Chapter Text
After that irritating battle with the Meta Liberation Army and at long last getting Gigantomachia to bend the knee and acknowledge him as Sensei’s successor, Shigaraki finally gets the chance to think. He carefully sifts through the pieces of his recovered memories and tries to hold them close.
His family’s hands weigh him down, but the warmth of those simpler days (he shoves the memories of his father aside) suffuses him.
There is something that bothers him a bit though, building as he replays the memories again and again as the hours of the night tick by. Hana seems—oddly familiar.
Obviously, she’s familiar. She’s his beloved older sister who believed in him (up until and maybe still when she had shoved all the blame onto him, and he had killed her), but it’s like—like he’s seen her somewhere more recently.
That’s dumb though, it’s not like he has a quirk that lets him see ghosts.
It’s not until he’s reviewing the U.A. training exercise footage their mole got them that he realizes it.
The Yaoyorozu heiress, with her long, dark hair, her elegant eyes, and her confident smile, she looks just like—
But she can’t be Hana.
His memories are patchy, and he knows he’s still missing some, but her hands hang on his wrists, the Yaoyorozu girl lacks the mole he remembers on Hana’s cheek, and he knows that Hana was definitely older than him, so if she were somehow still alive, she should be in her twenties, not a teenager still running around in high school.
Besides, Sensei had said that he’d wiped out his entire family on his own, and even if he can’t quite remember it—well, he doesn’t want to, and anyway, Sensei would never lie to him.
Maybe she’s—a relative of some kind?
(A distant one he didn’t manage to disintegrate with his own hands?)
It itches at his mind until he finally instructs their mole to relay over any information she has on Yaoyorozu Momo. When that information seems to be slow-coming (he really needs to check in and make sure their mole still knows where her loyalties lie), he also pays Giran for any information he has on the Yaoyorozu family.
“The Yaoyorozus? You’re not planning something with them, are you?” Giran asks, stubbing his cigarette out and giving Shigaraki a dubious look. “It’d be splashy since the Yaoyorozus are very high-profile, but their security is no joke. They have enough money to host a small army and the kinds of quirks to produce any weaponry they need on demand.”
“Do I pay you to question me?” Shigaraki demands.
(Fine, Giran may have proved to actually have a rare sense of loyalty, and they may have rescued him from the clutches of the Meta Liberation Army, but like hell is he revealing any personal information to an information broker.
Even if he doesn’t sell the information, who knows who in the League he’d tell.)
Giran holds up his hands, “Okay, okay, I’ll go take a look and see what I can find you. Anything specific I should be looking for?”
“Just—check who they’re related to and stuff,” Shigaraki says before striding away.
In the meantime, he corrals the rest of the League for any information they have under the excuse of going over the U.A. students again to see if they have any other possible recruits.
“I don’t want any more teenagers. Besides, I already recruited someone,” Dabi says, crossing his arms and leaning back in his chair.
“I would definitely like more teenagers!” Toga cheers, holding her hand up., “More friends would be great! Especially if they’re all bloody! Can we get Izuku-kun and Ochako-chan?”
“Realistic options only please,” Shigaraki says, rolling his eyes (what did he expect from Toga anyway).
“What about that kid who got hit with a quirk nullification bullet?” Spinner asks., “He might have some issues about that.”
(That’s—actually not a bad thought, they should investigate that kid some more.)
“I kind of liked that Todoroki kid,” Mr. Compress pipes up, carefully adjusting his coat in his seat. “We could use another long-range fighter, and he’s really powerful.”
“Didn’t he just say realistic options only? You think the heir to Endeavor would join us?” Dabi asks sharply, leaning forward. “He’d have to have gone crazy. We have enough Nomu to take care of the long-range part.”
“Not if you keep getting them killed~~” Toga sings out. “Ujiko’s going to get maaaaad at you one day if you keep wasting them.”
“It wasn’t a waste, we learned a lot,” Dabi says tightly, settling into his chair again.
