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paesagex · 2 months ago

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AU idea: "Deepest empathy"

Tenko gets his chance at becoming a hero, but not the kind you’d expect.

I guess this would happen if Afo haf been killed while Nao was pregnant. *This was born out of the fact that I hated that Tenko’s original Quirk was float, because come on, give that poor child some personality that doesn’t involve Nana. And being all pure and perfect. Gross. Also, in case it doesn’t become obvious, I’m a sucker for the interpretation of the Shimura household being a microcosm of Hero Academia society.

Enjoy!

Tenko Shimura is a middle school kid who wants to be a hero, like many others. He is fifteen years old, and is soon to be enrolled in highschool. He wishes to go to UA, the top hero school of the country.

However, odds are against him. Not only does his father, Koutaro, hate heroes with a passion, but Tenko’s quirk seems to be absolutely unsuitable for his dream.

Tenko inherited a weaker version of his mother’s and grandparents’ Quirk, “deepest empathy”. While it allows the older carriers to not only be perceptive of a person’s suffering, but also to be a soothing presence, Tenko’s Quirk is exclusively passive. He can perceive, but not influence. The Quirk allows him to tell when a person is feeling certain things, but more often than not it is just a muddy vision, as emotions have a tendency to be complicated and nuanced. His “vision” improves if he spends a lot of time with the person whose feelings he’s perceiving.

So his Quirk is especially weak, unreliable and not suited for hero work, not in fighting nor saving. At five, he was still believed to be quirkless, until finally he’s taken to a specialist who runs a DNA test. Turns out, as we said before, that his quirk is just weak, so weak that the moment it manifested itself first went unnoticed.

Tenko has a large family. An older sister, Hana, who inherited “float”, their father’s Quirk, then there’s his mother and grandparents who live with them in a big, fancy house.

The Shimuras are rich, Koutaro is one of the founders of a company focused on the construction business, and this house is amongst their commissions.

Koutaro is a strict man, who got everything he owns with nobody’s help. As a child, he was abandoned by his mother, Nana Shimura, an almost unknown Hero who left to fight a mysterious Villain, just to never come back. From there on, Koutaro had been on his own, fighting to build himself the normal life his mother, for no specified reason, decided to deny him. And he managed. He now has a home, a loving family, and financial security. He’s safe.

Tenko and his father do not get along. Koutaro hates heroes, and of course doesn’t want his children to have anything to do with them. In that house, Koutaro’s main rule amongst many, “No Heroes”, dominated. Every time a hero appeared on the news, the channel was changed. No cartoons with heroes involved allowed. No toys, no cards, no clothes, nothing that involved heroes or would have profited to a stupid hero-merchandise company could enter that household.

As small children, both Tenko and Hana wanted to be heroes (like all children in this world, after all). Hana is older and was able to adapt, lying to her parents about her true inspirations and pretending to be the perfect child. Tenko, other than being younger, is more direct by nature. Unable to hide anything that he’s feeling, he’s an open book, and his struggle to hide his wish to be a Hero and help others puts him in trouble with his father often.

Koutaro is very strict with his rules, and punishes Tenko by throwing him into the backyard for hours at a time, sometimes without eating and until it is dark.

Tenko develops a mysterious rash around his eyes. The adults think it is an allergy, not understanding that the fact that the rash itches only at home is a sign of psychosomatic stress.

Tenko loves his family very much. He just wishes they took his side, for once.

One day, Hana, sneaking into her father’s study, found a picture of her grandma Nana in hero costume, and, ecstatic to have a hero in the family, tells Tenko. But Koutaro finds out about the picture, and triggered, furious, demands to know who dared to sneak into his study. Hana, scared, blames Tenko.

This is the one time Koutaro’s strictness arises to violence, where he slaps Tenko twice, hard enough to knock the five year old to the ground, while the rest of the family watches, unable to take a side.

To Tenko, this event is traumatic. From that day on, the faces of the rest of his family standing there and watching as his father hurts him will haunt him, and stay an unspoken resentment forever.

