Chapter 3: Echoes of Silence
The first morning was a disorienting experience. For years, Gaara had woken to the pale, grey light filtering through the grimy window of his apartment, the only change in his world being the slow shift from night to day. Here, in the windowless tomb of the bar, time was a stagnant pool. There was no sun. There was only the low, electric hum of the beer cooler and the oppressive darkness.
He had not truly slept. He had entered a state of low-power consciousness, his body still while his sand maintained a silent, vigilant perimeter around him. It was a habit born from a lifetime of being a target. As a sliver of awareness returned to him, the sand sphere gently loosened, its particles receding to the floor to form a soft, rippling carpet around his seated form.
The bar was still. The chaotic energy of the new recruits from the previous day had vanished; Giran had evidently taken them to a separate holding area. Only the core members remained. In the dim light, he could make out Shigaraki's form, sprawled inelegantly on one of the booths, the macabre hand still fixed to his face, his breathing a shallow rasp. He was a tangle of limbs and dormant rage.
From behind the bar came the soft, methodical clinking of glass. Kurogiri was already active. The purple mist of his form seemed to absorb the light, making him a void of motion in the shadows. He polished the counter with a cloth, his movements economical and precise. His glowing yellow eyes flicked towards Gaara. There was no surprise, no greeting. Just acknowledgement.
"There is water and nutrient packs on the counter, should you require them," Kurogiri's calm voice stated, not asking a question, but presenting a fact.
Gaara watched him for a long moment before giving a slow, almost imperceptible nod. He did not move from his corner. The idea of walking across the room, of willingly entering the open space, felt like a transgression. His corner was his territory now, the only piece of this strange new world he could claim.
Hours drifted by. The passage of time was marked only by the shifting of Shigaraki in his sleep and the rhythmic cleaning of Kurogiri. This silence was different from the one in his apartment. That was a pure, empty silence. This was a silence filled with unspoken things, with the weight of sleeping violence. It was the quiet of a predator's den between hunts.
Eventually, Shigaraki stirred. He sat up with a groan, scratching furiously at his neck, the raw, red skin a testament to his perpetual agitation. His first act was not to speak or stretch, but to fumble for a handheld gaming device on the table beside him. The small screen flickered to life, bathing his face in a pale, pixelated glow. The tinny sounds of 8-bit battle music became the new heartbeat of the room.
He played with a desperate intensity, his thumb mashing the buttons, his body hunched over the small device. He muttered to himself, a constant stream of curses and gaming jargon. "Useless support character... need more XP... this final boss is cheating..."
He seemed entirely oblivious to Gaara's presence. To Shigaraki, Gaara was not a person to be interacted with; he was a feature of the room, like a lamp or a table, an 'invincibility shield' to be equipped when needed. This utter lack of acknowledgement was, in its own way, a strange form of acceptance. No one stared. No one whispered in fear. He was simply… there. And for Gaara, that was a novel experience.
Kurogiri placed a glass of water in front of Shigaraki, who took it without looking up, his eyes glued to the screen. After a few more minutes of frantic button-mashing, he threw the device down with a cry of frustration.
"This is rigged!" he whined, his voice high and childish. He looked around the room, his red eye landing on the small television mounted in the corner. "Kurogiri, turn that on. I'm bored. Let's see what the 'heroes' are up to."
Kurogiri obliged. The screen flickered to life, showing a midday news report. A reporter stood in front of a partially collapsed bridge, talking excitedly. In the background, rescue workers were helping civilians while a brightly-costumed hero with some kind of water-manipulation Quirk was reinforcing the damaged structure. The hero gave the camera a thumbs-up and a dazzling smile.
"Pathetic," Shigaraki spat, scratching his neck. "Look at them. Posing for the cameras while the real work gets done by others. They just show up, break things, and get all the credit. It's a broken game."
The broadcast cut to a commercial for All Might merchandise—action figures, breakfast cereals, video games. All Might's booming, cheerful face filled the screen. "I am here!" his recorded voice declared.
Shigaraki's entire body tensed. "That smile," he hissed, his voice dropping to a low, venomous whisper. "He smiles like he's never known a single day of suffering. Like the world is a perfect, happy place. I want to wipe that stupid smile off his face. I want to see his face when he realizes the game is over and he's lost."
Gaara watched the television, his expression unchanging. He had seen these images his whole life. Heroes. Symbols. Beacons of light for a world he was never a part of. He had never hated them.
Hate, he mused internally, required a sense of connection, a feeling that their world and his were supposed to intersect, that some injustice had occurred. But they had never been connected. They were like creatures of the sky, and he was a creature of the deep, silent earth. Their brightness was a fact of their existence, just as his darkness was a fact of his. They were celebrated for their power. He was feared for his. It was not a moral judgment in his mind; it was a simple, brutal equation.
Shigaraki's hatred was personal, passionate, like a festering wound. He hated the heroes because they represented the "perfect world" that had cast him out. Gaara had never believed in a perfect world to begin with. His world was his apartment, his silence, his sand. The heroes were just characters in a story he watched from a great distance. The concepts of 'good' and 'evil' that the newscasters spoke of were abstract, like words from a foreign language. The only words Gaara truly understood were 'accepted' and 'rejected'.
Shigaraki was rejected, so he wanted to burn down the world of the accepted. Gaara had been rejected, so he had simply built his walls higher. He felt no kinship with Shigaraki's rage. He only observed it, a cold, alien emotion that was as foreign to him as the laughter of the children outside his old window.
The door to the bar opened, and Giran stepped in, bringing with him the smell of the outside city air.
"Tomura-kun, I trust you are well," he said smoothly. "The 'recruits' are getting restless. Eager to prove their worth."
"They're just low-level thugs," Shigaraki grumbled, not taking his eyes off the TV. "NPCs to soak up damage."
Giran chuckled. He looked over at Gaara, still motionless in his corner. "And how is our prize pupil settling in? Finding our accommodations to your liking?"
Gaara merely looked at him.
Giran's smile didn't falter. "Right. The silent type. I have some information. Intelligence suggests U.A.'s security protocols are most vulnerable during off-campus excursions. Their first-years have a major training exercise coming up at an external facility. Getting more details—layouts, schedules—would be... beneficial." He let the word hang in the air.
"Scouting, huh?" Shigaraki said, a flicker of interest in his eye. "Boring. But necessary, I guess." He looked over at Gaara. "I'll need my shield. We can go tomorrow."
For the rest of the day, Gaara remained in his corner. He listened as Shigaraki and Giran discussed plans, their words weaving a tapestry of destruction. He watched as Kurogiri managed the logistics, his calm presence a strange anchor in the brewing chaos. He ate the nutrient paste packet that Kurogiri left for him, the tasteless substance a familiar comfort.
As darkness fell outside—a fact he could only surmise, not see—a fragile routine had been established. Shigaraki eventually tired himself out and retired to his room. Giran left. Kurogiri completed his final tidying of the bar before becoming still behind the counter, a silent, misty sentinel.
The bar returned to the deep, humming silence of the early morning. Gaara was alone again. But he wasn't. The presence of the others lingered in the air, in the discarded game console, in the faint smell of Giran's cigarette smoke.
He was a ghost in their house, a weapon in their arsenal. He was not one of them, not truly. But he was here. And for the first time, when the world outside his shell moved, it moved around him, not against him. The silence was no longer empty. It was filled with echoes. And he was not sure yet if that was better, or worse.