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“You once told me you wouldn’t allow a child to be hurt simply for the pleasure of it, was that a lie?” He had always wondered if it had been empty platitudes meant to reassure a panicked boy or a broken morality line the villain walked along, teetering towards the edge.
Kurogiri pauses, eyes glowing softly like embers and his voice the hushed crackle and pop of the flames. “You’re talking right now, aren’t you?”
Unconsciously, Shinsou’s hand drifted up to his neck, pink and scarred and he sighs softly—pain, burning fiery pain consuming his throat, his breath caught and captured, his vision quickly fading with black smoke (oh god he was going to die)—
He blinks, and ignores the desperate urge for air, the need for cool air to sooth his aching throat. He is fine. He can do this.
He can do this.
“I suppose I am,” he replies. “I had wondered if you interfered or if I had simply hallucinated near the end.” He’s surprised Kurogiri said anything at all knowing his quirk; it had been a gamble telling Aizawa he could get the villain to talk. He’d needed to know if it had been a figment of his imagination or if it had been real. He’d been selfish.
Kurogiri remains quiet, but it doesn’t feel pointed. Rather, it transports him to late nights in the kitchen with warm mugs and muffled huffs of laughter where the quiet had curled around them like a blanket on a cold winter day. He wonders if it’s intentional, but as he feels himself relax and lounges back in the unforgiving chairs, he knows the answer.
“So did Shigaraki just, what, let you stop him from damaging me? Because I just don’t see that happening.” Shinsou probes. He knows this isn’t what the police and Nedzu sent him in for, but now that he’s had his suspicions confirmed, he needs to know more. Kurogiri and Shigaraki fighting would’ve been bad for the league, but he can’t see Shigaraki leading the group without the villain sitting across from him.
Kurogiri had the soul and heart that Shigaraki lacked to get the villains to stay. In just the two months he was present for, there had been multiple times the members had hinted at disliking Shigaraki’s choices and actions for the group. The tension between the members had been something he had even originally planned to take advantage of.
“I made my choice, he didn’t agree.” Kurogiri says calmly, his yellow eyes never wavering from Shinsou’s.
“We found Toga and Giran with you.” He keeps his face clear as his brain struggles to understand what exactly unfolded after he left. When it clicks, he’s shocked to feel gratefulness simmering just below his chest. They left the league for him. Him, the traitor. Had Hagakure gone with them? Or had she stayed?
Even as his thoughts race a mile a minute, he knows the answer and has to suppress his giddy smile from overtaking his carefully construed mask.
No wonder the heroes had had no trouble finding and taking them in; they weren’t with the league anymore. They had been unprepared for the raid and hadn’t the manpower to recover any winning points.
As much as he wishes he could continue with his line of questioning, he can feel Nedzu’s disapproving glare through the one way mirror as information pertinent to the case remains unanswered. He forces himself to let go of his questions, he had gotten what he came for ultimately, and switches gears to begin the proper questioning he had promised before entering the room.
Kurogiri is unhelpful with the new line of questioning, but Shinsou can’t bring himself to care as his mind continues to whirl, delicately concealed by a purposefully bland face forged from fear and determination.
Much like a fisherman throwing lines in an empty pond, he receives no new information and knows the heroes on the other side of the glass will be disappointed, but strangely enough he isn’t as bothered by that as he might’ve been once. Only the thought of seeing Aizawa’s palpable disappointment makes him feel a twinge of regret for not trying harder but, he reasons, he’ll always have tomorrow to prove his worth—provided his mom gives the go ahead for the activation of his quirk later tonight. His voice is still hoarse, but it no longer sounds like gravel on the side of the road.
He’s not sure what he’d do if his quirk no longer works. For all he wished he had a different quirk growing up, he isn’t quite sure he can imagine himself without it anymore. It’s an odd thought that leaves him feeling nauseous and vaguely discomfited in his own body. Regardless, he, too, shoves that deep down along with the rest of his intrusive thoughts into the recesses of his mind. He’s gotten quite good at compartmentalization.
As he pushes back his own metal chair to stand, concluding the interrogation, Kurogiri speaks.
“If you wanted to come back, we would accept you. No harm would come to you.”
Shinsou pauses, then continues towards the door. He turns the knob, looks back, and says, “Don’t you think it’s a little too late for that?”
The door closes with a soft click.
.
Shouta isn’t quite sure what to think when Hitoshi comes back into view in front of them. He’s positive both Nedzu and Tsukauchi were paying attention to Kurogiri throughout the interrogation, trying to pick up any hints regarding the case. He, on the other hand, had been observing Hitoshi for any signs of discomfort or stress. Anything he could use as an excuse to pull him out of the room.