He promised himself he will never become like them. He’ll never ignore a person in need of help.

The other adults of the family confront Koutaro and make him promise to never hit the children again. But they keep following the rules, and they keep making sure the children respect their father’s will. It’s best for everyone this way.

Hana apologizes, but Tenko doesn’t speak to her for days.

He only forgives her when Hana, knowing by now the stakes, takes a risk. She goes into a second-hand shop and buys in secret a tiny All Might keychain with her savings, which then she gifts to Tenko with her name written on it. “This way, if dad finds out, he won’t hurt you!” She says. Tenko still keeps it, ruined and with the name all smudged. It is an irreplaceable treasure.

Back to the present. The story starts with the day Tenko’s perspective was changed forever, and he was forced to reflect on what his dream entails.

He’s going back home from school after he hung out with his friends. Tenko is pretty closed off, he doesn’t like most of the kids in his school. It is a prestigious middle school, and he finds the competitive and snobbish environment obnoxious. To his father’s displeasure, he’s not interested in making contacts, and mostly just hangs out with other outcasts with weird, or weak quirks, the ones who are usually left out. Both from his school and others. His quirk is very useful to find people like that, and Tenko uses it often.

Hana is the popular sibling. He's going to the same school she went to, and comparison between the two siblings comes in often. Hana was and still is popular and smart, while Tenko is often considered too blunt and brooding. He doesn’t know it, but he has his own charm with outcasts.

As he’s walking towards the metro, he’s caught in a Villain fight. Heroes are fighting, and a crowd gathers to watch in awe, as it often happens.

Tenko can’t believe he’s got the chance to watch this, he’d never be allowed with another member of his family that isn’t his sister around. And she’d still be uncomfortable.

However, this is where things change, because Tenko’s quirk senses something weird. The heroes keep screaming to the villain about justice and how they’ll stop him from terrorizing the city. Weirdly, though, none of the civilians around are scared. The area is surrounded by heroes who cooperate and are focused, and soon will overpower the Villain.

The villain, who has been caught going on a rampage using his quirk, is the only scared person around. And he’s terrified to death.

The man is a heteromorph and has a size enhancing Quirk, his eyes wide and crazed.

Tenko suddenly isn’t so happy anymore. The Villain is eventually captured, and Tenko watches him being taken away, the guy’s face expressionless, stunned by the amount of hits.

He thinks that the Villain looks like the loneliest person in the world.

Tenko goes home quietly not long after that, deep in thought. He had never seen a villain fight before, despite there being plenty of crazy fanboys on the internet that signal them like shows to watch.

He comes home too late, and misses dinner. His father is expecting him to talk. In his study.

Tenko’s and Koutaro’s relationship has just kept going downhill, and Tenko’s rash is still visible around his eyes, and, recently, his neck. To Tenko, Koutaro’s presence is like a dark cloud that poisons the house. Despite having everything he ever wanted, Koutaro isn’t happy. His abandonment issues never healed, and the rest of the family treat those negative feelings like they’re a bomb they must not disturb in any way.

There are four people with empathy Quirks in the house who perceive this dysfunction, and three of them are convinced that it’s best to pretend it’s not there. Not Tenko though.

Tenko is stubborn and wouldn’t be able to hide any of his emotions even if he wanted to. So he fights with Koutaro often.

Koutaro loves Tenko, like all parents do, but there are moments where he can’t help his wounds take the best of him. Therefore he ends up treating Tenko like a scapegoat to his unhappiness, as if his rebellious behavior was a cog not working in what would otherwise be a perfectly realized dream. A perfect family.

Koutaro wants to know who Tenko was with today, and why he’s late. Tenko tells him he was with his usual friends. Koutaro wants to know if he was hanging out with a homeless man Tenko knows, whom he doesn’t like. Tenko, still confused from what he saw today and having no desire to tell lies his father would definitely see through anyway, deviates the questions by asking him why he cares.