“Dabi’s right! No, we learned nothing!” Twice says while both nodding and frowning at him.
(This is the first time Shigaraki has actually seen Dabi really participate in a group discussion.
His grudge against Endeavor is obvious, and it’s even helpful to their cause, but—
Wouldn’t managing to recruit Endeavor’s carefully trained successor be the perfect blow against the pro-hero?
Still, they’re drifting wildly away from the topic he called them here for in the first place.)
“What about Yaoyorozu Momo?” he asks.
He gets a bunch of blank stares from everyone.
“Who?” Spinner asks.
Toga snaps her fingers, “Ohhhhhhh the pretty tall girl with the super cute clothes who made that GPS tracker, right? Do you like her?”
“What? No, not everyone is like you,” Shigaraki says with a shudder (gross, she could be related to him! And she’s sixteen. ), “I just think—with the amount of resources she has at her disposal, she could be very useful.”
“Yeah, but with that many resources, why would she join us?” Spinner asks.
“It’d have to be a very special reason for her to give up her nice luxurious life,” Mr. Compress sighs.
“She could be rebelling against her parents!” Twice says, clenching his fist against his chest before slumping over with an added, “It doesn’t seem likely…”
“If you’re not being realistic either, I’m leaving,” Dabi says, standing up.
So that meeting was entirely useless, and Giran is still taking his sweet time with the information. Therefore, Shigaraki has to content himself with practicing with his prosthetic, figuring out the new limits of his quirk, paging through a report from their mole that’s so bland it could have been put together with a simple google search (that girl has gone entirely too native), talking to Ujiko about the next phase in Nomus and destroying everything, reigning in the League, budgeting out food expenses, and crushing Spinner at video games.
It’s actually—if it weren’t for this itching sensation that something isn’t quite right with how similar to his sister that girl looks and how even Hana’s hands cannot bring him the peace he seeks, he would say that things seem to be going pretty smoothly for the League.
Giran eventually contacts him to say that he’s finished his investigation and comes in to lay out the details on the Yaoyorozus.
The company information he more or less knew (flagship Japanese company, expanding overseas, more money than god, etc, etc), but the personal information he did not.
“We’ll start with Yaoyorozu Reira, since she is the current head of the family and the company,” Giran says. He sets a photo of a smiling tall woman with dark brown hair wearing a smart business suit in front of them. “Yaoyorozu Reira, born an heiress and with the quirk to refresh any kind of food as long as she touches it. Champion polo player, has a golf handicap of five, and fairly good tennis player and concert pianist by all accounts. Educated in all the best schools, went abroad and got an English degree at Oxford then followed it up with an MBA from Wharton, whereupon she was crowned CEO of the Yaoyorozu Company and has led it successfully ever since.”
Giran then tosses a photo of a tall, more expressionless dark-haired man onto the bar.
“Yaoyorozu Daiichi, formerly Mori Daiichi before he married her. His quirk is being able to build anything as long as he sees it, and he’s from a family of fairly well-to-do engineers. His golf handicap is also pretty low, and he studied at Tokyo University. He was working as one of the lead engineers of the Yaoyorozu Company when Yaoyorozu Reira, newly minted as the CEO of her family’s company, was touring the R&D department and met him. It was by all accounts love at first sight, a whirlwind romance followed by a big, flashy wedding, and they appear to have had a very happy marriage, despite their struggles to have a child for a while.”
“Did they adopt?” Shigaraki asks.
(It makes sense, as he’s fairly certain his family wasn’t related to the Yaoyorozus in any way. Wouldn’t his father have made use of those connections at the time?)
Giran nods, “It’s actually a rather heartwarming story. Yaoyorozu Momo—although back then, that wasn’t her name—was recovering in some kind of experimental cryogenics chamber in a hospital wing that the Yaoyorozus had donated. She finally woke up, and the Yaoyorozus came by to see the girl and just loved her. They had been trying to have a kid for years, so they just adopted her there and then. Since then, sounds like they’ve treasured and adored her.”
