"I thought you were dead."
Kugutsu winced as Shigaraki's hold on her tightened. A sharp pain erupted in her ribs and her hands lifted on reflex. Her fingers grasped the back of his shirt, her right wrist throbbing when it made contact with his back. "Careful! My ribs-!"
"I didn't know what to do. Kurogiri wouldn't go back for you and I thought you were dead. Your useless fan boy wasn't even answering his phone. I wanted him to go back for your corpse, but he wasn't answering. He's so useless," the blue-haired villain grumbled.
"I'm alive, though!" she argued, a weak blush rising to her face.
It was like he either failed to hear her or he was just too preoccupied with his own thoughts. "I wanted your corpse. I couldn't just let those heroes put you in the ground. It'd be a waste. You shouldn't go in the ground when you can still be with me. I'm not going to let them take you away from me."
Kugutsu's cat-yellow eyes widened as she felt one of his hands move up along her back. Three fingers ran through her messy black hair, making her purr. Even though he had said something so insanely unsettling. Any sane person would have been terrified to hear someone talking that way, but Kugutsu could easily sympathize with him.
He lost All for One. He lost his hideout. He lost his video games. Honestly, what Shigaraki had left was kind of unimpressive. Basically a team of aspiring villains that had somehow managed to lose track of the teenager they had stupidly put their trust in.
It was like when a person is having a bad day and things just get progressively worse. A fly falls into their coffee, they stain their favorite shirt, their irritating coworker or classmate is talking way more than usual, the toilet breaks when they flush it and suddenly everyone in the public bathroom is watching in stunned silence as they sprint out of the room in hopes of no one seeing their face all while water comes flooding out of the stall they just left. Then, to top it all off, they get fined for parking in a no parking zone and they wish they could just poof out of existence.
Kugutsu's death would have been the parking fine in that scenario. She knew that it was. "I'm alive, though. I'm fine. Ngh!" She winced when he pulled her tighter against him. My ribs are still broken! Jin-san couldn't fix my ribs or broken bones so I have to tell Shigaraki before he makes my ribs stab into my lungs!
"You're alive." He finally seemed to realize that something was wrong and he leaned back, staring at her through the tangled, pale blue hair falling over his eyes. "So what'd those heroes do to you? That freak said he found you in the trash."
"That...charred, raggedy, bastard! I wasn't in the trash!" Her blush intensified and her ears flattened in embarrassment. "I mean, I was near a trash can, but I wasn't in the trash! And he didn't even find me first!"
She told him everything that happened after she went into the hideout, but hesitated to tell him about her escape. I'm going to sound like an idiot! I can't tell him that I threw myself out the window, hoping to land like All Might, and ended up landing wrong and breaking my own bones!
Shigaraki was able to piece it together on his own after she just mentioned jumping out the window. His scarred lips twisted into a scowl and he scratched at his neck with one finger, sitting back and looking at his wounded fan. "You're supposed to have two quirks; that shadow one and the cat one. What kind of cat doesn't land on their feet?"
The girl slouched and looked away. The same kind that just has a stump for a tail, she thought bitterly. "I'm alive, at least."
He rested a hand on the top of her head, between her ears, and kept a finger raised. "And what kind of psycho throws themselves out a window? You're pissing me off. I thought I lost my fan girl and it turns out it was your own fault."
Kugutsu wanted to say something, but she had no idea what to say. Apologizing would just annoy him and it would make her look lame. She wanted to find some way to make him feel better because she knew he was still upset about all of the things that he had lost recently.
A frustrated sigh left him and he narrowed his sharp blood-red eyes. "We don't even have a healer. What are we supposed to do about this?"
"I'm fine. I have these splints so I can-"
"Get up." He stood on his own and glared down at her, waiting for her to obey. When she struggled to her feet, she had to bite back a scream of pain and shifted her weight to her right leg. Shigaraki stared at her broken wrist first before looking down at her left leg. He wondered if her knee might have been broken, too. Her ankle definitely was.
Fighting back tears, Kugutsu attempted to maintain a blank face. "See? I'm fine." Although it was pretty clear she was far from fine. She had her left hand pressed against her ribs and she looked like she might pass out.
"Who found you anyway?" he grumbled, taking out his phone.
Kugutsu saw him start toward the doorway and limped after him, gritting her teeth against the pain. "Spinner found me. I guess I…lost a lot of blood because I kept shivering. He asked that dumpster fire for help so he carried me around until they found this place. I think Twice made a double of me again and-"
"Hey! I did more than that! I did all of the first aid stuff! And I did a great job! I was pretty sure you were gonna die!" The voice came from out in the hallway and it made Kugutsu tilt her head.
Shigaraki looked over his shoulder at her and shoved his phone back into his pocket. "This shouldn't have even happened. If we hadn't lost Bakugou, we'd still be in our new base without any problems. Where's the lazy freak that let him get away?"
The girl followed him out into the hallway where the others were waiting a few doors down. She leaned against the wall for support, wincing when she felt her ribs start to throb again. I have to be careful. If I puncture a lung, I'm pretty sure I'm dead.
She fondly remembered a time when Giran sent her into a bar to collect payment from some unsavory gentlemen. Kugutsu had decided to immediately establish dominance and show off by collecting the shadows around her into a heavy, spiked hammer and slamming it into the side of the largest guy in the bar.
His ribs broke, sinking into his lungs. It was not a quick or pretty death. Shortly before dying, he was a gurgling, crying, snotty mess. If I die, I want to either die from Shigaraki's quirk or I want to die while killing All Might. I won't let myself die any other way, she thought with determination.
