Chapter Text
April 1828
Himiko Toga thinks that if she leaps from the roof she would fly. Creamy white feathered wings would sprout from her back and she would glide away into the spring afternoon. She thinks about attempting it, pressing her bare feet against the slanted tiles lifting off into the air, feeling weightlessness beneath her, wind whipping her hair side to side, before she plummets down to earth like a heavy stone.
“Get down from there!” Himiko peers over her dangling, pale legs, noticing the blip of a person beneath her, her mother.
“One moment,” She mutters underneath her breath. She rises the stand atop the tile roof, hiking up her skirts to her knees and begins taking steady steps to the far left of the slanted building where she lowers herself to the platform of a wooden cattle cart then in turn to the damp grass of her family's property.
“Stupid girl, what if you had fallen?” Toga thinks on this question. It’s not a far fall, and if she landed properly bending her knees, maybe even tucking and rolling it would probably just cause her ankles to tingle with fleeting sharpness. But it’s much more fun to enrage her mother.
“I wouldn’t fall,” she declared turning her nose up “a witch would never fall, she would fly” she smiles content with her words. But nearly the moment she finished her sentence her mother raised her hand behind her head and struck her daughter across the face with an open palm, Himiko’s vision blurs momentarily and a sharp pain settles against her cheek.
“what have I told you about saying such things!” Her mother snarls, gripping Toga’s round face with one hand. “You idiot! You will get yourself killed!” Himiko bites the inside of her cheek with her sharp canines, smiling faintly at the blood she tasted. She thought about spitting the bloodied saliva into her mothers face, watching her sputter, livid with anger. She swallows sharply, suppressing her desires beneath a blank face.
“I apologize, mother,” Himiko replies, slipping into the mask, a facade of perfection.
The one she created at an early age, ever since the cold winter morning when she came inside from her backyard cradling a dead bird, telling her mother how excited she was to finally have a friend. She made the discovery, people didn’t like the way she acted, and if she kept her horrible thoughts buried behind a polite smile she could survive in this world, and when the dark desires inside swirled restlessly she would just smile harder and sink her canine teeth into the corner of her own mouth until the metallic taste was all she could think of.
But Himiko was so very tired of just surviving, when will it be her turn to sprout wings and take flight.
July 1834
Himiko's resentment against her parents only grew as she approached the seventh of August, her birthday. Soon the shackles her parents had placed upon her would be thrust into the hands of a stranger, in fact they probably already had chosen someone. They would try to marry her off to a man from a good family. Maybe he would be gentle, they would spend meals together, he would compliment her appearance. Or maybe, more likely, he would be gruff and harsh like her father, Toga had yet to meet any man who was more than that. They would try to betroth her to a man of wealth, someone who could provide for the whole family. But Himiko wasn’t beautiful the way she was expected to be. She was striking in a way that people feared, her sunken amber eyes were often glassed over in a facade of calm. Her hair was a pale blonde that hung limply just below her shoulders. She wasn’t the type of beauty that got the richest husband, no, she was the type of beauty that refused to be tied down. Himiko hungered for freedom in a way no other taste could replicate.
———
Two weeks subsequent the day she turned nineteen Toga was sheltered from the misty rain inside the horse stables of her family property, she gently stroked the mane of a dark grey mare cooing softly at its silky coat. Himiko had always liked animals; she found solace in their comforting silence.
Toga wished she had stayed inside the stables longer that day.
But as the sky split and the sun glistened beneath the thinning veil of clouds she determined that she had wasted enough time and that someone would come looking for her soon. She lifted her skirts above her ankles as she wandered back to the house, lungs still full with petrichor air.
As she entered, she made her way to the basin wishing to wipe the mud from the soles of her feet. Her mother glanced up from a pot on the coal stove she had been stirring, by the time she looked Himiko up and down clicking her tongue repeatedly, Toga had already anticipated the scornful words rolling from her mothers lips.
“Himiko! you are filthy, not to mention rude, our guest has been waiting to speak with you!” She settled on wiping her dirtied feet upon the doormat.
