Work Text:
Shigaraki Tomura was a man who lived out of sheer spite. How many times should he have died? Honestly, he couldn't count them. Growing up in the underworld isn't easy even when All For One is your master. People who coveted his relationship with the most powerful man in Japan tried to assassinate him on an almost weekly basis. What All For One hadn't stopped Shigaraki had stopped himself. He was nothing if not capable.
The universe wanted him dead that was for sure. But he wouldn't be stopped. And so he existed and made his way with a cocksure attitude that you only had when you were willing to walk backward into hell all while giving God the finger. If life wanted him dead well, he would just offer up sacrifices in his place. Like the one he looked at now.
The man sitting on the bench beside him was short, much shorter than him, but stout. He was a small time informant that he and Sensei used from time to time for insider information on the Tokyo Police department. Specifically, the Tokyo Riot Police Unit which had been known to cause All For One some trouble in the past. Shigaraki couldn't stand the man. He had a stuttering problem which he couldn't figure out if it was from nerves or if he genuinely had a speech impediment. No matter the case it pissed him off.
He half listened to the man's report, only taking in information that was actually worth anything. The rest of his attention he let wander to view the changing foliage around them. Letting the pleasant mix of red, yellow, and orange soothe his irritation with this man who wouldn't spit it out already.
Shigaraki had always liked autumn. He wouldn't say it was his favorite season because seasons seemed like a trivial use of the word "favorite" to him, but he liked it none the less. Specifically, he liked it because he knew the real beauty of fall.
It was no secret that Japan was famous the world over for its fall colors. Tourists came every year to flood the place with their wide-eyed yammering and the incessant flutter of camera shutters. People were glued to almanacs to see when the peak of foliage season would be and where they could get the most beautiful view. People loved the colder weather where they could bundle up and get warm drinks to warm nippy fingers. People loved the festivals and generally couldn't get enough of the months of September through November.
All this joy. But did they really know what they were celebrating?
Shigaraki knew.
They were celebrating him.
Death. Decay. That was the true nature of autumn. The world was dying. The life of summer and spring slowly draining and turning to brown, dead, corpses to be crushed beneath the feet of passersby. The colors the leaves turned were their last vestiges of life as they gave up and withered off the very trees that grew them. Nature was giving up. Sure, the green would come back in the spring but just to die again come September. Just to die over and over again. A smile pulled at the corners of his lips, breaking the cracked skin there and he felt a tiny drop of blood break the surface of his skin. As red as the leaves above him.
The man finished what he was saying and Shigaraki couldn't be happier. He was thankful that the man had outlived his usefulness and this would be their last meeting. They stood to part ways. Shigaraki called to him as he turned to leave. The man turned to face him and was met with five deadly fingers wrapped around his throat.
Shigaraki sighed, blissful as the man crumbled away under his grip and the fetid pieces of his body drifted away in the breeze like so many fallen leaves on a crisp October day.
Because just like autumn, Shigaraki was a force of nature.