#is there a fourth book somewhere you've all read that explains this shit

[commandercoriandersalamander]

I love reading Locked Tomb fandom meta because it really lets me appreciate how little I understand of what happened in these books.

[scary-grace]

Shigaraki x Reader WIP Poll

I started but didn't finish a bunch of fics for Halloween, and in an effort to distract myself from everything I'd like to get into them! Below are excerpts from four fics I got a decent start on. Once you've read them, vote in the poll at the bottom for which one you think I should finish first!

Necromancer Shigaraki

            Tomura stares at your body, torn. You’re just barely dead. He watched you take your last breaths only seconds ago, and he knows even without touching you that your skin’s still warm, your blood still liquid, your brain still alight with electrical impulses. You’re the perfect candidate for a resurrection, and Tomura needs a perfect candidate, or it’s not going to work. Spirits of the restless dead might be drawn to Tomura like moths to a bug zapper, but the real money in necromancy comes through resurrections, and Tomura’s never done one successfully.

            That was fine while Tomura’s master was still in charge, but when he was captured, his guild disbanded. Tomura and his friends had to find a new home, and their new guildmaster gives zero shits about potential and all the shits about results, which means that Tomura’s inability to manage a complete resurrection has gone from an awkward conversation to a significant problem. Tomura’s friends have made themselves useful to the Hassaikai guild already. If Tomura can’t, he’ll be out on his ear.

            He needs to resurrect somebody, and he needs to do it fast. You’d be the ideal subject if your last words hadn’t been a demand to do the exact opposite.

Demon Shigaraki

In all of Tomura’s depictions, he’s missing something – his index and middle finger off his left hand. Offering him yours should get his attention. You adjust your grip on the handle of the knife and speak. “I conjure you, Shigaraki Tomura, instrument of destruction and symbol of fear. Come to me.”

            The circle hums to life around you. The book said it would do that. The book also said to explain. “Someone took everything away from me. I want to pay him back, but I can’t.” Bitterness fills the back of your throat, stings your eyes. Your hatred for Keigo chokes off your voice for a moment. “Shigaraki Tomura, spirit of entropy, dominion of grief, vengeance is mine. Help me claim it.”

     You set your hand on top of the ninth symbol, spreading your thumb, fourth, and fifth fingers wide, leaving a clear strike at your index and middle fingers. Seeing them there, isolated on the red-chalked concrete floor, turns your stomach. How hard will you have to strike to amputate them? What if you can’t do it? This is insane. You need to move on. Move towns, move countries, dye your hair and change your name, go under and surface again somewhere far from Takami Keigo, where you’ll never hear his name again. Is vengeance against the guy who did you wrong really worth mutilating yourself? Do you really hate him that much?            

Yes. You do.

Crossroads Demon Shigaraki

Tomura doesn’t know how time passes for humans when they’re alive, but he knows how it passes for you because of how you wake up. Most of the souls at Tomura’s crossroads were dead before they knew what hit them, and they wake up slowly, peacefully. They seem to know they’re dead already. They get up fast and walk faster, dissolving into nothingness past the edge of the crossroads before they even realize that Tomura’s there. But you knew what hit you. You know something went wrong. Tomura knows, because when you wake up, you lurch upright, clawing at your chest and struggling to breathe.

You’re dead. You don’t need to breathe. You don’t need to shiver, either, but your spirit’s shaking all over as you press your hands against your chest, touch along your arms and legs, reach up to the back of your head and press down hard. Tomura remembers what your body looked like on the road, and you must remember, too, because with every injury you can’t find, your panic increases. Your hands keep returning to your chest, the back of your head, like you’re trying to hold your body together.

You don’t have a body anymore. There’s nothing there, and Tomura doesn’t like the way watching you makes him feel. “Hey,” he says, and you freeze in place. “Pull it together. You’re dead.”

Cyborg Shigaraki

You work your fingers beneath the net, pulling it up and away from his neck so you can cut it away without getting the knife anywhere near his skin. Once you’ve made the necessary cuts, you get to work unwrapping it, sliding your hand behind his head and lifting it as gently as you can manage as you tug the net free. He’s almost dead weight, but not quite. When you lower his head back to the sand, you take a moment to move his hair out of his face.

            You get a shock from there. His eyes are open, their irises blood-red, and there are scars over his eye and the corner of his mouth. As you watch, he blinks slowly, then focuses on you. The voice that passes through his cracked lips is raspy and quiet, so quiet that you have to lean in to hear. “Leave me.”

            “I can’t do that,” you say. You can’t call for an ambulance – there’s no cell service down here, and in the time it would take you to get back in range, it’ll be too late. “Nobody should be alone when they –”            

“Won’t die.” He coughs, and a spatter of blood exits his mouth. Blood wells up around the driftwood spar, too. “Once I take it out.”