(It is a heartwarming story.
Why couldn’t something like that have happened for him?
Where were people like that when he had been starving on the streets before Sensei had saved him?)
Shigaraki scratches at his neck to rid himself of these thoughts. “What was she recovering from? What was her name before?”
“Don’t know.” Giran shrugs and takes another drag from his cigarette. “The adoption records were sealed—maybe the Yaoyorozus didn’t want any biological parents suddenly popping up and wringing them for money—it’s going to take a lot of money and work to get them open. You want me to go do it?”
“Don’t bother,” Shigaraki says standing up, thinking of a better, and more importantly, faster idea (the sooner he has answers, the better—he can’t stop speculating about it at night). “We have an inside agent in the government now, we should use him.”
(It’s time for Dabi’s recruit to finally earn his keep.)
“You want Hawks to get a bunch of sealed adoption records?” Dabi asks dubiously, staring at Shigaraki. “Why?”
“It’s a test. By how fast and in how much detail he manages to get the records to us, we’ll know what kind of access he has. And if he leaks this information back to his handlers, doesn’t really harm us,” Shigaraki says confidently.
(It wouldn’t really be a bad test if he wasn’t already convinced that the #2 pro-hero can’t be trusted.
Still, given Hawks’ reputation, it gets him the information he needs, and then they can really figure out how to best utilize this supposed turncoat of theirs.
Plus even if Hawks, or anyone else, looks at the records, they’re not going to be able to find any connections to him.
Shimura Tenko doesn’t exist anymore.)
“If you say so,” Dabi says, not looking the least bit convinced. “But why adoption records?”
“They’re confidential enough to require higher-level access, and we can potentially use them for blackmail purposes or to find new members,” Shigaraki bluffs (although it’s not a bad idea to use them for that too). “There’s also nothing in there your pro-hero recruit could use against us.”
Dabi shrugs. “Right. Doesn’t seem really all that useful, but I’ll let him know.”
(He’s got to keep a closer eye on Dabi; that guy has always had his own agenda.)
Meanwhile, there’s still a lot of planning to be done regarding the League’s next steps. They’ve taken over the Meta Liberation Army’s resources, so things are a bit easier in terms of headquarters and clothing now (food is still an issue just because no one in the League wants to eat the same things. Toga wants pastries, Mr. Compress wants sushi, Spinner wants ramen, Twice wants beer, Shigaraki just wants something fresh, he thinks Dabi is forcing Hawks to buy him food, and thank god they don’t have to feed Gigantomachia, or else even the Meta Liberation Army’s resources would run out in like a day), but they still have to make their next move in the public eye.
All Might is no longer a threat, so maybe another attack on U.A.?
But what if Yaoyorozu Momo really is a relative of his and gets caught in the crossfires again—
He can’t make exceptions for someone who is just maybe a relative and someone else his grandmother managed to abandon.
(Still—actual family that is still alive, doesn’t that count for something?
Even if they never came looking for him.
Maybe they didn’t want a monster.)
Hawks lives up to his speedy reputation and delivers all the files to Dabi within a week. Dabi hands him the flash drive (sealed or not, Hawks probably has a copy, and Dabi has already either seen or will see it, but he can’t worry about that right now) with a frown.
“Ujiko canceled his meeting with you to talk to me, don’t interrupt,” Dabi says, striding off.
“Like I would want to,” Shigaraki grumbles before hurrying to his room, locking the door, and plugging the flash drive into his computer.
He had asked Hawks to get the entire section of sealed off adoption records for people with last names Y-Z, and he can go through the rest later, but of course, there’s only one record he really cares about at the moment.
He searches for Yaoyorozu Momo and gets a hit.
Yaoyorozu Momo
Adoptive Parent(s): Yaoyorozu Reira and Yaoyorozu Daiichi
Former Name : Shimura Hana
(That—
No, that can’t be right.
