chapter 13
Endeavour walked to his front door and peered out from behind the lace curtains his wife had picked out the day after they had first moved into the house together, but Shouto and his little girlfriend were nowhere in sight.
"Dad, Shouto isn't even out of class yet. He won't be home for at least another hour." Fuyumi poked her head out of the kitchen where she had been cooking and baking for the last two hours. "Plus, he has to stop and get Sakura, so he might be even longer." She ducked back into the kitchen when her father let out a frustrated growl.
Within the safety of her kitchen Fuyumi rolled her eyes at her father. Three hours ago he called her and told her he would be home soon, to start cooking foods she thought Sakura would like because he had big news for her and Shouto.
Fuyumi had hung up the phone like it was a bomb that was ready to explode. No good would come of this, she was sure of it. She had no idea what their father had planned or how he even knew that Shouto and Sakura were together, but knowing Shouto, he wasn't going to like that their father was home, or that he was so interested in Sakura.
Whenever their father got this excited or this passionate about something, someone always got hurt. Mentally, emotionally or physically. Their father didn't know the meaning of subtle.
...and she had seen with her own eyes exactly how attached to Sakura Shouto was becoming. Personally, she thought Shouto and his girlfriend were getting too close too quickly, but she understood, she didn't blame Shouto for wanting someone of his own.
Fuyumi pulled the rice flour from the pantry for their tempura. She liked Sakura. She liked Shouto when Sakura was around. He wasn't as moody or as distant as he was when he was without her. She hoped their father wasn't going to ruin this for him too. He had already ruined so much for all of them already. Shouto deserved this, to have someone care about him the way he cared for them.
He had been treated like an object by their father for his whole life. Sometimes he didn't know how to act, how to feel or how to express himself, but that was changing. Fuyumi had seen it with her own eyes and she was convinced it was because of Sakura's influence. So yeah, maybe they were moving a little fast, maybe Shouto was a little obsessed with the girl, but Fuyumi didn't see any reason to worry, not when the girl made him so happy.
"Masterpiece my ass." Fuyumi poured the oil into her pan and set the heat to medium.
"So, why are you here?" Shigaraki kept his distance. He didn't trust himself to sit beside her or even one bar stool closer. His fingers were already twitching, he had to control himself. He wanted to reach out and touch her so badly that his fingers hurt. He couldn't lose control now though. She had come on her own, come to see him and…
"For Kurogiri san." Sakura watched Shigaraki over the rim of her glass in the mirror behind the bar.
Tomura's beer bottle cracked, but before it could make a mess, he disintegrated the glass with one hand, and the falling liquid with the other before gravity could break the liquid apart.
Sakura watched the dust fall over the bar. She waved her hand through the air dramatically and coughed loudly. "You must have to vacuum a lot, or do you have a maid. I hope you pay her well."
"What do you want with my warp gate, Sakura?" Tomura lost his patience. He had waited, he had given her time to adjust to her situation and now when she had finally come here on her own it wasn't to see him, but to see Kurogiri? How much did his Master expect him to endure? He started scratching his neck, over and over muttering under his breath. "First that child and now…"
"Your warp gate, exactly. I want to know more about his quirk." Sakura set her half full glass down on the bar top, ignoring the fact that Shigaraki had addressed her by name, her name that she had never given him. "How does it work? Will you tell me? I have a theory but I have no idea if I'm correct or not."
"His quirk?" Tomura stopped scratching. "Why?" She couldn't possibly know that Master had brought her here. Of course she wasn't asking about Master's new quirk, she was asking about Kurogiri's, but it was similar, very similar. Only, Master's quirk performed on a far greater level than Kurogiri's warp gate. She had a theory? Could shinobi use their chakra to teleport?
"I want to know how far it can teleport people." Sakura chose her words carefully. "I need to know if it can transcend time and space when considering other dimensions."
Shigaraki shifted his posture, but Kurogiri remained quite still, his mist the only movement from his gargoyle-like figure.
"Why would you want to know a thing like that?" Shigaraki spoke first, the monitor at the end of the bar flashing 'audio', then 'recording'.
"An odd phrasing don't you think Shigaraki?" Sakura picked her glass back up, sipping slowly as she continued to examine him in the mirror. His fingers were even more restless than they had been when she had first arrived at the bar. She could see his pulse jumping, then slowing in his neck as though he were trying to calm himself. This meant something. He knew something.
