Chapter Text
Nana Shimura’s quirk was Float, the power to float herself into the air. On its own it had never been much, but she still managed to become a hero, using the power of One For All to become great.
Her son did not inherit her quirk, instead having just a simple sorting quirk that helped organize paperwork and not much else, but her grandson…
Tenko Shimura was born to soar.
Air Walk.
Much like float, but stronger, better. The power to run through the clouds, race through the sky, dance and fight and traverse the air the way others use the ground.
It was always supposed to be his quirk, of course, but in other worlds it was stolen, changed and replaced for a future of pain and destruction and grief. Orchestrated by an enemy he didn’t know existed, a pawn in a game his grandmother played once.
But in this world, All For One doesn’t take his quirk, doesn’t replace it with Decay, doesn’t name him as an heir, a pawn, raised to be a host when he eventually needs it.
Nana Shimura still needs to be punished, however. Tenko’s family still dies, he still watches it, but this time it’s a hero’s fault, crushing them under a building feet away from the young boy.
He still doesn’t mourn his father much, but his sister had pushed him out of the way just in time to save his life, and he will carry that resentment towards heroes for a long time.
Of course, it wasn’t fully the fault of hero society, All For One had paid for these specific deaths, but that hero had still accepted the bribe, so in the end he would deserve the death coming to him.
And for All For One, well, though the boy’s survival wasn’t part of the plan, he chooses not to kill him. What better revenge, then having his disappearance linger, no body found amongst his family.
Wondering where his mentor’s grandson had gone? If he could find him? Save him? Well that would drive his nemesis crazy.
So he allows the boy to live, monitored but paying little attention to him.
Tenko still wanders the streets, covered in dust and blood, ignored even as he cries out for help. And a man still kneels down before him, offers him a hand and a home.
But this man has a face of mist and swirling shadow, hands smokey but still able to envelop Tenko in a hug.
Kurogiri was the first of All For One’s new Nomu’s, ones able to think for themselves, but he was still the test. The ones that follow are better, more efficient, more obedient, and so Kurogiri is dismissed to raise the young Shimura.
In this world, Tenko Shimura has a happy childhood.
Kurogiri is given a bar, a way for him to keep tabs on the criminal underworld and maintain his use while also providing stability for his ward.
The first couple years are hard. Beyond the loss of his family, the grief of watching them die, the hatred brewing in such a small body at the hero for killing them, the world for allowing it, himself for being unable to save him, Kurogiri has years of abuse to work through, of flinching away from hugs and hiding whenever he breaks something, distrustful of any affection for fear it will be ripped away.
Kurogiri doesn’t remember anything of his own childhood, but he knows enough to hate how afraid Tenko looks whenever he gets even mildly upset.
But they work through it, and find a system that works for them. A system of hiding places for when Tenko thinks he needs them, of arguing through notes until he’s ready for conversations, of hugs and assurances whenever they’re asked for, comforts and crying in dark nights.
And they find something neither of them can remember experiencing, a healthy parental bond.
The tragedy of his family will always be a part of Tenko, but he is a child, and he learns and recovers the same way he learns more about the world everyday.
He isn’t a happy child, not by any means, but he is much more even-tempered than he will become as an adult. (Teen angst will hit him hard, but Kurogiri doesn’t know that yet)
His laughter is rare, but Kurogiri treasures it as any parent would, coaxed out by tickling play fights and games and rounds of hide and seek where Tenko scampers up open air to hide on the top of the fridge, tag through the sky, avoiding Kurogiri’s portals, making cookies and treats in the kitchen learning to be unafraid of the laughter echoing through the apartment, the special drinks Kurogiri makes him while he’s working, surgery and sweet and getting his face covered in whipped cream and sprinkles.
And he grows.
Day by day, month by month, year by year, Tenko grows up.
His hair is streaked now, pale blue and stripes of white spreading as he grows older until there’s no black hair left. A physical manifestation of the trauma he’s experienced at such a young age, though he is too young to understand that as the cause. He doesn’t mind though, it makes him look less like his father.
Kurogiri doesn’t mind either. Every time he sees this young boy with light blue hair floating behind him like a cloud, something tickles in the back of his mind. He doesn’t remember having hair like that, and yet… Oboro loves that his son looks so much like him.
Tenko learns to read short sentences and children's stories, and write his own name, the handwriting shaky but legible. He will never go to school, but by damned if Kurogiri will not insure he has an education, no matter how much Tenko whines that it’s boring.
They go outside, visiting local parks (never the same one twice) but not as often as Kurogiri would prefer for the growing boy who needs to see the sun. But Tenko meets birds, and is immediately fascinated, tormenting the poor things as he chases them up into the sky when they try to fly away. He thinks they’re playing and Kurogiri doesn’t have the heart to tell him they’re actually terrified.
His fascination gets worse when he discovers the crows that like to hang around the bar, picking at the trash tossed by their customers, and Kurogiri teaches him how to leave out birdseed rather than unhealthy bread crusts and wait for the birds to come closer to them rather than chase after them, smiling as Tenko whispers about his plans to form a crow army and have them peck out the eyes of his enemies.
The first time Tenko calls Kurogiri dad it’s an accident, an easy, “Thanks dad,” when Kurogiri hands him his dinner, mostly distracted watching the cartoon playing across the TV. They both freeze, but Kurogiri can see the embarrassed blush rising up Tenko’s neck, and so he refrains from commenting, willing the smile off his face.
The second time is on purpose, just a test, a young boy seeing if this will be okay.
“Good morning, dad.”
Kurogiri whips his head around to stare at the small pale haired boy in the doorway to the kitchen, tugging at the edge of his sweatshirt nervously but staring at Kurogiri as if daring him to disagree. He is 6 now, and they’ve been living together for a year, long enough for Tenko to decide that he trusts Kurogiri, trusts him with what his father failed to be.
“Are you sure?” Kurogiri asks. He doesn’t want to overstep, doesn’t want to impose, this boy already had a family, one he mourned, and Kurogiri doesn’t want to replace that. (He does, really. In his ideal world Tenko would have never had to lose so much, would have been his from the start and Kurogiri would make sure he was safe and happy from the beginning, but that is not the world they live in and Kurogiri will not be disrespectful to the dead.)
