"We need to work together," Izuku said.
Shigaraki scoffed and rolled his eyes. "I'm not doing that."
"I can't get off of this spaceship alone–"
"Planet," Shigaraki interjected, lip lifted in a scowl at having to correct Izuku again.
"And neither can you," Izuku continued, ignoring Shigaraki's correction, much to Shigaraki's chagrin. "And until we get off of this spaceship–"
"Planet. It's a planet," Shigaraki insisted. "We're on. A. Planet."
"We're allies," Izuku continued, talking over Shigaraki.
Shigaraki turned around and dropped to the floor, crossing his legs and his arms.
Izuku's jaw dropped. "Are you sulking?"
"If you want to ignore me, that's fine. I'll just ignore you, too," Shigaraki muttered under his breath without turning back around, but Izuku still heard him with how quiet and unmoving all of the other creatures in the surrounding area were.
"Well, you're still answering me," Izuku hedged against his better judgment. "That's not exactly ignoring me."
Izuku saw Shigaraki's jaw open to retort and then snap close in resistance. Izuku resisted the urge to sigh, forcing himself not to roll his eyes in case Shigaraki turned around.
"You cornered me at the mall because you wanted to talk," Izuku said. "Well, here's what I have to say: You can be upset all you want about the situation, but it's not going to do anything about it."
Izuku tentatively moved forward and touched his own cell bars. When the electricity buzzing through them was nothing more than a tingle, he grabbed onto them to try to see if he could bend them with his own strength, without the use of his quirk. No luck.
Izuku continued, "We're on our own here, and we have to do this ourselves. That means teaming up, even if neither of us wants to."
Izuku could see Shigaraki's jaw working, could see the tense line of Shigaraki's spine as he curled further in on himself as he resisted snapping at him in response, and he could see when the reality of what he was saying sunk in and the lines of Shigaraki relaxed just the slightest.
He spun around then, still seated on the floor, but twisted at the waist so he was facing Izuku once again. "Fine. But it doesn't mean I like you."
"Of course not," Izuku said. Then, unable to resist, "the fact that you keep seeking me out for "talks" means that you like me."
Shigaraki's lips lifted into a disgusted kind of sneer as he snarled out a quick "fuck you" that lacked any real energy. Then, he asked, "what's your plan?"
"Well, we need to try to start communication with our cellmates. Try not to be overly intimidating." Izuku hesitates, eyes flickering to the feline-alien in Shigaraki's cell. "That might be difficult with the way you were just carrying on."
"That's a stupid plan," Shigaraki said. "This is what they teach you in that hero school? I hope you can get your money back."
"They're stuck in here, too," Izuku said, ignoring the jab. "They know what this place is, first of all. They'll want to get out of here, too, and they'll know the technology and guards' schedules better than us because they're native to space and they've been here in these cells longer. Maybe if they're already planning to escape, if we can play nice and make friends, they'll bring us along. Either way, it's somewhere to start. It's a plan. It's more than what you have."
Shigaraki scoffed but stood up and faced his cellmate, ready to get started on Izuku's bare-bones, barely-a-plan, because he was right. At least it was something, somewhere to start, something to do rather than wait for rescue that was not going to come for them.
Izuku turned to his own cellmate, taking a few steps closer into the cell, away from the bars, but still leaving plenty of space as to not crowd or feel threatening to his cellmate, and introduced himself, putting his hand on his chest and saying, "Midoriya," repeating himself a few times.
Izuku was pleased to see Shigaraki following his lead until he heard Shigaraki introducing himself as "God."
Izuku held up a finger, wondered vaguely if the alien would understand that it meant to hold on a second while I deal with my idiot traveling companion, and stepped back over to the bars to yell at Shigaraki.
"What are you doing?!"
"Introducing myself," Shigaraki said with a sly smirk and a shrug.
"Not like that," Izuku said.
"It won't know the difference," Shigaraki insisted.
Izuku sighed, leaning his head forward in his hand to pinch the bridge of his nose in exasperation. He explained, "once we get out of here, if we ever do, and they help us send out a distress signal, the people who will be searching for us will recognize the alert going out for "Midoriya and Shigaraki." They will have no idea who "God" is."
"The last time I checked, us humans haven't been able to travel outside of our solar system," Shigaraki said, "and we didn't know these alien fucks existed. So, I don't know who you think is coming for us, which rescue team is coming, unless you think All Might can hold his breath in space and fly at the speed of light, somehow pick the right direction to fly in, and come save his damn successor. I know that my sensei can't."
