Chapter Text
The sun was shining, birds were singing, and a bunch of desperate media hacks were shouting as they tried to grab the attention of anyone from UA. All that could heard, probably for miles around, were the sounds of them yelling at the teacher, hoping one of them would crack and come over to give them a juicy soundbite on just what went on behind closed doors. They had just found out All Might was now teaching, after all. Who could blame them for their interest?
I couldn’t help but chuckle to myself a little as I stared over at the congregation from a distance. The small part of me that still marvelled at being in a completely different world had been enjoying watching the crowd as it gathered in the morning, trying to check out where the key faces of Class 1A were and get my first glimpse of some of them in the flesh. I couldn’t help it, really. Whatever situation I had found myself in, I was a huge fan of the series, so the chance to see some of them for the first time wasn’t something I was going to miss. Even if the wait afterwards had been killer.
So far Yaoyorozu hadn’t been hard to miss, arriving in a fancy car driven by someone else and brushing off the journalists with the practiced air of someone who had been born with that level of media attention. She must have had to endure several years of people scrabbling after a scoop on her family; I seemed to recall that the Yaoyorozu family was supposed to be an established Hero dynasty, and therefore rather famous (although oddly, I also couldn’t remember ever seeing any of these supposed celebrated Heroes in the series).
Talking of Hero dynasties, of the rest it had been Iida who was the most easily recognisable. I had almost jumped for joy when I saw his hand rise in preparation to chop the air repeatedly as he talked- he really did that in person too- before remembering my surroundings and the fact I wasn’t trying to earn anyone’s attention. Still, living in the shadow of Ingeniums past had apparently been good preparation for media scrutiny. I couldn’t help but chuckle as some of the less dedicated journalists sagged under the length of his honest responses.
It had been a clever idea from All For One to get the press as a distraction, apparently. It seemed a little beneath him, but if there was one thing I was slowly learning about the most powerful villain on the planet, it was that he was remarkably petty. That was the only explanation I could find for how much joy he had taken in revealing that he had arranged for a leak to the press, exposing All Might’s teacher status at UA; what had been an underground murmur and the Hero gossip equivalent of an April Fool’s story had manifested considerable interest when All For One pointed the ‘right’ people in its direction. Only someone as powerful as him would take such pleasure in an inconvenience to All Might’s students.
With all of that motivating him, All For One had sent a loud gathering of reporters and camera crew to stake out the front gates, and so I had followed. I knew from my following of the series that Tomura had only attacked at lunchtime, and not in the morning, so it had given me plenty of time to ‘stake out’ the students. In reality, I had simply watched from afar and tried not to geek out whenever faces I recognised had crept in past the press. Possibly the biggest laugh I had been provided with was, to my surprise, watching the way in which Tamaki Amajiki and Mirio Togata arrived at school to be greeted by the press; true to form Mirio had taken everything in stride with a boyish glee at learning from the reporters of All Might becoming a teacher, and Tamaki had wanted to be anywhere but in front of a camera. A surprise, to be sure, but a welcome one.
It hadn’t been the time to strike though, and so a little way away from the pandemonium, I waited. I found it impressive that I was only standing a little way across the road from all the press and yet, despite probably sticking out like a sore thumb, nobody gave me any attention. I hadn’t seen Izuku Midoriya, because I was probably too late arriving through a Warp Gate to catch him, but certainly none of his classmates or any of the students and staff had looked my way that morning. Even as the day dragged on, the press remained, eager to catch students hopping out of campus for their lunch break, and so I took some time to enjoy a more quiet moment of reflection to myself, staring up at the buildings across the road.
UA High was every bit as awe-inspiring and intimidating in the flesh as it was on paper and on screen. Towering above the manicured parkland surrounding it, the main building was as distinctive as it had been on paper and screen; tall windows glimmered in the bright sunlight, and I couldn’t help but wonder just what went on in all those rooms. They couldn’t all have been classrooms, even if the number of people going into school in the morning was far higher than I had expected. It was impressive, sprawling and…
It shouldn’t have made me at all angry when I looked at it.
I frowned to myself, and picked carefully at the corner of the black hoodie I was wearing with two fingers; Tomura’s choice of clothing was not to my old style back home, but the comfort of the hoodie helped me out in moments like this where things weren’t entirely rational. I shouldn’t have been annoyed at seeing the place where the great Hero students of one of my favourite series had come from. And yet here I was, partly fuming about how ostentatious it all looked in person (as opposed to on paper), and partly fuming about just how much attention all the students were getting.
