Chapter Text
The last thing he could have ever expected is to end up shuddering to life again and opening his eyes to see the bar. The bar that was destroyed. The bar that doesn’t exist anymore. The bar he grew up in and loved dearly. He loved it as much as he can love anything.
So he’s now confident that something is very very wrong. He’s sure he was dying. Rather dramatically as well, though most things he does are. Dramatic, that is.
Sensei killed him. He remembers that much very clearly considering he fell into a void and stopped feeling anything at all. He doesn’t remember much of his time in the void.
Now that he’s thinking of it though he does remember one thing. He remembers a quirk, or what he assumes to be one, asking if he would do things differently. If he wanted to change things. If he felt like he could. He was understandably shocked at the time considering he was in a void of nothing but he remembers saying yes.
Clearly destruction didn’t work the way he wanted it to. Nor does he care much about destruction after everything that happened. Not the way he cares about other things. He loves destroying things, don’t get him wrong. It’s literally what he was created to do.
The League though. The League is easily the most important thing. It has been for so long. Dabi and Spinner. Toga and Compress. Kurogiri, god, Kurogiri. Twice and Magne, though they’d both been dead awhile. The League is everything. He misses them.
If there was a way to keep the League alive he would’ve taken it. He was a bit preoccupied with ending society of course but if there was a way out of it for all of them he would’ve chosen the way out. Or maybe he wouldn’t have. He can’t know what he would’ve done then. He would now. With the knowledge he holds, knowing Sensei is a traitor, yeah he wouldn’t have continued with his plan.
So when the quirk asked if he would change things he said yes. Of course he did. He doesn’t know what happened to most of the League. He doesn’t even know if any of them survived. He certainly didn’t. Sensei definitely murdered him quite spectacularly. He’s proud that he kept his body for as long as he did. His mind was stronger than All for One’s. What Sensei made him into protected him. He died though. He definitely died.
He wonders if this is some sort of afterlife. The bar back to the state it was before Kamino. Before the kidnapping. Pristine, or however pristine the bar is on any day. Meaning not very nice looking but dust free. Kurogiri took dusting very seriously. He missed it. He missed it dearly.
He grew up here. Was his childhood anything special or even good in any sort of way? No. No, not with the knowledge of Sensei’s machinations. He grew here though with Kurogiri’s ever watchful and caring presence. This was his home since he was seven years old.
It’s shocking to see it. It was destroyed. All Might sort of flew in through the door and that cockroach Bakugo Katsuki exploded multiple walls. Here it is though in all its glory.
“Tomura,” A voice says from behind him. A recognizable voice.
He turns and lays his eyes on Kurogiri, before the capture. Before the heroes. (After? He still doesn’t fully know Kurogiri’s story other than the fact that Eraserhead knew Kurogiri before he did.) It’s Kurogiri before everything changed.
“Kurogiri?” He asks, eyes wide. He didn’t expect Kurogiri to be in his afterlife but he supposes it makes sense. Or perhaps Kurogiri’s dead too. It’s not like he knows how the damn afterlife works. “Are you my imagination or did you die too?”
While Kurogiri’s mists have never been particularly easy to read, he learned over the years what the shifting meant. What his eyes meant. Kurogiri’s confused, that much is clear to him.
“I don’t know what you mean, Tomura. You spaced out rather intensely and have been staring at the wall for a couple of minutes. Are you alright?”
The concern layering Kurogiri’s voice shocks him. Tomura (or is he Tenko now?) isn’t sure what to make of it. He knows Kurogiri cared for him but he doesn’t remember Kurogiri showing much emotion at all. He wasn’t paying much attention back then though, too sucked into the games he was playing or calling Kurogiri his ride.
He missed him. Fuck but he missed Kurogiri so much. It’s something he shoved down and he told himself not to but he did. He missed Kurogiri.
When he looks down at his arms, he sees fewer scars there as well as the fact that he pinky fingers aren’t bent quite as bad as he remembers them being. Something changed. What that something is, he isnt sure yet.
”Yeah, I’m fine Kurogiri. Just, zoned out I guess.”
He needs to figure out what’s going on. He was very dead. He had his talk with Izuku Midoriya and then died. Sensei won against him. He hopes Izuku won that fight. If he did then that means that Tomura won and that means it will have been worth it.
“Alright. Do you need anything currently?”
Fuck, hearing Kurogiri’s voice again is really messing with him. He wants Kurogiri to tell him everything would be okay like he used to. Back before Sensei told him to stop.