“Tenko, you know I don’t like him.”

“Yeah, well, he’s my friend, so I’m the one who’s supposed to like him.”

“Stop joking around Tenko, you know what I mean.”

“No, I don’t father, what is the problem?”

“Quit the sarcasm. You shouldn’t hang out with certain people, he’s a grown man. God knows how he ended up there.”

“Jin is not going to hurt me.”

“You can’t know that!”

“Father, for real, I wasn’t even with him today, I don’t get what’s the big deal-”

Koutaro hits his hand against his desk, and Tenko jumps. “Because I care about you, and I care about the image you give of yourself, and of this family! Think, for once, of someone else that isn’t you, Tenko! What if he hurt you, did you think of how scared we’d be? And what if he commits some crime, and that affects your image? Or your sister’s? Have you thought about that? Your sister is going to be applying for university soon, she can’t have a single smudge on her record, and neither can you. You can’t ruin your future out of a stupid decision. You can’t go out with certain people, I forbid it.”

“But-”

“No but. Your family should always come first, Tenko. Always. Quit playing hero and grow up for once.”

They keep fighting, eventually Tenko snaps and tells him that his friend’s “bad influence” isn’t the reason he’s late, it’s because he stopped to watch a Hero fight. “There, you happy now?!”

Koutaro, furious, but cold, orders Tenko to go out. Tenko storms out and leaves, knowing fully well what those words mean. He passes through the living room, where the rest of the family watches him with resignation and sorry looks, his mother smiling encouragingly. Tenko exits in the backyard, their old dog, Mon, following him with habit, and slams the sliding door shut into the dark night, stomach still empty.

He sits on the porch, his back to the glass door. He can hear the evening progressing, the rest of the family watching TV, Koutaro joining them and chatting quietly, Hana’s chirp comments, his mother’s and grandparents’ gentle voices.

Mon’s head on his lap, he caresses the old dog’s fur absently, scratching his neck with his other hand. “Always stuck here, uh, Mon? I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Tenko can, more or less, perceive animals’ feelings, even though in their case it is more like a vibe. Despite being weaker, it is a much cleaner feeling to perceive, and the dog’s serene vibes console Tenko’s frustrated heart.

Eventually, the rest of the family heads to bed. He can hear his mother asking quietly if she can let him in, but he hears his father refusing. He messed up big by telling him about the hero fight. Likely, as it had started to happen more often lately, Koutaro himself will come downstairs later in the night to allow his son in.

The night comes down, and Tenko warms his hands on Mon’s fluffy fur.

Eventually, he hears a soft thump, and he turns to see his older sister, now almost eighteen, landing elegantly from a jump out her bedroom window thanks to the help of “float”, carrying a sandwich and with a consoling smile on her face. Her long black hair is loose, shining to the moonlight.

“My god Tenko, you really suck at keeping secrets.”

“Shut up Hana.”

“Yeah yeah, eat, you must be starving. You should be grateful, I snatched this as soon as you two started shouting.”

Tenko eats ravenously, and Hana asks him about that fight he apparently saw.

Tenko suddenly looks thoughtful again, remembering the bad feeling he felt coming from the Villain. Where was he now? Likely in a prison, waiting to be convicted.

He shares his doubts with his sister, but she looks unimpressed.

“Tenko, of course that guy was scared, don’t think too much about it! You don’t know what he did, you should be happy they got him.” Hana pulls out a pack of cigarettes from her jeans pocket, another thing carefully hidden from everyone in the house but Tenko, and asks: “Was it a cool fight? What heroes have you seen?”

Hana looks enthusiastic as Tenko shares the details. By now, she had already given up her old dream, having decided to respect her father’s wishes and go to a normal, prestigious highschool. However, she still liked heroes. She was just good at hiding it.

“Look, Tenko, I found another one in the school library!” She pulls out her phone, and shows him a picture of an old newspaper. On it is a small article next to a picture, a beautiful, dark haired woman smiling radiantly in it, hero costume worn proudly. “When I found it I couldn’t believe it! Our grandma seemed to avoid the TV and the internet at all costs, but there are still some papers about her by the time of her debut!”

