Chapter 6: A Passing Friction
The day before the planned assault on the USJ was a quiet one, thick with a tense, coiled-spring energy. The boisterous thugs Giran had recruited were sequestered in a separate location, leaving the bar to its three core occupants. Kurogiri polished glasses with a meditative calm, a silent anchor in the approaching storm. Shigaraki, however, was a caged animal. He paced the length of the room, scratching at his neck until it was raw, his restless energy a toxic miasma in the enclosed space.
"I can't just sit here," he finally snarled, kicking viciously at a barstool. "Waiting for the main event is the worst part of the game. The grinding is done, I just want to get to the boss fight." He stopped and pointed a finger at Kurogiri. "I'm going out. I want to see the area around U.A. myself. Get a feel for the terrain."
"That is an unnecessary risk, Shigaraki Tomura," Kurogiri stated, his voice even but firm.
"The only risk is me decaying this entire building out of boredom," Shigaraki shot back. He then jerked his head towards the corner where Gaara sat, as still and silent as ever. "It's fine. I'm taking my shield. Let's go."
Kurogiri's misty form seemed to sigh. A dark, silent warp gate bloomed near the door. Gaara rose without a word, the fine sand at his feet stirring as if awakened from a slumber, and followed Shigaraki into the void.
They emerged into a world that was the absolute antithesis of their own.
They stood in a bustling commercial district a few kilometers from the U.A. campus. The sunlight was bright, reflecting off the clean, modern architecture and polished vehicles that flowed down the wide streets. The air was clean, filled with the distant sound of a tram bell, the murmur of polite conversation, and the cheerful music drifting from a storefront. This was the heart of the hero-centric world—a place built on optimism and safety.
Shigaraki pulled his hood lower, his hands shoved deep into his pockets, a grimace of utter contempt twisting his lips. He looked at the happy civilians and smiling students as if they were insects.
Gaara, by contrast, was a neutral observer. This world was as alien to him as a foreign planet. He watched the flow of people on the sidewalk, the easy way they interacted, the casual confidence in their steps. It was a demonstration of a life he had never known, and he absorbed the details with a cold, detached curiosity. He was a creature of shadow standing under a bright, indifferent sun.
"Look at them all," Shigaraki hissed, his voice a low venomous rasp beside Gaara. "Wandering around without a care in the world, fat and happy under All Might's protection. They have no idea how fragile it all is."
They walked for several minutes, two pockets of darkness moving through a sea of light. Shigaraki was scouting the main routes to and from the school, mentally mapping the area for potential escape routes or ambush points. Gaara was simply watching, a silent, sand-trailed ghost that no one seemed to notice in the hustle and bustle.
The moment happened, as such things do, without warning.
A boy in the crisp, dark gakuran of the U.A. High School uniform was walking towards them, though his attention was clearly elsewhere. He had a shock of messy green hair and a face full of freckles. In one hand, he clutched a worn notebook, and his head was bowed as he muttered furiously to himself, lost in a world of frantic analysis.
"...but if the air pressure variance is the primary cause of the weather effects, then the actual kinetic force of a Detroit Smash could be calculated by measuring the barometric drop, which would mean…"
As Shigaraki and Gaara reached a street corner, the boy, Izuku Midoriya, took a sudden, distracted step backward to avoid another pedestrian, turning directly into Gaara's path.
The collision was solid. Midoriya, small and unprepared, bounced off Gaara's unmoving form and stumbled to the ground with a startled yelp. His yellow backpack, which had been unzipped, tipped over, spilling a cascade of notebooks and papers across the pavement.
For a heartbeat, the world seemed to freeze.
Midoriya scrambled instantly, his face flushed with a deep, horrified red. "Oh my goodness! I am so sorry! So, so sorry!" he stammered, bowing repeatedly from his position on the ground. "It was completely my fault! I wasn't looking where I was going! Are you okay?"
It was then that Shigaraki's gaze fell upon the U.A. insignia on the boy's uniform.
The change was instantaneous. Shigaraki's bored irritation vanished, replaced by a focused, predatory hatred that seemed to lower the temperature of the air around them. His hand, hidden in his pocket, began to twitch.
"Watch where you're going," he snarled, his voice a low growl of pure malice, "you damned U.A. brat."
Midoriya froze, his hands hovering over his scattered notes. He looked up, and for the first time, he saw the chilling red eye glaring at him from beneath the dark hood, and he felt a primal chill of danger. He didn't know why, but the man radiated an aura of profound wrongness.
The moment stretched, thin and brittle. Shigaraki took a half-step forward, his desire to destroy, to erase this symbol of the world he hated, almost overwhelming him.
And then, Gaara spoke.
His voice was quiet, emotionless. "It was my fault as well."
The simple, declarative statement hung in the air, a stark contrast to Shigaraki's venom. It was not an apology. It was a fact, offered to neutralize the situation. He had been standing still; the boy had been moving. But in that moment, logic was a shield more potent than sand.
Shigaraki stopped, his head snapping to the side to look at Gaara. He was momentarily stunned into silence.
Gaara's gaze was fixed on Midoriya. He saw no hero-in-training, no enemy, no symbol. He saw a clumsy, earnest boy, now pale with fear, who had made a simple mistake. He saw the genuine panic and shame in his eyes. Shigaraki hated the uniform, the idea. But Gaara was looking at the person, and the person was harmless. The two things, he realized with sudden, stunning clarity, were not the same.
"W-what?" Midoriya stuttered, utterly confused.
"Whatever," Shigaraki spat, the moment broken. The risk of creating a scene here was too great. He shot Gaara a look of pure disgust. "You're soft." He grabbed Gaara's arm, his grip surprisingly strong, and pulled him away. "Let's get out of here. This place is making my skin crawl."
They turned and began to walk away, melting back into the unnoticing crowd.
Just as they were disappearing around the corner, a small, barking terrier darted past the still-kneeling Midoriya, and into the arms of a relieved little girl a few feet away. The commotion—the collision, the scattered papers, the barking dog—finally attracted the attention of a public security officer standing nearby.
"Everything okay over here, kids?" the officer asked, strolling over with a calm smile.
Midoriya, still flustered and shaken, looked up. He glanced in the direction the two strange figures had gone, but they had vanished. "Yes, sir," he said, his voice a little shaky. "Everything's fine. It was just my fault."
The officer nodded, satisfied, and the moment passed. The world continued on, completely unaware of the disaster that had been averted by two simple, unexpected words.
As they walked, Shigaraki muttered a stream of curses. "That U.A. pest… lucky for him we were on a recon mission. One day, they'll all be nothing but dust under my fingers."
Gaara was silent, but his mind was a storm. He was replaying the encounter. The boy's panicked apology. The utter lack of malice or fear in his eyes before Shigaraki had spoken. It was the first truly normal human interaction he had experienced in over a decade that hadn't been tainted by fear of him or a desire to use him. It was a glimpse of the world he had only ever watched through a cracked window pane, a world where accidents happened and people apologized.
The feeling it left him with was not warmth, or hope, or any such thing. It was a profound, unsettling confusion. The clean, simple lines of his existence—the accepted and the rejected, the threat and the non-threat—had just been blurred by a clumsy boy with green hair. And he did not know what to make of it at all.