Work Text:
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*Tip: The campsite is a good place to increase Bond with Companions
[Handwritten draft found in Iguchi Shuuichi’s hospital room. Published now unedited and unabridged.]
“You know what this reminds me of?” I said, startling a sleep-deprived Shigaraki on the rock beside me. Gigantomachia only just went down for a nap, and we’d been cooling down together after the fight.
Usually, I felt only a little more useful than Dabi during these fights, unable to land any meaningful hit against the huge man. My sword slicing through his skin was equivalent to a paper cut. Maybe.
Shigaraki squinted at the vast expanse of the mountain landscape sprawling the horizon. “What?”
“You know the campsite in Dragon Age?” I asked, taking a leap that he’d played the game.
That got a small huff of laughter from Shigaraki. “In Origins?”
Success. I nodded. “Yeah. You played that one?”
“To death .”
He smiled at that. Okay, another game in common. It was getting fun, prodding my sort-of-boss to find out what all games we both played.
His reactions could be better, though. When Shigaraki was more awake, his whole face would explode in surprise and excitement all at once. Nowadays, he might smile ever so slightly, chuckle a little. I tried to perk him up, at least.
“This is like that. You’re having regular chats with the party members to increase your friendship levels, right?”
“Chatting now, aren’t we?”
“Guess so,” I agreed.
“This increasing friendship levels?”
I shrugged, but still smiled warmly. The sun felt nice on the rock, even though I couldn’t help but compare myself to a gecko sunbathing in the forest. Whatever. It’s human nature, too, to lay out in the sun.
Saying “yes” directly felt a little on the nose, almost forward. Instead, I replied, “I dunno, I think raiding empty houses did a pretty decent job at that.”
He tittered airily, tired after all the fighting. “Remind me,” Shigaraki started before interrupting himself with a yawn. He stretched out across the rocks like a lumpy bedspread, then continued, “Was there an option to just… sleep… in that game?”
I shrugged. “Mostly, I remember sleeping with companions.” It was a joke, yeah, but my stomach lurched.
Shigaraki chuckled again, quietness betraying his exhaustion. “Machia will be up again soon,” he muttered.
“Yeah.” I shifted on my rock. They didn’t make for very good beds, nothing but lichen for comfort. I glanced at Shigaraki, who was twisting to fit across a couple of semi-flat boulders. “Did you wanna move to the tents?”
Shigaraki hummed. For a long moment, I honestly thought he was just going to commit to sleeping on the boulders. It wouldn’t be the first time. Then, his legs slid limply off the side and he swung into a slouched but standing position.
“I’ll fight better if I’ve rested better,” Shigaraki said.
I agreed, so together we headed back to camp.
The woods are thin this far up the mountain, but that didn’t make traveling any easier. Shigaraki called it “difficult terrain,” once. We trundled over rocks of all sizes, passed through gnarled pine trees, and soon ducked past branches into our humble campsite. That day, the tents were arranged between the trees in no discernible pattern, just wedged wherever they could fit.
I walked Shigaraki to his tent, stiff-limbed despite how familiar we’d grown with each other. Still, I walked at his side. I felt like a bodyguard some days, a steadfast shield on my commander’s right. Before Gigantomachia attacked, I hadn’t felt this protectiveness nor loyalty. We were a team, sure, but we hardly acted it. The League of Villains had been at once disjointed while at other times gears that fit and flowed with ease. We were disjointed when we attacked that UA summer camp, disjointed when All Might and All for One fought, disjointed when Overhaul killed Magne, and disjointed trying to scrounge together some cash while living out of abandoned buildings. But then some WD-40 hit our gears and we moved as a unit to get their revenge. Toga and Twice dwelt within the Shie Hasaikai’s ranks before we executed our very own Grand Theft Auto. The idea clicked for me then: we really did work as a team.
It also clicked that we lacked direction. Despite our team growing together and growing stronger, I still felt disconnected.
These days, though, I was starting to come around. Sure, the living situation was worse than ever. We… lived? “Lived” struck me as a generous word for the day-to-day survival situation we endured, but sure. We lived in tents in the mountains, fighting daily against a man mountain that slept only a few hours a day.
We came to a stop outside Shigaraki’s tent. I stood there, unsure how to walk away. I was usually stilted at this part of our interactions, not knowing how to disengage from hanging out. It was definitely a symptom of not having a social life before the League, my only experience with small talk coming from otome games.