“No. I’m okay. Don’t bother me for the rest of the day.”
Tomura (he’s going with that for now. Identity is confusing) turns and tries to walk normally to his old room. Walking normally is hard when you’re in some sort of fucked up past moment while dead but, he digresses.
He needs to look at himself. The missing scars are freaking him out. Why doesn’t he have them? He doesn’t understand why he doesn’t look the same as he did when he died in the afterlife.
He turns into the bathroom last second and closes the door behind him. He steps toward the mirror and looks.
What the fuck. He stares at his old pale blue hair and chokes. He looks like he did when he was fucking seventeen. His hair is shorter, which is why he didn’t notice that it isn’t white anymore. He’s seventeen.
Why the fuck does he look seventeen in the afterlife? That makes no sense. Unless he’s in hell, which does make sense all things considered. He killed a lot of people.
He’s beginning to doubt he’s dead though. This is all too real. He can feel things as if he’s still alive. Nothing looks darker or lighter than it did when he was alive. This isn’t a specific memory.
There’s also a lack of unbearable pain and lava pits. Which he’s pretty sure hell is supposed to have. If he’s dead he’d definitely be in a horrific land of torture.
On the other hand, being seventeen again can be seen as torture to some people. It’s certainly a version of torture. He doesn’t want to be seventeen again. Nobody does.
There’s only one way to figure this shit out. He has to look inward. He needs to see if it’s still there. All for One. So he sits down on the floor of the bathroom and he pulls.
He still has it. It’s evident when purple sparks fall out of his fingertips. Does that make it more likely to be true or less? Realistically if he’s back in the past with All for One then he should’ve exploded. His body wasn’t modified when he was seventeen.
The Doctor said he’d explode if he took the quirk without the modification to his body. He should’ve exploded.
Yet the purple sparks come and when he looks for it, he can Search the surrounding area and see the names of everyone close to him.
Fuck, did he time travel? How the fuck is he still alive when he should be dead. That fucking quirk’s words come back to him. Would he change things if he could. Fuck.
Okay. He just has to act normal until he either wakes up to brimstone and ash or he’s proven to have travelled into the past.
What the fuck should he even do? Try to destroy the world again? No. Obviously he won’t be doing that. He destroyed until he died and he’s proud of that but it didn’t work. Besides, if he kills Sensei and the Doctor quickly maybe he can live a civilian life. He can at least see what it’ll be like anyway.
Yeah, he’ll kill the traitors and then do… something. He doesn’t know yet but he’ll figure it out.
He leaves the bathroom quickly and hurries to his old bedroom. After he closes the door, he collapses onto his bed and sighs. So much work to do. He can’t believe that even in death or whatever this is he still has to work. He’ll figured it out though. He always does.
//
Sensei is weak right now. He reminds himself of that fact as he hurries to where he knows Sensei recovered from his fight with All Might. Tomura won against Sensei when he was the strongest he’d ever been. He won with Sensei inside him. He can decay Sensei and his life support shit easy. All Might kicked the shit out of the man. Tomura’s sure he can do it if All Might did it while super injured.
So he walks into the room that Sensei rests in and lays his hand on his face. Sensei decays easier than Tomura expected him to. His eyes open for just a second and then Decay works faster than Sensei can even start fighting back. So Decay is still it top form. Good to know.
He’s just so angry. His entire life was a fucking lie. Sensei planned for him to be born. Sensei wanted his dad to hit him. Sensei wanted his body as a vessel. Fuck him. Seriously fuck him. So decay works fast and Sensei is no more.
It feels too easy. The evidence is there though. With All for One Tomura can feel if a quirk was used to teleport him out of here and Search says that Sensei isn’t here anymore. Sensei is dead.
Okay, Tomura nods. His hands shake and he curls them into fists. Sensei is dead. That’s more proof that this is real. He doubts whatever torturer in hell that’s sacked with him let him get rid of Sensei. Sensei can be good for torturing him after all.
Tomura turns and walks out of the room. Now he just has to kill the Doctor and the Nomu and destroy the building. Then he can be a civilian or something. He’ll figure it out. No matter what, Tomura will figure it out.
Killing the doctor is easy. He expected it to be. The doctor isn’t shit compared to All for One. So he places a hand on his stupid fucking face and Decays him to ash. Fuck Garaki’s ugly ass. He deserves to die anyway. The shit the doctors done is probably worse than what Tomura’s done. Maybe. He doesn’t actually know but the Doctor needs to die so he’s dead.