I couldn’t help but wonder if, along with certain reflexes, I had inherited some of Tomura’s baseline emotions when I was suddenly handed the wheel to his life and tried not to crash the great ship Shigaraki on shores unknown. It would have explained to me why I was hung up on something about people I knew to be objectively good (for the most part), why there was a twisted and irrational hatred I could feel bubbling deep within, for some reason the adrenaline started rushing and the blood started pumping at the thought of attacking them, taking on the USJ. I was way more excited than I thought that I would be about doing things canonically, by the numbers, and that scared me just a little bit.
All the way along I had told myself that I was doing this to get by, that it was the easy solution to make sure I didn’t rock the boat too much. I was telling myself that actually, the best course of action for me would be to stick to Tomura’s designated role. Now… I was having to remind myself that was why I was doing it.
As much as a little bit of me was scared by certain things that were to come, I was finding a larger part of me was a lot more excited about becoming a villain than I had ever thought.
I shook myself out of the reverie I had found myself in, at the faint sound of a bell, and I grinned. It still felt strange feeling Tomura’s very chapped lips crease into a smile, because it wasn’t my smile; his sort of grin was manic to look at, like… well. To borrow analogies from media I knew and that nobody in this world would have understood, he grinned like the Cheshire Cat if the Cat had been house-trained by the Joker. I never smiled like that back home, because while I wasn’t exactly a shut-in, I was reserved, and not at all wild. At least I thought I wasn’t wild. The more I thought to myself about what I was doing in this world, and the more excited I got about the mention of actually attacking the USJ, the more I had begun to question that.
The bell had been the reminder on campus that lunch break had started. I always found the idea of somewhere like UA having a bell rather old-fashioned, but it helped for the purposes of my visit today. It meant the students would be leaving their classes now, gathering to taste food from Lunch Rush, meeting friends and sneaking out to the shops. I couldn’t say I wasn’t a little jealous about the idea of getting food from the chef Pro Hero; his meals had looked divine on screen, and while Kurogiri was a decent cook, it probably didn’t compare.
Huh. The bar in Kamino was supposed to be close to Pizza La. Close enough that Edgeshot had impersonated a pizza delivery boy before the attack on the bar, anyway. Maybe it was time to try it tonight, when all of this was done.
“Say, Kurogiri? What’s your thoughts on pineapple on pizza? I’m kinda leaning towards some tonight, after we finish here.”
The treeline rustled slightly behind me, slightly louder than the breeze which was blowing through the neighbourhood. “... You villain.”
I tried my best not to laugh at that response, snorting and turning to my companion as he contrived to lurk among the trees while wearing one of his sharpest suits. The fact he hadn’t been seen was a miracle, or a damning indictment on UA’s security measures, or both. “That’s what qualifies me? Not, you know, being picked as Sensei’s champion?”
“There are many reasons that qualify you. Entertaining that culinary monstrosity is one of those.” Kurogiri bristled, but I could tell it was good natured. “Not liking sushi is another.”
“You’re nuts, Kurogiri. I just don’t get it.” I really didn’t. Raw fish wasn’t for me, no matter how much love and tenderness Kurogiri put into making it. Between that, buying fine alcohol for his bar from abroad, and cleaning, the man was obsessed with his creature comforts. “Agree to disagree?”
“Fine.” Kurogiri chuckled, a deep noise behind me, before his tone suddenly became more serious. “I’m just waiting for confirmation from the Master’s asset. They’re locating a spare room for us, away from the main crowds, so that we can meet.”
“Sounds sensible.” I had been a little confused by the timings from how I remembered watching the show, although admittedly it was well in the beginning of my interest and a lot had happened since then. Even so, it had seemed nuts to me that Tomura could achieve anything by busting down the gate and running onto campus; by the time the security systems would properly trigger, and the Heroes would get the situation under control, it was tight margins to avoid getting caught and actually achieve his goal.
Then I remembered that I had forgotten one very crucial individual, stood beside me in an immaculate suit and waistcoat. Kurogiri had made it all so simple, and so much more comfortable for me- teleport into the classroom once the coordinates were received from the ‘asset’, speak to them as much as possible, trigger the security measures when inside, and then leave. Profit. I didn’t know how I hadn’t thought of it before.
It still seemed wrong, though. A little too convenient, in a way. I wasn’t going to complain if it helped me with my own personal safety in the interim, but I hadn’t seen any of this going on on-screen. That in of itself made me feel a little nervous, because I was treading unknown water by going ahead with this in the hope that it aligned itself with what I knew and what would keep me safe. I could only hope, anyway.