Hana is dead.
He killed her.
He has her hands on his wrists.
There must be some mistake some clerical error or the same name—Hana is a common girl’s name—her age still isn’t right—could the file have been tampered with—but no, all the hash values and MAC dates look right—)
He frantically reads on.
Reason for Sealed Records: Shimura Hana is the only known survivor of an attack on her family, possibly by villains. In the interest of her safety, although her age has already been preserved by the experimental cryogenics treatment she received, her name has been changed, and her records will henceforth be sealed until the perpetrators of the attack are identified and apprehended.
Medical History: Shimura Hana was heavily injured in an attack by an unknown quirk. Her face was scarred, and many of her internal organs had become necrotic and were no longer viable. She received skin grafts for her face, and an experimental cryogenics treatment was used for six years while new internal organs were cloned and transplanted into her.
(Then—
It’s her?
She’s alive?
De-aged and now somehow his younger sister, but alive?
But Sensei said they were all dead—
Did Sensei somehow get it wrong?
Did he not notice that she was still alive?
But that can’t be right, Sensei notices everything and gave him her hands—
Whose hands are these if she’s alive?
She’s alive, and she’s in the class that he had attacked? And is currently planning on possibly attacking again?
What is—what the fuck is he supposed to do with that ?)
He just keeps scrolling through the file for the whole night, back and forth, page by page, line by line, word by word, scratching at his neck until there is blood under his nails, and when he’s sure there’s no detail he’s missed, no mistake that could have been made, he goes over all the information he has on Yaoyorozu Momo from their mole and just general public knowledge.
(Alive, alive, alive.
Alive and on the path to becoming a hero, just like the two of them had dreamed of.
Alive, but so young now, with so many potential dangers in her way.
Not least of which are his own plans—
Okay, that at least is something he can control. He can scrap those plans and focus on other targets. After all, it’s not like there’s much left to take from All Might. He’s already been reduced to a husk of his former self, and he’s sure that stings. And his successor is just some snot-nosed teenage brat—who’s his sister’s classmate. Possibly friend too, weren’t they all at that mall together?
There’s a lot of other high profile pro-heroes he could hit—or Shiketsu is pretty renowned too.
But even without him, it’s a dangerous path she’s walking.
Maybe he could get a Nomu to specifically watch over her—
But can he trust Ujiko right now? Both he and Sensei had given him her hands—maybe Ujiko had kept it from Sensei that someone had survived, that would be like Ujiko.
But that ruse couldn’t have continued without Sensei eventually knowing about it and approving—
Still, maybe Sensei didn’t care about such a small matter when he had so many more important issues to consider. )
He wants—he desperately wants to ask Sensei questions, to get some advice, but that can no longer happen.
Hell, he’d even settle for Kurogiri right now, but he’s also gone.
And even if it could—he can’t help but wonder if either of them would tell him the whole story.
(After all, Sensei had let him lock away his memories of everything for so long.
Obviously it was for his own good, and this probably was too, but—
Now that he knows, he can’t stop wondering.)
Either way, Nomus are out. They were probably a bad idea anyway—knowing Ujiko, he’d make something disgusting that would make Hana (Momo?) sick. That leaves either the other League members or himself, and he would literally rather let Toga suck out all his blood or Dabi set him on fire than talk about this to them right now.
He’ll have to keep himself hidden though. She—even if she thinks he’s dead, he must be the monster of her nightmares. And—he’s only become worse since then, so it’s better that she doesn’t see what her brother has become.
So—what are things that would make her safer.
Probably a better internship, Uwabami is better known for her modeling skills than her combat ability.
Fat Gum could be an option, given Hana’s quirk, and Hawks could be useful to make that happen—although somehow manipulating Eraserhead to take on an intern would be even better.
And of course, there’s that disgusting little purple pimple of a pervert that even their mole has complained about before.
The sooner he’s sorted out the better.