#I feel understanding how Izuku acts as a savior to both All Might *and* Tomura is relevant to understanding The Vision at any rate

[super-paper]

Every time I read a MHA thinkpiece that can be summed up as "AFO is an evil All Might and Tomura is an evil Izuku", I'm like.........,

[kacchanisms]

i was asked about my thoughts on izuku and enji so... buckle up. here's about 2.5k words on them, because I LOVE THOSE TWO. they're a highly underrated dynamic! i know the enji-bkg parallels are more evident in the manga, but enji-deku is far more salient as an actual mentor-mentee relationship. (which tends to be the norm for mha.)

so here's a few points of interest for me in regards to them:

1.

one element that's intriguing in their dynamic is how much deku is compared to all might. both shouto and enji's interactions with deku in sports festival concern his resemblance to all might, initially concerning quirk, but more deeply concerning his savior nature. and it's not just a passing element either. it's deku's "resemblance" to AM that helps shouto unlock his fire. deku's drive is what snaps enji into action as well in the first war arc. by the time we reach the last war arc, enji says deku's name in the same idolizing breath as he does all might.

this idolatry is fascinating to me. deku has a couple idols, all might and kacchan, but he's otherwise someone who forges his own way, learning bits and pieces from others. he's less idolizing than you'd expect. enji, on the other hand... he's very idolizing, and for a long time, i don't think he ever understands his own idolatry. he represses those feelings of admiration, refuses to engage or understand them. but he idolizes all might (which he resents, which he can't understand), deku, shouto... even touya, maybe hawks to a degree. he idolizes the younger generation, which i think is such a strange but interesting trait for a man like him to have. he has an absolutely monstrous inferiority complex and mind wired for idealism and that fucks him up, because he will always see himself in deficit. compare to deku, who's a bit scared of measuring up to AM's legacy, but is ultimately unafraid to be himself, his "deku who never gives up!" self. deku speaks and acts from the heart, puts himself into everything, and he has a natural gravitas, a saving grace. (he has his own issues as well, but enji can't see that.) and endeavor, on the other hand, keeps his heart under lock and key because it's a weak and wounded thing. he can't wear it on his sleeve because then everyone would know what a terrible, inferior man he is. so there's a part of enji that just can't help but idolize people like AM or deku or shouto who seemingly wear their pure and strong hearts out in the open, unafraid of who they are. (seemingly. again, the idolizing gaze is also a very biased one.)

2.

legacy is such a heavy theme in MHA. there are two forms of legacy that lay between enji and deku. the first is the dichotomy they're introduced with, which is AM & deku vs endeavor & shouto. this dichotomy never disappears entirely, but it is deconstructed and examined. how much of AM's fatal flaw is in deku? (too much, given how he nearly self-destructs in vigilante arc.) how much of endeavor's fatal flaw is in shouto? (too much until sports festival, the same obsession but turned towards a different target.) then, vice versa! the good traits, the inspiration that AM and endeavor respectively take from their successors, their relationships with their protégés are intended to be understood in parallel. but this is where enji and AM have more in common than deku and shouto. (tomura and touya later complicate these dynamics.)

the second, and more pertinent to enji and deku's dynamic, is "you're next." deku (and kacchan) are the recipient(s) of that ultimatum. but within the story itself, the next number one hero is... endeavor. the entirety of MHA's part II (post-kamino through end of the paranormal liberation war arc) contends with the fall of AM and what symbols come after. deku is not the only one to have a serious conversation with AM about forging a new legacy -- enji has an incredibly important conversation with him, too. both of them are encouraged to build new legacies, to not follow the same isolating path that AM took, to find hero partners who understand and bolster them -- bkg and hawks, respectively. they both develop as people and as heroes. deku begins to learn more about OFA, about the secrets hidden within it, and enji reckons with his past abusive actions, with the slow unveiling of his family drama. deku fights villains outside the scope of OFA, gains new perspectives, which contrasts with enji, who fights several villains that are related entirely to his own family legacy, although he's unaware of it for a while. new vs old.