Guilt settles like a dense layer of fat in his stomach as he knows Hitoshi had wanted to see Kurogiri—had wanted to interrogate him. Nedzu had believed his claim that he would be able to get more answers than a regular hero, even without his quirk. And while he’s sure that was true, he doesn’t believe that was his only motivation to see the villain once more.
When in that room though, it had been impossible to tell what he had been thinking. Everything portrayed was an intricate act to get Kurogiri to trust him, but Kurogiri may as well have been an actor too with the heroes looking on as the audience. The line—what was acting for Kurogiri and what was acting for those observing the interaction—had been blurred beyond repair.
It left Shouta aggravatingly confused and wanting to shake the poor teenager. He had specifically told him he could be trusted, that he would be on the boy’s side. If only he could see that.
“Well that proved informative, no?” Tsukauchi smiled awkwardly. “We now know the league is split between the two leaders. That’ll make it harder for them to keep the attention they garnered and a lot more desperate.”
Hitoshi shakes his head minutely, “I didn’t get the information you needed regarding the case.”
“No worries, you’ll be able to get all that tomorrow,” Nedzu says. It’s a reminder that Shouta wishes Hitoshi could do without, but with that, he gestures to the kid and starts to walk toward the side entrance where he parked his car. He eyes Hitoshi as he joins alongside him, but like usual, his normal mask is back on with no emotions leaking through. Whatever act he had on in the interrogation room is gone and Shouta is left to guess at what is running through his mind.
It’s only when they’re both in the car, buckled up and on the main road, that he approaches the question bouncing around in his mind.
“You like Kurogiri,” he starts off with a quick glance towards the passenger seat, but when Hitoshi remains quiet, he continues. “You said you were his favorite, but he was also your favorite, wasn’t he?”
He lets Hitoshi take his time replying with the hum of the car and jolts in the road being the only accompanying music to the comfortable quiet.
“He was,” Hitoshi slowly acquiesces, gazing outside the window to the left. “He always viewed the league as a family of sorts.”
And he can imagine the appeal Hitoshi must’ve felt having seen their small apartment, knowing his mother’s long hours and his father’s absence. Remembers avoiding the longing glances in the hallways, the cheerful and eager greeting afterwards at the cram school.
Hitoshi may have fooled them and gained their trust, but Shouta now finds himself wondering to what extent Hitoshi had also given himself to them. Perhaps he should’ve started wondering when Hitoshi had humanized them, given them individuality with their own wants and desires rather than clumped them together in one big league of villainy, but he hadn’t questioned it then. It seemed only natural—now that he thinks he should’ve paid more attention. Hitoshi, clearly beyond logical reason, liked Kurogiri.
How many more villains had the boy unconsciously become attached to over time?
He thinks back to the very last bit of the interrogation, and lets himself have only one intrusive thought before dismissing it. Nedzu hadn’t been concerned, neither had Tsukauchi—yet neither of them knew Hitoshi like he did.
But no—Hitoshi hadn’t even entertained the idea, had shut it down rather solidly. He needn’t be concerned.
.
After finishing drying the dishes with his mom, he slips outside on the balcony for a moment to collect his thoughts. First though, he enjoys the way his breath fogs his vision, lessening the urge to smoke but still missing the calming buzz the nicotine gives him. He stuffs his shaky hands in his cargo pant’s pockets and goes over what Kurogiri said to him earlier.
Clearly, Toga and Giran had joined him in his little rebellion of sorts, Giran more shocking than Toga. He hadn’t thought Toga would let anything get before her bloodlust, much less a traitor like him. Giran would’ve sided with Hagakure—he remembers thinking he was acting like her overprotective dad—which means that Hagakure had left. She had escaped, or rather, she had taken the first step.
She hadn’t been taken in by the heroes though, which meant she had remained hidden. Had anyone else left with Kurogiri? Or was she alone, trying to devise a plan to save them like she had saved Ochako?
He doesn’t know, but as he leans on the balcony railing savoring the numbing edge the cold gives him, he turns over Kurogiri’s words trying to find the meaning behind them. For odd reasons he doesn’t quite care to examine, Shinsou doesn’t believe he was lying, but if everyone except Hagakure was taken, it wouldn’t mean much to offer him a spot.
And why would Kurogiri even think he would take him up on the offer? He’s the traitor who pretty much led to them being captured on a silver platter. He needs more time to think, he’s missing something—but what?
He’s not given the option to figure it out.
A hand closes around his mouth, and before he can even shout for help, a voice rasps out, “If you even think about yelling, I will burn you to a crisp like you deserve, traitor.”
He recognizes the voice, it’s Dabi.
Had he come here for revenge? No, he crosses the thought almost immediately, if he had wanted revenge, he wouldn’t have bothered with the warning. He would already be dead, a charred corpse for his mom to find later that night with the stars watching from above as witness.
So he isn’t to be killed just yet, which means he can have a little fun before it's his time to go.