Izuku stared blankly at Shigaraki for a few seconds as all of Shigaraki's previous comments about them being on a planet suddenly struck him as being important. Shigaraki was about to say something else when Izuku asked, "You said something about us being on a planet?"
"Yes," Shigaraki snarled. "Thanks for paying attention!"
"No," Izuku said, backtracking. "That can't be right. There's no signs of anything to this extent on any planet in our solar system–"
Shigaraki laughed cruelly. "You can be in denial as much as you want," Shigaraki said, "but I was awake. Maybe Danger Sense kept you knocked out or something–good for fucking you–but I saw us leave Earth, I was awake when we hit hypersonic speeds and felt like my brain was going to melt out of my ears, and I was awake when they transferred us from the fucking UFO like out of a D-rated alien movie onto this planet and showered us in some freaky blue liquid before dragging our asses here while you slept through it like a fucking baby.
"We're on a planet in another fucking solar system far from home, probably lightyears away, Midoriya. We're not just in space, on some kind of space shuttle or space station, drifting around Earth, ready to drop back down as soon as we make an escape plan. You were right when you said we're on our own."
At that, Shigaraki turned back around to face his cellmate, put a hand on his chest, and introduced himself. Maybe he saw how pale Izuku got and took pity on him because he introduced himself properly that time. "Shigaraki," he said. Then, once again, slower, sounding out the syllables, the troubled look not leaving his face.
It took fewer tries than Izuku expected for his cellmate to repeat his name back to him correctly, then it was his cellmate's turn.
The bird-like alien put their wing-like appendage to their own chest and said, "H'zashi." The name started with the "h" sound, quickly changed to the "z" sound that transitioned up into a whistle tone, came back down into a low "sh" sound that had just the quickest click at the the end of it, before finishing off with the "ee" sound at the end. Very intricate and complicated, and Izuku didn't even attempt it until H'zashi had repeated it four times first to make sure the whistle was the right length and the click was in the right place in his mind's attempt before he even tried aloud.
When Izuku said "H'zashi" aloud, pleased that his first attempt sounded correct to his own ears, he looked to his cellmate to see them frozen, staring. After another moment, H'zashi clacked their beak at him, and Izuku took that as confirmation that he had gotten it right, otherwise they would have repeated their name again for Izuku to try once more, right?
Izuku smiled at H'zashi, and H'zashi seemed to have startled, tensing up and feathers pulling in tight to their body. Before Izuku could figure out what he had done wrong, H'zashi seemed to have forced themselves to relax again and hesitantly moved forward a half-step, forcing their own face into an attempt of a smile, though it looked like it was awkward on their face, like they did not often contort their facial muscles in that sort of way.
Izuku realized then that smiling was probably not common in alien culture. Baring one's teeth is often seen as aggression in the animal kingdom, and Izuku theorized that it might be the same case here in space.
"Hey, Shigaraki," Izuku started, turning toward the other cell to warn the other man. "Smiling might be seen as aggression here, so–"
He turned to see Shigaraki facing his cellmate, his face already stretched into the most grotesque grin his facial muscles could manage, eyes widened and twitching with the effort.
Izuku's heart rate spiked, wondering just how terribly Shigaraki was going to get along with his cellmate until he saw a similarly creepy imitation of a smile stretched across the cat-alien's face.
"Okay, then," Izuku muttered under his breath. "Never mind. Forget I said anything."
Izuku's next step was trying to figure out how to try to communicate with H'zashi, wondering if H'zashi had any interest in learning any human language or if it would be solely up to Izuku to learn the alien language. Izuku thought it was a good sign that H'zashi was willing to copy his body language, even when initially frightened by it.
It was odd, even, that they so quickly realized that my smile was a positive thing, Izuku rationalized, instead of going with their first instinct that I was acting aggressively. I wonder what made them change their mind about what a smile must mean.
It was impossible to ask right at that moment. Until they had more of the language gap breached, Izuku wouldn't be asking much of anything, except, maybe how to say "floor" or "green."
So, that's where Izuku started.
Izuku squatted and touched the floor and said "floor" in Japanese, and was thrilled that H'zashi repeated it until he got it right. Then H'zashi brushed their wing over the floor and said what Izuku figured must have been "floor" in their alien language, and Izuku repeated it until he got it right.
