Chapter 2: The Bar at the End of the World
The journey through the city's veins was a lesson in contrasts. Gaara followed Giran not through the main thoroughfares, where holographic advertisements painted the night with heroes' smiling faces, but through the city's forgotten arteries. They moved through narrow alleys that smelled of damp concrete and discarded food, past shuttered storefronts with graffiti scrawled across their metal faces like forgotten prayers.
Gaara walked in a cocoon of silence, the sand at his feet muffling his own footsteps. He was an observer, absorbing the texture of this new reality. This was the world that existed in the shadows of the gleaming towers he used to watch from his window. It was ugly, grim, and yet, it felt more honest.
Giran, for his part, kept up a low, steady monologue, as if narrating a tour. He didn't seem to require a response.
"Look around you, kid," he said, gesturing with a sweep of his arm. "This is the real city. Not the sanitized version they sell you on television. This is where the people that hero society 'saves' actually live. The ones whose homes get destroyed in some flashy downtown brawl and get a half-hearted apology on the evening news. The ones with Quirks that aren't 'heroic'—the ones that are deemed weak, or ugly, or dangerous."
He glanced back at Gaara, his eyes sharp behind his glasses. "They preach about order, but it's a lie. It's a carefully constructed stage. And if you don't fit their play, you're thrown off the side, into the dark. We... we're just building a new stage."
Gaara offered no reply. He understood the words, but the concepts of 'society' and 'order' were academic to him. His world had only ever contained two states: being left alone, or being attacked. Giran was offering a third option.
Their destination was a bar, tucked away in a district where the streetlights had long since given up. The sign above the door was dark, its letters faded into an unreadable smudge. It looked abandoned, another casualty of the city's neglect. But Giran pushed the door open without hesitation, a sliver of dim, yellow light cutting through the gloom.
"Welcome," Giran said with a hint of theatricality, "to the ground floor of the new world."
The inside of the bar was thick with the smell of stale liquor and dust. A long wooden counter dominated one side of the room, its surface scarred with countless rings from glasses. The only light came from a few dim lamps that cast long, distorted shadows. It was a place designed to be hidden.
Behind the counter, a figure was polishing a glass with a clean, white cloth. It wasn't a man, not entirely. It was a being made of swirling, dark purple mist, contained within the crisp shape of a bartender's suit. Two glowing yellow slits served as its eyes, and they fixed on Giran, then shifted to Gaara.
Gaara's sand reacted instantly. A fine, gritty haze rose around his body. This was not a person of flesh and blood. It was an unknown, a potential threat of a kind he had never encountered. The sand did not know how to defend against something that seemed to have no solid form.
"Giran. You have returned," the mist-being said. Its voice was deep, polite, and unnervingly calm. "And you have brought the asset."
"He's more than an asset, Kurogiri," Giran replied, stepping aside to present Gaara. "He's a prodigy. Meet Gaara."
The being named Kurogiri inclined his misty head slightly. "It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Gaara-san. I am Kurogiri. Please, do not be alarmed. I mean you no harm."
Gaara's eyes narrowed. The sand did not settle. This 'Kurogiri' was composed, but the very nature of his Quirk felt like a subtle, pervasive threat.
A new voice, grating and impatient, cut through the tense atmosphere from a dark corner of the bar.
"Is that him? Did you really bring back some miserable-looking kid?"
Gaara's attention snapped to the source of the voice. A young man was slouched on a barstool, scratching furiously at his neck with long, thin fingers. His pale hair was a messy, unkempt shag, and his face was almost entirely obscured by a disembodied hand that was clamped over it like a macabre mask. Even so, Gaara could see a single, malevolent red eye glaring at him through the fingers.
This person radiated a palpable aura of decay and instability. It was a feeling as sharp and unpleasant as the scrape of metal on bone.
"Tomura Shigaraki," Giran said, his smooth tone becoming slightly more cautious. "Patience. This is the one I told you about. His Quirk is... definitive."
"Definitive?" Shigaraki scoffed, his scratching becoming more frantic. The sound was like dry leaves skittering across pavement. "He just looks like another low-level mob I have to clear before the boss fight. What's his deal? What's his Quirk?"
Before Giran could answer, Shigaraki stood up. He was tall and lanky, his posture a permanent, agitated slouch. He began to walk towards Gaara, his movements jerky and unnatural.