He licks the hand covering mouth and smiles, gratified by the hushed yell he receives in response and the speedy removal of the hand. Toga would’ve laughed herself silly and he almost wishes she was here. She knew how to handle Dabi.
“Oh my god, you spend a month with heroes and you come back licking people? Gross.” A new voice chimes in with mock disgust before laughing.
Hitoshi turns around with his heart in his throat beating a mile a minute and spots floating clothes on the edge of the roof. “Ha—Hagakure?”
“Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner!” She mock shouts, her voice staying at a whisper, and he can only imagine her grinning down at him. He hesitates as he activates his quirk, not even an hour earlier had he been officially allowed and able to utilize it once more, before letting it fade back into oblivion. He doesn’t think he can bring himself to use it on her.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Dabi cuts in. “We’re going to break them out tomorrow night, and you’re going to help us. I don’t care what the fuck you do afterwards.”
He keeps his face steady. “And why exactly am I going to help you?”
This time he keeps his quirk active in the background of his mind as it waits to settle around Dabi. He wants to know what they have planned. Aizawa will want to know. Dabi isn’t the one who speaks though.
“Because not only did Kurogiri save your quirk, he was the one who agreed to do the hostage exchange. Shikagari wanted to kill you and leave me with the heroes.” Hagakure replies, her firm voice at odds with the wave of chaos crashing through his mind unsettling his boxes of unwanted thoughts like sand on a beach. The humor is long gone leaving only steely resolve. “You owe it to him, just us get them out and then you can go be a hero for all we care.”
Once he wouldn’t have taken it as an insult, but now with his scattered thoughts, it takes all of him to not wince at the anger in her voice. She doesn’t know he’s turned down the opportunity, he won’t ever be a hero.
More importantly—Kurogiri saved his life? They hadn’t just left for him, they had actively fought for him. He has to breathe—he can feel his mask slipping, his breaths becoming short and shallow. He fights it. He can’t let them see his disarray, his weakness as he comes undone at thought of someone thinking he was worth saving. He needs to compartmentalize. But how could he when Kurogiri had—
He has to compartmentalize.
His mind goes blessedly numb, the crashing waves have receded back into the dark depths of his mind leaving his thoughts and memories distorted and ragged like a city after a flood. But it is quiet, and he almost sags in relief. He doesn’t have time to spare on panic attacks or whatever the hell that was—he needs to figure out his next step.
This must be the whole group that defected from the league. He could take them both in right now and be viewed a hero by society this time. He could take them in and make Aizawa proud. Hell, he could stop worrying his mom, paranoid villains are going to murder her son for retribution.
He could do things right.
And yet, when he opens his mouth to disagree, he finds himself releasing his tentative grip on his quirk and hears himself say, “We’re getting them out tonight.”
.
The plan is Shinsou brainwashes a few guards to let them in and leave them asleep, letting Hagakure sneak in to break out Toya and Giran that are currently being contained on the opposite side where Kurogiri is imprisoned. He’ll go release Kurogiri as he, very conveniently, saw not only where he was, but what the code was to open the door. He can only hope it hasn't changed since his stint as an interrogator earlier. Kurogiri will then, once they’ve regrouped, apparate them somewhere far, far away where he won’t have to worry about them, and he will hypothetically continue on with no one the better of his involvement.
Dabi is the back up plan. The minute Dabi gets involved any chances of the jailbreak not being noticed until the morning goes to nil and they lose their only advantage. The hope is that Dabi is not needed and somehow Shinsou has very little hope of that actually happening.
The first few steps go off without a hitch—he asks the guards standing tall outside where the nearest convenience store is and when they reply, he tells them to let him in. Hagakure stays right behind him, an invisible but soothing presence nonetheless. Once they’ve entered, he tells them to fall asleep in hopes of keeping the confusion high and the tampered memories nothing but a dream.
He points her in the direction of where Toga and Giran are being kept, and with that, they split.
Things are going smoothly, almost a little too smoothly, which is of course, when the alarm goes off. He rushes to finish pressing the last three digits on the lock keeping Kurogiri contained, and struggles to keep his mind from thinking the worst scenario.
He handled a bank robbery gone wrong while undercover—how bad can a prison break really be?
The door beeps and the little light above the door flashes green. He swings the door open, finding Kurogiri leaning against the wall with his legs crossed. The villain doesn’t seem surprised to see him.
“Go find Hagakure, she’ll have Toya and Giran.” He pants, his days recovering in the hospital not doing his physical prowess any wonders. “Then get the fuck out of here.”
“And where will you go?” Kurogiri asks, his eyes flickering softly.
“I’m getting away from here, act like I’ve been smoking at some convenience store or something.” He hasn’t actually thought about it too hard, because he had really been hoping it wouldn’t come to it. Figured he’d probably be the last suspect to those knowing his full story except maybe Aizawa—but that would be a problem for another day, another him.