There was a faint sound of buzzing, only briefly, and it took me a second to recognise it as the sound of a phone. “Is that the Spy class?”
“It is indeed.” Kurogiri had pulled the phone out of his jacket pocket, his ethereal face appearing to frown slightly. “They’re in position. One empty classroom is ours, for a meeting.”
“Good. Then let’s get this cutscene…” I trailed off, looking at the object in Kurogiri’s hand, and just how damn ancient it looked. “Seriously? What is that piece of trash, Kurogiri? All of Sensei’s resources, and you’re using that as a burner phone?”
The spectre had the good grace to look embarrassed. “Would you believe me if I said I have a soft spot for more retro items-”
“Retro? That thing probably has Snake on it, it’s that old.” I shook my head, laughing a little to myself as Kurogiri pocketed it. “At least you’re not using it because you ‘don’t get touch screens’ or some shit like that.”
“...”
“... Oh, come on.” Part of me wished I had brought Father along, so I could hide behind it and glare at the apparently useless warper beside me. “Just load up the level for us, would ya?”
“Yes, Master Tomura.” Kurogiri’s reply was apologetic, but he wasted no time in activating his Quirk and enveloping us both. I still couldn’t quite put my finger on how to describe the feeling of being warped, before the darkness surrounding me changed into the bright lights of a classroom, empty desks and the sound of chatter in the corridors outside from people completely unaware that we had just bypassed their security and could easily violate the sanctity of their Hero course haven with a blink of an eye. It was quite impressive. “And so, we have arrived.”
“It’s crazy to think how easy this was,” I remarked aloud, and I couldn’t help but smirk a little; this was a genuine reflection on my part, and not me playing to type in the slightest. “It almost makes you wonder why Sensei didn’t want to warp in and attack here. Difficulty setting doesn’t seem to be that high.”
“And no security cameras in the classrooms.” Kurogiri chuckled darkly. “It seems they trust their teachers immeasurably to not take that precaution. Much to their detriment.”
“They trust their teachers, and nobody else.” I rolled my eyes. “They really didn’t stand a chance with this.”
“Underestimate them and you’ll regret it.” I had almost forgotten how the plan was to meet All For One’s supposed asset in the school, the rumoured and fabled UA traitor who nobody had ever found out the identity of in my old world. Their voice caught me off guard. “The security is a lot tighter than it might look.”
I couldn’t place the voice for a second, and so I spun, taking in the traitor in all their… glory? No. That wasn’t the right word. Now I understood, after all, why All For One described them as a forgettable sort. Glory would imply there was something impressive about the individual, and yet for all I recognised him, he was so unspeakably plain . “So you’re the asset Sensei mentioned, huh? I wasn’t expecting someone so… low level.”
Mashirao Ojiro’s face twitched in an unpleasant and sour look, and I enjoyed watching his thick tail bristle and stand upright. I only ever really remembered him as a minor background character, someone whose personality was bland to the point that one of the major character traits others seemed to pick up on was ‘seems to be into Hagakure’. Considering his tail probably reacted to emotions, the level of poker face he must have deployed to not only blend in, but be a complete irrelevance in Class 1A would have been impressive.
I hated the fact that my mind was currently fixated on how uncomfortable his tail must have made his school uniform. God knows how he did it.
Ojiro sent the most vanilla glare in my direction. “Coming from the one he picks as his favourite. You don’t look like much.”
I felt my lip curl up, involuntarily, at that response. Tomura was twiggy in comparison to the boy who apparently obsessed over martial arts, and even I could see that, but I just didn’t like being called nothing special from a guy who literally nobody put in their top 10 characters. Hell, I’m pretty sure people would forget him from their top 20 students in Class 1A, and they had Mineta . “Big talk. Why don’t we go now, and we’ll see who comes out in one piece, Ojiro?”
The blonde boy’s eyes narrowed. “How the hell do you know my name?”
Huh. Oops. Was I not supposed to know who he was? Dammit. And Kurogiri was there too. How did I improvise an answer to- ah. Kurogiri.
I coughed, and turned to look at Kurogiri, primarily so I could commit to the gamble. “Blame Kurogiri. If he doesn’t want me to hear when he talks to Sensei, he shouldn’t be so noisy.”
Kurogiri took a step backwards. “I’m sorry, Master Tomura! When I mentioned your temper, I only meant in case anything went wrong-”
Bingo. To borrow Tomura-speak, my luck stats must have been off the fucking charts. “If I was mad at you for what you said, I’d have made sure you knew then. Not waited until now, in the middle of a mission.”
