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Shouta’s soulmate couldn’t sing. His voice was rough, scratchy, and he couldn’t carry a tune to save his life. Whenever the melody of a catchy song was unfortunate enough to get stuck in his head, it was warped and echoed by this voice that never did it any justice. The lyrics crackled and popped, notes fell sharp or flat, and it was an overall unpleasant experience.
Maybe it was cruel, but it had a hand in why Shouta had never caught on to music the same way that his friends had.
Hizashi was lucky; his soulmate had the voice of an angel, or so he claimed. Whoever it was sounded pleasant enough to have him humming to himself, looping his favorite songs, and playing DJ in his spare time. He enjoyed engrossing himself in music, and the voice in his head complemented that passion so sweetly.
As for Nemuri, she had never explicitly commented on the tone and pitch of her soulmate’s voice, but if the way she would sing along and let music echo in her head said anything, it was at least bearable. At minimum, they could hit and hold a note long enough to be pleasant.
There were times that Shouta wished that he’d drawn a better lot-- that his own soulmate didn’t sound so rough in his head-- but those moments were few and far between. He didn’t mind it, usually; if anything, the inability to sing dropped the chances of being invited out to a karaoke bar with him down to near zero. He liked that.
Compatibility was an important part of a successful soul bond; much more important than someone’s ability to carry a tune.
Even without a life full of musical wonder, Shouta had come to associate that gravelly rasp with the good things in his life. Those quiet moments when he was left alone with his thoughts felt a little less lonely.
After a long day of dealing with whatever bullshit his students had to offer him (he swore that this class already felt more troublesome than any other he’d taught, which went hand-in-hand with their boundless potential), it was nice to come home to something quiet and familiar. Steady and predictable. Soothing . He could settle down on the couch, invite Mochi up into his lap, and get lost in his thoughts as he stroked through her fur. Unwinding with an affectionate cat and the sound of his soulmate in his head was unparalleled; something he could appreciate no matter how scratchy the voice sounded.
It made more tedious tasks easier, as well. Long nights of grading tall stacks of assignments (that he may or may not have waited until the last minute to address; procrastination wasn’t only a students’ curse) weren’t welcome by any means, but were made more tolerable by the company he carried in his head. His soulmate narrated essays, gave voice to Shouta’s inner criticism and commentary, and made time fly a little faster than if he were trudging through it in solitude.
Shouta liked the voice in his head. For as grating as it was, it belonged to him; his soulmate; someone who allegedly held the other half of his soul, and whose soul he held in return, if he wanted to be romantic about it.
That being said, it was a bit difficult to be romantic about anything when there were lives on the line. Much less the lives of his students.
For better or for worse, Shouta had always been a verbal thinker, his internal dialogue incessant, especially when it came to analyzing a conflict. At this point, he had long since lost track of how many fights his soulmate’s gravelly voice had guided him through, detailing each observation and movement expertly.
Kick. Side-swipe. Duck. Pull. Swing. That one’s a weak link. Don’t blink until this one’s down; he’s trouble. Shit , there’s so damn many of them…
Taking on this pack of villains was like fighting a hydra; whenever one fell, at least two more took their place. His lungs were already crying for relief, but if he stopped to catch his breath, the imperceptible dent he’d made in their ranks would fill in, and that was something that he could not afford.
It felt like an eternity before he reached a turning point in the fight; before the seemingly endless tidal wave of low-level punks gave way to a target worthy of his attention. The leader of this invasion charged towards him with a single-minded determination; something which Shouta met head-on, dry eyes wide and locked on him. He couldn’t see his face from under that grotesque mask-- couldn’t tell where the villain was looking-- but the rest of his body language was easy to read.
This villain wanted to go in for the kill, as if Shouta would allow himself to die that easily. Not only did he have his students to worry about-- and worry he did-- but his soulmate as well. He’d heard on multiple occasions that the death of a soulmate robbed the survivor of their voice, condemning their minds to silence for the rest of their lives. It was a thought he’d carried with him since Shirakumo-- since he was first forced to genuinely feel for someone else’s soulmate-- and couldn’t shake.