He goes through and systematically kills all of the Nomu after. None of these fuckers deserved to be a Nomu. He assumes they didn’t anyway and having Nomu just sitting around is dangerous, so they have to die. He took some of the quirks first. Whoever they were before they were this kind of Nomu. They can’t come back from that. So yeah, Tenko takes the quirks.
Once all of the Nomu are dead and he’s the last living thing (presumably, jury’s still out on if this is the afterlife or time travel) in the building, he starts going through Garaki’s notes.
If there’s a way to help Kurogiri in here then Tomura will do it. With his new path as a civilian, Kurogiri will also have to become a civilian. Civilian life also means that he has to try to be a good person or whatever so he’ll try and give Kurogiri his memories back.
It takes him fucking forever. People would think that considering the Doctor has been alive for fucking ever he would have kept things organized? No. Not a damn thing is organized. Tomura’s already been here searching for notes on Kurogiri for five hours.
Is this paper about Kurogiri? No! He throws the paper into the air and keeps looking. Random Nomu, quirk taken from whatever and whoever and fuck. He doesn’t give a shit about these random fucking people. Is being a good person going to be this fucking hard? If it is then maybe he can just get a farm and never talk to anyone ever again. Shit.
After like nine hours of searching Tomura finally finds it. Nomu Kurogiri, original name, Shirakumo Oboro. Fucking finally. This place gives him the creeps and it always has so he wants to get the fuck out of here.
He grabs Kurogiri’s file thing and turns to leave before pausing. He looks back at all of the rest of them and sighs. Fuck. Is Izuku Midoriya contagious or something? Now he, what? Wants to help people?
He scoffs at the thought and rolls his eyes. He’ll take the rest of the shit with him. Maybe that’s how he’ll do civilian life. He’ll just think, ‘What would Izuku Midoriya do?’ and bam, good person. He’d want Tomura to help the people turned into Nomu and find out if they had living family or some shit. He’ll do that.
He texts Kurogiri to send a warp to his location and then kicks all of the boxes of papers into the Warp gate. He’s still holding Kurogiri’s. Everything else can get damaged, Kurogiri’s can’t.
Once he’s sure that everything of worth has been taken out of the building, he places a hand on the walls and watches it all crumble into nothing. He decayed all of the equipment and evidence first. Obviously.
He steps through the warp and sees a mess of paperwork and research notes scattered on the ground. God, he will have to organize this shit now, won’t he? He hates the fucking Doctor.
“Tomura… what is all of this?”
Kurogiri doesn’t have to point at the papers. Tomura recognizes that this all seems out of character. Also he made sure to not tell Kurogiri what he was doing. Just in case he has some sort of failsafe to take Tomura down or something. Now that Sensei’s dead, Tomura assumes it’s alright to tell him.
“I killed Sensei and the Doctor,” Tomura drops casually. He’s pretty sure he’s still in shock or something. He’ll process this. Eventually.
“..what?”
“We’re going to be civilians now Kurogiri. I killed Sensei and the Doctor so we’re free to do whatever we want.”
“..okay.” Kurogiri’s mists swirl violently but he doesn’t seem angry. More so shocked and confused. “Whatever you want Tomura.”
“I’m going to help you find free will or whatever.” Tomura holds up the notes on Kurogiri still in his hand with four fingers. “Then you can choose to do whatever you want.”
”I am to take care of you,” Kurogiri says firmly.
“Well, you’re a Nomu so we’ll see if I can fix you and you might change your mind.”
”I will not.”
The firm confidence in Kurogiri’s voice startles him slightly but he reminds himself that Kurogiri is mind controlled or something right now and can still change his mind. Tomura isn’t ashamed to hope that Kurogiri doesn’t. He missed Kurogiri and everything is harder without him.
“Whatever you say, Kurogiri. We’ll figure it out.”
Tomura turns and begins walking back to his room. He did a lot today. It was stressful shit too so he needs a moment. He also needs to plan for what they’ll do after this. Maybe he can open a cafe. All of Sensei’s money is now his so it isn’t like he’s strapped for cash.
He shrugs. Civilian life will at least be calm. He won’t have to hide from people. He can actually go to GameStop when he wants to. He can get a therapist and try to figure out how fucked up he is. He can do whatever he wants.
A cafe doesn’t sound that bad. Definitely not the worst thing he can do and Kurogiri will have something to focus on. The bar, as much as he missed it, can’t open and be a normal bar. There’s too much shit in it and a lot of villains know this was All for One’s place of residence. So, a cafe. Yeah. Not a bad idea. Civilian life will be interesting.