Izuku then pointed to his hair and said "green" in Japanese and the process repeated. Izuku was using his shirt to learn the word for "white" when Shigaraki called his name.
Izuku looked over to see Shigaraki seated on the floor at the very edge of his cell, his legs fed through the cell bars into the corridor.
"Join me," Shigaraki said, gesturing to the opposite side of the corridor, the same spot in the cell to where Shigaraki sat, but in Izuku's cell instead.
Izuku wondered if Shigaraki was playing out some kind of villainous fantasy in his head telling him to come over and join him like that, but Izuku shrugged and decided to play along anyway, sitting down in a mirror image of Shigaraki, feeding his own legs through the bars into the walkway area outside of his cell.
With both of them sitting like that, their feet were about a half a meter from touching each other, so Izuku knew that Shigaraki couldn't kick him or anything. He wasn't sure why Shigaraki insisted on them sitting like that until two aliens that resembled pill bugs came through, pushing a cart. They stopped at every cell and delivered meals from the cart.
When they got to Izuku's and Shigaraki's legs, they paused, looking down at their legs, over at them, down at their legs again, at each other, at the cart, down at their legs again, all the while speaking to each other in what sounded like it could be the same language that H'zashi was working on teaching Izuku (but really it could have been something completely different. It was purely a guess. Izuku didn't know enough words or any syntax to be able to tell). The cart was too wide to be pushed through the gap between their feet, so the aliens were at an impasse.
"These are the kind of aliens that carried your unconscious ass in," Shigaraki said, waving vaguely at the pill bug aliens.
"H'zashi?" Izuku asked, pointing to the alien closest to himself.
"Dollun," H'zashi said, and Izuku hoped that was the species of alien that was. Judging by the way the aliens in the corridor basically jumped out of their skin and started arguing with H'zashi, Izuku would have bet money on being correct.
"I think they're called dollun," Izuku said to Shigaraki, "though, whether that is the singular or plural of the word is yet to be determined."
Shigaraki sneered at him from across the hallway. "Seriously? You're going to worry about grammar?"
Izuku shrugged. "If I'm going to learn a new language, I might as well learn it correctly." Izuku gestured to his cellmate. "This is H'zashi," he introduced. He repeated it a few times as Shigaraki got the hang of it.
"This one is Cat-Face," Shigaraki said, throwing his head nonchalantly in the direction of his own cellmate.
"No they're not," Izuku objected flatly.
"No they're not," Shigaraki agreed, "but that's what I'm going to call it. Its name is actually A'zawa."
Izuku tried it the first time without needing Shigaraki to repeat it, as it was easier for him than H'zashi's name. It started with an "ah" sound going into a Russian "zh" sound back to an "ah" sound again before going into a "w" sound that rounded off into a short purr before rounding off with the "ah" sound.
A'zawa repeated their own name for Izuku and Izuku heard in the purr where he went wrong and tried again. A'zawa purred, and Izuku took that as confirmation that he had gotten it right–or at least right enough.
Izuku introduced himself to A'zawa, and before Shigaraki could try to introduce himself as "God" again, he introduced Shigaraki to H'zashi, all the while ignoring the dolluns running around, probably becoming more and more frantic now that their schedule is getting more and more off-track the longer that he and Shigaraki impede their progress.
The dolluns eventually grabbed some trays from the cart and carefully stepped through the gap left between Izuku's and Shigaraki's feet and approached their cells. They waved a card at a keypad to get the electricity to stop, typed in a code to get a lock to unlatch with an audible tick, and opened up a small gap at the bottom of the cells to slide the trays in, all the while eyeing Izuku and Shigaraki nervously, like they wanted to bait them away from where they were, but that they were also nervous to be holding the bait.
Shigaraki and Izuku didn't take the bait.
Shigaraki couldn't seem to help himself from reaching through the bars suddenly toward the dollun at his cell though, screaming out a loud "boo" at them. Both dolluns startled, but the one closest to Shigaraki startled backwards and fell onto their back and flailed around, seemingly unable to get up on their own, or at least unable to get up on their own quickly.
The other dollun was quick to help, however, and rushed to their assistance, pulling them up from the floor. They both backed away quickly from Shigaraki's cell, not turning their backs to him.
A chittering sound came from Shigaraki's cell as a trilling sound came from Izuku's. Were their cellmates laughing? It seemed likely when the dolluns once again began to argue with their cellmates in their alien language.