No, Shouta would never subject his soulmate to such a harrowing silence. He would not die here. Not at the hands of this menace.
First it was 23 seconds. Then it was 24 seconds.
The voice of his soulmate registered in his ear unbidden, offering commentary on the duration of his quirk. It was… odd , to say the least-- he hadn’t been keeping track of his quirk that closely and he’d never before experienced his soulmate’s voice straying onto subconscious tangents-- but he didn’t have time to ruminate over its unusual manifestation at that time.
Instead, he lashed out with his capture weapon and started rushing towards the incoming villain.
“ Final Boss, ” he gritted out, prepared to engage in the fight to end this mess as quickly as it had begun…
…Only for the villain to stumble, his pace all but stuttering to a stop.
“... What did you just say ?”
The voice of Shouta’s soulmate continued speaking; this time, however, it was much more recognizable as coming from outside of his head. In fact, if he wanted to pinpoint it, he could whittle the source down to a skinny, light-haired villain that he was quickly closing in on.
Shouta’s heart skipped a few vital beats. What the hell…?
Unlike the villain, Shouta didn’t hesitate, even if the implications of his voice created an insatiable itch deep in his mind. The capture weapon wrapped around its target flawlessly, binding his outstretched arms to his torso, and it was entirely through muscle memory that he managed to yank his opponent closer before slamming him into the ground.
Shouta’s stomach twisted as he followed through with the fall, pinning the villain to the ground. Even the way this guy grunted in pain sounded familiar, like an echo from his own thoughts.
It should have been impossible for a heart that was already pounding from adrenaline to beat even harder, but Shouta was known for pushing the limits of what was physically feasible. As he kept the villain down with his weight, that itch grew increasingly unbearable with their proximity.
Gritting his teeth, Shouta yanked hard on the capture weapon, hoisting the upper half of the villain’s body up off of the ground.
“Who the hell are you?” he growled.
“Hey now,” the villain replied, his voice doing wonders to satisfy that awful tingle. “Let’s not get over-excited.”
Shouta scowled. When this guy spoke, he sounded like a mockery of the voice that had filled his head and kept him company on lonely days; the voice that couldn’t carry a note to save its life and ruined any potential proclivity for music; the voice that gave each of his students’ assignments life; the voice that led him through fight after fight until it landed him right there .
This couldn’t be the same voice. It couldn’t be . The irony of a voice that soothed him belonging to a man who would go to such lengths to terrorize mere children-- his students -- was far too grim to be reasonable. Even Shouta’s unique brand of dark humor couldn’t rationalize it.
And yet…
“This is such an interesting turn of events,” the villain continued, and Shouta swore that he could hear the smirk in his tone. “Who would’ve thought that I’d find you here, of all places? This really must be destiny.”
Nausea curled in Shouta’s gut, half from the villain’s sardonic words and half from the fact that hearing him speak felt good ; like it cleared his mind as much as it made his thoughts race. Unsure how to handle such an overwhelming feeling, he shoved his captive back down to the ground.
“The only thing that’s destined is your defeat,” he hissed.
“Are you sure about that?” the villain replied.
Something about the sureness in his voice-- his hauntingly, sickeningly familiar voice-- made Shouta pause, a sinking feeling of dread coming over him. A large shadow crept over them, covering the villainous leader and himself in its darkness, and he was forced to look over his shoulder to see someone who would have been easily mistaken for a monster over a man. The creature was large, bulky with muscle, with wickedly sharp teeth lining a beak-like mouth and what appeared to be an exposed brain. The sight of him alone was chilling.
Shouta’s quirk activated immediately, but the damage was already done; he’d let himself become distracted and vulnerable to attack, allowing the creature to come far too close.
