Chapter Text
Tokoyami thrived in the dark. Always had, even when he wanted to be a hero. It just became clear how much better he worked on the darker side of the law. He hadn’t thought much about how he got here, or the angel he had slain, just that he had. Dark Shadow was beside him, always perching above his shoulder, so he was never alone which comforted him at the worst of times. In the end, being a villain gave him freedom to let whatever happened to happen; no longer would he worry about phantom children. He had destroyed buildings at ungodly hours simply because the person there had gotten on his nerves when he was sleep-deprived and looking for trouble, which became more and more common. He had left rubble in his wake more than once.
He didn’t even really have a place to stay, which he didn’t mind most nights. Although tonight was not most nights. He was tired, it was raining steady drops of frigid water, it was growing colder by the hour and Dark Shadow was restless like he was every blackened night. The street lights flickered in and out as their functionality fell to the throws of disrepair. Dark Shadow’s excitement grew every time they dimmed. He was in a foul mood and the fact that his cloak stopped being useful hours ago did not help it any. He wanted to hurt something, a lot of somethings, so that Dark Shadow could calm down and so he could be distracted from the cold and damp. And hopefully, so he could find a place to stay for the night.
Noone was out this late at night, let alone in the lifeless rain. Despite his tiredness, he felt restless. He wandered around looking for anyone or thing that caught his eye. It was when his eye fell upon a small bar with figures passing by the window, that he let out the overwhelmingly restless Dark Shadow. A towering monster of electric shadow came down from the sky, like the angels from the Book of Revelation, upon the dim building. Tokoyami watched as the small bar disappeared into a cloud of dust, the rain forming mud in midair, and gravel clattering to a stop on the ground was all that was left as the air cleared of the remaining contaminants.
“Who is there?” A man made of toxic purple smoke stood upon the rubble with several other people, perfectly fine save for a few scratches and being coated in a layer of dirt and grime customary to the filth of the underbelly of society. Dark Shadow beside him, they both stared on in predatory confusion.
“You better be mute, deaf, or gone because you are going to pay for what you’ve done to us.” In the dim light of the smoke-man and his naturally good eyes, he saw the man who spoke had a hand over his face, though not his own. He wondered idly what the man might wish for upon the hand he wore, the cursed monkey’s paw, and whether or not Dark Shadow and himself would be the curse the item brought upon the villain. To wish on the monkey’s paw, even the good of heart found misfortune, the corrupt could only find misery.
“Dark Shadow,” he said as the creature in question rocketed forward to fulfill the imagined curse. The men stood their ground and Dark Shadow plunged through the black mist and was suddenly charging back at Tokoyami. He stopped thankfully before he hurt himself. ‘Teleportation’, he thought to himself. He called Dark Shadow back and the men stood waiting for his next move. He managed his emotions carefully before the battle, but now he let it wrap around his heart as he unleashed the beast inside him.
He let everything cruel inside him reach its peak and released Dark Shadow again. Dark Shadow towered over him, encompassing much of the sky above him, the black of the night barely distinctive against the black of his shadow.
The men in front of him stared on in wide-eyed wonder. He smiled, knowing full well how terrified they should be. Except now they were gone. Disappeared from the rubble.
He scowled, trying to reign in his emotions enough that Dark Shadow would shrink in size. He asked Dark Shadow to return to his side. This entire situation made him want to track down the men who had disappeared and introduce them to perpetual darkness. But he would need a clue as to where they went and he didn’t even know where to start. That and he was wet and miserable and needed to sleep.
He found an abandoned warehouse and found a place to perch for the night resting till the light appeared again. Sleep didn't come easy, what with being emotionally charged and sopping wet. But when he did fall asleep it was deep, or as deep as sleep could be when nights were often plagued by apparitions of red and white. Haunted by teal and silver crystals hazy with the realm of the unliving.