Tenko doesn’t know himself, really. But he wants this, he thinks, and that matters more than being ready for it, so he nods. And this time Kurogiri can not hold back his smile, nor the tears (and he didn’t even know he could cry but here he is), scooping Tenko up into his arms and holding him closer, ignoring the way his kid (his kid!) struggles and whines to be let go and “Nooo! I take it back! Come on, Kurogiri, stop being so mushy!”
Tenko is eight when he first sees the hero who killed his family again. Sees that face staring back through the screen of the bar TV. His name was Sledgebreaker, and he was being congratulated for making it into the top 50 so soon after his debut as a hero, only 3 years into his career.
His quirk was pretty basic, enlarging specifically the sledgehammers he uses to crush villains and threats and civilians and families and dreams and-
Why is he breathing so fast?
Tenko looks back up at the screen and he feels something building in his chest, this unfamiliar urge to wrap his hands around the hero's neck and choke him, to watch the life drain from his cruel, greedy eyes, to crush him under a building just like he had crushed his family-!
The truth settles over him like a weighted blanket. The simple fact he can feel as deep in his bones as his quirk. Tenko’s going to kill him.
Perhaps it should unnerve him how little the thought of killing bothers him. But he grew up here, in this bar full of the scum of hero society, one of the hearts of the underbelly, where patrons trade stories of death as casually as they trade money, or alcohol, or sex (though Kurogiri had shielded him from the worst of it).
Most of the bar patrons were villains or criminals of some sort, and the ones that weren’t had such tragic life stories hiding behind their empty eyes and emptier glasses they would have been justified if they were.
Rumors and stories about the latest underhanded shit a hero pulled are always flouting around, and Tenko’s heard most of it, even if he can’t quite understand it yet.
But he can understand that it isn’t fair, that heroes taking advantage of their status as heroes is bad, and so he’s going to do something about it.
He’s going to become a villain.
So he starts paying a bit more attention to the information flying around, to what heroes are acting the worst, and begins to make his plans.
The murder list, written in crayon and vengeance, a list of all the heroes he’s going to kill once he’s gotten big enough. Later, Kurogiri will frame the list and hang it on their fridge and a young adult Tenko will hate it every time he walks in the room, but right now Kurogiri just finds his tiny little murder son adorable, as do most others in the bar with a bit of a soft spot for kids.
In fact, it’s one of the bar regulars that gave Tenko his first videogame. He was an information broker, and worked relatively frequently with Kurogiri, which is why he was in the bar so often. His name was Giran, and he had always prided himself on not having attachments, those would only hinder you in his line of work, and yet somehow the small boy sitting on top of the bar, with big brown eyes and fluffy pale blue hair, asking him about the best way to poison someone like it’s the most natural conversation in the world, make something in him soften in a way he knows is dangerous.
The next time he comes in, Tenko hands him a lollipop because, “The thing in your mouth smells really bad and I think this will taste better.” And Giran knows he’s going to break his own rule.
So when Kurogiri tells him Tenko’s 10th birthday is coming up, Giran goes out and buys him a computer and some games. Look, he has no idea what kids like, and this is the best he could think of. Luckily, Tenko adores it, and almost instantly gets hooked. The one constant across all realities is his love of games.
So now Tenko is 10, and Kurogiri has started helping him train his quirk in earnest, seeing how high he can go, how long, if he’s just floating in the air or hardening it under his feet (Only limit is oxygen, he can go for an hour but that timeframe can be expanded, he's hardening it).
He also starts teaching Tenko some basic self defense, just how to throw a basic punch or slip out of someone's hold because no child of his will be unable to defend themselves.
This is also the year Tenko makes his first friend. Having never been to school and living above a bar in one of the most dangerous areas in Kamino Ward, he’d never really even talked to a kid his age.
Kurogiri had allowed him to hang out in one of the parks near the bar on his own, though Tenko was sure he was still watching over him somehow, protective father that he was. Tenko never made it to the park though, getting sidetracked by the smell of smoke coming from a nearby alley.
That’s where he saw a young boy, maybe a couple years older than him, with white hair and shining blue eyes, cursing angrily as he kicked at a metal trash can, a pile of trash behind him already smoldering.
“Hello?” Tenko called and the boy looked over at him, still glaring, “Do you want some help setting stuff on fire?”
This seems to confuse the boy enough that he nods, allowing Tenko to join him in the alley.
The two work together for a moment, piling more trash and debris onto the pile until it’s about the size of a campfire, flames licking up the sides of some broken wooden post they had found leaning against the dumpster.
“So…” Tenko finally asks as the two step back to survey their work, “Why are you setting things on fire in an alley?”
The boy glances at him sidelong before shrugging, and Tenko gets a glimpse of a large bruise peeking out from under his shirt, “I’m imagining it’s my dads face.”
“Oh. Why?”
“Becuase he’s a piece of shit and I hope he burns,” The boy spits, glaring at the fire and Tenko can see the smallest amount of sparks coming out of his hands before the boy winces and they’re gone.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Tenko asks because that’s what Kurogiri always asks him when he seems upset about something, even if he’s not really sure he wants to hear whatever this kid’d have to say.
“No.” A beat of silence, then, “Fine.”
The kid flops himself down to the ground, sitting with his legs splayed out in front of him and leaning back on his hands as it watches the fire, it’s spluttering rather pathetically (apparently random garbage isn’t good fuel) but it’s still going.
“Do you know the Hero Endeavor?”
“Yeah,” Tenko nods, sitting down beside him, “He’s shit.” He doesn’t actually know much about Endeavor, but the patrons at the bar are always complaining about him, and a fair number of them are there drinking their sorrows away because he burned down their house. But he’s a kid, and so he’ll repeat what he’s heard, and what he's heard is that Endeavor is shit.