"That one is saying, "how dare you laugh at me!"" Shigaraki said, leaning forward against the cell bars, holding onto them, letting them take the weight of his arms as he lolled his head onto his shoulder lazily as he spoke, filling in for the translation that neither of them knew. ""You'd be scared shitless, too, if you were in our position!"" he said in a higher pitched tone, substituting what the dolluns might have been saying.
Izuku decided that he could get in on the fun, leaning back to take his weight on his hands. "Our cellmates are saying, "we're the ones here in the cells with them! You don't see us jumping and falling over!"" choosing a lower-pitched tone of voice to represent their cellmates' voice-overs.
Shigaraki barked out a laugh, kicking his feet to rid himself of some excess, restless energy. Izuku laughed, too, easily finding enjoyment in the chaos, even if he didn't understand the majority of the overlapping voices surrounding him. Both men's laughter trailed off when they found their cellmates staring at them oddly.
"Well, they haven't attacked us yet," Izuku said, shifting his weight from hand to hand as he eyed H'zashi from the corner of his eye.
"They seem more jumpy and scared of us more than anything," Shigaraki said, abandoning looking at his own cellmate altogether to look over at Izuku once again. "Are we top of the food chain, here?"
Izuku hummed as their cellmates seemed to have regained control of themselves and stopped staring, not moving into attack but not backing off in terror either. "Maybe. Or maybe it's like you said before–we've never traveled out of our solar system. Maybe we're just an unknown."
The dolluns ended up leaving, abandoning their cart, and Shigaraki laughed, thinking they had just given up entirely until they came back with tall stick bug-like aliens.
Shigaraki groaned. "These are the ones that grabbed me and forced me into this cell. They're strong motherfuckers."
"H'zashi?" Izuku asked, pointing to these ones, now.
"Scrak," H'zashi answered easily.
To the scraks' credit, they did not startle and shake like the dolluns did when their species' names were discussed, but they did whip their heads in their direction, like it was surprising for the discussion to be happening.
Izuku called across the corridor, "they're called "scrak." Again, no idea–"
"About the singular versus plural variations," Shigaraki interrupted with a roll of his eyes. "I get it, Midoriya! You're a nerd, and you need the whole universe to know!"
"Hey!" Izuku objected. "You'll be thanking me when we can write scholarly papers in this alien language!"
"When will I ever write a scholarly paper in any language?!" Shigaraki argued. "Let alone this shitty alien one?!"
"You never know!" Izuku insisted.
"How are we going to learn the written language, Midoriya?" Shigaraki asked smugly.
Izuku opened his mouth, and then shut it again.
"Can't do much writing when we don't know the written language, dipshit," Shigaraki sneered.
"I'm sure they have some kind of technology to write and type," Izuku said. "They must! They just haven't given it to us."
"Not every language even has a written language. What if these aliens don't?"
"Do you think that's likely, and then them being able to make the technology to have the UFO that reached superluminal speed to bring us here?" Izuku reasoned.
Instead of coming up with a rational argument, Shigaraki just repeated the word "superluminal" in a mocking tone.
"Well, you said "hypersonic" earlier, and that technically is correct," Izuku said, "because it would have been faster than Mach 5, right? But "superluminal" is more descriptive–"
"Superluminal," Shigaraki once again repeated in the same mocking tone.
"Okay, maybe you won't be writing any scholarly papers," Izuku conceded.
"And what the fuck is that supposed to mean?!" Shigaraki snapped.
"Well, you said you didn't want to anyway! So now that I'm agreeing with you, you have a problem with it?"
As they argued over hypotheticals, the scraks grabbed hold of the meal cart, lifted it up, and walked it over Izuku's and Shigaraki's outstretched legs, effectively breaking them out of their argument.
"Damn," Shigaraki cursed, pulling his legs in and retreating back into his cell now that his fun was over. "Well, we inconvenienced them for a little while. That was fun!"
"How'd you know they were coming? Did you hear them?" Izuku asked, wondering if he relied too much on Danger Sense and not his other senses and was at a great disadvantage now that he did not have the practice to fall back on.
"Nah," Shigaraki waved off. "Cat-Face pointed it out to me. Mimed eating and told me that "food" is the word for food."
Izuku repeated the word in the alien language, Shigaraki corrected his pronunciation, and then they both turned to the food trays in their cells.
Izuku waited until H'zashi grabbed their meal tray before he grabbed his own. Both looked completely foreign; he wasn't sure which one was for him, so he figured the safest thing to do was to wait and see which one was left. H'zashi grabbed the one that looked like a bowl of mixed nuts, so Izuku was left with the tray of the colorful assortment that looked almost fake.