Tenko looks at the picture. Nana Shimura was still like an idol to Hana, while Tenko can’t help but tie her face to the memory of their father beating him, a long time ago. He still remembers Koutaro’s feelings in that moment. So confused, so many, and so… threatening.

However, he smiles at Hana. He can tell she’s sincerely happy to be discovering things about her. The woman was incredibly secretive for being a hero. She was older than All might though, from an era before heroes turned into celebrities. He looks at her cigarette.

“When will you let me try?”

“When you grow out of your diapers.”

“As if you weren’t younger than me when you started!”

“I was younger and smarter.”

“Hey!”

“Come on, Tenko, you know you can’t hide a thing. You’re too honest.”

“I’m not!”

“You are, and it’s not a bad thing. You’re…”

Hana looks at a loss of words for a moment. “What you did with dad earlier was stupid but… I must admit that you got some crazy guts.”

(Hana found out the day of the picture that she’s not as selfless as she’d like. She’s convinced herself that she’s better at lying than being herself in front of others, and so keeps preserving her image of perfection in front of her family and at school. However, she vowed the day she bought that keychain for Tenko, she promised herself that she’d protect him, at least, at all costs. His will, his impulsiveness. His honesty.)

She ruffles his hair. “Stay my stupid brave little brother forever, okay?”

Tenko pouts. Then asks “So you’ll never tell mom and dad that you smoke?”

“No way, not even when I’m older.” She smiles at him.

They hear steps from the stairs. Hana quickly gets up and flies up to her window, and Tenko is finally let in at 1 am in the morning.

He gets to bed still fully dressed, too tired to change. He stares at the ceiling for a while, until he pulls out something from under his mattress. A UA flyer bent and wrinkled from being hidden all the time and so often.

He looks at it absently.

“I want to be a hero who never looks away at someone’s pain…” He thinks to himself. The image of the Villain from today, his crazed, desperate eyes as he ran and used his quirk to hit and destroy anything he could, like a savage animal, and that terror as the heroes attacked him, came to mind.

“...But what does that mean?”

Tenko wakes up on Saturday feeling like shit, still dressed. It is way too early, the sun has just started to rise.

Slowly, he gets up, changes quietly, and gets out of the house.

He needs to clear his head, he barely slept thinking about what he saw yesterday. From the nice neighbourhood he lives in, he takes the less polished streets, until he reaches a small park filled with homeless people, looking for Jin.

Jin (Twice, even though Tenko doesn’t know that. He has no idea Jin is a Villain.) is there, warming up to the morning’s chill close to a firepit, his clones all around, busy putting away a tent.

When Jin sees him, he smiles welcomingly.

“Aren’t brats supposed to be home at this hour?”

“Welcome!” “Go away!”

As usual, the clones always give different opinions than the original Jin. Tenko is welcomed to sit next to the firepit.

“Are you guys leaving?”

“Yeah, we weren’t planning on staying long anyway. It was nice though, you’re good company.”

“Wasn’t I a brat just a moment ago?”

“Hah! Of course you are, but my standards for conversation are pretty low, I don’t know if you understand.” He says, pointing at his very annoyed copies. Jin’s copies were so weird to Tenko, somehow their auras all felt like Jin’s, yet they all had their own individual perspectives and reactions.

“However, what brings you here? I thought your old man didn’t like me. Did he throw you out the whole night?”

“Not yet. Where are you going next?”

“A man ought to have his secrets, kid.”

“Fine. I’ll miss you.”

“You knew me for about a month.”

“Yeah, and it was a nice month.”

Jin is quiet after that, busy eating from a can with a spoon. His expression is serious.

“Listen kid, you’re going to high school next year, right?”

“Yup. Why?”

“Any plans in particular?”

“... I was thinking about trying with UA.”