“I apologize,” she deadpanned, before remembering to smile “Who is visiting today?” She attempted to brighten her voice, her mother cared a lot about appearances, the tone of one’s voice included. Her father introduced her to a dark haired man who had begun to rise from a faded green armchair. Everything about him was plain and he smelled strongly of chewing tobacco which toga turned her nose up at; her father began introducing said man listing off his ranks in the social hierarchy, and lightheartedly mentioning something about the young man’s attractive face which Toga strongly disagreed with, but kept such opinions to herself. These pleasantries were becoming increasingly more humdrum as the man droned on about himself, attempting the occasional charming smile. She blocked out his meaningless chatter, her eyes zeroing in on a loose tread of her skirt she lifted it and picked apart at the fraying edges. The monotone voice fell to silence. What was she supposed to say again? Himiko didn’t even remember his name.
“Nice to meet you, Sir” she bowed, as she rose her eyes darted around the room her mothers head hung, face reddening with shame. Her fathers veins bulged, he was enraged. Why were they taking this so seriously?
“No need to speak so formally with whom you are betrothed.” The man pleaded with a chuckle, rising from a bow himself, his ugly face curling into a smile.
Himiko’s heart sank like an anchor.
The man continued to speak but it was as if plucked cotton had been stuffed into her ears. Betrothed? No, not now, Toga thought she had longer. She tried to hold her smile but it was mangled, probably appearing a grimace. Salty tears stung at the corners of her eyes, and nausea bubbled in her stomach. The dark haired man -her finance- reached forward gripping Himiko’s hand in his larger calloused palm. She retraced her arm instinctively, but his grip was firm.
“Come, your mother has prepared a lovely dinner,” wrong Himiko thought silently, everything her mother made was either bland or overcooked. “It would be improper to refuse,” the man dotted as if he were speaking to a child. He tugged on Himiko’s arm directing her to a wooden chair in the dining room. She sat neatly; a napkin crisply folded in her lap, eyes trained downwards, silent. Inexplicable rage boiled underneath her finger tips.
She ached to lunge across the table, clutching a steak knife in her palm, to cleanly slice across the face of her fiancé, watch as his eyes dulled and his head lulled backward against the chair with a thunk. She stayed rooted in her seat, Himiko gently lifted her fork from the table, with shaking hands, spearing the asparagus on her plate, slicing it into bite-sized pieces. She wondered how it would feel; her hand gripping the front of his shirt as the warm sticky sensation of his dark blood flowing down her arms as she stabbed and stabbed and stab-
“HIMIKO!” Reality hit like a brick to the head. She dropped the knife, it clattered across the table. She scrubbed her eyes blinking repeatedly, she wasn’t standing in front of her nameless fiancé with blood splattered upon her face and white dress. No, instead she was glued to her chair and he stood in front of her. Apprehension written all over his face. In front of her, Himiko’s dinner plate was smashed to bits, chunks of food scattered across the table, the knife she had dropped was bent at an odd angle from the repeated stabbing into the table. Her fiancée made several attempts to gain her attention but she practically hissed at him, smacking his hands away from her. Her breathing was rushed as she surveyed her eyes across the table. Her parents gaped at her, each of their faces whitened with fear.
It was the best thing she’d ever felt.
The terror palpable on everyone’s face made her heart pound with adrenaline. She drank it all in, a sinister grin taking hold of her own face, she pushed away from her seat at the mangled wooden table. The chair scraped across the flooring with painful scratches. Putting both hands on her fiance's chest, she shoved as hard as she could. He was almost double Toga's size so she barely managed to cause him to stumble. Nonetheless it gave her a chance to dart out of the house.
