Kugutsu's lips curled into a smile as blood splattered the walls of the shabby little bar. The screams of pain from her targets were like music to her wicked feline ears as her shadowy tendrils tore the men limb from limb. She was crouching in the center of chaos and it was her second favorite place to be. Second only to being next to Shigaraki.
Her breathing was uneven as her excitement grew and she let the bodies drop. Severed limbs and organs littered the floor like trash. The floorboards were shiny with blood. She let her smile bloom into a wide grin as she approached the last living bar patron.
The girl hopped over the bar counter, cornering the bartender, and she pressed a hand against the wall. Her quirk let her bend the shadows to her will and she formed dark restraints to keep the blubbering, poor excuse for a man pinned in place. Kugutsu shifted her weight to her right hip and leaned down close to his face with a grin.
"You've got something that doesn't belong to you," she started.
"I-I'm sorry! Tell Giran I'm sorry! I'll return it! I promise-!"
"No." A shadowy tendril slapped across his throat and pressed down. "You're not getting out of this. You stole from him. You owe him a debt on top of returning the files. So? Where are they?"
He nodded toward a drawer in the counter. As she rummaged around for the files, he continued to whine like a child and beg her to let him go. Kugutsu flipped through the papers to make sure everything was there and then nodded to herself. Giran would be pleased. He might even increase the amount taken off her debt.
She let the shadows cover her right hand and shift to form a glove with long, sharp spikes along the knuckles. Kugutsu did not even blink when she slammed it forward into the man's face. Blood speckled her cheek and neck, but she continued to punch until the gurgling sounds stopped coming from him.
Healing did not come cheap. Especially in the world of villains and criminals. Kugutsu knew it from experience from her days as Giran's assistant. People would get messed up, wrack up a huge debt after having Giran track down a healer, and then they would be unable to pay him back. That was usually when he would send Kugutsu to go cancel the contract by taking their lives.
Doing some good old fashioned recovery work reminded her of her life before Shigaraki. Back when she wanted to someday become a broker. When she viewed villains as the epitome of cool and never once thought she could become one. Now here she was; a member of the League of Villains. The best part was that she got to spend almost every day at his side.
Kugutsu slipped into Giran's office and strode across the room to where he was sitting at his desk. The man was lighting a cigarette, his cellphone pressed to his ear, and he spared her a smirk when she set the file down in front of him. He quirked an eyebrow as he talked on the phone and nodded at the couch, telling her to sit down.
I don't have time for this! I need to get back to the base! As much as she wanted to bolt like a female cosplayer running from a pack of thirsty neckbeards, Kugutsu owed him. She really did not have a choice so she settled on the couch and rubbed at the burn scar on her cheek. This better not take long.
"Yeah, I've gotta go. Of course it's work! What else would it be? Alright, I'll call you back soon." He looked almost sheepish when he ended the call and got up to walk around his desk, leaning against the front of it and facing her. "So how'd it go?"
Her ears drew back and she struggled to maintain a straight face. Wanting to cling to some shred of her old professionalism. "No survivors. All of the papers should be there. I grabbed some extras from the cash register." She dug in her pocket for the rolled yen notes and tossed them to Giran.
He counted them and smiled in his special, sleazy way. "Not bad, Kugutsu-chan." The money disappeared into his pocket and he took a long drag off his cigarette. "So how're you feeling? It's only been a week."
"I'm fine." She looked down at her right wrist, remembering the horror she felt when she saw a bone poking through her skin when it was broken. The pain she suffered. How much blood she coughed up while Twice carried her to Giran's office. Color rushed to her face when she remembered how Shigaraki hovered around her after she was brought back to the hideout.
Her first day back, she felt so euphoric. Spending every minute with her crush and being content to watch him play mobile games on his phone. He even let her prop her head against his shoulder and pet behind her left ear. No one interrupted them. Not even Dabi. She had Shigaraki completely to herself for an entire day.
"Huh. Well, you always did bounce back quickly," he mused. He exhaled a puff of smoke. "You know, you can always come back. Kind of miss having you around to run errands. I tried hiring a replacement, but he didn't last long."
She knew what kind of jobs Giran would have sent them on so she could only imagine the guy suffered some horrific fate. It made her want to smile so she lowered her head and covered her mouth with a hand. "I'm a villain now."
"I know. That's what you wanted, right?" Giran saw her nod. "I guess as long as you're doing something you love. Speaking of which…how's Shigaraki?" He snickered when he saw her face flush bright red. "Come on. I couldn't resist trying to get a reaction from you."
"I get enough of that from that crispy creep at the base," she muttered, her ears flattening against her head again.
Kugutsu trudged back to the hideout feeling exhausted. Even with her broken bones healed, moving around so much tired her out. She used her quirk more that day than she had since she was injured. All she wanted now was to curl up on the floor next to Shigaraki and sleep.
"Yami! You're back! Where were you? Dabi said he saw you leave, but he didn't know where you went." Iguchi approached her as soon as she entered the decrepit old building. He tensed when her narrowed, yellow eyes settled on him and he frowned. "Are you okay?"
"That fucking…crispy creep…super stalker…piece of singed meat." She gritted her teeth and let him put her arm over his shoulder to support her slight weight. Fatigue was settling over her limbs rapidly. She felt like she had been in a fight for the last collector's edition of a game on its release date.
"Er…did you eat dinner yet? Big Sis got some food and I saved some for you if you want to eat."
"You're…seriously pathetic. Trying to pull yourself out of the friend zone by feeding the stray kitty." The voice came from down the hallway and Dabi soon appeared in an open doorway. His eyes skimmed along Kugutsu's form and he followed them when they walked past. "What's the matter? Cat got your tongue?"
