Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Shigaraki Tomura gets shot in the chest, and Kurogiri does something he didn’t think was possible.

He loses control.

Something snaps inside him and warp gates open all across the USJ, dozens of them, swallowing heroes and villains alike. He doesn’t see where they are spit back out, doesn’t care, doesn’t watch as the hero students work together to catch each other when they reappear mid-air, hundreds of feet above the ground.

As his quirk lashes out around him, all Kurogiri has eyes for is the boy (his boy, Tomura, his son) bleeding out at his feet.

Kurogiri falls to his knees beside him, pressing his hands against the wound just to the right of his heart. Kurogiri has never hated his slight incorporeality more than that moment, when he can’t quite hold the blood inside Tomura’s body.

“Kurogiri,” the boy rasps, “Kuro—”

“Shh. It’s alright, Tomura. It’s okay. We’ll get back to the bar and you’ll be fine—”

Tomura’s hand comes up, clutches at Kurogiri’s vest. He’s still so cautious, so conscious of where he places his fingers. Kurogiri almost wishes he was a little less careful.

“Dad,” Tomura chokes out, and his hand falls limp, and Kurogiri does another thing he didn’t think he could.

He cries.

He’s vaguely aware of movement around him, heroes closing in. They’re not important. They don’t matter. All that matters is Tomura, and the blood no longer flowing beneath Kurogiri’s hands, and the body of the boy he raised already cooling in his arms.

“Hey,” someone says behind him, and he’s whirling around, shadows and smoke flaring, and he catches a glimpse of yellow and black, and that’s a hero, he should be fighting, but most of him doesn’t care about heroes and villains anymore, and some tiny voice cries out ‘Safe, trust him, he can help, ‘Zashi—’

But then the world is twisting, folding in on itself, warping like one of his portals and then he’s stepping out into the USJ, Tomura a few paces ahead.

His training (programming) doesn’t allow him to react as he wishes. He cannot grab Tomura, gather him close, pull him back through the gate and to safety. He doesn’t know what has happened, if it was some strange hallucination or vision (it’s not as if he hasn’t had them before, however rarely, though usually they consist of bright smiles and laughter, and not his son dying in his arms).

His (wrong twisted dissected rotting) mind playing tricks on him seems the most logical explanation.

At least, it does until he hears a gunshot, and an odd, choked off noise, and he watches Tomura’s eyes glaze over a second time.

He can’t change anything. That’s the worst part.

Every time, he follows Tomura’s plan to the letter. Sure, he makes some adjustments in a desperate attempt to do something, anything, but the most he can do is send different hero students and different villains to different sections of the USJ.

Nothing really changes. Five more times, he watches Tomura get shot, collapse, bleed.

The seventh time around, he steps into Eraserhead’s line of sight just before Tomura attacks the young frog-like girl. It makes something deep within him wail in anguish to purposefully cause a child’s death. Another sensation he hasn’t felt (in fifteen years) before rolls through his stomach, nausea making him swallow down bile as he watches the girl decay.

“TSU!” The green-haired boy screams, voice ragged. The smaller boy beside him has his hands clasped over his mouth, eyes full of tears.

In that loop, Kurogiri learns it doesn’t matter who dies. It doesn’t matter which child pays for his mistakes. Ten seconds after the girl crumbles, he’s hit with now-familiar vertigo, and he’s once again stepping out of a gate into the USJ.

He’s not sure what causes Eraserhead’s death in loop eleven. Maybe it’s just a butterfly effect, from Kurogiri taking a step slightly differently, or standing inches away from his original position. Whatever the cause, when the Nomu smashes Eraserhead’s face into the ground one, two, three times—the man doesn’t get back up.

The part of him that seems to get bigger and louder with every loop—that recognized the voice of the hero the first time, that wailed whenever a hero student died—shrieks.

He has never been more glad that his mist covers his face. He isn’t sure how he would explain to Tomura why he is crying in the next loop. He can’t even explain it to himself.

Kurogiri is hit with a full blast of Present Mic’s quirk in loop fourteen.

Maybe the reason he doesn’t notice anything different, at first, is because he is running ragged. He has watched his son die ten times now, and doesn’t have the mental capacity to focus on anything besides keeping everyone alive.

