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Shigaraki awoke to the sound of knocking down the hall and the rustling of dishes in the kitchen. He checks his phone, Sunday. Footsteps are faint at first, but slowly become more intense as they make their way down the hall, getting closer and closer to his room. He braced for impact, trying to take in the last few moments of warmth and peace while he was snuggled up in his blankets. Almost exactly at twelve o'clock Shigaraki was startled by the excessive banging on his bedroom door and the holler from Spinner, “Lunch time!”
“Okay!” He yells back, only to make sure Spinner knows that he is sadly awake. If only Tomura could stay in the depths of his bed just a moment more, but alas, he has to participate in the ridiculous act of eating.
Slowly, Shigaraki shimmies his body off the bed and onto his feet. His vision goes fuzzy for a brief moment before clearing up like it always does. "The price I pay for residing in bed longer than I should." He grumbles. Shigaraki really does care about his health and well-being. He would have been up at 9:00, but for some mysterious reason, his alarm clock always gets put to snooze—the Eighth wonder of the world.
His room has… definitely looked better. The bedroom is still partly under construction, and it’s taking longer than he planned for, with them having to “get rid of” any workers who snoop around a bit too much. Clothes and papers pile on the tiled floor, making it an obstacle course to walk to the door. They recently had to relocate to a new warehouse, as their hideout had been busted by heroes after their failed attempt at recruiting Bakugo. They have decided to use Kurogiri’s ability more sparingly to prevent them from being tracked again. Was the door always this far away? He passes by a newspaper with a heading that could bring any reasonable soul to tears. “Allmight saves the city!” A story filled with pointless heroics only a madman would be able to enjoy. The sooner he ends this man’s life, the better.
The door, the final boss. Once Shigaraki opens this gate, he will be forced into interaction with his so-called colleagues. So does he proceed?
Yes, of course, he does; he appreciates their efforts and desire for a new, better world.
Now, an outsider wouldn’t be able to see this message conveyed as every step that he takes to get to the kitchen seems to drag on longer and longer. Did someone change the game's difficulty to make it hard? He briefly considers that maybe it wasn’t a good idea to play league till three am last night, his back is killing him.
Shigaraki stops dead in his tracks. An unavoidable obstacle resides in the middle of the hallway. Normally, it takes this enemy longer to become a threat, but it must have decided to get up on time today. He checked its stats:
Monster Type: Toga Himiko
Craziness: 9/10
Strength: 6/10
Endurance: 8/10
If interacted with, it will follow you around until you assert dominance by yelling at it to leave you alone.
Deciding that he must overcome this foe, he takes a deep breath. Tomura makes his way across the hallway, doing everything in his power to avoid making eye contact with the entity. Where did it come from? Why do the other members allow it to persist? What does it want from me? He ponders these questions, but he only has a hypothesis for the latter. It craves this thing called “social interaction”; Shigaraki shudders at the mere thought of it.
And he realizes that he has an answer to the first question; it must have come from the depths of hell.
With a feat of immense strength, Tomura takes the final step to pass the weirdo and breathes out a sigh in relief. This journey is taking an immense toll on his health. He supposes that he will have to play league for at least three hours to recover from this intense mental turmoil. Looks like the ending hero society thing is sadly getting procrastinated.
Tomura arrives at the end of the hallway, and he experiences a minor crisis, realizing that he is getting closer to the kitchen. Does he even want to eat lunch? Maybe the league will understand if he just collapses on the floor and dies. No, he can’t back down. He has come all of this way, and it will be a waste if he decides to give up now.
He opens the door to their makeshift kitchen area to see all of his colleagues here. Wait, how the hell did Himiko sneak past him and get here first? Well, she seems content talking to Twice and Magne about some goofy guy she’s stalking right now, so he’s not going to worry about the logistics of it.
New stat:
Stealth: 10/10
They are down on numbers after the heroes detained a good chunk of their manpower. He really didn’t want to go through the process of recruiting more villains; putting up all of the “help wanted” signs was humiliating.
“Good morning, Shigaraki, you look great today- you look like shit.” Twice greeted him as he sat down at the table. He couldn’t be bothered to respond; this man could be too (two heh) much to handle some days. Tomura hoped that he would take the hint and stop talking to him.
He didn’t take the hint. “Sooooo what’s the plan for the day, boss?” Shut up. “I was thinking we could go on a nature hike, become one with the birds in order to achieve inner peace,” Twice said. He could sense his passion for team bonding exercises through the mask, and it was making him sick.
He was itching for Kurogiri to hurry up and serve lunch so he could retreat to his room.
“No, that's a stupid idea, me, obviously, we should have a training session where we become as strong as possible!” Twice argued with himself.
“Go die,” Dabi said, absolutely uninterested in anything other than the silly mobile game he was currently playing. The addiction was almost as bad as Shigraki's own, not that his is necessarily a problem, but he thinks that interference might be necessary.
Twice gasped, offended by Dabi’s comment, “That’s mean Dabs- find a better insult, you coward!” He said angrily.
“Twiceee shut up and listen, I haven’t even gotten to the point where I found his address!” Himiko whined, pressed that Twice was not giving his full attention to her story. He profusely apologized to him, which finally got him to shut up.
From the corner of his vision, he could see Kurogiri approaching. Finally food. He thought. Shigaraki wasn’t even hungry; he just wanted to get this meal over with. His appetite was already spoiled by Himiko’s disgusting “love” story. At least Kurogiri wasn’t bad at cooking, unlike the emo guy across from Shigaraki, who couldn’t even keep himself from getting burned. As soon as his meal, ramen, was placed in front of him, he tried to eat it as quickly as possible only to realize too late that it was still very hot. Shigaraki is so close to disintegrating this table. Nothing is going his way this afternoon.
While trying to cool down his ramen, he overheard grumbling about Spinner wanting pizza instead. “Didn’t we say we were gonna try the new Domino's location?” Shigaraki makes a mental note to actually try and remember to do that. Spinner is one of his most loyal and respected followers after all.
“I didn’t think we had a ninja turtle with us,” Dabi muttered. “Hey, I heard that!” Spinner grumbled.
“What put you in a foul mood today, Dabi?” Mr. Compress inquired, done with the nonsense that was spoiling the mood. Dabi side-eyed the older man, not liking the confrontation.
Shigaraki’s ramen was finally edible; he wouldn’t have to be tormented by the torture of listening to his coworkers converse with one another for much longer. Honestly, it would be so much easier if they kept their mouths closed like NPCs.
At this point, Toga had concluded her story, and he wasn't listening to all the details, but she was somehow stalking both a girl and a guy now. Anyway, that’s irrelevant; what matters for Shigaraki is that Toga, Magne, and Twice aren’t distracted anymore. He thought distractions were supposed to last for more than a couple of minutes.
Magne chirped, “He still hasn’t beaten my score in Blockblast.”
“Seriously? That game is so dead.” Himiko giggled.
Shigaraki was done with his ramen. He technically wasn’t, but if he had to stay for another minute, there wouldn't even be a table for them to eat at anymore. So at last, as he got up from his seat, he never felt better. Tomura could see freedom as he approached the exit. He had completed this strenuous side quest, and he could now spend the rest of his day playing league!
“Waittt Shiggy can you help me put some help wanted posters up around town?” Twice asked.
Shit.