Jin rolls his eyes. “Of course you are. Kids are all the same.”

“Why do you ask?”

“...Shimura, why do you want to be a hero?”

“Huh?”

“Doesn’t that father of yours hate their guts?”

Tenko is quiet for a while. “...I don’t know. I just… I just really hate when people suffer and nobody does anything, you know? I wish I could make someone feel like their suffering matters.”

“...”

“...You know, I saw my first Villain yesterday.”

At that, Jin raises his eyes, eyebrows high. He gives Tenko a sardonic smile. “Really? Was it what you expected?”

“...No. It was so weird, you know? Everyone was staring like they were in a movie theater, cheering and all, it didn’t feel like there was any real danger. The heroes arrived so fast, guy was surrounded in a moment. I felt sad, he looked so… overpowered. Like he had no hope to begin with.”

Jin has an uncharacteristically serious expression. Suddenly, he speaks again. “In this world, only the righteous and well meaning have a right to be saved. You’re a good kid. I don’t know what your father’s deal is, also because he kind of sounds like an asshole, but I think he’s right. Trust me, with a dream like that, you’re no good in a hero school.”

“Why would you say that? You don’t think I could make it?”

“I don’t know if you could, but I know you won’t fulfill your wish that way.”

“...”

Jin laughs. “Look at me, talking all serious as if thinking was my strong suit! Eheh…”

“Do you think I’m being a hypocrite?” Tenko suddenly asks.

“Huh?”

“Do you think it’s hypocritical of me to want to be a hero if it’d make my dad suffer?”

“How would I know? Ask your mom.” He gets up. “Well. We ought to go. Glad I saw you one last time, kid. Now go home, wouldn’t want you to get in trouble.”

Not knowing what to do, he does go to his mother. He doesn’t exactly tell her that his view of heroes is starting to change and he’s not sure he knows what his childhood dream entails anymore. But she gets him, more or less. She’s an empath too, she doesn’t need to know everything to know he’s struggling. Just being with her (he offers to help with chores to have an excuse to talk to her), comforts him. Not just because of her Quirk.

She, of course, thinks the problem is yesterday’s fight with Koutarou. So she kindly tells her son that maybe seeing things from another perspective may help get a better grasp at his own.

Tenko knows what she means, and scoffs. “He never tries to look at mine, why should I be the one who does?”

His mother ruffles his hair and smiles kindly.

“Your father loves you more than anything, Tenko. You’re more alike than you think. You didn’t inherit that stubborn head of yours from me!”

“Tenko, what I’m trying to say is not that you’ll change your mind… just that things might appear a little clearer if you give your father a chance.”

“Mh”

Nao gives his grumbling son a kiss on the head.

Tenko thinks about this. And when the school term finishes, he decides.

He’s going to try to challenge his views on Heroes by knowing his father better. So he accepts an internship at the family company for the summer (Koutaro’s been trying to convince him to come for years). Koutaro is happy that Tenko finally accepted his guidance.

The weeks of summer pass. Koutaro and Tenko end up spending pretty much every day together. Koutaro is not much of a chatterbox, but neither is Tenko, really. They spend their lunch breaks together. Koutaro hands Tenko the newspaper pages he’s done with while they eat.

For once, Koutaro is proud of him. Tenko can feel it irradiating from him. It’s nice. This is the calmest, most peaceful period of the Shimura household.

Spending so much time with Koutaro, Tenko does, in the end, develop a new understanding for his father. Tenko’s Quirk works so that the more he knows a person, the better he can read their feelings. Slowly, the ball of poison in his father’s heart starts to unravel, and Tenko understands the depth of his father’s fear of being alone. Tenko gets that. Yeah, it sucks when you feel like you’re alone. Father must have suffered so much when his mom abandoned him.

When he indulges in Hana’s recounting of her secret research on their grandma in her room, he’s left with a bad taste in his mouth.

He gains a new appreciation for his family, and by working with him at the company also of the sacrifices Koutaro made for them.