The boy actually looks surprised at that, assessing Tenko with new eyes. The brown eyed boy only narrows his, “What? Did you really think this is the neighborhood you’d find hero boot-lickers?” He gestures at the dilapidated apartments around them and the other shrugs, hunching his shoulders slightly.
“Well you’re right. He is shit and I’d know, I’m his son.”
Now it’s Tenko’s turn to assess the boy with new eyes, “...Are you sure? You don’t look as… scowly.”
The boy scowls and Tenko’s eyes widen, “Oh nevermind, now I see it.”
“Do not compare me with him!” The boy growls, sitting up to glower at Tenko, and this time he can see the little sparks of flame jumping to life in his hands before they’re quickly put out.
“Jeez! Sorry, I didn’t know it was such a big deal?” Tenko holds his hands up in surrender. He’s sitting down right now which means it’d be pretty hard for him to escape before he got burned. Luckily, the other boy relaxes rather than attacking, “What are you even doing here anyway, Endeavor isn’t from around here.”
The boy laughs bitterly, “Kind of the issue. He’s got some underground secret hero thing so he’s dragged us all out here as a cover as a ‘family outing’ and keeps acting like we’re such a perfect, happy family, like he doesn’t make me almost burn myself to death every week and I just can’t- Arggg!” The boy shoots his hand out and a burst of fire hits the smoldering pile of garbage, renewing the flames.
Tenko leans back in surprise and the ally is quiet for a moment as the boy cradles his hand to his chest, almost like it was hurt.
“Shouldn’t you not be telling me all this? You don’t know me, what if I go and blab to some villain about it and his mission fails?” Tenko finally asks. There are probably more important parts of what the boys just told him to latch onto, but he doesn’t really know how to approach that, so he sticks with the easier topic.
The boy laughs bitterly again, “You don’t get it, do you? I’m counting on it. I hope he dies.”
“Well,” Tenko starts after a pause that feels way too long, “I have a list of heroes I want to kill, maybe I could move Endeavor up on it?”
The boy snorts a laugh, looking at him with disbelieving eyes, “What?”
“I bet it will be easier with you here anyway, you can tell me all his weaknesses.”
And so Tenko makes his first friend.
The smoke from the fire eventually begins to fill the alley and they’re forced to leave. It’s just a small fire though, so Tenko’s not too concerned it’ll spread and burn something down.
The boy won’t be staying very long and since they don’t have phones to exchange numbers, they exchange their parent’s ones instead, or in the boy's case, his mothers, and they promise to try and keep in touch. Neither of them have any other friends so these almost weekly phone calls are kind of a lifeline for both of them.
Oh, and Tenko also gets the boys name. Touya Todoroki.
They continue to keep in touch through calls. Touya can only call when his father isn’t home so it’s very sporadic, but because Tenko is almost always home it works for them.
Then, only a couple months later, the calls stopped.
Kurogiri is the one to find out, just a small headline in the news. Not something Endeavor wants a lot of people to pay attention to, but not something he can fully hide either.
Touya Todoroki is dead.
Nothing says how he died, they most they can find is a quirk accident, but Tenko's been talking to him for a while now and he can guess enough as to what really happened.
And something in him hardens. Before this his dream to be a villain was childish, born of hatred but not really understanding. But he understands now, maybe not fully but he now understands what people are talking about when they say heroes don’t deserve to be heroes.
His goal solidifies.
He doesn’t want to just kill heroes, that won’t change anything, he is going to tear down hero society piece by piece until the world sees just how little heroes deserve to be worshiped, until it understands how blinded it’s been. He will rip it down and he will build something different from the ashes, something better.
Whatever it takes to make sure heroes will never again be able to kill their own children and get away with it.
After that he falls a lot heavier into his videogames, spending hours playing and getting really good at them. He tries to get Kurogiri to play with him when he’s feeling especially lonely, but Kurogiri is absolutely awful at all of it. Somehow he’s able to whip up the most perfect cocktail without any trouble, but as soon as he’s handed a controller his smoke hands fail him.
So Tenko mostly plays alone. In other worlds, ones where he was consumed by hate and fury and a crushing need to destroy, he gravitated towards fighting games. Games where he could kill and fight and shoot and watch his enemies fall.
But in this world his love was given to strategy. War games are not focused on the battles but on the overall organization, sending troops to the right places and aid on time and planning how the battles will play out. Simple puzzle games to play, keeping his mind engaged when Kurogiri is too busy to teach him. Those team building games where he collects the perfect characters and has to design a team based on what they can best do, decide what role they’ll play.
And his favorite, world building games.
Games where he gets to design his own little nation, building it from the ground up, deciding the system it will run by and where it will expand and what products it will be made for trade. How big the army is and where it’s sent and who to make allies with and who to destroy.
Privately, he considered these games practice for the future.
His favorite is this massive multiplayer empire building game, where while building his empire he could make allies or declare war on other players building their own empire. He sunk months worth of time into crafting his nation, making sure it would run smoothly and be self-sufficient. Giving the people fair leadership but not too much freedom.
He actually researched strategies and ways empires throughout history were successful just to insure he would be! Kurogiri had never seen him study so hard.
And that’s where he met his second friend.
Even though allyships were a huge part of the game, that was never really something Tenko had participated in. He didn’t really talk with any of the other players throughout the years he’d been playing, and instead in the few wars he’d fought, he crushed his opponents silently.
That was until he was 14, and someone reached out to him.
His gamertag was SpinningLizard and he had recently started playing and had spawned near Tenko’s empire. That made sense, as Tenko’s empire wasn’t that big geographically but was surrounded by miles of uninhabited wilderness. Tenko had made sure of that, crushing any players in that area to insure he’d maintain his buffer.
SpinningLizard was hoping for allyship, for Tenko to spare and protect him until he was able to get onto his own feet.
Normally Tenko wouldn’t have even considered it. New people didn’t last long in this game, often quickly destroyed for resources by the bigger empires around them, and Tenko had never been any different.
And yet…
No one had ever reached out to him before.
So he agreed, and SpinningLizard stayed and was able to grow his nation enough he could defend himself pretty well from the resource sharks. But he and Tenko had also started messaging more often, talking about things beyond the game.
