Work Text:
There was something unsightly at the mouth of the alleyway.
It laid there, slumped on its side like a discarded toy, an ugly ash stain smearing the corrugated sheet metal of the building behind it in a curve that led downward. Limp, outstretched hands twitched every few seconds. Just often enough to show the people passing by that the thing was alive.
At least, alive for now.
It didn’t look to be far from death’s door; ghostly pale skin pulled tight over tiny bones was already giving the thing the appearance of a spirit who was simply lingering in the land of the living for a little too long. It had once been a boy named Tenko Shimura, but that wasn’t a name Tenko liked anymore... not really. The name had been twisted by some unspeakable horror Tenko couldn’t remember, and the sounds tasted thick and metallic on his tongue now, but there was nothing else he could call himself.
Cloudy, far away eyes stared out from behind a curtain of matted, colorless hair. They were as still as their owner, and never blinked, like those of a fish left on land to dry out and die. The view out at the street was only slightly blocked by the tips of Tenko’s small fingers, coated in the same dark ash that marred the wall, nails bitten down to uneven, jagged edges. They were an unwelcome sight, good for nothing but making Tenko feel nauseous, so with great effort, Tenko slowly curled his fingers into his palms, tucking them away so he wouldn't have to see them.
Fingers no longer in his way, Tenko went back to watching the blurry stream of walking feet that flowed in front of him, numb to his core from how many hours he’d been doing the very same thing. In all that time, and still now, no one had stopped when they passed him by. He was too unsightly, of course. Too dirty, and he smelled too strongly of blood and decay. Small and frail as he was, Tenko’s battered, ash-stained appearance frightened people, and they turned their eyes away when they saw him.
The average person never quite expects to be confronted with a tragedy blocking the sidewalk on their way to work in the morning.
If Tenko called out for help, maybe some people would have stalled, but that's all they would have done. The poor child would never know; his throat was dry and torn up on the inside, like he had been swallowing sand, or screaming too loud for too long. He could barely make a sound without a burning pain following.
Overhead, the sun climbed higher in the sky, warming the dark tarmac road and sending pedestrians skittering faster towards their jobs, desperate to not be late. Slowly but surely, the crowd split and dispersed, their colorful shoes dripping out of Tenko’s view until there was no one at all passing by his alley. Still caught in the cool shadows cast by the buildings he was nestled between, Tenko had no reason to move, so he stayed there, laying on the ground, alone.
Involuntarily, he whimpered softly, the loss of other human presences felt keenly in the unexpected ache that bloomed behind his sternum. No one had reached out to help, but they still had been there. There still had been other living, breathing people, moving and talking, to keep Tenko grounded to reality.
Now there was no one.
Like volume being turned up on white noise, the constant itch under his skin that Tenko had been trying to ignore rose to the front of his mind. The urge to scratch at his neck and face was a feeling as familiar to Tenko as breathing, and it was always strongest when he was left alone with his spiraling thoughts. He knew how this would go; his focus would be eaten away at, piece by piece, until he had no choice but to give in and scrape his nails over and over again, endlessly, across his skin.
A growing hunger chose to make itself known with a rumbling growl, vying for Tenko’s attention like a neglected beast and clawing at his insides with claws just as sharp. Tenko couldn’t remember when he’d last eaten; a few hours ago from the trash he’d scavenged through, a day ago in a home that was already crumbling in his memory? Did it matter?
Not to his stomach. Another angry growl shook Tenko’s small body, insisting that he needed to eat, but Tenko didn’t want to try and move. He didn’t want to face the fact that his limbs, brittle and baby bird-like as they were, were already too weak to hold him up. The disappointment would be too crushing to bear.
Hopeless, Tenko let his salt-crusted eyelids fall shut, and chewed at his already dry and cracking bottom lip, pulling it into his mouth to have something to bite down on. It was a futile effort, but he also pulled his arms in towards himself, folding them up and pinning them between his chest and the ground to try and keep himself from scratching. At least, just for a little while.
There was nothing else he could do now, and despair, dark and thick, settled into Tenko’s chest with a weight he thought might crush his ribs. It was already stealing all his breath away, squeezing his insides like they were made of clay.