The itch though won’t go away. It burns back any time he feels like talking to his father about his dream, how it’s changing, about his thoughts, about how annoying and snobbish the sons of his colleagues are, every time he feels like he can’t explain to him why he likes his own friends better. Any time he feels like telling him the truth, but knows this peace they achieved doesn’t feel safe enough to do so.

Deep down, he doesn’t want to ruin this.

At night, Tenko keeps doing secret research on the system. He finds out that it pretty much self feeds the conflict between heroes and villains without really investing in preventing crime, or rehabilitation. Once you’re a Villain, you’re a Villain forever, and many just go back to do crime once their sentence is finished. Not that social stigma gave them much choice. He investigates propaganda and its mechanics, on the HPSC. He starts to gather all the articles he can find on Villains.

Koutaro eventually finds his material, UA flyer included, and accuses him of lying to him. Of “betrayal” if you will.

“I thought you were finally listening, I thought I finally got you to understand, and yet here you are-“

Tenko comes back home to find, horrified, all his stuff waiting for him on the dining room table, his father furious. The rest of the family has faces that vary from resignation to compassion for Tenko, to a little bit of fear.

“I am understanding dad, I really am- I know you suffered. I want to make you justice. I’m seeing you. Please, please, you have to trust me!”

Tenko decides he might as well come clean. He’s not lying. Maybe he can make him understand. He took the first step after all, right? He’s desperate to be understood.

“Let me be a hero. I’ll be better than them. I’ll make it better. I promise.”

Despite his newfound distaste for the system, Tenko still hasn’t given up on the world. He’s seen it, with his friends at school, sometimes all it takes is giving people a space where they can be themselves. Where they feel seen for who they are. He knows it now.

That’s the kind of Hero he wants to be.

For everyone. For his father too.

Koutaro doesn’t accept this, the fight escalates.

Koutaro eventually loses control and slaps Tenko again. Hard.

The kid hits his face against the edge of a table and his lip breaks, bleeding profusely. (like the scar he has in canon). It falls on his chin, stains his shirt and hands.

They are both stunned, and everything is silent.

Everyone in the house is watching.

The whole of the family, Hana included, is petrified by surprise and terror.

To Tenko’s Quirk, everything feels so confused, so overwhelming. His heart is like a lump in his chest, heavy and filled with everyone’s fear. His father’s anger. His own.

His own resentment. Nothing changed. Hana’s looking at him from the other side of the room, petrified, in tears. So do the others. His mom looks so sorry.

Tenko has had it.

He snaps. And it all finally comes in the open. Fuck compassion, fuck understanding, fuck living under rules that protect everyone but him.

He yells at Koutaro he’s nothing but a selfish man who pretends to be doing everything for them, when in reality all he does is protect himself. He says he wants what’s best for them, he wants them happy, well guess what, we’re all miserable, “and it’s your fault!”

Tenko turns to the rest of the family. They are silent. He turns back to his father, who’s speechless.

Koutaro breaks the silence, and tells him that if he doesn’t like his rules he’s free to go.

How funny. Like Tenko didn’t know that that would be the worst thing he could do to Koutaro.

Abandon him.

The rest of the family is still quiet. The lump in Tenko’s heart is growing heavier.

“Then I’ll go.”

And he starts walking.

As he’s about to cross the door, Koutaro seems to realize that he’s serious, and suddenly grabs him by the shoulder. It is a strong grip, and Tenko suddenly feels with his Quirk a deep, childish desperation that the man behind him refuses to voice. Coming straight from that poisonous stain in his heart.

He can’t stand being under that tempest anymore. He can’t stand having to bear its weight anymore.

He turns, and fully knowing what he’s doing, tells him that he hates him, and that he’d gladly be anywhere else than under the same roof as him.

Koutaro is deeply hurt and angry, so is Tenko. He’s let go and told not to come back.

The rest of the family finally acts and tries to stop them, but Tenko is already out. And doesn’t turn around.