The last clear memory he would have of the unprecedented invasion of the USJ was of a large hand closing in on his head and the horrifying crack of his own skull against the unforgiving ground before everything went black.
They told him that his name was Shigaraki Tomura .
Hearing the full story recounted by those who had been present for the tail end of the fight helped to bring some closure to Shouta’s worried mind. At some point beyond his recollection, he had regained consciousness and saved some of his students from the villain’s destructive quirk-- Decay , he’d been told. At some point, All Might had arrived to save the students. At some point, the other pros had arrived to save All Might . At the end of the day, everyone made it out alive and the students were unharmed. It had been a horrific experience for everyone involved and the students would doubtlessly need counseling, but it was over. They had won.
But they told him that the villain’s name was Shigaraki Tomura, and that name was what cycled through his head on repeat, weaving incessantly through his other thoughts like a parasite.
Shigaraki Tomura . The voice in his head belonged to Shigaraki Tomura . The voice in his head echoed its own name again and again and again, relentlessly drilling it into him. With every iteration, Shouta sank further and further into the truth of the matter:
His soulmate was a villain. Not only was he a villain, but one that was unafraid to target children to achieve his twisted goals. Perhaps his soulmate was not the only one that was tone deaf; perhaps fate was, as well.
He… didn’t know what to do about that, save for keep it to himself and be silently grateful that his recovery granted him a period of time to come to terms with the situation . Time that he had no choice but to spend in his own head with thoughts carried by a voice that had once brought him comfort, but now made him feel ill.
Shigaraki Tomura …
At some point, after making a full recovery, Shouta knew that he would have to track him down. Their first encounter had been messy, laden with shock and violence, and that was no way to properly encounter one’s soulmate. As… complex as the situation was, private reflection brought him to one solid conclusion:
Souls bound for a reason. No matter the circumstances, it was Shouta’s job to determine what that reason was (even if destiny amounted to little more than a mutual downfall).
It wasn’t nearly as difficult to locate Shigaraki as he’d anticipated; rather, it seemed that Shouta, himself, was rather easy to find. Once recovering enough to partake in routine night patrols, he became predictable to those who bothered to pay attention. In the past, the only ones who bothered to know his schedule were his closest friends, who insisted on knowing where he was meant to be at any given time. Not once had Shouta considered the interest expanding beyond that bubble.
Perhaps he should have, for it seemed that Shouta wasn’t the only one to decide his soulmate needed tracking down.
“ Nice scar, Eraserhead.”
Barely a week into his revived patrols and still walking in a way that masked a lingering limp, Shouta was stopped by the uncanny feeling of the voice in his head speaking externally. He paused, a small frown pursing his lips as that strange prickle returned. Great.
He turned towards the source of the voice and, upon laying eyes on that hand-decorated man, activated his quirk and shifted into a defensive stance.
“Shigaraki…”
Tomura stopped in his tracks and put his hands up in a placating gesture. “Hey. Neither of us want to be in this situation, so relax for a moment, would you? Let’s put this game on pause for a moment and chat.”
It shouldn’t have been so easy to make him cave, but the same obnoxious soothing effect from before had him slowly dropping out of his guarded stance, hair falling back down to his shoulders. Damn. The only comfort to such an embarrassing reaction was that the feeling was likely mutual. Neither of them wanted to hear the other’s voice like this, much less experience the innate effects.
“So, you think that something needs to be said,” he replied, keeping his guard up socially if not physically. “We can agree on that much.”
Tomura remained in place, knowing better than to further encroach on the hero’s ground, but his body angled itself towards him with interest.
“I’ve done some research on you,” he confessed. “ Underground Hero: Eraserhead, quirk: Erasure . What a badass. You’re so cool .”
Strangely enough, there was nothing mocking in his tone as he spoke. This assessment of him was genuine, and Shouta wasn’t quite sure how to reply to such a compliment. Fortunately, Tomura continued and took that fleeting moment away.