Kurogiri clasped his hands together, and bowed. “Of course. I apologise for any offence caused.”
Phew. That was lucky. I turned to Ojiro and snorted to myself. “We’ve got a job to do, anyway. More important things to talk about.”
For a moment, Ojiro looked like he wanted to say something, but after briefly holding my gaze he looked down and tutted to himself. “Sure. You want a class list, right? And timetables?”
“That’s right.” I paused, and looked at him. “Say, did Sensei tell you why we wanted it?”
“You mean your plan to go after the USJ?” Ojiro actually rolled his eyes. Jesus. He was displaying more emotion here in front of me than I swear he ever did in canon. “He’s only enabling you by letting you waste so much time on something so doomed to fail.”
“Doomed? How?”
“It’s not simple enough. The more you over-complicate, the more chance that you will fail. And it’s pretty bold of you thinking that you can take All Might in a straight fight.” Ojiro shrugged. “Not that I’ll care if you get smashed into pieces. If it means our master puts some time into someone who could actually do the job for him, then great.”
I felt the irresistible urge to scratch at my neck, and did so. “So you’re jealous, huh? That’s your whole shtick? Shame.” I couldn’t resist the dig that came next. “Still, shame you didn’t get trusted with the whole plan. If you had… you’d have known I’m not gonna be the one to fight All Might. I’ve got that all taken care of.”
For just a second, I watched his bland face twitch, and I knew that had really kicked Ojiro right in the self-esteem. “... Whatever. Take your list.”
“Before we do…” Kurogiri tilted his head meaningfully towards the door. “We need to create our distraction, now, before anyone starts questioning where young Ojiro has gone during the lunch break-”
Bold of Kurogiri to assume anyone would notice.
“They’ve just elected a class representative. Trust me, I’m sure they’re all chatting too much about the results of that to notice,” Ojiro said, just a slight bit of resentment still in his tone.
“Nonetheless, we are the ones who risk ourselves by remaining here any longer than necessary.” Kurogiri’s Quirk activated, creating a small hole, just enough for someone to put their hands through; I couldn’t help but think how genius this was to avoid being caught by the security cameras or identified. “Master, if you would-”
“Yeah, yeah.” I stepped forward, ignoring the strange feeling of how the cold outside air felt around my wrists and how I couldn’t see my own hands in front of me. As I made contact, the smooth concrete cool to the touch, I felt Decay surge up and begin to crack the gate, and withdrew my hands- in amongst the press reporters, nobody would see anything, and my Quirk would continue to destroy in my absence until the concrete rotted through. “Now we let the damage over time do its job.”
“Given what you’ve just done…” Ojiro stepped forward, offering me paper copies of the documents which he knew I had come for. There was a class list and Quirk list in there- I looked briefly at the list, and tried not to scoff at the words ‘Super Power’ written beside Izuku Midoriya’s name- and the all important timetable, among other less interesting paperwork. “I’m not sure you should be the one holding this.”
“Relax. My Quirk is easy to control.” I snatched the documents off of the tailed kid, careful not to let my index finger touch them, and briefly flicked to the timetable. “... Say, Kurogiri. We can turn around our prep in a day, right? Because they’re going the day after tomorrow-”
Kurogiri’s eyes flickered yellow with alarm briefly, before he composed himself and nodded. “It may be close to ask Giran to assemble our hired help, but… I’m sure we can manage.”
“Good. Fucking limited time events, right? They just launch whenever, and nobody gives you much notice about the entry requirements.” Okay, I was probably being a bit over the top with my gaming lingo these days, but in my defence it was fucking infectious. “We’ll make it work.”
At that moment, the klaxon I had been expecting for some time decided to finally wake up. “WARNING. LEVEL THREE SECURITY BREACH. WARNING-”
“Took a while for them to make it in.” I tutted, and nodded to Kurogiri. “I guess that’s our cue to pull out.”
“I couldn’t agree more.” Kurogiri’s Quirk begun to flare, opening up a gate inside the classroom which no doubt led back to the safe haven of the bar. “And time for you to take your leave as well, Ojiro.”
“Yeah, I think so.” Ojiro nodded, unfazed by the siren. “I wouldn’t want them to ask why I’m missing.”
“Oh, don’t worry, I don’t think they care.” It was a cheap shot, but I didn’t like how the kid was reacting to me (even if I wasn’t the Tomura he thought I was). If he was going to be deliberately obnoxious to me, I would respond in kind.
Although…
As Ojiro turned to the door and began to walk away, I couldn’t help but find one thing a little curious. “Say, Ojiro?”
The brat actually sighed at me. “What?”