Loops fifteen and seventeen, he is again caught in the hero’s yell.

Loop eighteen, he throws himself in its path.

(They all knew the physical effects sound could have. That was part of how Hizashi’s quirk worked, after all—causing physical changes with sound waves.

When they’re sixteen, though, Hizashi admits to having bad days. Days when he feels like his quirk is good for nothing but causing harm, because “I’ve been hurting people since the day I was born, why should the rest of my life be any different?”

They are all quick to reassure him, to try to convince him otherwise. But they can tell he doesn’t quite believe it.

Oboro throws himself into research. Less than a week later, he goes to Hizashi with pages upon pages of everything he’s found.

He had known, in an abstract sort of way, that music could be healing. Music therapy was a thing, after all. But he’d never realized the extent of it.

Hizashi cries, when he realizes what Oboro has brought him. Studies of how music, and sound in general, affect the brain. How trauma can be soothed by the body physically responding to sound. How his quirk can be used as a weapon, yes, but can also be used to heal.

“You could become a music therapist, if being a hero doesn’t work out,” Oboro jokes.

Hizashi sniffles, still staring at the papers in his hand. “I don’t know about that. I don’t have the most soothing presence.”

Shouta rolls his eyes. “You’re plenty soothing.” He scoffs as he says it, but leans his shoulder against Hizashi’s.

Oboro slings his arms around them. God, does he love his friends.)

Somehow, his mind is the one thing that doesn’t reset with the loops.

He keeps throwing himself in the way of Present Mic’s attacks.

The screams are far from trying to be healing. That’s probably why it takes him five loops to figure out why, exactly, he keeps getting in their path. It’s practically instinctive.

(Before, he would have said following the Master’s orders was instinct. Now, he can tell the differenc. One he does without his own consent, separate from free will. The other he feels deep in his bones, and chooses to follow.)

The sixth time he is almost blown away by Present Mic’s “YEEEEEAAHHHHHHHH!”, in loop twenty-three, he remembers researching until nearly three in the morning every night for a week straight, working desperately to convince his best friend his quirk is good. He still does not remember his friend’s face, or his voice. But he recognizes the feeling he gets from thinking about him. It’s the same as in the dreams-hallucinations-memories? when he sees a sunshine smile and golden hair and bright green eyes.

Loop twenty-four, he gets closer to Present Mic than ever before, gets his first good look at him, and he understands just a little more.

Hizashi, his heart sings; Hizashi, Hizashi, Hizashi.

He spends a few more loops purposefully getting in the way of the blast, before taking a break from it and realizing his mind is healing on its own.

Eraserhead’s quirk is turned on him, and his smoke fluctuates, and he sees a boy with black hair and red-black eyes, and he hears a quiet laugh made all the more wondrous for how difficult it is to coax from him.

Shouta is not sung like Hizashi; it hums along his nerves and settles like a chant behind his sternum.

Loops thirty-one and thirty-two are spent in a daze, as the names and the memories take their places in the crevices of his (healing shifting better) mind and chambers of his (still not beating but so close) heart.

When it finally comes, on the tail end of loop thirty-three, it does not sing or hum. It cracks, and bursts, and rumbles, like lightning strikes and the first drops of rain and counting the seconds before the thunder.

Shirakumo Oboro.

He doesn’t remember much of the rest of the thirties.

Chapter Text

In loop forty, the first thing Kurogiri (should I still call myself that?) does is shove all the villains back through his portals.

Not literally. He’s not close enough to any of them for that. But he does open up new portals under their feet, and doesn’t pay attention to where he sends them.

Except for the Nomu. That, he puts at the bottom of the ocean, resolving to deal with it later, if it ever comes back up.

In front of him, Tomura whirls around. “Kurogiri, what the fuck?”

Then he falls through a gate and is left to float in the inky non-space between portals.

There’s a thump as Eraserhead lands just over a dozen feet away. He’s tense, capture weapon at the ready. His hair isn’t floating, though. Kurogiri takes that as a good sign.

“Apologies,” Kurogiri says, trying not to shift under the weight of the not-yet-red eyes. “I wish we were meeting under better circumstances. Nevertheless, Eraserhead, I need your help.”