Meanwhile, I barely registered as Shigaraki yawned, stretched, and hung his head. “Hey,” Shigaraki said, pulling me back from my wound-up thoughts. “Sorry I haven’t had time to give you much of a reply, yet. Regarding your concerns and everything.”
I flexed my hands. Shigaraki’s bright red eyes were on me, intense and unbreaking despite his exhaustion. “I’m surprised you didn’t dust me for that.”
He smiled, small, and his eyes roamed the empty space behind me.
I offered, “Don’t worry about getting your thoughts together right now, you need to focus on Machia.”
Shigaraki’s gaze slid back to me, languid now. His expression sagged from the corners of his eyes to the lax muscles in his jaw. “Yeah, you’re right.”
He lifted up the flap of his tent and less crawled , more flopped onto the tent floor.
“Have a good nap, dude,” I said with a wave. Why did I wave? It wasn’t necessary. Who waves for something like that? Well—Toga would. Dabi… probably wouldn’t. Neither felt like a benchmark for how most people interacted.
I turned, facing my tent with a prick of embarrassment and a bubbling in my stomach that felt a lot like romancing Morrigan when I was in middle school. I couldn’t help it. Watching Shigaraki fight Machia day after day, dashing back and forth and exposing his lithe muscles—I was a little fucked up over it. Over him.
So, of course, when Shigaraki spoke up behind me, “Hey, Spinner, which companion did you take back to your tent?”
His voice lilted playfully, a tone I sometimes heard when he was chirping at some guy in PvP (Player vs. Player, since I guess some of you might be middle-aged dads and not fellow gamers.). I guess he was trying to tease me, but my whole body froze for a second. I glanced over my shoulder and answered—Morrigan. “She was snarky and wild, and her situation with her mother was crazy as hell. Made for a fun first romance plot.”
He was poking out of his tent, a tired smile on his face as he lay there.
I asked, “What about you?”
“Oh, me? I accidentally romanced Liliana. I was just trying to be nice, but I was a kid and didn’t really understand what I was saying to her.” He snickered.
I joked back, “You still went ahead and romanced her, though.”
“Yeah, well, I liked her weird devotion to the church and her badass swords.” The scars on his face tugged when he laughed.
We both broke into subdued snickers for another minute, caught up in our shared experience of the game. It’s a strange connection, to play the same game as someone else. Instantly you know that you enjoy similar experiences, even if you might be getting different things out of them. It’s a good talking point, too, the kind of small talk I can’t grasp with other people. I never knew what to chat with Mr. Compress about—the weather? Our body count?—but I always knew that Shigaraki and I would bond over games. It started with an offhand comment I made about Jinx in League of Legends, and next thing I knew it became our thing. We brought up games and saw if the other person knew the reference. It made conversation between us all too easy.
Between tired laughter, Shigaraki said, “So—you think I’m trying to build up to inviting someone into my tent?”
I choked. Despite cracking up, I tried to defend with, “No dude! No, I wasn’t thinking that!”
I could feel my whole face, neck, and chest burning with flush and prayed my scales hid it.
They didn’t.
“Holy shit, all of you is pink,” Shigaraki said breathlessly. It only made him laugh harder, which only worsened my embarrassment. Pink from my eyes to my scales, great . Plus, outside in the sun like all the time, even my hair was turning from purple to a pinkish hue. “It’s not bad,” he tacked on, trying to be reassuring.
I guess it worked. It felt nice, to have even the most minor compliment—not even a compliment, but a not-insult—directed at me. I’d love to say I wasn’t known for my looks back home, but unfortunately, I was.
I shook my head. I knew how I looked, he didn’t need to be nice. Instead, I just tapped the center pole of his tent. “Get some rest,” I said, this time with finality.
“You too,” he returned. It didn’t sound like a stock phrase, but like Shigaraki really meant it. My leader wanted me to get rest as well.
I was feeling better about following Shigaraki post-argument, mid-bonding over gaming, but I wasn’t totally sold on him. Not yet. So it struck me like it was new: Shigaraki really cares about all of us. I’d felt it before, when Magne died and Mr. Compress lost his arm and then Twice was left blaming himself, begging to prove himself. I’d seen his face before, sure, but it was significant when he removed the hand from his face when he acknowledged Twice.
I figured it was a matter of time before he’d acknowledge my issues with our whole operation.