At the mouth of the alley, unseen by Tenko, a figure stepped into place.
“Ah, there you are. Hundred alleys in this dumb city and the one with the nasty puddles is the one you choose. Typical. I don’t remember it being nearly this gross.”
A young man, pale and lean, wearing a deep red trench coat that hung open over a dark shirt, strode towards Tenko. His footsteps were unsettlingly quiet.
Tenko stayed curled and wretched on the ground, twitching and whimpering around shallow breaths and the painful hollow in his stomach, burrowed so far into his own mind he hadn’t even noticed that he was now being loomed over. Tiny hands trembled as they clenched and unclenched, fighting his compulsion to itch with the very last dredges of energy Tenko had in his body. He wouldn’t give in, he wouldn’t.
With a deep, aggravated sigh, the man nudged Tenko’s boney ribs with the toe of his boot, “Hey, you still alive?”
Tenko went still, everything stopping; his hands, his breathing, his twitching. Like a rabbit on his back, frozen in defence.
The man frowned, then nudged again a little more insistently, “Don’t ignore me, brat.”
Quick as a whip, one of the tiny hands that had been shaking with weakness snapped out with surprising strength. It reached to grab the ankle of the man’s shoe, but Tenko’s five fingers only raked through empty air.
“Gotta be faster than that.” The man said, unbothered, standing on one leg with his foot held up, a step further away than he had been a moment ago.
Two dull garnet eyes glared up at the man, unfocused and blurry, the glare passing through his body and ending somewhere far, far away.
“If I come close, are you going to try and attack me again?”
Pale, bloodless lips pulled away from tiny teeth in a threatening snarl.
“Jeez, jeez, okay.” The man put his hands up in surrender.
That should have been it. It should have been the end. The man would turn and walk away, leaving with a freedom Tenko no longer had. There was no reason to stay there, bound to that alley, with a creature so obviously hostile.
In one smooth motion, the man dropped to sit on the ground.
Tenko blinked, eyes going round with surprise. Why is he still…?
“I’ll wait for you to calm down from your pissbaby temper tantrum then.” The man said with a shrug.
Tense, Tenko slowly rose, facing the mysterious man and keeping watch on him through every cautious movement. Surprisingly, the man wasn’t watching Tenko in return. He leaned back casually, appearing relaxed, but was betrayed by how he critically scanned the alley around them, eyes narrowed and nose scrunched in clear disgust at the state of it.
And, Tenko noticed, the man was sitting just far enough away that Tenko couldn’t reach him without having to waste time moving forward first.
“Anybody ever tell you it’s rude to stare?” The man drawled, still looking away. He was idly picking his teeth with the long fingernail of his right pointer finger, like he didn’t have a care in the world.
Tenko jolted, and shook his head. He sat up a little higher now, no longer laying on his side, with his legs bunched up against his chest. His back was braced against the wall uncomfortably, but it was a better position to be in to run if necessary.
“Well it is,” The man continued, turning towards Tenko. He shifted his weight and leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees.
Feeling strangely spiteful, Tenko kept staring. In fact, furrowing his brows angrily, he opened his eyes wider, showing the strange man every red vein that stood out against bloodshot white.
The man barked out a dry, sharp laugh. “Hah, so you’ve still got some fight in you, huh? Not ready to let this world kick you to the curb yet?”
As much as Tenko wanted to keep staring to prove a point, a burning sensation started to prick at the sides of his eyes. He tried to keep them open a little longer, but all too soon it was unbearable. Carefully keeping one pinky of each hand up and away from his eyelids, he pressed down on them and rubbed the built up tears away till the skin around his eyes glowed an irritated red.
When he reopened his eyes, a pale left hand, with a black half-glove covering the two outer fingers, was extended towards him.
“C’mon,” The man said. His red eyes, brighter and sharper than Tenko’s but somehow… familiar, were focused on Tenko. “I know better places to sleep than this dirty alley.”
The crooked smile the man was offering had far too many teeth to be anything but chilling. It was a terrible, ghoulish mimicry of the kind of smile All Might wore; something meant to be reassuring but clearly failing at it, and it didn’t seem to fit correctly on the man’s face. It was almost like he was out of practice, and couldn’t quite remember how a smile was supposed to look anymore.