then, of course, both of them confront legacy at the end of the first war arc. for deku, this is a look into the past, into the conflict between AFO and OFA, into the parasitic/symbiotic relationships that AFO+OFA have with their heirs. for enji, this is a confrontation with his past, with touya, the long lost son, the corrupted heir. new vs old -- because deku doesn't carry the personal responsibility of OFA+AFO's past, he can desperately claw forward to try and reach shigaraki. because enji carries personal responsibility for his family's agony, he is frozen, unable to reach touya. during this confrontation, deku and enji's respective (de facto) hero partners are also implicated in their legacy struggles -- both bkg and hawks face repercussions from their counterparts' enemies.

then, after the first war arc winds down, we get full meetings, stories. deku and endeavor are explicitly paralleled throughout the war arc fallout. volume 31 has deku and all might on the outside cover, endeavor, hawks, and touya on the inside. when the villains make their retreat, AFO says that tomura was bested by one for all AND endeavor. multiple panels visually parallel the two of them. in the aftermath, the todoroki family come together to confront enji in his hospital bed, and most of the todoroki family backstory is unveiled. at the same time, the past OFA users come together to meet deku in OFAspace (while he's hospitalized as well), and most of their motives and relevant backstory is unveiled in the chapters between the end of war arc and throughout vigilante arc. interestingly, enji is also the first pro hero outside AM's circle to put two and two together and realize that deku bears OFA, the quirk shigaraki is hunting.

both deku and enji's mindsets degrade throughout vigilante arc. attempting to shoulder the burdens of OFA alone, deku becomes increasingly self-destructive. enji, on the other hand, recedes into his avoidant tendencies, unable to fully confront his own family's legacy. at the end of vigilante arc, class 1a first confronts endeavor. shouto specifically points out how enji's been avoiding him, how they were supposed to fight touya together. then class 1a moves to confront deku. while deku is in a far more belligerent mindset than enji, class 1a reaches out to him in order to tell him to come home, to not fight alone, to accept their help. these two confrontations run in parallel to say, "let's shoulder this burden together."

3.

there's that infamous panel in the endeavor agency arc. lives rent-free in my head, truly. it's the one where enji notices that deku's quirk hurts him, says to himself that deku is "one of us." a quirk that hurts the user... enji empathizes with deku's flawed quirk. in that panel, he's reminded of touya, who also has a self-destructive quirk. he's also considering himself, since the very reason he started his eugenics project was because of his own quirk's debilitating weaknesses. in deku, he sees the same problem and the same drive to overcome weakness.

the notion of self-sacrifice and a tendency towards self-destruction is etched into these characters. a quirk, after all, reflects the user's personality. even OFA has chosen deku as its most representative user. both deku and enji have particular relationships with the concept of sacrifice. in life, they are both the type to sacrifice their personal life for heroics. in death (a limit that enji has approached), if they consider self-sacrifice a necessity for the good of everyone, for their own heroic sensibilities, they'll do it. everything in the name of heroism -- that's a tendency that's built into both of their characters. it's also society's attitude towards the profession itself, the fact that the most ideal hero is one that shirks all personal connections to become a symbol.

there's another parallel to be noted here as well. when bkg confronts enji alongside class 1a, he tells him what a terrible idea it is to let AM and deku operate together. both of them have the same character flaw and the ability to enable each other towards a self-destructive conclusion. something in bkg's words resonates with enji. perhaps because he too has a counterpart of the same kind, with the same flaws, with the same ability to self-destruct together -- touya.

deku and touya are very disparate characters, but enji draws a connection between them. i'd even say enji's grief over touya informs his behavior towards deku. going back to that issue of idolization, enji places deku on a pedestal in his mind. he tends to see deku as a symbol, a problematic viewpoint that he used for his own children before and hasn't entirely grown out of. to enji, deku is a treasured pupil, above bkg, closer to shouto's level. the feeling isn't necessarily mutual. deku doesn't idolize or have a complex concerning endeavor (like touya does), but he does see the humanity in the man. that's probably a far healthier mindset to have, between the two of them.