The man doesn’t relax, though he doesn’t tense further. His head tilts, just slightly. “My help?”

“Yes. I am currently stuck in a time loop, and I believe you can help me end it.”

Eraserhead shifts, slightly, posture straightening just the slightest bit. “…What?”

Kurogiri sits in an interrogation room, hands clasped on the table in front of him, staring at the one-way mirror.

Apparently, UA just… has interrogation rooms. (How did he not know this? Did Nezu put them in place?)

The door opens, and a man steps inside. He looks normal—black hair, dark eyes, tan coat over a nice suit. He sits in the chair on the other side of the table and places a notebook in his lap.

“So. Kurogiri, was it?”

Kuro—Ob—he hesitates. “Yes.”

The man’s eyes narrow. “Alright. I’m Detective Tsukauchi. Mind if I ask you a few things?”

“Go ahead.”

“Eraserhead tells me you say you’re stuck in a time loop.”

“That is correct.”

Detective Tsukauchi’s eyebrows raise. “So you really do believe that you’re time traveling?”

“Yes.”

“…Okay. How about you start at the beginning?”

So he does.

“The first time, I walked through one of my warp gates with several dozen villains, invading the USJ with the end goal of killing All Might.”

Tsukauchi tenses.

“Don’t worry,” he rushes to reassure him, “I never fully endorsed that plan, and have thus far avoided that outcome.”

Even through all the loops, All Might has never died once. He has to admire the man’s tenacity and stubbornness. Almost every one of the people in the USJ (except the villains-for-hire, and excluding himself) have died at least once.

(All Might staying alive is not because he does not take risks. He throws himself into every fight, every time, with everything he has. When a student dies, the devastation on his face matches the cracks in Kurogiri’s heart.)

“So what is your goal?” Tsukauchi asks.

He can’t help but slump, his hands clenching into fists. “Keep my son alive.”

“Your son.”

“Shigaraki Tomura. The blue-haired man I sent through one of my gates right after we arrived.”

Tsukauchi writes something in his notebook. “Is he the leader of your group?”

He see-saws his hand. “In a way. He’s in charge of this mission, but the real mastermind is a man named All For One.”

Tsukauchi tenses, his eyes widening. His hand tightens around his pen.

He files the reaction away to address later.

“Regardless, at the end of the first loop, Tomura was shot in the chest, just to the right of his heart. I believe the bullet was fired by the pro hero Snipe, though I can’t be sure. I wasn’t really paying attention.”

Red-stained concrete, gasping breaths, the murmurs of his name, Tomura’s last word being “Dad” almost every time—he shakes his head, shoving the memories aside. Tomura hadn’t died since the twenty-sixth loop. There’s no use dwelling on a past that doesn’t even exist.

He looks back up to find Tsukauchi watching him, eyes calculating.

He clears his throat. “I eventually figured out how to save him, but by then I had realized that the loop did not simply reset with Tomura’s death. It resets every time anyone dies.”

“Anyone meaning who?” The detective doesn’t look like he really wants to hear the answer. He gets it anyways.

“The hero students. Eraserhead. Thirteen. Even Present Mic. I’ve been trying, but there’s so many variables to account for that I just can’t—” His voice breaks for the first time in fifteen years. He clears his throat. “I can’t save everyone.”

“But you are trying.”

He cocks his head. “Yes?”

“Even though you came here with the intention of attacking the students, perhaps even killing some of them. You’re still trying to save them all.” There’s something odd in Tsukauchi’s expression.

“Of course. It’s the only way to escape the loops.”

“But that’s not all, is it?”

He knows what the detective is asking. “…No.”

“You’re trying to save everyone because you want to. You don’t want to be complicit in the deaths of students.”

Oboro jerks. “No! They’re children, if I can save them I will. I didn’t even want to go through with this mission—”

“Then why did you?” Tsukauchi interrupts. “If you were so against it, why agree to help All For One in the first place? Why allow your son to work for him? Why did you assist in the invasion, all the way back in the first loop?”

He can see why Detective Tsukauchi was the one to be sent in to interrogate him. The man has gotten to the root of the problem, after only a few minutes of conversation.

And…it seems like the detective believes him. About everything. He feels like crying. He holds back, though. He’s shed enough tears throughout the past forty loops to flood the entire USJ.

