BNHA Week

Day 6 - Redemption

“I'll go find him!” Deku shouted, “The rest of you make sure those villians stay down and be here for when the police show. Lemillion,”
Said hero looked up, a small smile planted on his lips while he waited for the order. He was older than Deku, yes, but he saw the importance of working together and that little green-haired dude was an amazing leader, what with his quick thinking and ability to come up with a battle strategy on the spot. He was willing to let him take the lead.
“You come with me. He's not a master of close range on his own, I know that, but you can help me find him.”
Deku went on and addressed other heros to 'stations,' then brought Lemillion with him, who said a quick goodbye to Suneater first. “He ran somewhere over here.”
Shigaraki wasn't a one-on-one, hand-to-hand villian. He stood back and gave orders from the side, jumping in when he wanted to. He never did good alone, he wasn't good at being alone, whether he was villianing or not. They didn't know the whole story and it confused everyone. Shigaraki was all alone while he was villianing, not even Kurogiri was there; it just didn't make sense. Maybe someone had left him in the middle of an attack, or maybe he'd strayed and gotton lost. Either way, he was very, very easily defeated and brought to retreat. By five heros, they thought they'd need that much when dealing with Shigaraki but it hadn't been like that. Earphone Jack didn't even do anything, she couldn't if she had wanted to.
It was very weird for everyone involved.
“I can look through buildings and such.”
“Yep, and I can get off roads and alleyways.” Deku nodded, gave a quick thank-you, then the two heros parted ways.
He wondered vaguely  how they'd let one another know if they found him but was sure he could figure it out when the time came for it.
Deku looked down each alleyway, stopping to tell a family to get inside since there was, y'know, a dangerous villian out, then caught sight of someone in a dead-end of an alleyway.
He didn't immediately power-up, but knew he might have to, so he got ready to. It might not be Shigaraki, but there was a good chance it was.
“Hello?” he called, trying to get their attention. He could see a visible flinch, but then noticed a few extra appendages that shouldn't be there. Hands.
A lot... Of hands. It was almost disturbing.
“Shigaraki.” Deku walked forward, not needing any more proof this was their guy. He got a bad feeling of premonition, maybe that's why the sight got him nervous.
He also found it odd that this villian wasn't trying to run again, fight back, shout, or do anything. He was barely reacting and if Deku didn't know better, he'd have thought he wasn't breathing. This wasn't like Tomura.
Deku repeated his name again, almost exasperatedly. He didn't want to be here alone. He had been in the pro hero buisness for over a year, he thought alleyways with dangerous people didn't frighten him anymore.
He recalled what All Might had said, then stopped himself. He was allowed to be scared, as long as it wasn't outward. That scared other people and made villians aware their tactics were getting to you.
“Tomura,” Deku started, using his first name and trying to get a reaction.

All he got was... Laughter.
Cold,
Strange,
Hoarse laughter.
He'd heard that before so many years ago and he didn't like it. The little giggle.
“Ah, I don't think I'll ever understand you people. You heros.” he brought ot the syllables of each and every word, as if Deku couldn't understand him. Or maybe he couldn't understand himself.
“You claim to be doing good. And yet you cause property damage, and don't think of other people as people. You think of then as hostages, bystandars, or villians. Because that's what they are. They're only NPC's, you don't care about their wellbeing.”
Deku didn't want to listen to a monologue but what could he do? He'd been trying to understand this man for a long time and, though it felt like he wasn't getting anywhere now, there was just some kind of feeling he was getting. Like he could get something out of Tomura to finally understand why he did all of this.
“Because they're all just that. Villians are villians. Bystanders are bystandars. Hostages are hostages. You only care about your character because you only care about yourself. You want to be the symbol of peace. For what? To give people a false sense of security? To make them believe that they are safe, that nothing can happen to them, that no evil could touch them.” Shigaraki held up his hand; the one connected to his arm that he could fully control.
With the light of the storefront they were underneath, Deku realized something he hadn't before. His pinky finger looked cut in half, as if he'd chopped a bit too close to his hand while cutting carrots or a leek in the kitchen. His ring finger was hanging at an uncomfortably unnatural angle as well.
What kind of pain tolerance did this guy have!? Broken bones was bad and Deku could hardly keep himself from straining his face when he broke just his finger with too much power, but he couldn't fathom the pain that came with a limb, no matter how small, being cut clean off.
Shigaraki wasn't showing off his wound. He was more... Looking at his hand. He didn't even react to it. Deep reds in creamy, thick ropes stained his over-pale hands, but he didn't even seem to notice. As if it was a normal occurance.
“That's.. Where you're wrong, Tomura. These citizens desereve to feel safe and you have no right to take that-”
“Skip... Skip... Skip...” Shigaraki glared daggers. “I'm not finished.”
He cleared his throat, seeing how Deku followed the command. “And yet, you don't kill these villians that are hurting them. If you want to give them what you call hope, then why not give it to them straight. Putting villians with dangerous quirks in prison won't do anything. Especially when they don't have a good understanding of a quirk.” He snickered. Did he mean the policemen or the convicts? It could go either way. “So why not get rid of all these baddies, of all the villians, of all the bad guys, of all the evil!? Why not eradicate them! Why not kill off every single villian on sight!? You have a powerful enough quirk to do so!” His voice raised and he sounded more raspy than normal. “Like I've said, violence breeds violence! What are you gonna do when I have children with an even more powerful quirk than my own? What will you do then? You have to get rid of them all before they have a chance to regenerate. Deal your final blow, Deku, you want to create a world of peace, you want to make this pathetic, ungreatful, disastardly world a place where people desire to live in and smile and laugh and be happy! You don't want them to be in pain, do you, Deku? You don't want them to suffer, do you?! You don't want them to hurt, do you!? Then get rid of all the villians! Fucking ‘Detroit smash,’ am I right?!”
He burst out in laughter again, spreading his arms wide, the position seeming to be a habit of his. His eyes were wide, pupils contracted to the point of tiny dots in a dilated outline of his rose irises. He had this huge, unused, cracked and split smile on his face that caused more blood to settle in between the skin as he curved and stretched his lips across his face awkwardly.
He let the hands in his arms fall to his lap, and Deku noticed one of them didn't have a few of the fingers. Didn't.. Didn't Shigaraki call the one on his face 'father?' Did that mean that they were all his family members..? Does he see them as such, is he crazy or did something happen to cause that amputation? Did it have to do with his quirk?
“Start with me, Deku, Mr Symbol of Peace, Mr Number One!! Show them you're not afraid to eradicate evil for their good!” he shouted, gasping for breath in between the short outlets of time he gave himself to get air into his lungs. “SHOW THE WORLD WHAT YOU'RE CAPABLE OF, IZUKU! SHOW ALL OF THEM THE LENGTHS YOU'LL GO TO SHOW THEM A SENSE OF SAFETY. SHOW THEM YOUR MORALITY, SHOW THEM WHAT YOU BELIEVE IS RIGHT AND SHOW THEM ALL HOW YOU'LL GET TO THAT POINT!!”