He was being careful.
Tomura lowered his head a bit and narrowed his eyes. She was clever, but so was he. How should he answer, how should he...with the sheer force of will he kept himself from scratching at his neck. It would give him away even more than he already had. She had noticed his frustrated, fidgety scratching and twitching, he had seen her watching him while he had watched her.
Shigaraki remained silent.
Sakura sighed. It was a coward's way out. She expected more from him after all of their witty interactions. She was disappointed. "You told me before that you and your Master would give me the world, that all you asked for in return was my loyalty, right?"
Shigaraki waited. Was she saying that she wanted to join them? No, her body language, her posture screamed mistrust, defiance and yet…
"I don't want the world Shigaraki. I don't care about grandiose or material objects, but I do want answers." Sakura watched him straighten up on his stool. He was listening. She had his full attention. "I am trying to figure out how I got here."
Tomura opened his mouth, then snapped it shut quickly. She didn't know. How could she, she had no idea, that wasn't what she was saying. She wasn't accusing, she was asking for their help to find the answer, she didn't have the answer, just like she said. She wanted answers and she thought, she thought they had some, or at least Kurogiri did.
"How you got here?" He asked her, his thoughts spinning in his head, calculations, hypothesis and then... "To the bar?" He waited. How would she react?
"To the bar and to...Japan." She pushed her empty glass back toward Kurogiri with a nod of thanks. "You don't have to tell me about your quirk. I understand if you don't want to tell me, but…"
She dropped down from her stool, walked over to Shigaraki and leaned on the bar beside him, her back up against the wood. It was time to try something else, another method of getting what she wanted. "I'm not going to give you my loyalty without getting something just as valuable in return."
Tomura took a deep breath and held it. Whatever he said next had better be good, he knew this was a pivotal point in their beginning. This is the part of the game where the wizard finds a hidden chest, but has to find the right key, or he loses the prize.
Damn it, Tomura grit his teeth, he never had any luck with those damned fucking things.
Sakura leaned over, her hair falling forward past her eyes, against the side of Shigaraki's face.
"Tomura." Sakura watched him.
He could smell her, the same floral, soft, seductive smell he had smelled on her last night when he had her pressed up against the HVAC unit on the roof. Fuck. He wanted to grab her, to throw her up on the bar and just…
"You do want my loyalty don't you, Tomura?" Sakura whispered in his ear using every single lesson Ino had taught her about seduction to get what she wanted from him.
"You want me don't you?" She could feel his energy vibrating against his skin, and could hear his agitated breathing. He would break soon. All she had to do was...Sakura exhaled, her breath a sigh as Shigaraki reached out for her.
"Tomura." All For One's voice came from the transmitter to his left. "Perhaps an exchange of trust is in order?" All For One suggested, as though the thought had just occurred to him.
Shigaraki didn't move, nor did Sakura.
"Tomura." All For One's voice came once again, stronger and more commanding.
Tomura shook himself, drew his hand back from Sakura, pushed off his stool and stood back, his eyes wide, and almost hurt.
Standing up straight, Sakura watched Tomura take a small step back, one and then another, then run from the room, slamming the door behind him. Sakura looked from Kurogiri to the monitor. Shigaraki had almost looked scared of her, but why?
"Kunoichi." All for One addressed Sakura.
"Shigaraki's sensei." Sakura inclined her head to the monitor, unsure if he could see her or not.
"Forgive Tomura. He is unfamiliar with your ways." All For One made excuses for his ward.
"...but you aren't ,are you, Shigaraki's sensei? In fact, by your tone, you seem to know much more about this situation than Shigaraki does." Sakura didn't know if she was more amused by Shigaraki's Master's interruption or suspicious, but she did know the one to watch out for here was not Shigaraki, but his sensei.
"I am familiar with the customs of kunoichi, and yes my dear, I know what you were doing just now." All For One chuckled a smooth chuckle of appreciation for Sakura's efforts. "You were trained well, my dear."
"Which is why you stepped in." Sakura added, because he had not.
"Indeed." All For One almost snorted. "You remind me of a woman I used to know, a very, very long time ago. She was a kunoichi, like you. Clever and brave, like you. Beautiful, like you."
Sakura snorted. "Tell me another one, sensei in a box."