The tray had a small, dark purple slab of meat on it and some brightly colored vegetation. Izuku called his observations over to Shigaraki and found that Shigaraki had an identical tray.
"No use in trying to barter and trade with each other, then," Shigaraki observed, looking with narrowed, suspicious eyes at his own tray, poking at his slab of purple meat with a finger.
Izuku shrugged and took a small, tentative bite out of the meat, almost spitting it back out immediately–not because it was bad, but because the taste was not what was expected, like when you take a drink of soda expecting it to be one brand, but are unpleasantly surprised with another.
"Uh…" Izuku started, staring down at his slab of meat before looking over at Shigaraki who had yet to try his. "I don't know if I'm imagining it because of the color, but it tastes like grape candy," Izuku warned. "Either way, just know that it's sweet."
"Oh, wow," Shigaraki said, his eyes wide as he looked across the corridor at Izuku. "You're just going to dig right in are you? Not concerned that they're–I don't know–going to fucking poison or drug us or something?"
Izuku shrugged. Truthfully, he hadn't thought of that, but he wasn't about to admit that to Shigaraki. "Why would they drag us the whole way here from Earth just to poison us?" Izuku asked, making up his excuse as the words left his mouth. "And if they are trying to drug us and we just don't eat, I'm sure they'll just find another way to drug us. It's best to keep our energy up in case the chance to fight back or escape presents itself."
Shigaraki looked at Izuku for a long moment in consideration before nodding. "I guess you have a point."
Izuku nodded back at him with fake confidence, like that was his plan from the beginning, hiding his relief that he found some reasons that made sense that didn't make him seem like a reckless idiot just biting into whatever strange food that was handed to him. Izuku mentally berated himself for acting like a baby freely taking candy from strangers, acting too trusting.
"Not bad," Shigaraki said when he finally dug in. When he finally braved the vegetables, a grin grew over his face as he yelled across the corridor, "the salad is sweet, too!"
When some dolluns came through with another cart to collect the empty meal trays, Izuku copied H'zashi by placing his meal tray by the section of bars that he now knew could unlatch. Izuku shouldn't have been surprised to hear high-pitched arguing coming from across the corridor, only to look over to see Shigaraki hugging his meal tray to his chest, refusing to give it to the dollun. Shigaraki even hissed at the dollun for continuing to try to reason with Shigaraki in a language that Shigaraki clearly could not understand. The dollun then turned to A'zawa to try to reason with them instead, but A'zawa seemed to argue back with the dollun instead of making any move toward trying to take the tray from Shigaraki.
Good move, A'zawa, Izuku thought. Izuku wouldn't try to take anything from Shigaraki, either, even without him hissing like that. Man's feral. I'd fear I'd get rabies or something from him if I was A'zawa… Do aliens know about rabies?
"I'm learning so much about you," Izuku said once the dolluns had given up and decided to allow Shigaraki to keep the meal tray, moving on to collect from other cells down the line.
"Oh, yeah?" Shigaraki asked, putting his meal tray in a far corner so that the dolluns couldn't come back and sneakily collect it later when he wasn't paying attention. "Like what?"
"That you're a hoarder," Izuku said, trying for nonchalance but failing. "Why do you want to keep that? If you fight them on everything, they're going to retaliate eventually."
"It might be useful," Shigaraki said. "And I don't think they're going to retaliate. They stayed far away from our legs earlier. Instead of just running our legs over with the cart, they brought reinforcements to lift the thing and carry it over the obstacle we were making. I don't think they're allowed to do anything to us."
Izuku paused to think it over. "Well, it's a theory, but if you're wrong, and you push them over the edge to retaliate for everything you put them through up until that point, it's going to be a rough time for you."
Shigaraki shrugged, unconcerned. "I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. Until then, I'll push limits and you can play good-little-hostage and follow the rules, and we'll see what happens."
Izuku sighed, consciously decided not to retort and further the argument. He rubbed at his eyes to clear them, then paused looking around at his surroundings before experimentally rubbing at his eyes again, much to the distress of his cellmate if the wing-fluttering and beak-clacking was anything to go by.
At first, Izuku thought that maybe Shigaraki was right before, and they were drugged, but after checking over his body and noticing that nothing felt different, Izuku figured there must be a different explanation to his vision darkening.