4.

this may simply be a reiteration of what i said before, but deku and enji are far more similar than either of them receive credit for.

just look at their hero names. as i said, both of them have a need to overcome/reclaim their weakness. a striver mentality. they both chose names that they wanted to live up to, a creed to stand by. deku means "to do your best", endeavor means "hard work". to "never give up" vs to "never stop cursing your own weakness" -- the underlying meaning of their hero names are nearly identical. they're both incredibly persistent people who don't consider themselves naturally heroic.

both of them also have a tendency to repress, to shut out or avoid emotions. enji has likely suffered from this since he was young, and it became a full-fledged inferiority complex when his father died. izuku has also had some form of repression since he was young, of never considering his own needs, and at UA, this repression crystallized into a savior complex. these complexes emerged as both of them selected and began to embody their hero names. these names became masks. even considering other heroes and villains relevant to deku and endeavor's plotlines, few others utilize second names/masks the same way these two do. hawks and shigaraki weren't given any choice to have their original name replaced by their hero/villain name; both bkg and shouto chose to live authentically, to just be themselves. for touya, dabi was an interim identity. the closest parallel in terms of hero names is all might himself. AM, deku, endeavor... they have a tendency to let their own legacies consume them, to suppress their feelings and wear their names as aspirations, symbols, masks.

like AM, deku puts on a nicer mask, says "i'm fine" and attempts to smile, while endeavor puts on a cold one, a bad attitude, a scowl. (enji, of course, is a lot more temperamentally similar to bkg. they both share inferiority complexes.) even though deku's mask is superficially better, he ends up in a self-destructive, unhappy spiral all the same, lashing out, telling his friends that they "can't keep up with him". deku takes after AM's isolation and follows bkg's old habits in this situation, yet deku's loneliness during the vigilante arc isn't dissimilar to enji's loneliness. both of them, in their worst mentalities, reject intimate emotional connection with others. when they are burdened by their feelings, they resort to avoidance and intensity, even (emotional/physical) violence. where that violence is then directed is then a matter of the individual. is it inwards, outwards, or both? towards villains, classmates, family members, or yourself? enji hurt those closest to him for years, while deku thankfully directed most of his anguish towards villains. both of them do turn their violence inwards, though, towards themselves -- enji, in his self-loathing, and deku, in his self-neglect.

(bkg is also relevant to this analysis, but unlike both enji and deku, bkg's repression is exhibited very differently towards the final arc.)

5.

while they have improved significantly from their worst moments, deku and enji entered the final arc of MHA with this repression problem still hanging over them. it made them both mentally weak, easier to manipulate. in enji and deku's first confrontations with AFO/shigAFO, their complicated emotions about touya/bkg's "deaths" made them freeze initially. their defenses lowered, they began to exhibit uncontrolled, berserk behavior. deku calmed down before shigAFO managed to exploit his weakness, however, enji received several wounds for that same weakness.

then, in order to achieve their current goals (defeating AFO/finding tomura within shigAFO), both of them swallowed down their emotions. they suppressed themselves once again to perform their job. while both of them fought excellently after this point, their negative habits remained. they battled intensely, with raging hearts, with a self-destructive edge. in their respective battlefields, they delivered final attacks that echo what happened to touya and bkg -- in endeavor's case, he burns AFO to a husk, and in deku's case, he punches a hole through shigAFO's chest. these wounds force both villains to enter their next stage. AFO begins to rewind, tomura rids himself of AFO's control. at this point in the battle, enji and deku have both achieved their first objectives. enji defeats AFO once, his villainous parallel. ("i'll keep raging against myself.") deku frees tomura from AFO's control, his destined nemesis. ("you're gonna be the one to complete one for all.")

after this, they both fight onwards, towards their true objectives. enji and deku finally face touya and tomura 1-on-1. at this point in the manga, i'm uncertain how deku's attempt to save tenko will play out, but endeavor's climactic moment has concluded. in order to save touya, he had to see him in his entirety, to take responsibility. the rest of the todoroki family had to anchor them until shouto came with the final blow, tearing down the boundaries between him and touya, doing away with the term "masterpiece". then, lastly, enji had to release the emotions he's been holding in all this time and apologize to touya (and the rest of the family), which spurred touya to finally voice his innermost emotions as well.

i can't predict how this will compare to deku saving tenko, especially since that dynamic is also likely to parallel ochako saving toga. however, in both touya and toga's cases, they needed particular people to show them attention, care, and love. they needed understanding and vulnerability from their respective heroes before they were willing to let down their guard. so in deku's case, he will need to admit/embrace whatever emotions he's been restraining before he can expect tenko to reciprocate, just like what shouto, enji, and ochako did.

anyway, those are my current thoughts on deku and endeavor! i hope that clarifies my perspective on them.