Now he has to escape this prison with no one the wiser.
“I can bring you back to your room.” Kurogiri offers, knowing damn well Shinsou’s going to have to take him up on his offer. It’s been too long since the alarms have gone off, chances are he’ll run into too many guards.
He curses himself internally even as he says, “Fine, now come on.”
Having had the opportunity to study the building, he leads them down two beige hallways before running into six guards. He prepares himself for straining his quirk, but within an instance, the guards have been transported as black fog fills the hallway. He glances back at Kurogiri, and the man silently nods back at him.
He’d forgotten how convenient Kurogiri’s quirk is.
They continue running, only slowing down at the sound of a scuffle around the corner at the end of the hall.
The familiar peal of Toga’s laughter travels over the sounds of grunts and heavy hitting punches. Taking into consideration knowing all too well how her hits feel, he drudges up some vague sympathy for the guards. They’ll have some bruises to come for the following days. The echoes of heavy boots marching in sync jolts him back to awareness, and Kurogiri rushes past the corner to help subdue the guards attacking Toga.
He hesitates as he’s left alone in the corridor, he could still act innocent, say he had been threatened—gagged and unable to use his quirk. He can still do the right thing. But then a blur races across his vision and he clutches his arm as it bursts into pain.
The moment is gone.
“What the hell, Toga,” he groans, rubbing his now aching shoulder. He should’ve expected this from her, they had always communicated through their spars.
She’s pulled herself up to full height, her body tense and at contrast with her normally lax posture, something unfamiliar shines in her eyes mirroring the gleaming blade in her hands. He instinctively mirrors her stance and wonders what will happen next. This isn’t the Toga he’s grown to know.
“You’re an asshole! Did we mean nothing to you?” She snaps. “I trusted you, I didn’t even believe them at first. Did you laugh about how foolish we were—how foolish I was? I should’ve drained your blood that very first day we met you.”
His mind is having difficulty making sense of what all she’s saying, even as he latches on to I trusted you. No one ever truly trusted him, not with his quirk. He struggles to convey what he wants her to see before ultimately letting his body loosen and stepping towards her. He knows her, he knows how she works. “Does it look like I got the last laugh? It did get to my ego though, had me thinking I was the best liar on the block.”
She lets out a sharp huff, stiffens, then laughs properly, “You’re an idiot, I should kill you right here, you know that right? It’d be easy, I bet you’ve gotten even worse at sparring too.”
His mouth curls up even as she steps closer to punch his shoulder again, she isn’t wrong. It would be very easy to kill him. And yet, none of them have.
“Alright, shove it you two, we’ve got to get going,” Giran yells, hovering close to Hagakure who has her clothes showing once more. Dabi is standing behind them, brows furrowed in annoyance.
Kurogiri takes this as his cue, and Shinsou’s vision is covered in thick black fog with the muted prison walls already long gone.
When he can see again, his childhood room that he hasn’t seen since coming here briefly with his Mom to pick up clothes comes into view. The dark night sky gleams through the window near his desk covered in a thin layer of dust; there are no clouds tonight and the few stars bright enough illuminate his desolate room along with the waning moon hung up beside them. For once, the villains are quiet as his gaze flits around, darting from his UA admissions letter pinned on his board to old sketches of heroes. It fills him with unease to see the hero worship so clearly in his own room and he knows the others are seeing the same thing.
He feels exposed, like when his mom had cleaned his room and found rejection letters from the other various hero schools—rejection letters that, according to him, hadn’t arrived yet. Shame swirls within him and heats his cheeks flushing them a pale pink, unnoticeable in the dim light.
His past and present self are colliding in a way he hadn’t thought was possible.
For all the apartment felt like home before everything that happened, it now feels like he’s an outlier—he had replaced the original Shinsou with a mask in order to survive, to come out on top, but now he doesn’t know where the original went. He’s buried so many different pieces of himself trying to compartmentalize, he no longer knows where they are. He’s no different than a frantic squirrel burying acorns for winter only to realize they have no way to know where it is, much less if it's still there.
He remembers all of these events, these important moments in his life, but he has never felt further away from them. He feels lightyears away from the person he used to be and he wonders if he can ever go back to normal—if he can ever be the original Shinsou who would do anything to be a hero.
He doesn’t think so.
He slowly turns and faces the villains. Kurogiri extends a hand, and overlaid on top of it, Shinsou sees his young naive self from three months ago reach out to grab it with the hope of having a dream come true even as eyes all across the news watch him vanish before them.
Now, under the cover of darkness, he grabs the hand with no illusions—he was never going to be a hero.
.
The shadows in the room have grown long with the early morning rays and the fading crescent moon is a faint impression by the time a man with dark, scraggly hair bursts in with a woman in heels following right behind.
Once more in their life, they are too late.
The boy is no longer there.