From here on, Tenko is by himself on the streets. A school dropout, struggling to survive, feeling useless. He couldn’t save anyone. He was nothing but a hypocrite.

he had used his quirk to hurt someone, his own father. In his most vulnerable spot, nonetheless. He has hurt everyone. He won’t dare show his face back again.

It was him. It was always him.

The broken cog, his father was right. He’s the cause of all trouble. He was selfish and stupid.

How could he think himself so special he’d be the Hero who never ignores someone else’s pain, he couldn’t even respect his own father’s.

He won’t go back.

(Despite blaming himself, he still really wishes the rest of the family would have helped.)

*Of course his family is crushed, they try to get him back, they call the police and everything. Eventually they hear from Tenko who communicates to them that he has no intention of coming back. And that he’s sorry.

But if they won’t help him, then he has to find his own way. (He doesn’t tell them that he secretly feels they’d be better off without him. After all, the period of time where he stopped being himself was when the house’s aura was calmer. His itch was his own, always had been.)

During his years alone in the streets, he lets go of the ideal of the lone, inspiring hero he’s been taught in school.

He takes a good look at himself. At all the privileges he always had, safety, people who would protect him, status, and fully learns what life is like without these things. How hard it is to get support outside of family and connections.

A long time passes.

He slowly builds something for himself. He knows many villains and outcasts in his time as homeless, he makes friends who help him out.

He finds work in an illegal bar, gains enough money to manage to join a programming course. He gets his hands dirty, sometimes has to do things he’s not proud of to survive.

In his twenties, he gets back in contact with Hana, his mom and grandparents, but with his father things are still complicated. Koutaro won’t forgive him for leaving. Tenko isn’t proud of the intentions he did so either, but refuses to be the one who takes the first step again.

Maturing, he’s learned that having access to people’s most intimate feelings means nothing, in the end. It’s people’s trust, their desire to share with you, and the fact that people are willing to listen, that really shows change. That really helps. And to do that, people must feel like they’re all on the same level. Like they are respected and acknowledged. Like what they feel and say matters to the one they’re speaking with.

But that takes time. It can’t be done on the battlefield.

He has many contacts in the underworld, and works as a freelance journalist to share stories of isolation, discrimination, poverty that lead to villainy. He also takes programming commissions and such. Sometimes streams, cuz why not. It all helps gaining influence.

So he becomes the kind of hero he wants to be: not a fighter, not a saviour, just the kind of guy who speaks when he sees bullshit, who’s always there for you even at your lowest point, who won’t judge and will offer you company without invasive questions.

He’s not pure, his actions (the people he doesn’t report, or sometimes even hides) are not fully lawful, or absolutely right. But his work is meaningful, even if it means being hated by the public.

He’s starting to gain people’s attention due to his disrespectful attitude and characteristic dry sarcasm.

“Where there’s a rash, let them scratch”

#by the way the last quote comes from Dante's paradise #the original quote is something like dove c'è la rogna lascia che si grattino #it means that if people feel offended at what authors say #if it makes them itch #then maybe they're the ones with an ill skin #it's not the author's words that are wrong #and I when I read that I was like oh god if he ever became an activist #that would be such a tomura thing to say #he's such an asshole #by the way if any of the things you read here feel iffy and morally questionable they're meant that way #I wanted Tenko to have what Deku didn't (being allowed to be selfish and have ugly reactions sometimes)#His actions are not meant to be read as absolutely good and nice at all #and neither is his perspective on things #but honestly I'd relate more to a person like this than Deku #because Deku is a perfect angel who's never distasteful in any way and that's boring #while this version of Tenko is literally some rich kid having daddy issues #and is actually thinking hard about heroism and what place he wants to have in society #and the answers ends up being none #just so you know I did imagine that Tenko and Koutaro would kinda reconcile at some point #maybe at Hana's wedding and such #shigaraki tomura #shimura tenko #tomura shigaraki #bnha critical #mha critical #au idea #fanfic #shimura koutaro #shimura nana #shimura family

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