[dubsxreader]

worship the king //.o1 // shigaraki tomura x female!reader

summary: after the soul crushing realization that you're not meant to be the Hero you've spent your life training to be, you hunt down the most indiscriminate killer you know: Dabi. his man-child of a leader being there only makes the task easier, right? too bad Shigaraki has a knack for seeing things in others they don't see themselves. wc: 3,312 playlist: here!

rated: M for dark and mature themes; future lewd tw: suicidal ideation (seriously don't read if you're in a bad mindset this probs won't help), depression, toxic thoughts, manipulation, the start of a v dependent, idolizing relationship ie "worship" in all definitions of the word haha. Shigs taking advantage of a mentally vulnerable hero basically; dead dove do not eat for that reason.

a/n: this is something I wrote almost year ago now, when I first fell head over heels for Shigs and really felt like bnha was saving me from insanity haha. I have 15 pages of notes for this fic, but for now, for the King's birthday, this is my thank you to him and a year of loving Shigaraki Tomura <3 also to the xreader community for being my gateway into every fandom that takes over my life haha. will be posted to ao3 later

You stand on a cracked, littered rooftop, sullenly looking over the calamity you figured would be destroying the lives of every day, happily unaware citizens tonight. A slight sigh of relief leaves your chewed-to-hell lips, hidden to your own addled mind but glaringly apparent to any of your fellow heroes who’d commented on your state of mind the past few months.

You appreciated their care, you really did—for all the surface level care it could give, that is. It wasn’t their fault they couldn’t understand. They were simply more Heroic than you, official capital and all. More driven, stronger, faster… But you’ve been doing the absolute best you can, and you were sure of that. Days–weeks months?–of harshly honest self speculation assured you of your failures and of the fact that, simply put, you weren’t cut out for shouldering multitudes of lives every time you stepped out your door. Heroism didn’t just end when you took off your costume; no, it was an ideology that should be ingrained into the soul of the costume wearer, and you’d come to the jarring conclusion that, after all your special training, you just weren’t up to snuff.

You couldn’t even save yourself from your own demons. How the hell were you supposed to save those more deserving of life if you couldn’t cope with your own shit?

A small, condescending snort leaves your nostrils as you observe the blue flames engulfing the area below you. Fucking worthless. What was the point, then? Hours of support Hero's work on your items, costume—wasted. The countless words of love and support from friends and family. Ha. Your eyes track the small movements of the current chaos’ perpetrators with a keenness you've found twisted comfort in recently. A familiar, all encompassing fixation gears up that brings you out of the cloud of self-doubt, hate, and deprecation that was so, so wrong to feel as a Pro-Hero in today’s society. In this bubble there's a solution, so it's okay. You let out a numbing breath.

Maybe you could give the Villains +1 morality in the eyes of whatever twisted being rested on their laurels, idly watching as you drive yourself insane.

A swift gust of wind knocks the empty cans and bottles from their peaceful resting places as you leave your perch, descending into the empty alley below to begin your last stand against yourself. Resolute and heavy steps echo in the widened, deserted streets of the city you vowed to protect—a small, still aware part of you thankful it’s so late at night that most would be sleeping. Your targets (saviors?) usually moved when they would make the most social impact, but you’d been tracking a certain member that didn’t seem to adhere to their strict schedule.

Whoever they were behind the obvious moniker, they seemed to kill liberally. It should be easy. You take a numbing breath.

The stench of burning flesh and ash is suddenly all too pungent, assaulting your senses enough to kick your mind into another, more logical plane and question how stupid you’re being. How disappointed everyone who knew you would be. Izuku and Hitoshi, especially, had been trying their hardest to devote extra time to you recently, you knew that—fuck, how selfish were you to bring their attention away from a goal they’d fought so hard to achieve?

The flames are smoldering char on concrete when you arrive at the end of another alleyway, just as dirty as the one you’d come from… But the incineration just seemed to have cleansed the way of its trash. You nearly sigh again in morbid relief when you see two men still standing there in the aftermath. You can see from behind that the man you’ve been tracking, Dabi, still has his left arm extended, as if relishing the memory of his flames destroying the ones he deemed unworthy.