"Does it seem darker in here to you?" Izuku asked Shigaraki.
Shigaraki took a moment to look around, frowning. "Now that you mention it…"
"Gradually dimming lights?" Izuku guessed, looking up at the ceiling. "What's the purpose of that?"
"Usually to make it seem more natural," Shigaraki said. "Toga has a light that gradually brightens in the morning to wake her up–she says it helps with her seasonal affective disorder. It doesn't really make sense in here, though, because everything else is so clinical. It's obvious we're inside, locked in cages like animals. Why have the additional expense to gradually dim the lights instead of just shutting them off when it's time for sleep?"
"Maybe it's a similar reason to Toga's," Izuku guessed. "There are a lot of different species here," he said, gesturing down the hallway in both directions. "It wouldn't be surprising if there are some that are light-sensitive."
Shigaraki hummed, sounding not totally convinced.
"Either way, I'm not sleeping tonight," Izuku informed. "I'm not sure why I was knocked out cold for the transport. It doesn't seem like I'm concussed, but better safe than sorry, so I'm going to stay awake. I'll keep guard over you so you can sleep."
"I was going to sleep anyway," Shigaraki informed him cheekily, but instead of walking over to his own box of dead grass to sleep in, he meandered over to the one that A'zawa was lying down in, having just settled and gotten comfortable. "If you hear a catfight over here, Cat-Face started it. For the record, I just want to cuddle."
Izuku sucked in a breath through his teeth as Shigaraki stepped into the box. "Do you really think that's a good idea?"
He was thoroughly ignored as Shigaraki flopped himself down and wiggled himself real close up against A'zawa who was frozen in place with wide eyes, but who thankfully did not lash out with teeth or claws against the strange, unexpected actions of his cellmate.
"See?" Shigaraki called out to Izuku from the box. Izuku could barely see him over the pastel-colored grasses and the chrome metal edges of the box keeping everything inside. "It likes it, too!"
"I wouldn't say that," Izuku responded. "They look petrified."
"Maybe it can somehow sense what my quirk can do," Shigaraki guessed, "even though right now it's nullified–woah! What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck–"
Shigaraki thrashed around and scrambled from the box. A'zawa didn't move, still looking at Shigaraki with wide, terrified eyes.
"What happened? Find their claws?" Izuku asked, amused.
"No! That grass is not dead!" Shigaraki said, pointing at the offending grass. "It tried to wrap around me, like some kind of parasitic plant! Ready to drag me down and devour me alive!"
Izuku, with brows furrowed in curiosity, walked over to his own box of grasses and put his hand in. He was surprised to find a packed dirt bottom instead of more metal. After a moment of keeping his hand still, the grass blades indeed did wrap around his hand, but they didn't try to pull his hand down into the dirt; they just wrapped around him and stayed there. They were also quick and easy to release him when Izuku pulled his hand away.
"I don't think it's harmful," Izuku said. "It doesn't seem to be too strong, and A'zawa and H'zashi don't seem to be bothered by it," he reasoned, looking over at the cat alien who was wrapped in the pastel grasses and was still unmoving, still watching Shigaraki with wary eyes, but seemingly unbothered by the grasses winding around them.
H'zashi, too, had allowed the grasses to encase him inside his own metal box and did not seem alarmed in the slightest, eyes open and following what was happening in the cell across the hall instead.
"Like hell I'm sleeping alone, now," Shigaraki exclaimed, making his way back over to the box that contained A'zawa. "Make room, Cat-Face! You're the one that has to protect me if this stupid-ass grass tries to strangle me tonight!"
For the second time, Shigaraki cuddled up against A'zawa without retaliation from the alien.
"Look!" Shigaraki called over to Izuku. "I think its claws are sharp enough to cut through this parasitic grass if it tries to strangle me. What do you think?"
Izuku looked over to see Shigaraki holding up one of A'zawa's paws, pressing gently into the pads to force the claws out for inspection. A'zawa's eyes were still wide, though Izuku seemed to be able to spot confusion rather than pure terror this time.
"I think you're terrorizing your cellmate."
"Yeah, well who asked you?" Shigaraki snapped, dropping the paw, crossing his arms in defiance, and cuddling further into A'zawa's fur to hide his face from Izuku and the dimming lights.
"You did," Izuku deadpanned.
Shigaraki didn't pull his face out of A'zawa's fur, only flinging his arm out of the pastel grass to flip Izuku off. Within minutes after that, he was asleep.