Tokoyami woke with a purpose, as he pushed back the images that found him in his sleep. The sunrise painted the sky a vicious red even through the grey and dirty sky. He got up, dusted himself off, and continued through the chilling rain. He needed to meet with someone today. Since his fall from grace and first taste of weightlessness, he found the looming drop both terrifying with the certainty of impending doom and exhilarating with sensations of uninhibited freedom. During the descent, he ran into plenty of villains who asked if he desired to join them. Tokoyami refused to ground himself again. He agreed to help from time to time, and in exchange, they would owe him something. Some agreed to a favor, some money, some promised him information.
He traveled and knocked on the door. It opened to a sleazy snake of a man. "Ah, if it isn't our little rampage friend. I heard you busted a building the other night. Really inconvenient of you."
"So you've heard." Giran welcomes him in.
"I think you picked the wrong flight kid."
"Who are they?"
A brow raises, he lights a cigar, and the smoke threads through the air with toxic promise. "I know I owe you one for balancing my books and tying off loose ends but they pay me good money and have for many years. That is a client I'm not double-crossing." He moves his fingers and creates loops in the air that spin around and around closing in and disappearing, promising death to those caught in its center.
"Then I'm afraid you are of no use to me. Dark Shadow." His companion of the night emerges not quite as powerful as the inky black night prior but still empowered by the muted greys and thick blankets of clouds.
"Woah, woah, woah, calm down there buddy. If you do this to the people who owe you, you are going to have a huge target on your back. Everyone knows exactly how you got here, and that you're just a kid." Fury fills Tokoyami’s veins and courses through his heart. A snarl dances across his lips that makes Dark Shadow fill the room, creating a stifling force of darkness, and with the way Dark Shadow’s claws danced with restless energy he could tell they were ready for an attack.
"Dark Shadow." Giran's eyes widen. He slams a door and makes a break for it. "Fetch." Dark shadow bursts through the door and the wood explodes, splinters fall from the sky like the rain outside. Tokoyami waits. He looks over the room. Depending on how restless Dark Shadow is and how prepared Giran is it may take a moment before he returns. Tokoyami moves across the room, his normal shadow flickering as the light overhead does. It's a low-hanging light for a dingy building, perfect for back-alley deals and villainous displays. Also perfect for destroying with little effort.
He spins around and swiftly kicks the light. A few sparks fly but die on the wet wood. The room darkens and his power grows. He sees weapons laying across tables, armored clothes hang on chairs and draped across crates. Tokoyami picks a vest up and runs it through his fingers. It's lighter, softer, and more flexible than he would have thought.
He sets it down; he could always take it later. Dark Shadow came back with Giran, who looked worse for wear, clothes bearing the mark of claws, silent lines of liquid life leaking through tender skin, and spots of inky night littering his skin where pain burned with twice the fire.
"Has your stance on whispering secrets to the night changed?"
"Calm the dramatics, Nevermore. The answer is still no." Tokoyami heard the slight squeak in his voice, the quiver, the hesitation. That was a man well acquainted with fear, but unfamiliar with such danger. That was the sound of a man who could be broken.
" ‘Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before; But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token…’ " Tokoyami let that sit, listening to the breathing of a man faced with something fiendish and trying in vain to control his fear. "Edgar Allen Poe wrote that poem."
"What are you talking about?"
" ”The Raven”. The poem you referenced, ‘quoth the raven “Nevermore.” ’ It's amusing that you should call me that, knowing very little about the poem. Nevermore was called a devil because he told the man something he did not wish to hear: that he would never again hold his loved one." Tokoyami took in a breath and inched closer to a man still firmly in Dark Shadow's clutches till he could whisper into the man's ear, "Do you love something, Giran? Is there something you wish to hold? The lovely lady called Lenore? And if not, perhaps you wish to hold with the hopes that one day your arms will be filled with something worth holding. It would be a shame to lose that tonight."
