It's a Plan(et)

Chapter 7

The empathy felt for poor Midoriya was quickly overtaken by fear when Shigaraki began to cause an absolute ruckus, once again showing off his throwing dexterity by throwing everything he had hoarded up until that point.

A'zawa thought it was just his vision playing tricks on him, the first tray that flew through the air towards the dollun that was dragging the unconscious Midoriya through the cell opening, the way the light reflected off of the metal of the tray... but then the tray landed true and thudded against the dollun, who dropped Midoriya's upper limbs in favor of shielding himself from the onslaught of trays and bottles coming from A'zawa's noisy, armed cellmate.

A'zawa was unsure what Shigaraki's end goal was. His aim seemed impeccable, so why did he also aim for Midoriya? Who did Shigaraki truly see as his enemy? A'zawa never wished for something so much as he wished in that moment that a Universal Translation Device was not an implant, but something that was handheld so that he could speak to his cellmate and ask him all of the questions he wanted to know.

By the beginning of the next cycle, A'zawa was itching to understand his cellmate better. For the first time since Shigaraki was placed in the cell with A'zawa, he had slept in his own bed-grass box. After having his Terran companion taken away, A'zawa would have predicted that Shigaraki would have sought out more companionship from him, not isolated himself in a way that he had never seen before.

"It's baffling," A'zawa complained to H'zashi from his own bed-grass box that felt too cold and too big.

After another half a cycle, A'zawa felt desperate to understand his cellmate.

"Why would he do that?!" he asked H'zashi, looking at the mess of food all over the corridor, eyeing the neon pink juice sliding down the electrified bars of the cell that he had just slammed his meal tray against to rid it of the food instead of, you know, eating it. "He's going to starve!"

"Calm down," one of the dolluns commanded. "We'll bring a replacement tray."

The dolluns didn't seem so calm when Shigaraki also slammed that tray against the bars to rid it of the food before adding the tray to his new pile.

"How long is it going to be until Midoriya is brought back?" H'zashi asked the dolluns. "Maybe he won't or can't eat until he knows his companion is safe."

"How long can Terrans go without eating?" the dollun asked worriedly instead of answering.

The next meal was brought by a dreto.

"You can throw a tantrum all you like," the dreto said. "But you will eat and maintain your strength."

One meal is the maximum number of meals that Terrans can skip, A'zawa was adding to his mental notes about Terrans as Shigaraki acted like he was going to comply with the directive from the dreto that he surely did not understand, at least not fully.

But, just as the dreto stepped forward to smugly watch Shigaraki take that first bite, Shigaraki abruptly dropped the tray, completely disregarding it altogether as he reached for the dreto instead.

Is the dreto more appetizing after skipping a whole meal earlier?

Alarmingly quick and so, so smart, he pulled her against the electrified bars and then pushed her away again, just giving her enough contact with the bars to knock her out.

"Help!" called out one dollun who took a few steps forward before seeing the look on Shigaraki's face and retreating multiple steps back.

"I'll help her!" said one dollun, who was frozen in place and who was decidedly not going to help the dreto.