He didn’t, though. Not in words, at least. But I saw. I understood. It clicked, I suppose. When I gazed out over that horizon of endless destruction, it was beautiful. Shigaraki didn’t need to explain; he stood alone and the beauty spoke for him.
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*Tip: The Villa is your new party base. It is a good place to increase Bond with Companions.
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*Tip: When Bond level is high enough, you can unlock new Status with Companions
After a week of healing, resting, and negotiating, we finally announced the formation of The Paranormal Liberation Front and all that came with it to hundreds of cheering supporters. Toga had narrowly avoided scars but I wasn’t so lucky. A knife had gone clean through my forearm, and that wasn’t going to heal all pretty. Worse than a scar, though, were Shigaraki’s missing fingers. His foot would heal, but his missing digits would not.
Therefore, broken-footed and stuck with a fucked up hand, Shigaraki struggled with getting around the new base. We had control of Redestro’s villa, which objectively rocked, but all those hallways and floors were difficult for him to navigate. A crutch is hard to use when your hand is also injured. So while he could get around a living room, the entire building was much more of a challenge. So, I offered to help him around.
“Thanks for going around with me,” Shigaraki said.
I shrugged. I wasn’t even doing anything this time, just sticking by his side while he took his time walking with the crutch.
“You think you’ll trip with that crutch and fall down a flight of stairs?” I asked, deadpan.
Shigaraki huffed a laugh. His voice sounded much more full, whether from getting more rest or from whatever revelation he experienced, though, I couldn’t be sure. “Nah, you’d catch me.”
“Pretty trusting,” I said.
“Yeah,” he confirmed as we reached the landing that all our bedrooms were on, “Well, we’ve achieved that level, I believe. I mean, after everything in Deika… thanks, for sticking by me through all the chaos.”
“I lost you, toward the end.”
He shook his head. “Close enough. It was pretty crazy out there.”
I paused there in the hallway. “Actually… I wanted to tell you. After you fought Redestro, I was watching and… when I saw you in that crater with nothing around but destruction…”
Shigaraki stopped and looked back at me, his expression tight and pensive. He was waiting for whatever I had to say. That was fine by me; I didn’t like to hold back my thoughts. By now, he knew me well enough to understand that.
I continued, “It was beautiful. So, you don’t need to explain to me your plans or motivations, because I get it. I got it. That endless horizon… I want to see you accomplish that.”
He smiled, then. His posture shifted as he leaned more on his crutch, belying his weakened state. I stepped forward to help, but he held a hand up to stop me. Then, Shigaraki told me, “I’ll make it happen, Spinner.”
He shifted again, but this time, he let me take his hand and shoulder so that he could regain his balance. We both chuckled as he adjusted the crutch under his arm and took more of his weight off his broken foot. “The Symbol of Fear: Shigaraki Tomura,” I teased. He jabbed me in the side, and we both busted up laughing more.
“You know,” he started, “You’re not by my side to just be a glorified crutch.”
“Could have fooled me,” I said as he slowly started walking the hall again.
His smile stretched the scar on his lip. Like this, his face showed its roundness. He was still so young. We both were.
“Dude, you’re bulked up, and most people are taken aback a bit by how you look. Which isn’t a bad thing, but you are kind of…” he hummed, thinking of his next words. “You’re my scary dog privilege while I’m injured.”
I balked. “Shigaraki. You turn people into dust with your hands. No—with your feet , now. I am not your scary dog privilege. You are your scary dog privilege.”
He laughed again, and this time it sounded almost like a giggle . “I wish you knew how intense you looked sometimes. Besides, I’m not intimidating on my own with my foot in a cast like this. Any one of these Destro goons could get wise and try to pick a fight. So yeah, I’m glad I’ve got you by my—”
Down the hall, a thunderous rumble of footsteps came down the staircase that led to the rooftop deck. We both stopped to watch the stairs, waiting to see who would come barreling down. Of all people, Dabi popped into view, his long coat swirling around his calves as he hit the landing. Then, Hawks fell into view and right into Dabi’s back.
I tried to jerk toward them before Shigaraki grabbed the back of my shirt, effectively stopping me.
“I think they’re fine,” he muttered behind me. I glanced at him before looking back at Dabi and Hawks. Dabi was already kicking open the door to his room, not-so-subtling glaring at myself and Shigaraki. His burning blue eyes seemed to say you better disappear right now . Nowadays, I look back on these glares from Dabi and understand the older brother side of him was jumping out. At the time, he just looked scary as hell. Dabi usually could muster up a scowl that made you think he was strongly considering killing you, but I think most oldest siblings have that ability.