Hands in your hero costume’s pockets, you steel yourself in your usual Hero emotions: indignation, conviction, disgust at the idea of them feeling they had a right to do anything going against the grain of the society you were indoctrinated into. You clear your throat with the last of your practiced confidence, bringing the sights of the two Villains to your own frame shadowed by the bright street lamp at your back.

“You two aren’t planning on getting away with this, are you?”

Your simple, deadpan drawl has both men scoffing to themselves and sharing a look of exasperation and annoyance. They clearly want nothing more than to be done with whatever the hell they were doing; your gaze sharpens in acknowledgment while their own take note of your hero costume. This is it. This is really it. You’ve done it. Is it really what you want?

Your eyes ice over, hardening to protect your vulnerabilities when they meet those of the second man’s own carmine flecks, so unflinching and so, so bored from behind his trademark hand.

Yeah. This is it.

Resignation freezing the rest of your visage and nothing left to say, you dash forward with simple physical speed, locking onto the Villain you recognize as the leader of the League of Villains himself. Sure, Dabi was a proven relentless killer, but you figure if you go after the leader himself there would be even less hesitation or time to think on either side. They were both reportedly unflinching, ruthless, uncaring and absolutely evil, but Shigaraki’s devilishness was practically beaten into you at this point. He was the obvious candidate, the oddness of his presence meaningless yet welcome at this point.

Your eyes never leave his as you take those last three lunging leaps, your arm cocked back in a hopeful show of some impressive power you might possess, in a display grand enough to paint yourself as a threat if not at the very least an annoyance.

Blue flames lick at the back of your costume. You’d somehow been faster than Dabi’s flames, which made no sense at all—you weren’t fast in any capacity if you were to judge yourself. It must’ve been a misfire. Lucky you’ve targeted the faster acting Villain.

Something distinctly odd flashes in his previously disinterested eye as you rush him, your Quirk barely powered yet still reflecting in his observation as you aim for the mask. Your own, in contradictory spite, slows as your mind races, brushing the hand enough to feel the inexplicitly soft and leathery texture, knocking it clean off the face of the man you’d targeted. Maybe it's the adrenaline, maybe it's the anticipation of the end, but you don’t feel anything near what you thought you’d feel when his living hand grazes your outstretched arm. If anything, it feels like an angry wasp had come at your elbow in some sort of misguided revenge attempt. Bearable.

Fucking livable.

You skid to a shaky stop feet behind them, your glare going to the small hole in your costume’s arm where he’d made the briefest of contact. The skin had only begun to crack and decay from a central point; nothing near the scale and intensity you’d been warned about by your superiors and peers. What the fuck gives?

A desperate rage threatens to erupt at the lack of damage. You feel cheated. Your eyes shift from the minimal damage to the apprehensive yet notably curious eyes of your chosen euthanasist. Was he just not taking you seriously? You didn’t blame him, but…

“I thought the League was the best of the best?” The sting in your arm is mockingly there and you scoff, barely hiding your indignation at his unfulfillment of the role you’d forced upon him. You take it and use it to fuel the crumbling foundation of your resolve, ashing it to the ground yourself and focus on the slightly slumped figure topped with white-blue hair.

His eyes are now magnetized and piercing, never wavering from your own, adding to your rage and confusion. Just what is he getting at, looking straight at you in the fucked up state you’re in and just–just fucking seeing–?! You aren’t looking for pity, fuck all if it's from the person you’ve deemed would have the balls you didn’t to end this shitty nightmare you live in. With a primal, anguished and utterly guttural scream you dash forward once more towards Shigaraki Tomura, hand erupting in a more accurate show of your true power.

Once again, he simply guides your attack away from him into empty space, this time with a deft shove of his index finger. Silent and calculating. You stumble on your feet as you land, ignoring the insulting sting, and turn to face them at a pace you know isn’t up to Hero standards but unable to even fake it anymore. Your eyes, though.

They fucking call to him.

How could he dust you? A Pro-Hero, coming at him alone, a deadly ally at his side, with what he knew from his research to be nowhere near their quirk’s power and potential?

Nevermind the look in your eyes he’d recognized immediately—this Hero was asking to be killed. Cracked lips twitch to grin at the situation. His mind works at full throttle to balance the possibilities.

“Heh…” The small breath leaves him, a smirk winning out and pulling at already taught skin, “You’re looking to die, aren’t you, Hero?”

