self-respecting villain needs a pet at their arm. Just ask Sensei.”
“You cannot just pick up strays at your own whimsy.”
“Shut up and call Giran. I need a vet yesterday.” The mistman stared at Shigaraki for a long, long time before releasing a weary sigh and nodding.
“As you say, Tomura Shigaraki.” Tomura watched him go before he shuffled down on the ground, watching the dog bark happily at him. With some treatment and a bath, it would be a pretty little fuzzball before long. He had to figure out where it would stay while he would be plotting the downfall of Hero Society. Maybe he could ask Giran to find him some kind of doggy bag…? But putting such a cute thing in action would be dangerous.
“...I’ll call you Mon-chan. Sound good?” He mused at the corgi, carefully scritching behind its ear with a single finger. He wasn’t sure why that name came to him, but it felt like it was just the thing for the little dog. The pupper clambered onto his lap to lick his face. Shigaraki chuckled, letting the fuzzball get comfy. “Sounds like a yes to me.”