Hawks waved at us. Seeing one of the most famous heroes in Japan wave at you like you’re classmates at school is surreal as it is, and that’s not factoring in the part where we’re notorious villains. He yelled down the hall, his voice a little too loud for the space, “The roof is great! You should see the view!”
I nodded. “Sure, I’ll have to check it out,” I returned. I’d already seen it, but I was a little stunned by the guy.
By then, Dabi was leaning against the frame of his open bedroom door, foot tapping away as he waited on Hawks. “You do that,” he drawled, grabbing Hawks by his thick coat and dragging him into the door while tacking on, “Night, boss.”
Hawks waved again, a cheeky grin across his face. Then, the door snapped closed.
Shigaraki chuckled lowly. I turned over my shoulder, also unable to fight down my smile. “You know in Dragon Age, how if you don’t romance a couple of the characters, they start to have a relationship with each other instead?”
He snorted. “Are you saying Dabi was a romanceable companion?”
We snickered together as I led him past Dabi’s room to the end of the hall, where Shigaraki stayed. The place felt like a glorified hotel, or maybe dormitory, living all in one hall like this. The villa was about as sparsely decorated as one, too, and the furniture choices as baffling as any four-star hotel. We got to his room, just another plain door in series. He put his hand on the handle, but stopped short of turning it.
“Tomorrow, I’m going to take Ujiko up on his offer.”
I paused. We all knew what Ujiko was capable of. His nomu were proof enough. But for Shigaraki, he promised the quirk All for One. We had discussed the idea in meetings already, as the PLF’s plans would completely hinge upon the timing.
I whistled, long and low. “Four months.”
“Yeah…” He turned around, leaving his hand on the door. His eyes met mine, his brow furrowed and his mouth quirked down in a contemplative frown. His wrist turned and behind him, the door opened. “I don’t know who I might be when I come out the other side of that operation, if I come out of it at all. It’s pretty risky, all for a level up.”
I took a deep breath. Standing in the frame of that doorway, I tried to take a picture of him in my memories. His soft white hair curtaining the gentle curve of his still-young face, the scars on his lip and eye, the way I was just about the same height as him, the brilliant red in his eyes–I committed all of him to memory. Just in case. If he changed. If he didn’t make it out the other side. Forever, I would still remember my friend as he was when he stood before me.
Shigaraki looked like he expected me to say something, but I had no idea what to say. Good luck? Hang in there?
“Didn’t you just tell me you’d destroy everything for me? You’ll get through this. You have to, if you wanna keep that promise.”
He smiled, this time softer than he had all evening, and then Shigaraki said to me, “I might only have one night, Iguchi.”
The use of my name threw me off. I said, “What?”
He took a step into his room, one hand waving me inside. “It’s like in Dragon Age, right? Well, we’ve finally got our Keep for our very own Inquisition. And I’ve got the Inquisitor’s suite. No more campsites and invitations into tents.”
I wasn’t stupid. I knew what he was asking. Still, I whispered as I asked, “Am I that high-leveled of a companion?”
He’d reached a hand out to me, I wasn’t sure when, but I saw that outstretched hand falter.
Scared he might take it back, I took his hand.
Shigaraki smiled. I squeezed his hand, although lightly to heed his bandages. His grin widened to show his teeth and his nervousness all at once. I walked inside with him, knowing that this would be the only night for months. At once, I needed to accept my feelings and to let go of them. Inside, I saw a TV, scattered clothes, and a messy bed. On the nightstand were half-drunk glasses of water, pill bottles, and video game controllers.
I nodded my head in the direction of the controllers, which happened to also be in the direction of the bed.
“Are you inviting me in just to play games?”
When Shigaraki laughed, he doubled over at his stomach, like he couldn’t handle how funny he found things. Or, maybe, like he was too physically spent to hold himself up when he was laughing.
He replied, “Let’s do that after.”
After, I thought, the implication making my throat run dry. But I noticed how his voice shook as he said that, and I realized I wasn’t the only nervous one here. I wasn’t the only one dreading the next few months. But All for One be damned, I was not dreading anything between us that night.
The door closed, a simple click behind me.
Even now, I can still feel how Shigaraki’s hands felt—how they felt on me when we
I remember how he felt under my hands, how it felt to hold him when
I remember him
[Transcript ends.]