Shift P.O.V
Shigaraki weighed his options before deciding to have Twice carry her through the warp gate when it appeared. Remembering how close Dabi got to her earlier made him seethe. He still vividly recalled what Dabi had said to him just a little while before they parted ways last time.
It was enough to make him want to slam his hand into the other villain's face and watch it crumble beneath his quirk. What he did was worse than just touching Kugutsu's handheld console, like her fan boy. It was even worse than touching her ears and making her purr. Just thinking about it was making Shigaraki's pulse race as he tasted bile.
Dabi said he "had fun" with Kugutsu's double during the Vanguard Action Squad mission. This was so much worse than just touching her gaming console. It was even worse than if he had touched Shigaraki's console. He had put his dirty, half-burned, staple-riddled hands on Shigaraki's fan girl. It was unforgivable.
Still seething, he glared at the focus of his current rage and contemplated the best way to get his revenge. At the moment, Dabi was still useful. Of course, that was if you had a loose definition of the word "useful". He had a powerful quirk, but he was rude, kind of lazy, and seemed like he had his own secret agenda. Any sane person would actually consider Dabi a hindrance.
It seemed like even just hobbling down the hall after Shigaraki was too much for Kugutsu. He could see it as Twice set her down on the floor near the corner. Her body was completely limp and she looked half-dead. Grumbling for Twice to prop her up, he turned toward the other villains in the room.
Now that they were in the new base, discovered by Kurogiri, he needed to try to gather everyone again. Right now, he had over half of the collection; Kurogiri, Twice, Spinner, Dabi, and Kugutsu. All he needed now were Toga, Magne, and Compress. Not that he had any idea where they were.
"So what do we do now? She's got a lot of broken bones." Spinner was about to sit next to her on the floor, but decided against it when Shigaraki's glare was turned in his direction. He awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck and looked away. "We can't take her to a hospital."
"Maybe we should just put her out of her misery. I can take care of it." Dabi smirked when he found himself the focus of that blood-red glare. "What? You have…zero sense of humor."
"All jokes aside, this is serious. Kugustu Kurayami needs medical attention," Kurogiri spoke up, doing the best he could to try to get everyone to focus and realize how dire of a situation this was.
Not to be left out, Twice decided to raise his voice like a toddler trying to demand attention. "I gave her medical attention! Does she need more? How much attention is too much attention?!"
Shigaraki stopped listening and turned his back to the others. Staring down at Kugutsu, watching her chest rise and fall to make sure she was still breathing. Even with Twice now shouting at Dabi and exclaiming less than halfway across the room, she stayed asleep. It was actually kind of impressive.
He finally looked over his shoulder and focused on Kurogiri. The shadowy, misty villain locked eyes with him and probably nodded because the next thing he did was usher everyone out of the room. Now left alone with his unconscious fan girl, Shigaraki sat against the wall next to her and scratched at his neck.
First things first. You're all broken apart. I have to fix you. You're no use to anyone if you're broken like this. Giran probably knows someone that can fix this. I don't want to resort to that yet. He paused in his scratching as her head fell against his shoulder.
A glance over showed that she was still asleep, but she was now leaning on him. He saw her fingers twitch and he grumbled to himself for a moment. No one else was in the room. What he needed now more than ever was a confidence boost, but his fan was unconscious and she was in no shape for what he really wanted.
It was annoying, but he knew he would have to deal with what he had. Shigaraki reached over and put three fingertips against her palm. As soon as he did this, he saw the shadows beneath her start to weave and stretch outward ever so slightly. It brought a satisfied little grin to his face; even asleep, she was so excited by him that her quirk went out of control.
Kugutsu's fingers curled inward, her soft fingertips brushing over the back of his fingers and giving him a small flicker of satisfaction. Her messy black hair was falling over her face to hide it, but he could only imagine that she was blushing. She was his fan girl, after all. Just being around him made her happy so he was sure that this reunion made her twisted little heart race.
As much as he liked this, he started to get annoyed again. It was boring to just sit there touching her hand. He needed some form of entertainment. So he maneuvered the unconscious villain so she was leaning against his chest, sitting between his legs. Now he could hold his phone with both hands and play a game while having his fan girl close at the same time.
When she wakes up, I'm making her play with me. I'm bored of doing this myself. She might as well. She needs to make it up to me for almost killing herself, pulling that stupid stunt.
He looked down at her and scowled. Chewing at his chapped lower lip, he reached down with one finger to push her hair away from her face. She had her head turned to the side, her cheek resting against his chest. Wearing the most relaxed, peaceful, angelic expression on her face.
It actually worried him a little. The Kugutsu that Shigaraki knew wore a bizarre variety of faces; her fan girl yandere smile when she was around him, her psychotic grin when she was fighting or talking about killing someone, and, of course, the blank expression she tried to maintain when she wanted to seem serious. Seeing her look weak, even semi-normal, was concerning.
This is so stupid, he thought as he went back to his game. Trying to ignore that weird, irritating thing his heart was doing. Attempting to suppress that natural feeling of fear at the thought of losing the one person that seemed to genuinely, truly, unconditionally love him. These were just annoyances that threatened to break his focus on the game on his phone.
When he got bored of the game, he switched to just using one hand to hold his phone and scroll through a gaming forum. His free arm wrapped around Kugutsu to keep her leaning against him. What really frustrated him was that this incident made him realize how important she had become. At first, she was just a weird fan girl that he thought was entertaining. Now the idea of losing her was almost too much for him to handle.