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He wore an elaborate mask, white with pale blue feathers and a painted-on smile. Underneath, you could see a skintight body stocking, like a morph suit, the same color as the feathers. His signature baggy black hoodie, with even paler blue, icy-looking patterns running up the sleeves, left much about his body type to the imagination. He was never seen in much besides that and black sweatpants, also baggy enough to hide his features.
He was the first to join the League of Villains, or at least, the first to be seen with Tomura Shigaraki besides the mist man. Nobody knew who he was. They called him the Masked Menace (not to be confused with the other two members of the League who wore full face masks and were also menaces. How uncreative people could be at times).
It was unknown what his quirk was, or if he even had one at all. His list of crimes was very minimal, mostly just theft (mainly from drugstores and pharmaceutical companies; it appeared the Menace fancied himself a doctor) and the occasional armed assault. His alleged quirk and his crimes weren’t what made him dangerous.
It was the fact that he obviously had some sort of favor with Shigaraki that even the rest of the League did not. Wherever Shigaraki went, the Menace followed, seated at the right hand of the up-and-coming criminal overlord like some sort of exhaulted follower.
Nobody was quite sure the exact nature of that relationship, but there were rumors of sexual favors in exchange for the status. A transitional fucking, if you will (not that there was any proof to warrant these rumors, but what else could make such a cold-hearted psychopath grant this level of superiority to the man who had never even been proven to have a quirk?)
No pro hero had ever even come close to capturing the Menace, which was odd because he should have been the easiest target, what with the lack of notable quirk and all.
The dramatic revelation that Dabi was actually the “dead” son of Enji Todoroki shook the man (as well as the rest of Japan who had seen it live on television, for that matter) to the core, but not as much as his first and only encounter with the Menace could ever have.
The League was pulling a large-scale attack on the pros, though it seemed to be centered around Endeavors agency and the rest was just collateral damage.
Endeavor, not fully trusting his interns and sidekicks but having allowed curiosity to overcome him, left the fate of his agency in the hands of his subordinates in favor of targeting the Menace, who appeared to be… assisting a civilian who had been stabbed by a stray knife?
That… was weird, for a villain, at least.
The young woman, upon seeing Endeavor, ran. A muttered “I didn’t do anything wrong, I swear!” could be heard as she left.
Endeavor and the Menace looked at each other for a moment (he swore he’d seen those eyes somewhere before, but where?). Then, the hero attacked.
He sent out a narrow flame blast, hitting the villain just right to knock him off his feet, a new charred hole in his sweatshirt and the morph suit underneath. His mask flew off as he fell.
Enji starred down at a face he knew very well.
“Hello, father. Surprised to see me?” Natsuo spat before his eyes fluttered closed. His head went limp against the ground.
Enji could only stare in horror at the blistering burn on his son’s now exposed stomach. What had he done?
“Menace! Where the hell are you? We have to go…now…” Shigaraki’s voice trailed off. Enji looked up and saw the villain’s eyes widen underneath his weird hand-mask-thing. Shigaraki ran forward, on his knees at newly burnt man’s side.
“Natsuo!” Shigaraki tucked his index finger under his middle and cupped Natsuo’s face.
Two things about this especially struck Enji as being odd. One: Shigaraki knew Natsuo’s real name. More then that, he was on a first-name basis with him. Two: the gentleness in how he held Natsuo’s face, uncharacteristic of the villain.
The hand was removed from Shigaraki’s face, displaying his expression, a mixture of shock, concern, and sadness, for all the world to see.
“Natsuo, please.” A lone tear began its descent down the villain’s face, turning the handle for more to stream down. “You have to wake up. Please…”
Shigaraki buried his face into Natsuo’s chest, body racked with sobs.
“You have no right to be upset about this, villain.” The words left Enji’s mouth before he could stop them.
The air around the two seemed to go cold. Chills ran down Enji’s spine.
Shigaraki looked up slowly, a terrifying expression on his face. It was enough to give a grown man nightmares (not Enji though… a different grown man…)
“Did you just tell me that I have no right to be upset about this?” The tears stopped, and though his cheeks still glistened wet from the ones before, Shigaraki still looked downright murderous.