Her hands grappled with the doorknob for a mere second but her heart seized with terror. Once it swung open, slamming loudly into a bookshelf behind it, she was gone. Mud sucked at every foot fall of her bare feet against the pathway of her village as she ran. Where to go? Once her family came to their senses they would be after her. She clenched her jaw in dismay at the sound of distant thunder rolling over head. She was nearly to the town square; a circle of cobblestone storefronts that surrounded a slightly off center courthouse. She had a few distinct memories from when she was younger, she had loved strolling around catching glimpses of colorful icing on frosted cakes or the shimmer of luxurious fabrics in the seamstresses shop. But now as she frantically paced the cobbled streets, each store looked hauntingly empty in the dark of night. As the rain began to pick up and the wind whistled in her ears, Himiko realized how horrendously she had messed up.
There would be no escaping this marriage.
She could run but she could never hide. A cold chill traveled down her spine. Himiko shuffled into a tight alleyway hoping for any shelter possible. When inevitably her father or fiancé found her she would be taken back to the house and await her wedding like a criminal in store for a public execution. With a heavy sigh she tucked her legs into her chest and curled against the side of a wooden cart used for distributing goods to neighboring villages, she was nearly invisible to anyone walking down the street, her clearest feature being her blonde strands of hair that stuck to her face awkwardly from the rain. She drifted into delirious sleep.
———
“Who are you?” Himiko’s eyes snapped open, bracing her arms over her face and chest in self defense, the movement sluggish with exhaustion. Gaze drifting upwards and locking onto a white haired man, his face wrinkled like dried frosting. Toga gasped suddenly soberingly awake, she attempted to scrabble backwards, only feebly pressing herself against the wall of a building behind her. She opened her mouth repeatedly, struggling to string sentences together. “Are you Himiko Toga?” The man inquired again. She managed a choppy head nod. The man smiled, gently extending his hand to hers, uncertainty nibbled at her stomach, but regardless she clasped their hands together and allowed herself to be pulled onto stiff legs. “The village is looking for you,” the man’s voice was low and flat, his dull grey eyes bore into Himiko’s “shall I take you back to your home?”
“No!” Her voice crackled to life.
“So she speaks,” the man chuckles to himself dryly. “I can shelter you for a few more hours. Maybe some food would do you good” she dropped her hand away from his.
“um…that would be nice, Thank you…” the sentence awkwardly trailed off after Himiko realized she didn’t know the man’s name.
“Shigaraki,” The man finished for her, sensing the confusion “Zen Shigaraki”
———
The sun was in its early stages of rising when Shigaraki led Himiko through the back entrance of a small shop a few blocks from the alley where she slept. There were a few wooden doors that Himiko assumed led to rooms in where Shigaraki lived, but aside from that it was cold, dark, and slightly humid. She blinked rapidly as her eyes adjusted to the cluttered room she stood in. Shigaraki had disappeared into the back of the shop a few minutes before, perhaps cooking something for them to eat.
“woah!” She marveled at the hundreds of bottles that lined the shelves against the cobblestone walls, walking over with silent steps, she gently brushed her pointer finger over the intricate glasswork filled with swirling liquids, some golden and glistening, others as dark and thick as blood.
“Toga?” A voice called out. She lurched backwards stumbling over her own feet.
“Shigaraki-San!” Himiko exclaimed. “I’m sorry I was just curious!”
“it’s quite alright,” Shigaraki supplements. He presses further into the room, in his arms he carries a bowl of white rice and steamed vegetables. He extends the bowl to Himiko. “Eat.”
“Thank you!” She bows deeply in gratitude before taking the warm porcelain into her own chapped hand. They both take a seat at a wooden dining table that looks extremely worn down.
“Are you not going to have anything to eat?” Himiko muses. He shakes his head.
“No thank you, I will eat later.” He insisted with an odd glint in his eyes. Using the provided chopsticks she shovels bits of rice and Bok Coy into her mouth.
“What do they say?” Himiko mumbles after scraping the final contents of the bowl into her mouth. Shigaraki gives her a quizzical look. “The bottles, I mean.”
“Ah,” he nods his head, “can you not read?”