Giran is not a person versed in arts and history but he is a man who recognises a threat when he sees one. Understands it. Feels it. "You wouldn't," he stutters out. "You wouldn't break my arms."
" ‘ “On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before.” Then the bird said “Nevermore.” ’ "
"Enough with the poems and the riddles and, and the whole Nevermore nonsense be straight with me." He says, trying in vain to regain his composure.
Tokoyami sighs. "Whisper those dark secrets of which I seek and I see no reason to remove something so precious as the ability to hold from you, leaving you with nothing but a cold, lifeless stump to remind you of what you've lost."
And so he shatters, spilling the contents Tokoyami so desired. "You'll never beat Him. He's been around longer than either of us have been alive. He has hundreds of quirks at his disposal, he's taken on All Might, matched him blow for blow.” He slows his speech for a moment, swallowing. When he speaks again it is a reverent whisper as if the devil can hear. “He's the King of Shadows, the Boogie Man of the villain underworld and he's ready to start moving again. He's ready to destroy hero society and bring the world to its knees.” He stops waiting for Tokoyami to set him down. He doesn’t. Giran’s eyes flick across Tokoyami looking for something, when he finds his answer he sighs in defeat, “His name is long since forgotten but everyone calls him All for One.” the grip on Giran loosens and with it Giran’s tongue, “If I were you I'd stay far away from him. If you value your life you won't challenge him. Just calm down and we can all go home."
Tokoyami felt fear flitter into his heart and just as quickly flitter away. He let out a breath as he made his final decision, "Where is he?"
"He lives in the basement of a building. The one on the corner of that big street that looks like it should be busy but is absolutely deserted. The one near Kamino ward.”
Tokoyami looks at the man closely. He walks across the room and picks up the vest, a little protection never hurts. “Dark shadow.” Through his connection, he can feel the grip squeeze at the air still left in the info broker. He can feel the heartbeat of a cowardly man as he fears for a life that is hardly worth living. “Let us prepare for the mad banquet of darkness that approaches us.” A thump can be heard as flesh comes down to wood through the natural forces of the world.
He hears the gasps of a man who breathes in the sweet delusion of safety. It isn’t his problem anymore; he got what he wanted.
“He is going to gut you the same way you gutted that kid back when you were on the right side of the law.” Giran spits with venom like a cornered predator, so unused to being hunted.
Tokoyami freezes. His eyes lose focus, and Dark Shadow roils with new energy. It had been an accident. But intentions did not change the stone-like firmness of the past. Nor the blood that he could not wash away. He had been condemned, forced to make a choice between losing his other half, or accepting his fate and joining the forces of the night on the darker side of society.
“Fumi?” There is anticipation in Dark Shadow’s voice as he waits for his response. His eyes focus again.
“Leave him. He is nothing compared to the force that towers before us.” He slams the door as he leaves. His hands shake at the reminder of his first. He talked to so many people who had said you always remember the first, something about the darkness that you must embrace and the shock of death. His first haunts him in images of a person he never even truly knew. The first had been an accident. The second had not been.
Neither had the third.
Neither had any that had followed. Those had been choices he had made. People who had angered him, people who had chosen the wrong words and actions. The people who had attacked him and the people who had attacked others. He didn’t care about the blood anymore, it was no longer an issue he thought about. Every being bleeds, after all.
He catches a glimpse of dead eyes staring at him from the alleyway. They follow him everywhere. Like something out of a horror story. Thoughts of his first bring the dead back to reality, chasing his mind, driving him slowly insane. He looks to the sky. A light drizzle hits his head and stings his eyes. The grey clouds block most of the sun’s spiteful rays. He tracks the light even so, to know how long until nightfall. Tonight would be a new moon. He would be at his most powerful; he would make it count.
His steps echo in the empty streets as only the occasional passerby makes an appearance. Dark Shadow coils around him, writhing like a snake, anxious to strike, energy of night and shadow roil in his demonic figure, creating a swirl of chaos around him. Tokoyami welcomed the chaos as it distracted from the blood-stained hair that followed him like the apparition in "The Signal-Man."