SpinningLizard (or Spinner as Tenko often shortened it) was Tenko's age, and much like him didn’t have any friends or even leave the house much. He was a heteromorph, and due to that was bullied a lot by the kids in his town.
He also disliked heroes, had some experiences with the few heroes in his area always assuming he was in the wrong for being a heteromorph and was completely open to Tenko's ideas of tearing everything down and building a new system.
They didn’t tend to talk too much about their personal lives, neither had much to talk about, and yet, Tenko trusted him and they became very good friends.
When he’s not online chatting with SpinningLizard, he’s in the bar, helping Kurogiri now that he’s old enough to do so.
When he was 12 Kurogiri first started letting him help with the more… information broker side of the business, though it those days it looked more like Tenko sitting quietly by Kurogiri’s feet and letting him know if the other person had a gun under the table.
But once he was 15 he took over that side of the business almost entirely on his own, though he was instructed to get Kurogiri if any serious altercation started.
But by then Tenko could mostly deal with it himself, he had been training with Kurogiri for years, and even if his quirk wouldn’t generally be considered very offensive, he’d figure out how to concentrate air around his foot or hand and release it like a blast. The blasts were strong enough to knock most people off their feet, so it wasn’t like Tenko was defenseless, but still, Kurogiri worried.
So everyone who came through the door looking to buy or sell information pretty much came to Tenko. And he’d either accept it or send ‘em off to Giran if they were looking for stuff a little above his pay grade.
It was nice to have a hand in all the goings on of the criminal underbelly in Kamino Ward like this, a way for Tenko to keep tabs on the outside world while he was stuck in the bar, and he used the little tidbits of information they had access too to plan for his future.
He was almost an adult, after all, and then suddenly all his dreams of being a villain would become very, very real.
And he would need a plan.
For his 16th birthday Kurogiri gave him a beautiful set of throwing knives, saying they were a gift from his boss, all sleek and perfectly balanced and made of dark metal. They looked high end, top of the line hero equipment made to be fire resistant and hard to break. Tenko treasured them.
The truth was they were from All For One, a name Kurogiri had made damned sure Tenko wouldn't recognize, and the steel was made from the dust of his grandmother's bones. All For One thought it would be an ironic gift for the little would-be villain.
Kurogiri’s actual gift, the one he picked out, was given later that afternoon, a racing game that Kurogiri had spent weeks practicing just so he could play with Tenko without dragging him down.
They spent the rest of the day playing.
Later that same year they got into a huge fight.
Tenko is tired of being trapped in this bar, of just waiting and planning for himself to be “old enough” to go out and start making his name as a villain.
Well he thinks he’s old enough now.
“Tenko Shimura, you know you are not allowed to leave the bar unsupervised.” Kurogiri’s voice is measured, as it always is, and that only makes Tenko’s anger flare hotter.
“Yeah, when I was a kid! I’m 16 now! I can take care of myself!”
This whole thing had started when Tenko had gone out for a walk. He’d just lost a pretty major battle in one of his games and blown a whole bunch of his stocked up resources, so he just needed to go out and blow off some steam to settle his head before trying again.
Walking around his room or the bar like he normally did when his temper was flaring in that annoying way it always did that made him want to explode just wasn’t cutting it, so he had left.
He didn’t think it’d be that big of a deal. It was night so it’d be harder to see him, he was only in the park near the bar, he knew how to defend himself, and he was in the fucking sky so it’s not like anyone could reach him.
So there he was, walking circles in the air around the park as he grumbled about stupid overpowered bosses when mist was suddenly swirling around him and he was being dropped back into his kitchen with a disapproving Kurogiri looming over him.
“It’s not a matter of how old you are,” Kurogiri reminds, “It is for your own protection. You must tell me if you’re leaving the bar.”
“I don’t need your goddamn protection anymore!” Tenko’s voice is rising, “You said yourself I’m good enough to take on most of the villains in our bar!”
“Low rung villains are different-” Kurogiri’s voice is still level and it pisses Tenko off more than the rule.
Just once he wants to see Kurogiri shout, making him feel just as angry and confused and upset as Tenko always seems to be feeling these days.
“What are you so afraid of out there!?” Tenko screams, and Kurogiri… pauses.
Because the answer is on the tip of his tongue, and he can’t say it, couldn’t tell Tenko the truth about his grandmother and the hero was still undoubtedly looking for him even if he wanted to.
Not while All For One still has control over him.
Tenko takes his silence as admission, admission of the secrets kept from him, the secrets he is is keeping from him.
So he turns around and storms down the hall to his bedroom, wiping angry tears from his eyes as he slams the door behind him.
Because, fine! If Kurogiri wants to keep secrets and treat him like a child, whatever. Tenko will just have some secrets of his own.
And he knows exactly what he can do to prove to Kurogiri he can be trusted to take care of himself.
He doesn’t even need to check his notes on ways to take down this hero, he’s had his memorized for years now. But it’s a different thing to be imagining something and to be actually slipping out of your bedroom window and setting off across the city to do it.
Tenko keeps low, enough that he's mainly in the shadows of buildings but still a lot safer than walking through the alleyways themselves.
The address wasn’t exactly easy to find for someone who had no experience navigating cities, but he managed, and soon he was hovering in front of the window to the apartment of the Pro-Hero Sledgebreaker.
He didn’t feel anything as he slipped inside (cocky hero thinking he could handle whatever tried to break in), taking in the apartment of the man Tenko has hated for so long. It was nice, clean and modern and full of high end appliances signifying someone with money lived here.
But it was also sterile, almost impersonal, like someone wasn’t really here a lot. Sledgebreaker didn’t have any family (from the information Tenko had gathered he seemed a textbook workaholic) so besides a couple hero posters and merch, mainly his own, and a couple other knick-knacks on shelves, it would have been impossible to tell who lived here.
Well, almost impossible.
Tenko’s eyes are drawn to a picture on the counter, easy to see in a way that spoke of it being important, treasured even.