Himiko looks down at the wood grain in the table, dragging her thumb nail across the dull indentations. “No” she mutters meekly “I never learned”
“I see,” he pauses, collecting her bowl and chopsticks, bringing them to a sink in the back of the shop. “This is an apothecary, so everything on the shelves,” he motions to a nearby alder shelf lined with hanging bundled herbs. “Or in bottles,” That applies to almost every other surface in the shop. “Is a remedy, a cure, or a curse,” he chuckles lowly “and which is which, depends on who you ask.”
“oh.” She nods, chewing on the inner corner of her cheek, now that she’s done eating Shigaraki is probably going to send her home, she thinks to herself with a frown. But she stares in confusion as he returns to the table and takes a seat again.
“Why did you run?” He asks leaning forward in his seat, hands clasped in front of himself on the table.
it seems wrong to be over-sharing to this stranger, but the words seem to flow out of her quicker than she could think “I don’t want to be married to that man…” she whispers shamefully, “it’s a silly reason really, but I can’t help it, I want to live a life for myself, not as a vessel for my family and husband. I want to be free.” The word husband is sour in her mouth and the word ‘free’ is as pointless as wishing on a shooting star. She sniffs and sloppily swipes at a few stray tears that drip down her cheeks. Shigaraki seems to process her words for a few moments.
“You are too young to be so disconnected,” he pauses, his silver eyes bored into her golden ones.
“I can fix that.”
The look on his face is downright horrifying and now seemed like the perfect time to turn tail and run for the second time today. She lurched forward onto her feet, the wooden chair clattering down onto the floor beneath her.
“Thank you.” She stammers for a few moments unable to find the words “But I can’t run from this anymore, I need to go” she is reaching for the doorknob, already thinking through all the apologies she will have to make, the way her chest will be constricted by a suffocatingly tight heirloom wedding gown and the feeling of her father passing her onto her fiancée as she walks down the aisle.
Always an object, never herself.
“I can give you freedom,” She turns slowly, meeting Shigaraki's gaze “that’s what you said, ‘I want to be free” she swallowed sharply. Taking shallow breaths in and out. She watched specks of dust float through the air, illuminated by the light of dawn creeping through tightly drawn blinds.
“Yes,” tears poured down her cheeks dripping onto the wooden floor boards. “I want to be free” she says “by any means” Shigaraki is standing in front of her.
“Do not be afraid.”
Himiko doesn’t understand until a sharp stab of pain sinks into her neck. A pointless shriek leaves her lips. Her limbs flail, hands flying to the base of her neck where the pain originates, thinking she has been cut. There is no cold metal of a blade, instead it is Shigaraki, teeth sunk into her flesh. Scalding pain spreads across her body. Her pulse is resonating in her ears and it’s as if her body has been set in stone, the animalistic and primal urge to run is overtaken by the cage of shigaraki’s arms clammed against her shoulders, how is he so strong? She is caged like a wild beast, no where to run. The air around her is thick with the heavy metallic scent of blood and fear. Her pulse is slowing dramatically and her brain feels like it’s been ripped apart by a feral animal.
Is Shigaraki going to eat her? What a horrible way to go. Her body is weakening, slipping down to the cold floor. She sees her meager life playing in a movie behind her eyelids.
Hiding out in horse stables as a small pale little girl.
Creating card games to play alone because the village children excluded her.
Watching her Father shatter plates and punch holes in walls until he gave into the anger and shattered and punched his wife.
Himiko isn’t ready to die.
She is merely a snuffed out candle that never truly got to burn.
Suddenly the pain resides. She is left whimpering on the floor with a dull throbbing in her canine teeth and the tips of her ears. With great struggle she is able to flutter her eyes open. Shigaraki is standing over her. Wicked grin across his face. Ribbon of Himiko’s blood trailing down his chin staining the skin and defacing the shirt he wears. He flicks his tongue over his teeth, showcases his blade-like canines that are beginning to retract into his gums once again. She presses her palms into the floor using them to help her rise to standing. Her hand travels to the punctured holes in her neck feeling the sticky sensation of blood she brings her fingers to her mouth. The taste of her own blood sends adrenaline throughout the entirety of her body.
She knows that she should feel terrified.
But all she feels is hungry.
Starved even.