The boy never utters a word to Tokoyami, no demonic demands that retribution be paid. No questions raised to ask the Fates why he died so young. Nothing. His mouth doesn’t even move to form words. He just follows to remind Tokoyami that he spilt sacred blood.
Dark Shadow grows larger with the unkempt emotions bubbling up like boiling oil in his chest. His footsteps clash against the ground with vicious purpose as water crashes with miniature tidal waves. He makes his way through the street, unsure how to spend his time until nightfall. Just knowing that he will strike tonight when the moon is naught but a shadow of itself.
He moves to the location where the Jabberwock sits waiting, eyes aflame with villainous intent as he closes his unholy claws around the city, King of Shadows, Boogie Man, All for One. Tonight, he would be slain, his body collapsing with a snicker-snack. Tokoyami would see it done.
He reaches the quiet street, the phantom boy but a memory as he looked around at deserted buildings. His gaze rests on the building that Giran whispered to him. He walked into the building opposite. ‘In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore.’ It wasn’t quite true but as Tokoyami wandered his way through this decrepit building slowly making his way to the roof he found himself distracting himself with the poem. “ ‘Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he…’ ” His gaze did not linger on any object as he whispered the words to the building, the rain a dull hum leaking through the bricks.
He reached the roof and walked to the edge, “ ‘But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door…’ ” He took a seat staring at the building. Waiting for the sun to set.
He smiled as his brain switched poems. ‘But rested he by the Tumtum tree And stood awhile in thought.’
What uffish thought he sat in, distracting himself with poems from times long past, trying to justify the accident with a mad banquet of darkness.
He closed his eyes and waited as the sun set and grey skies turned to black. As the rain hastened its journey to the unforgiving earth, he watched as street lights flickered into oblivion. To make sure the darkness permeated to the end of this night, he sent Dark Shadow to snuff out the lights. Shattered glass and broken fuses broke the quiet hum of the night as Tokoyami climbed down the outside of the building.
When Dark Shadow returned, he thought of the night before. His anger, the thought of death and destruction, and his insatiable desire to justify his existence. He thought of bitter raindrops and cold air.
“Dark Shadow,” he growled, and as Dark Shadow rose up to destroy the building beneath his claws, the Jabberwock strode out of purple mist to claim his life.
A smile rests below mechanical apparatus as a chillingly calm voice speaks out into the night.“ ‘Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore – While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, as of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.’ “The Raven”, by Edgar Allen Poe.” The man with a mechanical face recited, walking forward with a confident stride. “It’s a truly fitting poem for one so caught in the thrall of death and darkness. To think you were the one to kill Lenore.” A toothy smile spread across the Jabberwock’s face. “Or maybe we should call the ghost by name. How promising his future was. Tell me, Raven, do you ever wonder where young Todoroki would be had you not taken his life from him?”
The ghost of the boy he killed stood behind the Jabberwock, head tilted, cold stare piercing his soul. The ghost watched as he always did without a word to say. Tokoyami feels as if his eyelids have retreated into his head and are never coming back as he watched red hair drip red blood. Dripping like a faucet might when it has failed to be fully turned off.
And with the name and the visage of a dead boy fresh in his mind Tokoyami’s rage, and fear come rushing back and Dark Shadow grows. Inky black shadows blend into the inky black of the sky. The only sign that anything was there was the eyes, two full moons floating in a sky of pitch. The rain no longer fell on him, blocked by the maw of his bird companion. The energy that made up his quirk crackled and shuddered, twisting and following uncertain curves until it plunged off in outrageous angles, sharp and pointed.
The Jabberwock grinned, all sharp-toothed and predatory, a King of Beasts, but even the strongest of beasts bowed before the unnatural beings of the night. “Air Cannon, fifth level.”