“Answer me this.” I folded my arms, with Kurogiri’s black Warp Gate billowing behind me. “What brought you to Sensei? How come you ended up at a Hero school as his little spy?”
“Master Tomura,” Kurogiri began, “I highly doubt now is the time-”
“Like you’d understand.” The way in which Ojiro said that shook Kurogiri and took me a little by surprise from just how he said it. It wasn’t angry, but there was sadness brewing underneath the surface, with resentment and weariness at having to deal with it. “You know what our society does for Mutant-type Quirk discrimination? We have groups like the Creature Rejection Clan running around unchallenged, because the Heroes think they’re a joke, just a group of fanatics who can’t do anything big. They’re not the worst part, though. At least they’re open. It’s the ones who move away from you on the train, the ones who watch you around their store, the ones who whisper behind you. They’re the worst.”
Ojiro looked at me, with a face I couldn’t fully read. “It’s alright for people like Mirko, and Gang Orca. They can be flashy and cool, and they can get fans another way. But for ordinary people like me, who don’t do anything special and just live with a Quirk that makes some people hate us for just who we are… the world’s a mess. So if the people on top aren’t going to change it… All For One sees it. He’s the one best placed to take control, the one who understands this. That’s why I’m here.”
“Huh....” He wasn’t all wrong. I had seen in canon how Quirkless people could be victimised by people like Bakugo, and how Mutant-types had fallen foul of discrimination. This society still encouraged it, enough to turn people like him. Tomura hated this society for several reasons, and I was starting to see one of them.
Ojiro tutted, and looked away. “You’re spoiled, Shigaraki. He even told me he gave you his name. You’ve lived under his wing your whole life, got every bit of special treatment going. You’ve never had to experience what I have, so you couldn’t possibly understand.”
“Maybe not.” To my own great surprise, what came next was driven more by my own view, and not a second-guess at how Tomura would respond. I still thought that it wasn’t a stretch, given Tomura’s desire to tear the whole thing down around him, but it surprised me how much of what I said was from my own thoughts as much as it was from the role I played. “I don’t have your type of Quirk. I can’t understand that. But you’re right. We shouldn’t live in a world that accepts this, where people hate us because of this shit. It’s broken. And that’s another reason why I wanna tear it all down, and hit the reset button.”
Ojiro wasn’t looking at me, but he paused at the door, holding back from leaving, before he nodded. “... All of them have to pay, huh?”
“Heh, yeah.” My cracked lips curled upwards. “Starting with All Might.”
“... Good.” Ojiro lifted a hand to wave behind him, and I could tell that even despite him not looking my way, I had earned some begrudging respect from the martial artist. “Now don’t kill me in the crossfire of your mess. I’ll see you, Shigaraki.”
“...” Kurogiri remained silent for a while as Ojiro closed the door behind him, disappearing into the mass of rushing students in the corridors. “Well done, Master Tomura. I had sensed there would be discord between you two, but you handled that rather well. You see his value, too?”
“He’s not just a pawn, I’ll give you that.” Ojiro could be valuable, and while it wasn’t on the script, I needed allies. Tomura’s willingness to sacrifice his pawns at the USJ in canon wasn’t matched by how he treated those nearest to him- at least not completely- and if he was indeed the UA traitor, I couldn’t afford an enemy in him. “He made some good points.”
Kurogiri hummed. “You aren’t the only person who wants to bring an end to the Heroes. Several others just have very different reasons for doing so.”
“I see.” I nodded to Kurogiri, and took a step backwards towards the Warp Gate, reassured that we had what we came for and didn’t need to dwell on UA any longer. All things had gone rather well, all things considered, even if I was on terra incognita for some of that meeting, and now I knew I had just under a full day to prepare for the USJ, and get that mess sorted. “Let’s go, before we get a damage penalty.”
I had a lot to think about, in the meantime, even without battle preparations. I had always admired canon for creating villains who could be believable; their methods might have been shocking and cruel, but the grain of truth in several of their (often conflicting) messages couldn’t really be denied. Tomura’s message that everything needed to be annihilated was terrifying, but he wasn’t wrong about just how broken and hypocritical the system could be. Maybe I believed it more than I knew, given how readily I accepted that view now, given how easily I was swayed by what Ojiro said to me.
I didn’t know if I should be scared that I was buying into everything so much now.
“... Right away, Master Tomura.”
The inky blackness of the Warp Gate surrounded me, UA fading to nothing, and the tingle of excitement at the thought of the USJ being on the horizon betrayed my true feelings on my life as Tomura Shigaraki.