All For One laughed out loud, a loud booming masculine laugh, that left Sakura staring at the monitor in surprise. She wasn't used to people reacting like that to her snark. Kakashi sensei, back home, had been the only one to understand her wit and find it as humorous as she did.
"Tomura is intelligent but lacks the common social skills needed for pleasantries such as this. His past haunts him and I'm afraid he does not have the capability of moving past it on his own." The voice in the box continued to speak.
"By now I'm sure you've seen the social injustice that we struggle against everyday, kunoichi. Men like Tomura don't stand a chance against such a one-sided social standard. He is immediately seen as a villain, no matter what he does, no matter how hard he tries to fit in with the 'others', he will never be seen as anything more than a murderer."
"A murderer?" Sakura walked closer to the monitor, and sat down on the bar stool closest to the screen. "Who did Shigaraki murder?" She asked him suspiciously.
"His mother and his father." All For One's words had all the impact he knew they would have on the kunoichi. He watched from the comfort of his recliner how wide her eyes got, how her breath caught in her throat and how a slight shiver ran through her frame.
"It was an accident of course, but did the police stop and listen to the how and the why of his situation, of course not." His voice was full of measured contempt. "They ripped him from his home, threw him into a cold, clean medical facility, as barren as their heroic hearts, and treated him like a rat until he managed to escape."
Guilt flooded Sakura's chest. It all made sense to her now. Shigaraki's hesitant awkward behavior, his impatience and tendency to scratch at his neck when agitated, his frustration.
"I found him, alone, hungry and dirty, slumped over on the ground in an alley. I took him in, fed him, clothed him and yes, perhaps I spoiled him a bit but given his past, I think he deserved it don't you?" All For One gave her no room to disagree, gave her no room to disregard his claims, because if she did, it would make her heartless.
Sakura nodded her head in agreement. "It was his quirk, wasn't it? His quirk is what killed his parents?"
She remembered last night, how excited he had gotten when he touched her and she hadn't died. She recalled what he had said before she had touched his hand.
'No, wait, don't! You'll…turn to ash.'
She thought it was panic that had made him say that, but it was sadness wasn't it? She understood now and she felt terrible. He was misunderstood, condemned and looked down on by the rest of society for something that wasn't his fault. She had misjudged him. He was like Naruto and she had treated him like a…
"Yes, his quirk. A powerful, devastating quirk that the heroes and the police didn't understand." Shigaraki's sensei told her in that same calming smoothness he had used when she had first met him. "...and because they didn't understand him, they locked him away, treated him like he was a villain, a little boy who had just lost his mother and his father." All For One said the words he knew would affect her the most.
Like Tsunade shisou did to me after Ino died...Sakura clenched her fists as the heat began to grow behind her eyes and her chakra snapped around her.
"Tomura doesn't have a family anymore, but he will be okay kunoichi, because I am here. I have given my all to Tomura, because all was taken from him. We have that in common, and I believe, you do as well." All For One ended the transmission.
Sakura blinked at the monitor that suddenly went black. Yeah, she had lost everything. Maybe she and Shigaraki were more alike than she thought, except she hadn't accidentally killed her mother and father. No, but she had disappeared on them out of thin air.
"That day…" Sakura ignored the new glass of juice Kurogiri set before her on the bar. "...the day you used your warp gate to bring me here, you told me it was because I seemed unaware of the illegality of my actions when I stopped that thief from running away and when I healed that shop owner's arm."
"Yes." Kurogiri nodded.
"You were protecting me under Shigaraki's master's orders weren't you Kurogiri?" Sakura asked the warp user.
"I was." Kurogiri was yet again awed by their Master's cunning, his foresight and intuition. "You will find, young kunoichi, that the heroes and villains in this world are not as they seem. Labels here are easily given, while their definitions, take a bit more time to discern."
"This world." Sakura looked Kurogiri in what she assumed were his eyes. "So I was right, wasn't I? You can warp across worlds and dimensions. You were the one who brought me here weren't you Kurogiri?"
"I apologize, Kunoichi, but I was not the one who brought you here, if you were brought here by something, I assure you it wasn't me." Kurogiri said truthfully. "I wish I had been the one to bring you here though, for my Master's sake."
"What do you mean by that?" Sakura picked up her glass of juice, much more at ease in the bar than on her previous visit.