Tsukauchi’s gaze is earnest, when he meets it. He looks away.

“Because until about the twenty-third loop, I didn’t remember anything before fifteen years ago. I had no memories of my childhood. I didn’t even know my own name. My mind only started to heal after being caught in Present Mic’s quirk a few times.” He smiles shakily, knowing Tsukauchi can’t see it. “The physical effects of sound are really quite fascinating.”

The detective looks sympathetic. “That’s why you hesitated when you said your name was Kurogiri.”

“Yeah. Because it is, in a way. I’ve been Kurogiri for fifteen years. But…”

“It’s not who you really are.”

“No. It’s not.”

They sit in silence for a minute. Oboro realizes his hands are shaking, though it’s hardly visible through the mist.

Tsukauchi glances over his shoulder at the one-way mirror and nods. The door opens, and Eraserhead walks through.

He’s not wearing his goggles. He looks ragged. He’s staring at Oboro with a well-concealed horror that would be invisible to anyone who didn’t know him. Principal Nezu is sitting on his shoulder.

The only reason Oboro doesn’t burst into tears at the sight of him is the sudden, sharp pain in his chest.

“What…?” he murmurs, confused because he hasn’t felt physical pain since (he was alive—before he died—) he was a teenager.

Tsukauchi leans forward slightly. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, I just—” The pain comes again, and he shoves his chair away from the table so he can double over and clutch at his chest. “I don’t know—”

Shouta (Shouta Shouta) moves further into the room as the detective stands up. “What’s going on?” he asks.

“I—”

Kurogiri.

He freezes. Distantly, he notes that even the smoke of his hands stops waving for a moment.

Kurogiri, the voice repeats. Come to me.

No.

He only realizes he’s said it aloud when Tsukauchi says, “No, what? Talk to us, what’s happening?”

“It’s—it’s him,” he gets out between gritted teeth. The pain is constant, and spreading, worst in his chest and head. “All For One, he’s in my head. I thought I broke his control, during the loops when I started remembering—but he’s—”

Come, Kurogiri. Return to your master.

Oboro tries to stand, using the chair as a support, but his legs buckle under his weight. Someone grabs his arms, keeping him from falling.

The pain abates, for just a moment, and he can finally think. “Does anyone have a phone I can borrow?” he asks. “One that can be tracked remotely?”

Shouta doesn’t even hesitate, pressing a cell phone into his hands. He slips it into the pocket on the inside of his vest as the agony swells again. “Th-thank you. Track my location. It’ll lead you right to—right to All For One.”

“Kurogiri—” Shouta starts.

He looks up, meeting his friend’s (do I still get to call him that?) eyes. The mist of his face feels thin.

“Please. Call me Oboro.”

Then his smoke shifts, twists, flares outward, and he warps.

Chapter Text

Oboro blacks out, for a bit. He’s pretty sure. His brain is kinda fuzzy. Like the mist of his outsides has permeated his insides and fogged up his mind. His eyes, too; he has to blink several times to get his vision to clear. When it does, he almost wishes he hadn’t.

He’s flat on his back, staring at a dark ceiling. He turns his head to look around.

He’s in the Doctor’s lab. Where the Nomu are made (where he was made).

There are metal bands around his wrists and ankles, shackling him to the table. They’re tight enough that they cut through his mist and he can feel them on his skin. He’s shirtless, and his shoes are missing, too. He thinks maybe he should be embarrassed about that. Instead, he’s pissed. He liked that vest.

He knows trying to warp away won’t work. He tries anyway.

His heart pounds. Huh. He didn’t know it could still do that.

Shit, Shouta’s phone was in the vest. Hopefully they were able to track him before All For One had it destroyed.

“Kurogiri.”

Speak of the devil.

“All For One,” he rasps as the man emerges from the shadows, Garaki by his side. Oboro has to suppress a flinch. This situation is all too familiar, despite him not remembering the last time he was a prisoner in this lab. Upsides of being dead at the time, he supposes.

“This is quite an interesting predicament,” All For One says. He sounds casual, like they’re a couple of old friends meeting up for drinks.

“Your face is an interesting predicament,” Oboro blurts, then winces. He almost wishes his sense of humor hadn’t returned with his memories. It would’ve been nice to keep Kurogiri’s impulse control, at least.