Enji had never been scared before, or religious for that matter, but he was now praying to every deity he could think and some that he might have made up of that he would get out of this alive. He would have sacrificed his quirk if it meant leaving this encounter with all his other body parts intact.
“You know,” Shigaraki chuckled(yes, chuckled. The sound seemed to freeze time as Enji planned his last words), “they say that a villain would burn the world to the ground for one last kiss goodbye. And I believe that you, Endeavor, have just lit the match that’s going to test that theory.”
Kiss? What was he…
Like a wrecking ball to the gut, the horrific realization hit him all at once.
Natsuo and Shigaraki had been romantically involved. His son and the most wanted criminal in the country had been together.
The thought made Enji want to puke. The rumors about a “transitional fucking” flashed through his mind (not helping the growing ball of nausea in his stomach). He guessed he now had confirmation on the truth behind those.
He opened his mouth to speak when a other voice broke through the thick silence.
“Boss, where the fuck did you go?!” Dabi. Touya.
He was not going to be very thrilled with Enji.
Dabi froze upon seeing Natsuo lying limply on the ground, Shigaraki holding his upper back up with one hand and cupping his face with the other.
He ran over to the pair wearing a similar expression to the one Shigaraki had on earlier.
“What the fuck happened?” Dabi’s voice was dangerously calm as he pulled his little brother’s head into his lap, cradling his face with his hands.
“He did this.” Endeavor pointed at Shigaraki, figuring that if he started some bad blood within the League, it would make it easier to take them down.
“Nice try, asshole,” Dabi spat. “He clearly had burn marks and you’re the only other one with a fire quirk around here. Besides…” he moved Natsuo’s head back to the ground. “I live with these two. And I’ve seen them together. The handsy bastard loved Natsu. He would never hurt him. You did this.”
Dabi wished he were able to produce tears so he could properly cry for Natsuo.
“You did this,” he repeated softly. “You killed him. You killed your own son. YOU KILLED MY LITTLE BROTHER!”
“I didn’t know-” Endeavor tried.
“What’s it matter now? He’s dead and you’re to blame. At least take some damn responsibility.” Endeavor had never heard more hatred in Dabi’s voice.
“Dabi.” Shigaraki’s voice was urgent. “He’s alive.”
“What?” Dabi whirled his head around.
“He’s alive,” Shigaraki repeated. “He has a pulse, but it’s barely there. We need to get him out of here.”
“This is not over, you fucking bastard,” Dabi promised. “You’ve already had my wrath coming for a while, but you fucked up big time on this one.”
“Kurogiri! Get us out of here!” Shigaraki yelled.
As the warp gate opened behind the three villains, swallowing them into its darkness, Endeavor noticed two gleams coming from the necks of Shigaraki and Natsuo. He had just enough time before they were gone to realize what the gleaming lights were.
Around each of their necks was a chain, and at the end of each chain was a ring.
He hadn’t thought it possible before that perhaps Shigaraki was capable of love. In the brief time since he had found out about their relationship, he had not thought the love between Natsuo and Shigaraki was real. He had not thought it would last.
He was slowly growing to hate being proven wrong.
————— BONUS! —————
When Rei was told she would be allowed some TV time so long as Fuyumi was in the room to supervise her, she hadn’t really felt much. After all, television was just a useless pastime she had learned to live without. It wasn’t like she would suddenly go apeshit because she now had a screen to look at again.
Maybe starting with the news was a bad idea.
Rei had heard from her other children how Enji fought Touya with viciousness even after he had revealed his identity, but this was something else.
Watching yet another of her babies get hurt by this monster, yet another of her children die with his actions being part of the cause, she felt a rage bubble up inside her she had not felt in a long time.
She looked at her daughter, who wore a pained expression.
“Fuyumi,” Rei said, ice already beginning to form at her fingertips, summoned by sweet thoughts of vengence. “Get. Me. Out of here.”