It was a selfie of a group, 5 or 6 people with their arms around the others as they grinned at the camera. They were in civilian clothing, yet Tenko could still recognize the one holding the phone to be Sledgebreaker, out of his hero costume. He had the same build and way of styling his mustache.
Tenko scanned over the other people in the photo, taking note of their features until he placed them as other Pro-Heroes around the same rank as Sledgebreaker. Heroes he’d been known to team up with a couple times. Though it seems those relationships had gone beyond simply work into real friendships.
No matter, it didn’t make much difference to Tenko. They were just a few more people who would mourn Sledgebreaker, maybe a bit more deeply than others.
Or so he told himself
He forced himself to look away from the photo as he made his way over to stand by the bed of the Pro, holding a knife over his sleeping form.
He certainly did feel the sudden punch to his face as the hero sprung up because he was in the top 50 now for a reason and had good instincts, especially when something was wrong in his own apartment.
Later, beaten and bloodied and near positive he has a broken rib, Tenko still doesn’t feel anything. He is sitting atop the lifeless body of the man who killed his family, bashing his head in over and over with one of his own hammers, and he doesn’t feel anything.
He’s not guilty or sad or scared that he has just taken another person's life, that they will never smile or laugh or feel loved by someone else again because of him.
But he’s also not happy like he thought he’d be. He’s not joyous or relieved or vindictive, he doesn’t feel like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders, like his family has finally been avenged.
Even the anger, his constant friend these days, has faded. Like something in the background, felt by another person he is only watching.
Tenko is 16 and has just taken his first life. His face and hands and the light colors of his hair are stained with blood, both the other man's and his own, sticky with the red substance as he opens and closes his fist, just feeling the way it reacts on his skin.
And yet he feels so empty, just… numb
He is bruised, black and blue and yellow and purple blossoming over his skin, his arms, his face, his chest, his stomach. And yet even that pain is just an afterthought.
He stands up on shaky legs to survey the room. He feels like he should be having a more emotional reaction to this, even without the guilt part this is a big milestone in his life! But it’s like the emotional side of his brain has just… shut down. Gone to sleep in the way that he suddenly really wishes he could.
He doesn’t really remember making it home, and it’s not until he safe back at the bar with Kurogiri bandaging him that his brain switches on enough for him to process that he’s really fucking tired.
Kurogiri notices, which is why he allows Tenko this quiet, not pushing about where he’s been or what he’s done (Kurogiri can guess but tomorrow he will still ask Tenko to explain it), and instead just cleaning his wounds and wrapping them in gauze, setting his broken rib back in place before sending Tenko upstairs to rest.
He’ll feel everything when he wakes up again, not the next day but the day after, body screaming at him for his injuries while his mind writhes in equal chaos, emotions having finally caught up to him, and to Kurogiri, that is punishment enough.
Tenko will still be put on bedrest for at least a week until he can heal more, no matter how much he complains, though.
And Tenko complains, because bedrest forces him to think about it, to replay it over and over again, analyzing what he did wrong and why he didn’t react at all.
Mostly though, his mind keeps drifting back to that photograph, which has somehow buried itself in his head until he finally realizes why he’s so caught up on it.
If he wants to be a villain, one that can actually make a difference, then he’ll need a team of his own.
Kurogiri is quick to impose a rule of no proper villaining until he’s 20, which sucks, but he also relents on imposing as strict curfew rules, and allows Tenko a bit more freedom as long as he tells Kurogiri where he’s going and calls him as soon as there’s trouble.
But that’s alright. Even if he can’t be a villain yet, there’s a lot to do to prepare for his debut.
He's learned now just how dangerous fighting heroes can be, seen it and felt it and almost got killed by it, and he throws himself into his training with new passion.
But there is so much to do as well.
His team can’t be just anyone. These are going to be the people he counts on to have his back in a fight, and that means there needs to be a certain level of trust.
Tenko doesn’t know a lot of people, and when he goes over the list of those he does, there’s only one person he can imagine trusting like that besides his dad.
So the first person Tenko asks is SpinningLizard.
At first his friend thinks it’s just a joke. To be fair, who asks someone to join their villain group while playing a farming sim together?
But Tenko is dead serious, and Shuichi Iguchi… considers it.
It’s foolish, but… he doesn’t have anything else to do. No friends to miss or future to be excited about or parents who would care if he packed up and left to follow Tenko on his crazy dream. They might not even notice he’s gone after a while. He knows they care about him, maybe not quite love but something, but they’re always so busy. Working on the farm and being upstanding members of the community, their son almost… forgotten.
And it sounds nice, what Tenko’s offering. A chance to be more than a lonely shut-in, to build something better, to be a part of something, that’s all Shuichi has ever really wanted.
So just as stupidly serious, he says yes, and the deal is sealed with the growing of their summer crops.
And so before he has time to rethink it, time to psych himself out with all the uncertainties of his decision, Shuichi finds himself on the train to Kamino Ward, his belongings packed into two trunks at his feet and his parents goodbyes still fresh in his head. (They were told he was just going to live with a friend, rather than the truth of the circumstances, and he tries not to feel too guilty, he’s sure he will be doing a lot more things to feel guilty about soon.)
Tenko is… not what he was expecting. This is their first time meeting in person, and even seeing each other's face, and this pretty boy with the pale hair and clever eyes is not at all what he expected.
So yeah, it’s weird to hear the same terrible jokes, and whining complaints, and cackling laughter that’d he’d only ever heard, coming out of this face, so well known yet so different, but he’s too busy being shocked by something else.
See, Shuichi is used to people flinching when they see him, even just for a moment of shock from his appearance. But Tenko doesn’t even hesitate. He just grins at him, wide and genuine and well, Shuichi would think innocent if he didn’t know him better, rushing over to drag his friend into the bar, seemingly unbothered by the scaly texture of Shuichi’s skin and complaining loudly about Kurogiri’s refusal to make cookies in that way of his where Shuichi can’t tell if he’s joking or just that childish.
And something in his chest shifts. A fear that he will never find people to accept him lightening and slowly beginning to fade.
