#that tag might change in case i ever write a vest!gestorino fic

[shih-coulda-had-it]

35. “Why are you looking at me like that” i want to see what you do with this one

Anon, give me free reign, and I will return with some of the nichest interests to fandom. Another sourdough starter! This is for a time-travel AU with Yoichi/Sorahiko (Yoihiko) for end-game. Sorahiko's canon is set after Nana dies, and before Toshinori heads to the States.

//

So Sorahiko got punched some thirty-plus years into the past.

Fine. Typical One for All bullshit.

(He is going to punch Toshinori so hard if he ever gets back to the present. Regardless of how much Gran Torino deserved a humbling, Sorahiko did not sign up for this.)

It’s a nightmare of a time period, especially because pro-heroes aren’t exactly a concept yet. Sorahiko is unlucky enough to be picked up by some kind of guerrilla faction, and even more unlucky when he finds out they are connected to All for One. Not in a friendly way, mind.

The leader of the resistance and his right-hand man interfered before Sorahiko could be summarily interrogated and killed. To be fair to the guerrilla faction, Sorahiko had been shooting his mouth off left and right, because this whole situation was awful, and he wasn’t shy about taking his frustration out on assholes.

Things that alarmed them: his gear, his hair, and his unheard-of Quirk.

“Are you related to Shigaraki?” the leader had asked, suspicion written all over his face.

“Who the hell is Shigaraki,” Sorahiko had answered, eyeing the leader’s gauntlets.

Talks are, believe it or not, uphill from there. Once Sorahiko is confirmed to be thoroughly, passionately agreeable to using violence against All for One, he is more or less folded into the resistance. And before long, the resistance launches an all-out assault on All for One’s base.

Gran Torino is mercilessly placed on the front lines, nearly shoulder to shoulder with the leader (determinedly nameless) and his right-hand man (Sanjuro Yojimbo).

“Easier ways to take me out of the game,” says Sorahiko, checking the suction seals of his gloves. He grimaces at the loosening fit; although his time hadn’t been the best with the daily grind of patrol - villain - paperwork, its miserable characteristics did not hold a candle to the present.

These are lean times.

“Gran Torino, you’re the one who wanted to wear your shining beacon of a costume,” says Sanjuro. The man adjusts his bandana, fussing with fraying seams.

“I wasn’t going to repaint my gloves and boots.”

“And now you’ll attract all sorts of attention,” sighs the leader. The three of them are sharing one last quiet moment, staring at the hastily-scrawled map Sorahiko managed to draw up. Honestly, he has no idea if the resistance would have managed this fight without his help.

They certainly aren’t in any records.

“Sure you won’t tell me your name?” Sorahiko needles. “Dead man’s request.”

“As you like to remind us, it’s hard to kill you,” the leader says. He folds the map into squares, slides it into his jacket, and cracks his neck from side to side. “Send the signal.”

A red flare shoots up into the sky.

Gran Torino, as the fastest, hurtles himself over the gates and dodges the first slew of projectile Quirks. Nothing particularly dangerous, nothing tricky. However much All for One is in his prime, the Quirks of this era are… lacking in potency.

That, or All for One has already snatched the strongest of them up.

He supposes the real nightmare is that All for One’s followers are simply that. Followers, willing to do what the man wants, in broad daylight. Vicious, vindictive, villainous. The civilians can’t fight back, because the ban on public Quirk usage affects them the hardest. The government flounders, still is floundering by the time Gran Torino had hit the streets, so… it makes sense that this resistance appeared to fill the gap.

His entrance into the building is preceded by an unconscious woman’s body, thrown through a window. Presumably, the leader’s gauntlets will blow open the front doors, but once Gran Torino is on the move, he tries not to stop.

“Get him!”

“What the hell is he wearing?”

Gran Torino kicks that commenter in the face. He moves on. One, two, five, ten--there are more guards than he anticipated. Further down: a stairway, a hallway, a large heavy door with a spinning handle attached.

Despite knowing of the smart thing to do (wait for reinforcements), Gran Torino sets on to open this door.

It does not turn easy. But it does turn, and the door does open.

He shoves it, steadies his footing, and braces himself for a surprise attack. The light from the hallway floods into a dark room, and Sorahiko can barely discern a cowering figure on the floor, pale-haired and green-eyed.

“N-nii-san?”

Sorahiko blanches as the sound of an explosion shakes the floor above. He knows of very few people with hair like theirs, and this trembling voice does not sound like All for One. Stumbling back so his shadow doesn’t fall over the other man’s, Sorahiko has a crazy thought: whoever this relative of All for One is, he looks--kind.