"Isn't it obvious?" Kurogiri was genuinely surprised, surely she understood the rules of the game they were playing, or was their Master just that good? "If I could send you back to your own world, I would." He said simply.
"Oh." Sakura sipped her juice, her shoulders slumping forward. "I suppose that makes sense. Thank you."
"I know it may be difficult to believe, but the young master does have your best interest in mind." Kurogiri set a bowl of peanuts down in front of Sakura. "He's trying. I've never seen him try so hard at anything before, or for anyone. He's still a bit rough around the edges, but in time I know he will live up to his Master's expectations."
"Thank you, Kurogiri." Sakura picked up a peanut and popped it into her mouth. "What kind of expectations does Shigaraki's Master have for him?"
"Why, to surpass him of course, in success and in happiness." Kurogiri bowed from the waist. "When you are ready, I would be pleased to send you wherever you wish to go, kunoichi."
"Thank you Kurogiri, please, call me Sakura." Sakura gave the misty man a half smile. "If you want."
"Thank you for the privilege, Sakura." Kurogiri bowed again, this time, with more feeling.
All For One watched the kunoichi from the opposite feed of the visual. Close, that had been too close. He had warned Tomura but it seemed the young man was still far too inexperienced for this particular kunoichi. All For One chuckled, if only he were younger, he would show Tomura how to handle a woman like that.
Shouto saw her walking down the sidewalk before she saw him and frowned. She looked sad, in fact she looked miserable. Shouto quickened his pace and met her at the end of the block, passing by his house to greet her. "Sakura? Are you alright?"
Her head snapped up, he could see the red in her eyes, she had been crying.
"Who did this to you? What happened?" He laid both of his hands on her shoulders and looked around. "Did someone do or say something to you?" He demanded.
"Huh? No. It's nothing, I just was thinking about things, from my past and well…" She waved her hand through the air. "Sorry."
"Oh." Shouto let his hands fall back down to his sides. "Did you want to uh, talk about it or…"
"I don't want to talk about it, sorry, how was school?" Sakura changed the subject.
"Pointless." Shouto looked down at her hand, missing the slight look of unease in her eyes. "Can I hold your hand?" He asked her, making her laugh and lightening her mood at the same time.
Kami, he was such an odd combination of every man she had ever met. Sometimes, from his left side she swore he looked like Akasuna no Sasori, and his right eye reminded her of Kakashi. Even his silly little 'Hn', made her think of Sasuke and his nativity, was all Naruto. She shook her head. She was being ridiculous.
"You've never asked before." She smiled at him, her eyes sparkling, pushing away the sadness. She didn't want to think about what Shigaraki's master had told her. "You don't have to ask to hold my hand, Shouto." She continued to smile at him.
Shouto returned her smile unaware how hard she was pushing herself to smile for him. This is what he wanted, he wanted her to be happy. "Want to go?" He grabbed her hand and squeezed it. "Fuyumi will be happy to see you. I told her you were coming over for training and dinner tonight again."
"Unless you wanted to go somewhere else? We don't have to eat at my house if you're not feeling up to it. I know sometimes when your thoughts get too heavy, you want to be alone." He wanted her to come back to his house with him, they were only three houses from his front door, but if she wanted to leave, he would let her, he would try to understand, for her sake.
Sakura paused. She did want to be alone right now but his sister had probably cooked dinner for them, was expecting her. If she left, she wasn't sure she would be able to deal with the guilt, particularly after what she had just learned about Shigaraki's past.
"No." Sakura squeezed Shouto's hand. "Let's go to your house. I wouldn't want to disappoint Fuyumi. She's so nice and has welcomed me into your home since we first met. I like your sister." She assured him, and they started walking down the sidewalk to his house when a loud booming noise made Sakura stop in her tracks, looking around for danger.
"SHOUTO!" Endeavour boomed down the walkway, down the sidewalk, at his son.
"Who's that?" Sakura watched the man strut toward them, his arms across his chest, his mouth spread wide in a grin as cold blue eyes looked at her and Shouto.
"My father Endeavour, the Number Two Hero in Japan." Shouto growled, his voice cracked and low.
Sakura looked down at their linked hands, he was crushing her fingers in his grip. Without pulling her hand from his she pushed a bit of chakra to her fingers. "I take it, you don't get along?"
"Yeah, you could say that." Shouto glared at his father, while Endeavour looked Sakura up and down.