He doesn’t realize it at the time, but many years later, when the whole league is together and he’s watching Tenko sprawled out over their ratty couch with a leg dangling over the back just to prevent anyone else from sitting, reminiscing about how the fuck they got here, that he’ll decide this was the moment that sealed his fate.
This was the moment that determined he’d spend the rest of his life helping Tenko achieve whatever it was that he wanted.
Shuichi doesn’t have any experience fighting, and he tells Tenko as much, but Tenko is not deterred.
“Well we’ll just have to start training then, so by the time we can debut you’re a force to be reckoned with!”
Tenko proves himself to be a ruthless teacher, but his methods undeniably work. He’s efficient, and passionate, and even though the training is mostly Tenko kicking Shuichi’s ass until he learns something, it works surprisingly well.
Though Shuichi does complain about how unfair it is that Tenko’s both good at fighting in videogames and reality.
Once Tenko finally deems him good enough at hand to hand that they can move onto weapons, they come across a roadblock. Though Kurogiri got Tenko a wide range of weaponry to insure he would be at least proficient in everything, they were mostly smaller simple weapons, designed to enhance Tenko’s more brawl like fighting style, and none of them are really a good fit for Shuichi.
The breakthrough comes as they’re watching the news and some hero with a metal attracting quirk who pulls a bunch of loose wires and pipes into a giant sword and something clicks in Shuichi’s brain.
He wants that.
It’s on one of those days, when he’s welding new blades onto his sword, Tenko sitting on a table nearby playing games on his handheld console that he suddenly looks up and asks, “What’s your plan for your villain name?”
Shuichi pauses, popping up his welding mask to look at Tenko curiously, “What do you mean?”
“Your villain name. Part of your presentation as a villain.” Tenko explained.
“I don’t see why presentation should matter so much? We’re not heroes.” Shuichi rolls his eyes.
“That doesn’t mean our image isn’t important.” Tenko reminds, throwing a spare scrap of plastic at Shuichi’s head as payback for rolling his eyes, "A memorable name makes it easier to remember you. Something to strike fear into the hearts of people. People fear a mysterious villain, sure, but not as much as one everyone knows about but no one can stop.”
Shuichi considers this. He’s still not sure he fully understands but, hey, Tenko’s the mastermind here.
He shrugs, turning back to his welding, “I guess I’ll go by Spinner then.”
Tenko splutters behind him. “Spinner?” He mocks, “My little nickname for you? Come on, you can be more creative than that.”
“No, I like it.” Shuichi defends, “It’s fitting. Not just because it’s your nickname for me, but… that’s what we’re doing aren't we? Spinning a new future for Japan. A new system.”
Tenko doesn’t speak for a moment, his eyes locked on the screen of his device, but Shuichi can tell he’s thinking it through.
“Alright,” He finally agrees, nodding decisively, “Spinner. Is that what you’d like me to call you?”
Shuichi blinks at him, not expecting that.
He imagines it for a moment, leaving behind his old name, his old identity, and being Spinner instead. The villain, Spinner, who fights for a better future for all heteromorphs in Japan, for a new system that will support them under Tenko.
He’d be someone who wouldn’t cower, wouldn’t be forgotten or hide away, hide himself. He’d be someone strong, someone who had friends, and dreams, and was actually doing things to achieve them.
This is already the start of a new life for him, but he never thought it could be the start of a new him too.
Shuichi found he quite liked the thought.
“Yeah,” Spinner nods, “Yeah, I think I’d like that.”
About a year and three months after Spinner first came to live with them, their next members joined.
Unlike with Spinner however, this was not something Tenko had planned.
It’s evening, on one of the few days per year the bar is closed. Spinner had gone out, he’d finished his stash of his favorite chips this morning and needed more, while Kurogiri was off in the backroom, inventorying their stock of bar supplies, leaving Tenko alone to man the empty bar area.
He was sitting up at the bar, papers spread around him as he finished the latest assignment Kurogiri had given for his homeschooling. Tenko had argued that by now he could have just dropped out of high school and shouldn’t have to do this anymore, but the look Kurogiri had given him after that comment incentivized him to actually finish his work.
He’s drawn out of his thoughts by a sudden knock at the door, his head snapping up in confusion. No one should be at the bar right now.
“Can’t you read the fucking sign?! We’re closed!” Tenko shouts through the door, because he’s not stupid enough to open it.
“I think you’re gonna want to let me in.” A male voice calls from the other side and Tenko goes ridged. Because that voice… is familiar.
He marches over to the door and yanks it open, staring up at the man on the other side.
He’s young, maybe around 19 or 20, with black hair and a scared face, looking more like a patchwork quilt than actual skin.
But his eyes…?
Tenko would know those piercing blue eyes anywhere, no matter how long it’s been or how much he never thought he’d see them again.
The man is smirking, leaning against the doorway outside the bar with a cheshire smile, “Long time no see, eh, Ten.”
Tenko slams the door in his face.
“Wait, Tenko! You can’t just leave me out here!” Touya Todoroki (because of course it’s fucking Touya Todoroki! Of course he wasn’t dead! Tenko should have expected this honestly. Faking his death just to get back at his father was exactly the sort of shit Touya would pull-) protests from outside, but Tenko is too busy seething.
“Fuck you! I thought you were dead!”
7 years. It’s been 7 years and only now does Touya bother to show up and tell him that he isn’t dead-!
“Well I was!” Touya shouts back through the door and that pulls Tenko up short, his mind going eerily quiet in the breadth of an instant, “I mean, I did. Die that is. I just also… came back.”
Tenko opens the door again and Touya can see how wet his friend's eyes have gotten. It sends guilt stabbing through him and because he hates that feeling, his explanation just… tumbles out of him.
“Endeaver did kill me, just like you probably guessed, little genius,” He mutters the last bit, cracking a smile that Tenko doesn’t return. “Pushed me too hard during quirk training and my own flames burned me out. They’re blue now though, so that’s cool.” He thinks he’s rambling now. Touya had never been much of a rambler, but Natsu was, and didn’t that thought send a whole new wave of guilt, “I was dead for I think about 3 years? Or I guess, coma would be more accurate because I woke up. But after that- well,” He laughs but there’s no humor in it, “Do you know how hard it is to learn how to use your body after being dead for three years? Well it’s about three more years worth of hard. Only about a couple months ago did I feel I regained enough strength to start traveling and even then it took a while to get here because, well, I can’t exactly use public transportation, but I swear, Ten, you were the first person I thought of when I woke up and I’ve been trying to reach you for 3 years. And I never meant for it to take this long.”