“So you really have returned to your former self,” All For One muses. “What a shame. We’ll have to start nearly all the way over.”

Oboro’s breath hitches.

“But first…” Black and red tendrils shoot out of All For One’s fingers and stab into Oboro. It feels like being electrocuted, and also like his blood is buzzing. It’s quite unpleasant.

A warp gate opens a few feet away from All For One, and Tomura falls out, landing on the floor with an ‘oof’.

When Tomura sits up, Oboro almost laughs. He looks confused, angry, and offended all at once. Oboro is reminded, oddly, of a disgruntled kitten.

Tomura sees All For One and shoots to his feet. “Sensei! What is—” He seems to spot Oboro, and freezes. “Kurogiri?” Frowning, he turns back to All For One. “Sensei, what’s going on? What are you doing to Kurogiri?”

All For One beckons him forward, and Tomura creeps hesitantly closer. “You remember what he did at the USJ?”

“Yeah,” Tomura scowls. “He sent away all our allies and stuck me in a warp gate for hours.”

Oboro winces. “Right… sorry about that. I was gonna let you out, I promise.”

The boy squints at him, wrinkling his nose. “You’re acting weird. Sensei, what happened to Kurogiri?”

“Don’t worry, my boy, Kurogiri will be fine. We’re going to fix him.” Oboro feels a thrill of fear go through him. All For One lays his hand on Tomura’s shoulder. Tomura shifts uncomfortably, and Oboro forgets to be afraid.

He snarls and jerks at the shackles keeping him pinned. “Get your hands off of him.”

All For One raises a nonexistent eyebrow. “Tomura, my boy, come with me. We must give the doctor room to work.”

Tomura hesitates, glancing between Oboro and All For One.

Oboro has to make a split-second choice. He can protest, try to convince Tomura to side with him, to not let this happen. Or he can give in. One glance at the way All For One’s grip on Tomura’s shoulder tightens, and the decision is easy.

“Go on, Tomura. It’ll be okay.”

The boy looks at him one last time, his brow furrowed. Then he lets All For One lead him away, out of Oboro’s line of sight.

Garaki steps forward with a cart full of tools, pulling several machines with him, and Oboro tries really hard to dissociate.

It doesn’t work.

He feels every single node Garaki sticks to him. They don’t hurt, thankfully, but that doesn’t mean much. They’re there for a reason.

He’s proven right a moment later, when Garaki flips a switch and electricity arcs through Oboro’s body.

After fifteen years of feeling no pain, he’s really not used to it. He tells himself that’s why he can’t hold back his screams for more than five seconds.

It feels like an eternity before the electricity stops. Garaki frowns, making notes on a clipboard he’s gotten from…somewhere. He must have pulled it out of his ass.

Garaki’s frown deepens, and Oboro realizes he said that last part out loud.

“Sir, it appears that he is still…him. I will up the voltage a few times, and if that doesn’t work, we will try another method. If that is also unsuccessful, we will likely have to reset him completely.”

“Proceed.” All For One’s voice rumbles.

Oboro braces himself. It doesn’t help. This time is even worse.

He tries to distract himself. Through the spots dancing in his vision, he sees his mist whipping in a frenzy. Its movements are small, though, subdued by whatever suppressants Garaki put him on, or maybe by the cuffs.

Somehow, though it feels impossible, the electricity strengthens.

His back is arched off the table, his muscles alternatively locking and spasming. His mouth tastes like iron. The smell of something burning reaches his nose.

It shuts off, and he slumps. He distantly registers something wet sliding down his wrists, and realizes he must have cut himself on the shackles while he struggled. His throat feels raw.

All For One’s face swims above him. “How are you feeling, Kurogiri?”

“Fuck…you…” he croaks, panting. All For One frowns.

“Try the next method,” he orders Garaki.

Oboro braces himself as nodes are stuck to his temples. When the pain comes, he’s expecting it, but cries out anyway. It feels like someone is stabbing a hot metal rod through his head. Over, and over, and over. The pain builds and builds and builds until he’s screaming again.

It shuts off, after a while, but the feeling lingers. He can’t think. His brain is foggier than ever.