"Let me see," he rasped, his visible eye wide with a disturbing, childish curiosity. "If you're going to join our party, I need to see your stats."
The sand around Gaara thickened, swirling into a dense, impenetrable barrier. It was pure instinct. This approaching figure was the most significant threat he had felt since he was a small child in a room full of terrified doctors.
Shigaraki stopped just a meter away, tilting his head. "Hoh? A defensive type? Boring. All turtles, no attack. What's the point if you can't even deal damage?"
He let out a dry, cracked laugh. "Let's see how tough that shell of yours really is."
He moved.
It wasn't a trained, martial artist's lunge. It was the sudden, unpredictable dart of a predator. His right hand, all five fingers outstretched, shot towards Gaara's face.
Gaara did not flinch. He did not move. He did not even have time for a conscious thought.
The sand did it all.
In the fraction of a second before Shigaraki's fingertips could make contact, a portion of the swirling shield in front of Gaara's face compressed. It solidified from a cloud of particles into a wall as hard as granite.
THWACK.
Shigaraki's fingers slammed into the sand wall. The impact was absolute, a dead stop. A flicker of shock, then pure rage, flashed in his visible eye. He pushed, putting his weight into it, his fingers straining against the unyielding surface just centimeters from Gaara's nose.
The sand did not budge. It was perfectly still, perfectly solid. Gaara could feel the pressure of Shigaraki's hand through it, a dull, insignificant push against an immovable mountain. He could see the man's chapped lips, the crazed look in his eye. He felt nothing.
"Shigaraki Tomura," Kurogiri's calm voice cut in, suddenly laced with a sharp edge of warning. "That is enough."
"He's just hiding!" Shigaraki shrieked, his voice cracking with frustration. He pulled his hand back and lunged again, this time aiming for Gaara's shoulder.
Again, the sand met him. A new wall materialized instantly, blocking his path. He struck again, and again, and again—at his chest, his arm, his leg. Each time, a solid, custom-fit shield of sand intercepted his touch with a dull, final thud. It was like watching a child throw a tantrum against a cliff face. The sand moved with impossible speed and precision, anticipating and neutralizing every attack before it could ever land.
Gaara remained utterly still in the eye of the storm, his teal eyes watching Shigaraki's frantic assault with a cold, analytical detachment. This was a test. He understood that now. A crude, primal test of his worth.
Finally, Shigaraki stumbled back, panting, his scratching hand returning to his neck with a vengeance. He stared at Gaara, his rage now mixed with a grudging, hateful sliver of respect.
"You... you can't touch him," he breathed, a slow, twisted grin spreading beneath the hand on his face. "Anything that gets close is blocked. It's a permanent, perfect defense..."
He let out another cackle, this one sounding more genuine. "It's like the ultimate cheat code."
"As I said," Giran remarked smoothly, lighting a cigarette. "Definitive."
Shigaraki pointed a trembling finger at Gaara. "You. Sand kid. You're in. A player character with invincibility is useful." He turned away, slumping back onto his stool. "Kurogiri, I'm bored. Get me a drink."
Kurogiri seemed to relax, the purple mist of his shoulders losing some of its tension. "Of course, Shigaraki Tomura." He looked towards Gaara, his yellow eyes conveying something that might have been approval. "Welcome to the League of Villains, Gaara-san."
The sand around Gaara slowly, cautiously, lowered. The immediate threat had passed. He had been tested, and he had been accepted. He was no longer an outcast hiding in an abandoned building. He was now... a villain. The word felt as hollow and meaningless as his name.
He glanced around the dim, quiet bar. At the broker leaning against the wall, the mist-bartender polishing a glass, and the unstable boy-man muttering to himself in the corner.
This was not the warmth he had seen in the laughing schoolchildren. This was not camaraderie. It was a collection of broken, dangerous pieces, brought together by a shared rejection of the world outside.
It was not a home. But for the first time in his life, he was in a room with others, and they were not trying to run away. In the barren desert of his existence, this felt dangerously close to belonging. Gaara moved to the darkest corner of the room, away from the others, and sank to the floor, his back against the cold wall. The sand settled around him like a blanket. He was watching. Waiting. The first day of his new life had begun.