There’s silence for a long moment after Touya finishes, Tenko’s brown eyes drilling holes through Touya’s blue ones until the younger boy sighs.
“Fine. Get in here.”
Touya steps through the door gratefully, but stops Tenko with a hand on his arm before he can close the door.
“There’s, ah, one other thing you should know about.”
A shape barrels into Tenko, wrapping thin arms around him and squeezing.
He realizes just before he punches the person that this is not an attack but a hug.
And his brain short-circuits more.
The person is suddenly pulled off him and he now sees Touya, holding a young schoolgirl by the back of her shirt like a disobedient dog. She looked like she was only 12, with messy blond spacebuns and rosy pink cheeks, but the innocent look was ruined by her blood red eyes and the madness swirling in them.
“Tenko, meet Toga.” His voice is exhausted as the hyperactive girl wiggles in his grasp.
“Hi Tenko! I’m Toga! Dabi said you’re gonna be our new boss! You look like you have very pretty blood! Can I have some?”
It only takes a moment and a lifetime of experience dealing with strange patrons for Tenko to remember his manners. “Hi Toga, it’s nice to meet you. No, you can’t have some of my blood but I’m sure we have some juice somewhere.”
The girl seems to find that agreeable, and runs off to Kurogiri when Tenko points in that direction to ask for juice, leaving a bewildered Tenko standing with a guilty Touya.
“What… was that?”
Somehow, Touya manages to look more guilty, “That was Toga. I burnt some creeps that were bothering her about a year ago and she just hasn’t left me alone since.”
“I see.” Tenko smiles, “And the big bad… Dabi-” He tests out the name he heard Toga refer to Touya as, enjoying the way his friend's face turns red and ignoring his muttering, “Well, I couldn’t very well use my legal name could I?” to continue on, “-Just couldn’t bring himself to scare her away.”
Touya scowls, “She’s just a kid. She needed someone to look after her.” He averts his eyes from Tenko as he mutters the last bit, but he doesn’t need to see it to know his friend’s smile is mocking.
“I suppose you are a big brother,” Tenko muses gleefully and Touya stomps past him toward the bar, still refusing to make eye contact.
“Shut up. I do not see her as a sister.”
“Dabi!” A joyful young voice shouts from the back room, “They have fruit punch!”
“That’s great Toga!” Dabi calls back instinctively, ignoring the way Tenko cackles as he slides into the seat next to him, “Shut up.”
Once his laughter had faded, Tenko leaned back against the bar, appraising the man sitting next to him, “So…” He draws out the vowel, “Now that you’ve let me know you’re still alive, what do you plan to do now?”
Dabi shoots him an equally smarmy grin, “Well,” He drawls, “I remember a while ago, someone promised to kill Endeavor for me. I’ve come to cash in.”
Tenko’s eyes glint with interest but Dabi holds up a finger to stop him before he can respond, “With one… added condition. I get to be the one to kill him, you’re just gonna help me get there.”
Tenko cocks an eyebrow, “And what do I get in return for this… change in terms?”
“If I know anything about you, you’ve got plans. Big ones. I can help.” Dabi lights his hand and a blue flame dances over burnt skin before he extinguishes it, “I offer my service.”
Tenko hums, but he can’t quite manage to keep a smile off his face as he extends a hand for Dabi to shake, “Well then, Touya Todoroki, welcome to the team.”
“Happy to help, boss.”
And Tenko gains a second member.
Toga follows quickly after.
“Villian…” She tests the word out slowly, rolling it around in her mouth after Tenko presented his offer. He had waited until after Spinner came back home and introductions were made between him and Dabi.
She’s just a kid, and he was hesitant to rope her into all this.
Dabi had disagreed.
“You haven’t seen the way people look at her once they figure out what her quirk is, child or not. She doesn’t have anywhere else to go. At least if she’s here, we can help her.”
The “I can protect her” goes unsaid, but Tenko hears it.
And so, that night after dinner he asks Toga if she wants to join.
“The kids at school called me a villain.” She continues, “Said I was evil when I tried to drink their blood. But I don’t think that’s fair,” She pouts, “I need to drink blood.”
She looks up at Tenko with big, round eyes, “Will this prove them right?”
Tenko’s heart breaks a little. He’d never had a soft spot for kids, never held that sort of empathy in him, but… he can see something in her. Something he doesn’t quite relate to, but understands.
And he doesn’t quite know what to do with that.
Spinner is the one to save the moment, proving himself to be the best with kids out of all of them, “No.” He assures her, "Because you are so much more than what the kids at your school assumed you to be. But people are going to keep assuming you are, they’re going to keep trying to say you’re a murderer, a criminal, inhuman. But that’s why we’re doing this. To change things so others won’t have to go through it the way we have.”
Toga nods slowly, her little mind absorbing Spinner's words before her nods get more energetic, “Okay. Okay, yeah! I want to help!”
The group around her cheers, Dabi reaching over to ruffle her hair, laughing as she glares at him, but genuine fondness slips through the gesture, “Well, Vampire, we’ll make sure you never go hungry again.”
“Plus, you’re already beating me,” Spinner adds, “I’ve never been called a villain before! I’ll have to work extra hard to catch up to you!” This made Toga brighten, banishing the last remnants of sadness from her eyes.
At that moment Kurogiri swept over, a faint smile that was equivalent to a grin for him, “Well, I believe a new member is cause for celebration.” He places down the glasses he was carrying, “I brought milkshakes.”
They cheered, and the rest of the evening was a blur of stupid bonding games and trading stories about the last couple years, Kurogiri scolding Dabi for trying to sneak some liquor into his milkshake and Tenko screeching as Toga destroyed them all at charades (Dabi wasn’t very good either, but it turns out Spinner is terrible, so Tenko was really just at a disadvantage).