Tenko recoiled, shrinking back against the wall, and hesitated, “How can I trust you?” He asked, voice unable to rise above a ragged whisper.
The man shrugged, “You can’t. This world is full of people to not trust. You’re smart to be cautious.”
“Then why-” His volume went too high, and Tenko’s words broke off into a series of dry coughs, old ash dislodging from the back of his throat. He spat it to the ground in a dirty glob.
“Someone else could come along, and take advantage of you because you look like you need help.” The man said evenly, when Tenko had quit heaving. They both eyed the glob of dark spit on the ground with near identical expressions of distaste.
“I don’t need help.” Tenko hissed. His coughing had left his eyes wet and the line of his cheekbones a blotchy red.
The lie screamed at him from inside his own mind. The streetlamps that stretched tall overhead and the murky water he sat in were witnesses to just how long Tenko had been alone on the street, with pain lancing down his spine where it pressed against the ridges of the wall behind him, in the same curled position he was sitting in now. He’d lost count of how many hours had passed by with him waiting for someone - anyone - to see him.
Waiting for a hero to help him.
The man simply raised an eyebrow, as if he knew.
“What do you get out of this then?” Tenko snapped, defensive.
“A clear conscience, I suppose.” The man said thoughtfully, sounding unexpectedly honest. He scratched at the side of his neck, and Tenko watched the man’s nails trace down already present welts, “Or maybe I just want to see how things play out differently this way. It’s like a New Game + almost. I received a certain power, and I decided to use it for this. But my plans shouldn’t matter to you.”
“I’m the one who-!” Tenko protested, but broke off into another coughing fit when he tried to yell.
Again, the man waited patiently while Tenko wrangled his lungs into behaving. Then, boldly, he leaned into Tenko’s space and poked the boy in the center of his forehead. Tenko’s eyes crossed trying to see the finger through the greasy white strands of his hair.
“You’re the one who will be getting off the street, who will be getting a place to stay and warm food.” The man finished for Tenko, emphasising his words with another little jab at Tenko’s forehead, “Nothing bad will happen to you. I don’t want anything from you specifically.”
The man’s wording was suspicious; he’d said too many vague, confusing things, left Tenko with too many questions and not enough answers.
And Tenko hated the way hope fluttered in his chest despite every red flag.
He swatted the man’s finger away without thinking, then froze to stare at his hand. His own fingers were still all curled inwards, where they could do the least damage. The man could promise till he was blue in the face that nothing would happen to Tenko, but Tenko knew that with the kind of quirk he had… something was bound to happen eventually. Whether he wanted it to or not.
A light smack across the top of Tenko’s knuckles startled him into looking up, mouth agape. The man only met his shock with a smirk, the expression just as crooked and terrifying on his face as his smile had been. “Don’t worry about your quirk. I can help you with it.”
Tenko flinched, “How do you even know I was thinking about my quirk?”
Eyes rolled, “I’m not stupid, brat, and I’m also not blind. Anyone could guess from looking at you that something went bad when your quirk manifested.”
Anyone?
Anyone could guess?
Tenko’s thoughts ground to a halt and his attention slid at a gratingly slow crawl, like nails being drawn across a chalkboard, back to his hands. The ash hadn’t come off yet, even though so much time had passed; it clung to them like a second skin, and ugly, dark red clumps were buried beneath his nails. Was the gathered red just from him scratching himself, or something else? There was too much for it all to just be his, and it was too dark for it to be fresh. The gross blood sat there, jammed far too deeply under his nails, like Tenko had dug his fingers into someone’s flesh and ripped until they bled and then- he couldn’t remember. He couldn’t remember what he’d done… He didn’t want to remember...
The itch, buzzing under his skin like a swarm of bees, burst suddenly, exploding through Tenko’s body in a furious rush. His hands jerked compulsively towards his neck, clasping around it for a disoriented second that he had no control over. Viciously he began to scrape at the underside of his jaw, mindlessly carving red lines down it with the sharp edges of his broken, dirty nails.