“Ready to come back to us, Kurogiri?” Someone asks.

Kurogiri…? Is that supposed to be him…? No. No. He’s only just found himself, he’s not going to lose himself again.

“My name… is Oboro.” He says. His voice sounds like he’s been yelling for hours on end. Oh, wait. “Shirakumo Oboro. I am not… your puppet.”

“Turn it back on,” All For One orders. “Higher. If it doesn’t work soon, we will move on.”

Garaki complies. Oboro is consumed.

He’s not sure how long it is before it stops again. While Garaki fiddles with the controls of his machine, Oboro rolls his head to the other side. A blurry form comes into sight. Pale and dark, blue and black. Tomura. Oboro squints, trying to focus on his face.

Tomura looks scared. He looks horrified. He looks sick.

Oboro frowns. Is his kid sick? What’s wrong? Can he fix it?

Tomura’s not supposed to be sad. Or hurt. Wasn’t that how all this started? With Tomura getting hurt? With red and blue and his boy clutching his vest, whimpering “Dad,” before falling limp?

He tries to reach out, to take Tomura’s face in his hands and wipe away the tears tracking down his cheeks. Something stops his hands from moving, and he frowns.

“Tomura…” he whispers. His boy jerks, like he wants to get closer. “Kid…”

Then it starts again, and all thoughts of his son are washed away.

He comes back to himself when the world shakes. There’s a booming sound in the distance. Dust rains down on him. Garaki yelps.

Then the wall implodes, and a yellow and blue and red figure slams into All For One, both of them continuing on and disappearing through the opposite wall.

There’s a few thumps, and Garaki yelps again. A dark blob appears above Oboro, red pinpricks glowing in its face.

“Shou…?” He whispers.

The person—Shouta—sobs. It sounds wrong. Shouta never cries. “Yeah, ‘Boro, it’s me. It’s Shouta.”

He hums. “‘Zashi?”

As if on cue, a yell pierces the air, shaking what remains of the walls.

A wobbly smile splits Shouta’s face. “He’s coming.”

Another figure appears, this one yellow and black. He chants, “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,” as he leans over Oboro.

Oboro tries to grin. “Hey, ‘Zashi.”

“Hey yourself.” Hizashi’s voice is weirdly quiet.

Shouta disappears, and Oboro frowns. “Where’s he goin’?”

“He’s just finding a way to get these shackles off of you. He’ll be right back.”

Hizashi’s hand hovers over Oboro’s head, before settling in his hair.

“Sorry about the mist,” Oboro murmurs. “Kinda gets in the way of head pats, huh?”

Hizashi chokes out a laugh that dissolves into a sob. “Shut up, man.”

“Hypocrite.”

There’s a hiss and a click, and the pressure around Oboro’s wrists and ankles disappears. Unfortunately, this aggravates the cuts he got from struggling. He bites back a whimper and brings his hands up to his chest. “Ow.”

Shouta chuckles wetly. Mean. “I know. We’ll get that checked out when we get you out of here.”

Together, Hizashi and Shouta help him sit up. He wraps his arms around their shoulders, and if it wasn’t for the ache throughout his whole body and the way he was partially made out of mist, he could almost pretend they were seventeen again.

Oboro realizes he’s shaking. Then, he realizes he’s crying. “I missed you guys so much.”

Shouta wraps an arm around him. Hizashi takes his hand. “We missed you, too.”

They’re helping him hobble down a dark hallway, half-carrying him, when he feels it.

“No,” he whispers. “No, no, no—”

They stagger to a stop, Hizashi making a concerned noise. “Oboro? What’s wrong?”

“It’s happening again—the loops—I can feel it, it’s starting over—”

It’s getting stronger, slower than usual, twisting inside of him. Someone must have died, he realizes with a distant horror.

Warm hands grab the sides of his face. “Oboro. Look at me.”

He meets Shouta’s eyes.

“Oboro, find us. Tell us. You hear me?”

Oboro breathes out shakily. “Yeah. Yeah, I hear you.”

“Good.” Shouta’s forehead rests against his. Hizashi wraps his arms around them. “We’ve got you.”

“Kick ass, buddy.” Hizashi murmurs.

Oboro chokes on a laugh, closes his eyes, and steps into the USJ.