A week after they’d started staying at the bar, Tenko found Dabi up on the roof, cigarette held loosely between his fingers as he stared out across the dark city. He comes up and leans back against the small wall separating them from the roof and empty air next to him, letting his head roll back to stare at the small pinpricks of stars visible through the city smog.
Dabi brings the cigarette back up to his mouth and blows smoke through his lips, rolling his eyes at Tenko’s questing glance, “Bad habit I picked up.” a smile quirks at the edges of his mouth, small and bitter, “I always have had a taste for smoke.”
Tenko hums, Dabi passes it over to him when he holds out a hand. Smoking has never been one of Tenko’s preferred vices (he’s tried it of course, as everyone whose grown up where he has would, mostly when he was 15 and full of anger and the threat of it slowly killing him didn’t bother him), but even he can admit that the heavy warmth filling his throat is slightly comforting. Still, he doesn’t allow himself more than a few lungful's before he’s passing it back to Dabi.
“So…” He starts, letting the word hang in the air for a moment, “What’s bothering you.”
Dabi raises a condescending eyebrow, “How do you know something's bothering me? Maybe I just enjoy being out here.”
Tenko’s look could cut glass, “Please. You? Mr. ‘I thrive on attention’? Standing out all alone in the dark for fun?”
Dabi’s laugh is a near imperceptible thing, but even the spark of their usual banter can’t draw more than a quirk of his lips. Tenko lets the silence hang as Dabi searches for the right words.
“I’ve just… been thinking, I guess. I’ve spent so long with only two goals. I’d find you and we’d kill Endeavor, and everything else I could figure out once I found you. But now I have and I’m actually having to think about it. What I should do, I mean.” His arms rest on the top of the edge as he slumps slightly, looking down at the alley below.
Tenko can almost recognize that look, familiar and yet not. Similar to how he looks whenever he gets lost wondering the ‘what ifs’ if his family was alive.
“Your siblings.” He guesses and Dabi nods miserably.
“I should reach out, right? Let them know I’m alive and everything, but then he’d know and I really don’t think I’m ready for that yet, but at the same time, doesn’t it make me a terrible brother to be prioritizing my revenge over them?” He laughs, deranged and insane and painfully close to a sob.
Tenko lets him. He needs to get this out of his system.
“I went over there once, right after I woke up.” Dabi murmurs, his laugh suddenly quieting, “I still didn’t understand what was going on, how long it’d been. Natsuo and Fuyumi were playing outside, laughing about something like their brother hadn’t been dead for 3 years. They looked so… happy.” He takes a deep shuddering breath, looking up at Tenko with so much pain, such a deep well of hurt Tenko can’t believe he didn’t notice before.
How many masks had Touya been wearing to hide this?
“They mourned me, Ten. Grieved and cried and learned to move on. How could I disrupt that? Pull them into the mess that I am?”
Tenko doesn’t have an answer for him, doesn’t know what his oldest friend needs right now, but he can bump his shoulder against the other man's and promise that he doesn’t have to know right now, that this is something they can figure out together, and that no matter what he ends up doing, Tenko will be right here.
They’re villains, they’re allowed to be a little selfish.
The two new members accumulated to life at the bar quickly. Dabi made an incredible bouncer when people got rowdy, and though Toga wasn’t allowed to interact with most of the patrons, she was very good at gathering information given her quirk, and their information dealings grew even more successful.
It was during this period on one lazy night, that the League of Villains officially got its name.
“Boss, boss, boss, boss, boss!” Toga cheered, running over to where Tenko was wiping down a table, “You know that group in the corner?”
“The one with the person that threw up?” Tenko asks and she nods eagerly.
“Well, I was talking to them and they said they’re a villain group with the name 'The Horde of Hellspawn', which is a little cheesy, but it got me thinking, why don’t we have a team name?” She rambles, spitting the words out in almost a single breath.
Spinner laughs from where he was moping nearby, “Don’t worry, I’m sure Tenko has a name for us. You should have heard the lecture he gave me about villain names!” He looks over to where Tenko has suddenly gone very pale, “Boss?”
“Shit.”
Dabi runs a hand down his face, slumping over the paperwork for a guy who has asked for information on some sort of drug den in the city, “This is gonna be a whole thing, isn’t it?”
Tenko runs up to his room to grab a piece of paper, completely disregarding the staircase, slamming it down on the table, “Alright! Ideas?!” He demands.
“Hmmn,” Toga hums, tapping a finger to her chin before bouncing excitedly, “Oh I know! Toga’s Terrors!”
Tenko grimaces and she frowns, thinking harder, “Tenko’s Terrors?”
“I’ll write it down.” Tenko offers the girl and she grins proudly. It definitely will not be their name, but if it makes Toga feel better when he writes down her suggestions, he can do that.
“The Coalition of-”
“No, I don’t like the sound of any names including coalition. It sounds too… policital.” Tenko interrupts Spinner, who huffs.
“Well, I don’t see you suggesting any names!”
“I’m thinking!”
The discussion went on in this fashion for a while. The adjective ‘great’ was quickly banned, and the idea of having any of their individual names in the name was also vetoed. ‘The DarkWeavers’ was a little too dramatic and ‘The Overhaulers’ was also shot down. Tenko didn’t have a reason for that one, it just felt wrong in a way he couldn’t place.
All of Kurogiri’s suggestions were too formal in an old man sort of way, and Toga had the opposite problem with her insistence that all the names be alliteration.
In the end, Dabi was surprisingly the one to end the debate.
“The League of Villains,” Dabi states dryly from where he had been trying, and failing, to do his work over at the bar. He swivels around to face the rest of the group that had gone very quiet, “We’ll be called the League of Villains.”
“That’s… not bad.” Tenko tries the name out, “The League of Villains. Yeah, I could work with that.”
“I like it! It’s spooky!” Toga chirps and beside her Spinner is nodding as well.
“Then we are officially the League of Villains." Tenko declares, and the decision is final.