Your brows furrow in… Fuck, you can’t identify your feelings at this point–they shouldn’t matter–they’d become obsolete the moment you took a swing at the supposedly impulsive and irrational Villain in charge. All you can feel is the overwhelming sense of weight, of pressure, of absolute and total CHAOS destroying any semblance of unity you’d pulled together to end this.

“What the fuck does that matter to you, Villain?!” Your glare is full of a rawness you can’t recognize, let alone mask, “Fucking fight me or die!”

His smirk, now fully on display, stretches to the smuggest of smiles as he takes his experimental first steps forward, casually retrieving the hit hand and placing it safely in his trench coat pocket. You weren’t immediately attacking him—hell, you weren’t even defending yourself! You’d only be more obvious if you’d delivered yourself to his doorstep tied in a bright, blood-red ribbon labeled “do what you want, I don’t care anymore!” It made his blood simmer, his skin itch in excitement at all the optional routes opened up before him.

Quickly, too quickly to deploy your defense {even if you wanted to}, he’s in your face and encircling your neck in a four fingered grasp. Your eyes vaguely mark Dabi looking on with a detached interest, and you can’t help but mirror his lack of understanding—your emotions and thoughts unfortunately too far past controllable to be hidden behind the usual Heroics.

“You could still serve a purpose, you know.”

Narrowed (e/c) eyes meet piercing, analytical rubies set to freeze and crumble enemies. You have no answer to that, none at all—if you hadn’t come across another anything while you’d been searching in earnest, how could it be tossed into your lap from the hands of a Villain? Your clear disbelief doesn’t deter him in the slightest. It only gives him the subtle signals he needs to ensure a dedicated new member of his team. This situation could only go well for him and the League, if he plays it right, and he’s thankful Dabi knows when to shut the hell up and take the back seat when he truly should.

He’s never seen Shigaraki’s version of recruitment before. After Dabi's climate destroying display, he could use a lesson.

On the edge though this Hero is, the line is thin and the touch needed is delicate and calculated.

“You can make a real difference in this rotten world,” Shigaraki slowly lowers his defensive arm and loosens his grip on your neck, conveying his intentions to calm you. He notices this strikes an especially sore nerve that you’re too unhinged to recognize. You’re taken over by your emotions, unable to distinguish that you’ve offered your weaknesses to your enemy on a silver platter. Disgusted rage he’s now certain is self-focused meets him, only bringing him a step closer to your frozen and highly panicked figure. His free fingers fidgets on the clammy skin of your neck, tapping a pattern across your throbbing pulse, expectant and soft while the other stays loosely, carefully, against your clavicle.

It's constant.

It's… calming?

No, it's fucking overwhelming and uncomfortable and— As if your body’s acting on the last vestiges of your studies, you struggle in his grasp and pull your dominate arm back, channeling all your sadness and panic you’d been unable to expel into the attack you hoped would just fucking end this fucking end this it’s done—

Another four fingered grip captures your wrist, directing your power away from anything important and only ruffling Dabi’s clothes as he watches on. You choke on a cry, near your mask’s end with Shigaraki’s unexpected patience. You’d been told this was nothing more than a spoiled, raging, calloused young man entirely unable to connect with any feelings other than his own selfish need to destroy all Heroes he came in contact with. The only conclusion your racing mind can come to is that he doesn’t even view you as a Hero worth destroying. Thick and torrid tears rush from your eyes, betraying your need to be recognized and being denied that luxury in your final moments.

“I can’t even get what I need from you fuckfaces—!” Your cry rings out, eyes shutting tightly, shaking with the force of your emotions finally finding the breaking point they need to crash through into the real world, “What the fuck can I do to make a fucking difference?!”

Shigaraki pauses to assess your sobbing. You’ve all but folded into yourself; you would’ve disintegrated against his hold on your neck if he hadn’t been paying attention. No… he sees you. He sees you. His fingered grip on your neck slides up to force your head to follow, meeting his sure gaze. You’re lost. You’re anxiously grasping at anything you can to stop the burning, itching need to destroy your own mind… And he gets that. He knows what it took to hook him tightly into his own mindset. He knows of seeing a seemingly impossible goal set before him, of feeling unworthy and needing to prove himself to his peers and himself. If anyone could reshape you... it would be him. If anyone were to reshape you... it should be him.