What did I do what did I do what did I - ?
Two large hands clamped around Tenko’s wrists and wrenched his hands suddenly, violently away.
Tenko let out a low keening sound, head immediately trying to follow. The curled claws his fingers had become demanded to be slot back into their grooves and allowed to continue digging, but the man held Tenko’s arms too far apart.
“Believe me, if you keep with the itching, you’ll never kick the habit. You’ll be twenty and still acting like a dumb flea-bitten dog.” The man snarled harshly, glaring at Tenko with a confusing amount of fury. He brought a knee up between them and pressed it against Tenko’s chest, using it to pin Tenko against the wall even as the boy thrashed and jerked his wrists wildly like a tied up animal.
“Let me go!” Tenko cried, voice cracking like dropped pottery.
The man pulled Tenko’s arms further apart, stretching him until the tension began to burn. Tenko went hesitantly still, but his chest continued to heave with his rapid breathing, “Just shut up and take a deep breath or something.”
Tenko gulped in a ragged breath and held it, letting it puff out his cheeks.
There was a beat.
“Keep breathing!” The man snapped, releasing one of Tenko’s hands to smack him in the side of the head.
The breath escaped Tenko against his will, knocked out of him as a wet gasp that turned into a cough.
“What the hell, kid? You got a death wish? I did not undo years of work just for you to go and kill yourself this time around.”
There wasn’t enough time for Tenko to take advantage of the fact that one of his hands was free, as he slumped against the man’s knee and continued to wheeze. All too soon his wrist was back in the man’s grasp, and, to Tenko’s horror, the man’s fingers were long enough to wrap all the way around both of Tenko’s wrists and touch on the other side.
“You’re so much worse off than I thought you’d be.” The man grumbled. The pinky of the hand holding Tenko’s wrists was oddly raised. The man didn’t even seem to notice he was doing it, like it was a subconscious habit rather than a conscious decision. “Kurogiri made taking care of a kid seem so easy, and you should’ve been less defiant.”
Tenko took a few more terribly paced breaths, all of them too short and too quick to do anything but make him dizzy. The entire time, his wide eyes stayed fixated on that single raised finger.
His memory was full of dark spots; worryingly large ones that oozed through his mind like spilt ink on cloth, but Tenko knew he had only had his quirk for a short while. Just long enough to learn the hard way, through disintegrated shoes and sharp-edged holes in his now beyond hope socks, one of the ways people with five-point touch quirks coped.
“You, your pinky?” Tenko gasped.
He wasn’t quite sure exactly what he was asking, and from the way the man tilted his head, he didn’t have a clue where to begin interpreting Tenko’s desperate tone either. Dark eyes narrowed in a tired-looking squint at Tenko, and then… their focus slowly slid sideways, when the man noticed his own lifted finger out of the corner of his eye.
“Oh, an old habit.” The man muttered.
The finger lowered, joining the others around Tenko’s wrist. All five fingers were touching Tenko’s skin now, and the boy watched anxiously, thinking of cracked bones and torn skin.
But… Nothing happened.
“What, are you disappointed?” The man asked when he saw Tenko’s expression drop, “I gained control of my quirk a long time ago. It’s why I said I could help you with yours.”
Gone just a moment ago, hope sparked in Tenko’s chest again. It leaked out into his blood and warmed his veins, coursing more strongly through his body with each pump of his heart. “You really mean it?” Tenko asked hesitantly.
For a long, silent moment, the man regarded Tenko with the same tired, apathetic squint he’d directed the boy’s way before, “Do you promise to be a good student, and listen to everything I say?”
Not even thinking about it, Tenko nodded eagerly.
“Damn, I know I said you should’ve been less defiant, but don’t be so quick to jump into things. Alright then, yes, I mean it.”
With a grunt, the man kneeled forwards and got up off of the ground. He guided Tenko up with him by Tenko’s skinny, trembling arms, but the grip was less of a restraint now and more a severely needed support. Tenko’s legs felt weak, just as brittle and baby bird-like as he had expected, and they wobbled as he shifted his weight onto them.
But for the first time in hours, Tenko was standing.