"You know puns are low-tier comedy," Kugutsu growled over her shoulder. "That's dad-level taunting, you uncreative piece of charcoal."
Iguchi struggled with the unbearable urge to say "sick burn". As funny as it would be, that would just put him on Dabi's level in her mind and he wanted to stay on her good side. The reptilian villain decided that the best way to do this was to impress her. "Yami, I found this new mobile RPG today. Want me to show you while you eat? I thought you could take a look and show it to Shigaraki to see if he'd want to play with us."
She perked up a little at this, her feline ears literally perking forward. This was a chance to impress her crush. If it was a game he had never played before, he might even be happy that she showed it to him. Kugutsu just wanted to see him happy. She wanted to see his dry, scarred lips curve into a grin and maybe, just maybe, feel his fingers rub behind one of her ears.
"Yeah. That sounds good," she agreed. It made her feel weak, but heat bloomed in her cheeks at the thought of curling up next to Shigaraki while he played the game.
Her blush consequently made Iguchi feel weak. He rubbed the back of his head with his free hand and tried to hide his smile. "Well…well great! I'll take you to my room and grab the food."
Dabi walked behind them, listening to their conversation and just waiting for the chance to speak up and call Iguchi a simp, but then he found himself presented with a more interesting opportunity. He crouched down next to Kugutsu once Iguchi was out of the room, staring at her with a pretty damn creepy grin spreading across his face.
"Back. The. Fuck. Off." Kugutsu pressed back against the wall, touching her fingertips against her own shadow in case he did something stupid. She was pretty sure he was; he loved messing with her too much to pass up the opportunity.
Sure enough, he reached out a hand and rested it on top of her head. The half-burned bastard leaned in close to her so his face was just a few inches from hers and started to rub at her dark, messy hair. He did not start off gently, either. He was rubbing at her hair like an uneducated toddler trying to pet a cat for the first time.
"Fucking. What did I just say?! You wanna die?" she snarled up at him.
"Awww. C'mon. You're not gonna purr for me?" he taunted, having way too much fun with this. "How about I pet you somewhere else?"
"Keep being a pervy piece of burnt bacon and see what happens! I'll castrate you and make you eat your own balls! I'll kick in your face so your own mom won't fucking recognize you!" Kugutsu hissed when his thumb and forefinger gripped her left ear harshly. She felt him tug at it and a low growl started at the back of her throat.
"She wouldn't recognize me anyway." His other hand went to the back of her neck like he was going to try to scruff her, but he was forced to pause when a tendril of darkness rose off the floor and coiled around his wrist. Dabi's sharp blue eyes fixed on her yellow ones and he smirked.
"What're you doing?" The familiar sound of nails dragging over skin made Kugutsu look to the open doorway. A sound that made her heart skip a beat and filled her evil little stomach with butterflies. Shigaraki glared in at the other two villains and the scratching intensified as he took it all in.
From where he was standing, it looked like an intimate scene. His fan girl, his one and only fan girl, was pinned against the wall with Dabi close enough he could have done something dirty. Something worse than just joking about petting her.
"Don't you look close? I thought you were supposed to be running an errand for Giran, but I guess you finished early."
Kugutsu tried to push herself up so she could go to Shigaraki, but Dabi gripped the back of her neck when she tried to move. She squirmed, trying to ignore the residual pain from her old injuries, and managed to wedge a knee against his chest to push him back. "I said to get the fuck off me, you freezer-burned chicken nugget!"
"What're you gonna do about it? You're a declawed cat," he taunted.
"Shut the fuck up!" The girl's shadow spread further across the floor on either side of her and started to bubble. It churned at a quick pace and large, blunt spikes surged forward. They slammed against his chest and shoulders to throw him off of her; sending him sprawling onto the floor.
"I brought the food…" Iguchi appeared in the doorway behind Shigaraki and glanced from Kugutsu to Dabi, who was pushing himself to sit up. His expression was like a nine year old that just walked in on their parents agreeing on a divorce. "What happened?"
"It doesn't matter. Someone just made a stupid mistake." Shigaraki's blood-colored eyes were narrowed on Dabi. They turned to Kugutsu as the girl weakly approached him and he gripped her sleeve with his thumb and two fingers. "Yami. I thought you'd be happier to see me again. You always act like you're such a big fan, but you came here as soon as you came back."
"I am happy to see you! I was thinking about you the whole time I was gone!" She covered her mouth as her face went an embarrassingly bright shade of pink. I can't believe I just said that! How uncool can I be?! Damn it! Now they're all staring at me! What the hell?! Why'd I do that?
Four fingers ruffled her dark hair and brushed against the back of a feline ear. Kugutsu forced herself to not lean into his touch, but it was comforting. Even if he could reduce her to a pile of dust if his last finger lowered onto her head.
"Let's go. You made me wait long enough." His hand left her head and his other hand tightened its grip on her shirt sleeve. Her gremlin-like crush led her down the hallway, past rooms occupied by the other villains.
Shigaraki had claimed the room at the end of the hall. The only room with a lock on its door. He settled on the floor, leaning against the wall with his legs open, and beckoned her over with a finger. As soon as she was sitting between his legs, he wrapped his arms around her and rested his head against the back of her shoulder.
She felt it bubbling up. Her stupid cat quirk was trying to make her purr because the warm feeling of being held by her evil, crusty crush made her so happy that she could barely contain it. The shadows on the floor writhed excitedly and she bit her lip when she felt his hips press closer against the back of hers.