“You’re not my brother,” says the man, green eyes going wide. “You--”

“Do you want out?” Gran Torino demands.

“I…”

“This estate is being attacked,” he says, trying to pick his words carefully. Shimura was always better at reassuring terrified civilians, or de-escalating emotional spirals on the verge of a panic attack. “If you need help, then… the people I’m with can provide it.”

“You don’t know who I am.”

Gran Torino exhales, sharp, and stalks into the vault. The man stays on the floor, staring up and up, except his eyes hold less fear and more fascination. They follow Gran Torino as he crouches, and then they skitter to gaze at the outstretched hand.

“I don’t need to know who you are,” Sorahiko says. “I wasn’t sent here to find you. All I know is that you’ve been trapped in this room, guarded by more goons than feasible for a hallway patrol.” He tilts his head. “Makes for easy lines of attack, I gotta say.”

“... Your Quirk?”

“Trade secret,” says Sorahiko simply. He wiggles his fingers. “This is an offer. Get out of jail free card, you could say.”

The man hesitates, but he reaches back, thin fingers ever smaller against the size of Gran Torino’s glove. They curl into a surprisingly strong grip as Gran Torino levers them back up.

“Can you run?”

“I’m not in the best of shape,” says the man, sheepish.

He considers his options. Escorting a malnourished unarmed civilian will turn them both into sitting ducks. Carrying him? That’s doable. It may also deter Sanjuro and the leader from automatically killing the man.

“Ever get motion sickness?”

“Never had the opportunity.”

Gran Torino nods and says, “I can carry you. In my arms or over my shoulder, pick your poison.” Upon seeing the flustered expression bloom, Sorahiko rolls his eyes. The man won’t see; the lenses are opaque. “If it helps, it will be faster if you’re in my arms. I can compensate for the extra weight easier.”

Not that you look like you weigh much, Sorahiko adds silently.

“Whatever works,” says the man, faint, and Gran Torino hooks one twiggy arm around his much broader shoulders and scoops him up off the floor by the knees. He’s right. The man doesn’t weigh much at all. Fingers curl in, grabbing a handful of his cape.

“This’ll work,” he confirms, and turns smartly on his heel to exit the vault. Before Gran Torino reenters the hallway, he stops and warns, “Bodies up ahead.”

The fingers tighten. “You killed them?” the man asks woodenly.

“Mine will wake up with a severe migraine.”

“Ah.”

That’s about as much as Gran Torino’s willing to throw his comrades under the bus. He forges on into the light, picking his way past the fallen unconscious bodies. Being in the past has turned him more cutthroat, but… he’s been hardwired to perform swift knock-outs. For most wannabe villains, getting kicked unconscious once is embarrassing enough to turn them onto milder paths.

Better a shoplifter than a mugger, in Gran Torino’s eyes.

These ‘guards’ had been pretty pathetic. Supposing the resistance doesn’t send a ‘clean-up’ squad, the idiots might be able to turn over a new leaf.

He would use Jet, but the hallway is kind of tight. So Gran Torino is stuck walking until he reaches the stairs, and he tries not to jostle his passenger. This effort does not go unrecognized, a fact Sorahiko realizes when he glances down to check in.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asks, unsettled by the shining green irises.

It looks uncannily like when Toshinori actually respected Gran Torino, instead of hating him to the point of sending him far into the past.

“You’re a hero,” the man whispers, almost giddy with the naming. “You’ve got to be.”

Sorahiko bites the inside of his cheek. His face feels too warm, a fact that he will have to blame on the floor being heavily insulated. Slowly, to better communicate a disbelief that he doesn’t actually feel, Sorahiko says, “And what makes you think that?”

“Your suit. The cape. A refraining from meting out ‘righteous justice.’” The man layers the sarcasm thick on the last two words, like he’s quoting some egotistical asshole.

“Some villains make the cut,” mutters Gran Torino.

“Exceptions to the rule?”

They’re at the bottom of the staircase. Sorahiko can hear the resistance wrecking shop upstairs, and he is keenly aware that he will be entering the fray with another man in his arms, in a one-person lift more commonly associated with bridal carries.

“When a villain promises to destroy your whole world,” he says, “when they already have destroyed a crucial part of it, with no remorse, no intention to atone... I think…”

This is hardly the time to indulge his grieving heart.

Nevertheless, the man presses his hand against Sorahiko’s chest. Sorahiko, startled, meets those fascinated, fascinating green eyes.

“I hear you,” he says, quiet in his empathy. A quick breath. “My name is Shigaraki Yoichi. It’s nice to meet you…?”

Sorahiko swallows past his trepidation.

“Call me Gran Torino, Yoichi-san,” he says.