The man was watching him oddly, in a sort of hovering, vigilant way that Tenko wasn’t used to. Tenko puffed out his chest and tried to take a step forward on his own, to prove himself.
His legs immediately folded beneath him with a quiet pop of his knees, like a badly stacked house of cards. Without missing a beat a scarred arm calmly scooped him up before he could hit the ground, almost as if the man had known that Tenko would fall.
“Alright, screw that. I’m not going to let you drag your dead legs around like a hurt NPC and slow us down,” The man grumbled, “Looks like we gotta go with Plan B.” All that Tenko received as a warning were two hands under his armpits and a swooping feeling in his stomach as his feet left the ground, before he blinked and found himself held securely in the man’s arms. His own arms moved on instinct to wrap around the man’s neck, a bit awkwardly, with how his fingers were held up and carefully extended.
With wide eyes, Tenko peered over the edge of his arm to see how his dirty bare feet hung high above the grime of the alley road. Being held so high up was… nice. Tenko couldn’t remember if anyone had ever held him like this before, but he liked it now.
“Don’t get sappy on me you little shitstain.” The man huffed, as if he could read Tenko’s thoughts. “I’m not a good person, and being with me isn’t going to be fun. But you’ll be safe.”
“That’s all that matters.” Tenko whispered, as he buried his face into the hollow of his arms, fighting the urge to rest his head on the man’s shoulder. He had a feeling it wouldn’t be welcome.
“First lesson, don’t say dumbass bullshit like that. That’s what creepy old men will take advantage of.” The man instructed with a roll of his eyes.
“How does that help with my quirk?” Tenko muttered to himself, frowning.
“I thought you’d promised to listen to me? You’re not already going back on your word now, are you?”
Tenko shut his mouth so quickly his teeth clicked together. The man only snickered.
Stepping onto the open sidewalk, the bright light of the day was finally able to beat down on their heads, and Tenko cringed away from it as much as he could. The sun was too much for him right now; he still felt as if he belonged in the shadows.
“What’s your name?” Tenko asked, trying to distract himself, the question muffled by his shirt sleeve. He almost wished he had a wing quirk; his shoulders were hunched all the way up to his ears, and with wings attached they would have provided some actual shade and protection.
The man responded with a hum that vibrated through his chest, and Tenko felt it echo deep in his own bones like he felt the man’s steady footsteps as he walked, “How ‘bout you tell me yours first.”
“... Tenko Shimura.” Tenko forced out. His name rattled uncomfortably around inside his mouth, like a stone in a tin can.
Another low, thoughtful hum, “Sounds like you don’t like it.”
Tenko shrugged, swallowing down the sick feeling that was trying to crawl up his throat and choke him, “It feels bad. Like I’m not him anymore.”
A few steps were taken in silence, and then the man offered, “You can take my name. I won’t be using it for much anymore.”
Tenko’s head popped up out of his arms, eyes bright, “You’d give me your…? What is it?”
“Shigaraki. You could be Tenko Shigaraki. Or we could even give you a new first name too if you wanna go that far.”
Tenko Shigaraki… Half of his old name and half a new name. Tenko rolled the sounds around in his mind a few times, contemplating. It wasn’t too bad, and although his first name remained, it didn’t fill him with guilt the way having the name Shimura did. Shigaraki was the name of the only person who had seen him. The only person who had stopped to help. Tenko wouldn’t mind being Shigaraki. “I think… Tenko Shigaraki is nice.”
The man snorted, and hefted Tenko a little higher in his arms, “Nice. Sure kid. As long as one of us likes it I guess.”
But now they’d gone in a circle, “Then what do I call you?” Tenko asked again.
Another one of his crooked, uncanny smiles crawled across the man’s face. Already, Tenko found he wasn’t as terrified of the sight as he was the first time, but a shiver still travelled down his spine regardless. This smile felt different; it was quieter, not quite so manic, scarred lips curved high like he was caught beginning to laugh at an inside joke. There was a secret hidden behind the rows of white teeth.
“Sensei.” The man answered, sounding far too satisfied with himself, as he carried Tenko far, far away from the dark alley where he had found him, “You can call me your Sensei.”