“It isn’t fair, is it…?” He starts slowly, voice dripping with cooing understanding, gauging your expressions and body, “You work so hard to be what others want you to be… And never feel enough, even when you put your all into it.” Your whole being shudders at his words, breaking down and melting into the pressure of your expectations for yourself. You choke on another messy sob, tears blinding you, snot nearly reaching your lips, a trail of drool unknowingly slipping from the corner of your grimacing lips.

“We’d never expect more than you can give, you know,” He all but whispers into your ear, his words echoing with staying power. You miss the tiniest bit of excitement he lets slip into his tone at the thought of corrupting a fairly strong Hero to his cause with mere psychological one-upmanship. The power over your entire existence is an intoxicating prize and he’s not about to let go of it if he can help it.

A sad cross between a whimper and a cry escapes you as you crumble even more into a hold you’d only come to for annihilation. Why wasn’t he killing you? Why weren’t you dead? You’d wanted to die, needed to just stop everything and just—just STOP, finally, just stop. He was a hardened criminal with no need for heroes, what the hell kind of use did he see in you? You still the tiniest bit. You just need a use, a tangible use, is that what you’ve been missing? A clear direction set before you by an overwhelmingly liberating, intelligent, capable force… Could he see it through all the absolute shit you covered yourself in?

A tentative spark lights the furthest parts of you as you finally meet his confident and knowing gaze. Fuck if you don’t feel seen for the first time in your life, finally seen and accepted for the absolute mess you see yourself as. The conflicting, philosophical doubts you’ve had about Heroism, and your own heroics in the existential race you call a life, find a peaceful place in Shigaraki Tomura’s vision.

It's an alien calm, a powerful sedative on your mind, leading you to melt into his look—telling him all he needed to know and more. The grin he sports widens and his eyes shift to give a silent command to Dabi, still (surprisingly) observing quietly, before changing your life indefinitely, “Follow me, little hero. You'll never be lost again.”

A deep, swirling purple warp gate you’d only seen in footage appears at the entrance to the alleyway.

The loose grip on your neck finally leaves completely, giving you ample room to escape up and out across the rooftops. You’re frozen in your battling thoughts at the suddenly very real decision in front of you.

You knew you weren’t good enough to be a Hero. You’d been struggling with the core beliefs on what the word even meant, if the world you’d been taught was even so black and white. Did you even want to die or did you just need someone to come and give you a purpose, some great refocusing direction? Someone to swoop in, recognize and acknowledge your pain before wiping it away and giving you something definite to live for? You knew you couldn’t make it as a Hero. You were nothing in that world. But maybe you could make that nothing existence, doomed to the weaker, better…?

Eyes nearly blinded before blinking down more streams of tears, you sniffle and take a tentative step towards the man looming tall over you, an umbrella shielding you from a brightness you couldn’t stand to be seen in. You harshly wipe your falling tears to watch Dabi walk swiftly into the portal, an unlit cigarette of some sort dangling from his patterned lips. Shigaraki steps to it much slower. He stops before he reaches it, twisting subtly to look at you from over his shoulder. He shouldn’t have to say anything more for you to follow, if his assumptions are correct—

They are.

Your first steps are slow but pick up speed quickly, feet nearly throwing you into his right side, at the mouth of the portal to a place described by your thoughts as no return. His eyes widen in delight, a manic grin following as he places the fingers of his left hand onto your head in a semblance of comfort. More than he ever got. His right arm wraps confidently around your waist, absurdly consoling to your rapidly evolving morals and needs.

It allows you to let it all go, though. It tells you someone more capable, more prepared is there. That he sees you and is keeping you alive because you’re useful to him. You can’t seem to care why when the overwhelming realization that such a powerful man saw you as you were, truly were, and still found a profound use for you in a world you were dying in takes a strong hold. You’re practically weightless as he guides you into the inky blackness of his caretaker’s portal, mind clicking into place and recognizing the distinct choice you’re making with a calm acceptance of this development in your life.

You were a useless hero. Perhaps this is your chance to prove you could make a difference to someone as a villain.

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a/n: thanks so much for reading!! :) hope you enjoyed~ happy birthday, Shigster! maann I wish he'd take me away ;w; drop of a hat, I'm gone lol. the ultimate escapism... yandere!Shigaraki! xD annyway, I hope you have a wonderful day~ <3