Dark Shadow descended as a wave of air forced Tokoyami back into a wall where rainwater nearly drowned him as it all collapsed onto him with the same force that pushed him back in the first place.
Dark Shadow continued unhindered by their host being flung back. Not when the one doing the flinging was right within killing distance. Tokoyami stuttered to his feet as he stared down the Jabberwock. He stumbled back under Dark Shadow’s onslaught, with no visible injury, but as the smile disappeared from his face and his confidence faded, Tokoyami felt his own smile quiver into something resembling malice. The ghost flickers out of existence as Tokoyami focuses on the fight, “ ‘Quoth the Raven “nevermore” ‘ “ he says.
The villain charged another strike. Dark Shadow’s indignant anger grew as the enemy refused to die and had the audacity to attack in turn. The night would only grow darker, and Dark Shadow would only grow stronger. All he needed to do was dodge.
He leapt and rolled, crouching on the ground as Dark Shadow swiped at the Jabberwock and he slid back several meters. The waning sharp-toothed smile slowly turned into a snarl as Tokoyami shouted again, “ ‘Quoth the Raven “Nevermore” ‘ “
This villain would die tonight and he would not have the honor of being Tokoyami’s first kill, nor of being the last. He would be caught in the torrent of the slain. Another strike was thrown, this time at Dark Shadow, who barely reacted to the attack at all. Dark Shadow released a screech that pierced the noise of the night. “ ‘quoth the Raven “Nevermore” ‘ “
Tokoyami drew a knife hidden within the confines of his clothing as he stalked towards the Jabberwock. The poor beast realized Dark Shadow was the more impending threat and had left Tokoyami alone. Alone and stalking towards the Jabberwock with his Vorpal Blade in hand. His body ached from both the initial strike and the persistent cold. He welcomed it all as he slowly closed the distance. Chatter ground to a halt as the Jabberwock lashed out again and sent Tokoyami skidding across the ground. Tokoyami had been ready though. “ ‘Quoth the Raven “Nevermore” ‘ “
Tokoyami felt the witching hour strike true and his power reached its peak. Tokoyami’s laugh bubbled up as the wind wrapped around him as he allowed himself to fall into the pit of his own power. The Jabberwock, while unhurt, looked worn down and ruffled. He stared up at the impending strike from Dark Shadow. Time slowed and everything hung in the air for a few brief seconds before it all collapsed. In a voice barely heard above the din, Tokoyami looked into the hollow gaze of the damned. “ ‘Be that word our sign of parting, Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore.’ “
The Jabberwock whispered back in a word Tokoyami could not hear but could understand all the same as the name he was being called, “Nevermore.”
Dark Shadow descended and slammed the villain into the earth, the weight too strong for a man weakened by time and persistence. Pinned to the ground and gasping for breath, his mechanical face failing him at his time of need, Tokoyami strode forward with the same confidence the Jabberwock had shown earlier that night. And crouched down as the villain tensed and seemed to try and resist the weight of anger and pain, and the energy of the night.
He placed the knife at the throat, ready to slay, and the villain stilled, a grimace on his face as he saw the fate he would meet tonight. He spoke out in a voice stained with vitriol and disbelief. “ ‘And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming, and the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor; and my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor...’ ”
Tokoyami smiled, his eyes looked down upon his prey, and he pressed the knife to skin, drawing blood. Before he finished him, he finished the line, “Shall be lifted—nevermore.”
He pulled the knife towards him, pulling with him the vital forces needed to live.
Tokoyami watched as a slow healing quirk took effect. This would not be enough to kill the man.
He sent out a message through the tie that bound him to Dark Shadow. Dark Shadow obliged and crushed the man beneath his claws. And so the villain departed to that distant Plutonian Shore.
Tokoyami walked off, leaving the corpse for someone else. He still had to find the man with the monkey’s paw and see that the curse reached him properly.