His head tilted in intrigue as he spoke. “And to find out that you’re my soulmate… A soulmate that I can only destroy if he’ll let me. How convenient. If only you weren’t a hero.”
A soulmate that I can only destroy if he’ll let me.
That statement resonated with Shouta more than it should have. Over the course of his life, he’d been confronted with countless people whose quirks posed a risk to either the general populace or themselves. His own quirk was uniquely useful in that it could silence the effects of others, for the most part, and while that frustrated and terrified plenty of people, it soothed others; eased the tortured souls that were destroying themselves from the inside out.
Souls bound for a reason.
Compatibility was an important part of a successful soul bond.
Both of these were ideas which, in Shouta’s mind, existed as fact, and they complemented each other perfectly in this situation. Where it had been difficult to process this bond previously, its meaning became as clear as day.
Destiny demanded that he act as Tomura’s perfect antithesis; that he keep him contained when the man couldn’t contain himself. What a noble burden to bear.
“I’ve done my own research on you,” Shouta replied. “With a quirk like that, growing up must have been difficult.” His lips pursed slightly. “If you surrender yourself, I can ensure that you get the help you need.” It would be difficult and put much more than his reputation on the line, but it was possible…
“Unbelievable.” Tomura shook his head. “This is the first time we’ve seen each other since my Nomu bashed your head in, and you’re offering to help me. Spoken like a true hero.”
Shouta arched a brow. “You say that like a bad thing.” Though, to a villain, he supposed it would be. He doubted that Tomura had All Might merch hanging up in his bedroom. “Should I take that as a no?”
“ Of course not ,” Tomura shot back, as if the idea of accepting both amused and disgusted him. “You’re just being sentimental because you think being my soulmate means something.”
“You’re the one who tracked me down. You must think so, too.” Though his eyes weren’t immediately apparent from behind the hand, when Shouta stared him down, he had a feeling that he was locking right onto them.
Silence reigned between them before Tomura shattered it with a breathless chuckle. “Alright. You got me there.”
Something about hearing such a casual admission fortified Shouta’s resolve further. Though likely burdened with very different intentions, they were both set on doing something with this bond. A hero and a villain, bound by fate and taking the first shy steps of what was sure to be a complex song and dance, the victor bound to be determined by the strongest will.
Unfortunately for Tomura, Shouta knew that he’d never been musically inclined.
“When you change your mind-” When, not if, because there was no doubt in his mind as to who would reign victorious in this mutual test of wills. “-I’ll be here,” Shouta replied.
“ When , huh? You’re so confident.” Tomura commented, falling into silence for a beat before continuing. “...I guess you are pretty cool, aren’t you?”
“For a hero?” Shouta prompted.
“For a soulmate.”
Oh . Shouta fell quiet, unsure how to respond to such a statement. While he had grown to treasure his soulmate without knowing who he was, Tomura was already learning to appreciate Shouta’s person over simply his voice. Perhaps he was still a few steps behind in this dance.
Fortunately, Tomura didn’t seem to require a response, a small step backward announcing his leave.
“We’ll see each other again soon, Eraserhead,” he stated, dismissing himself with a wave of his hand. “Try not to get yourself killed before then.”
Shouta watched the shape of his soulmate disappear into the night and, once his shadow coalesced with the rest of the darkness and the insatiable itch in his mind began to fade, he allowed the smallest of smirks to tug on his lips.
This guy… He may just be the death of him.
As he turned to depart from the scene and head along the rest of his patrol route, a familiar voice filled his head once again, joining the thoughts that flowed through it. Despite having just departed from him, he was joined by his soulmate’s voice the same way he had been for countless years, carrying his every thought with ease. It was familiar; soothing, despite its origin.
Shouta liked the voice in his head. For as grating as it was, it belonged to him. He associated it with the good things in his life.
Even if Shigaraki Tomura and the forces of fate which bound them together were completely and utterly tone-deaf.