Denki still wasn't used to waking up like this.

Frying your brains wasn't a fun ordeal, in case anyone wondered. He couldn't remember anything and woke up with a headache that seemed to throb from his head to the lower base of his neck, aches and pains across every limb and joint for a few hours after he woke up. It wasn't that bad this time, since only his arms really hurt, from what he could currently feel, but the light wasn't helping.

The boy often wondered if anyone realised if it hurt to have millions of electricity flowing through you, even if your body was partially made for it, but the idea that people knew but didn't care was one he'd rather not delve into.

"Ah Mr Kaminari", a woman speaks up as soon as she spots the boy moving. "How are you feeling?"

"Energised" he jokes slightly, "where am I?" his eyes scan over the room.

White walls and floor, white bed sheets and monitors surrounded him. Denki could already feel the familiar feeling that came with seeing the white surroundings. "A hospital" she replies with a kind smile. "Since you were out of it for a lot longer than usual, it was suggested to bring you here rather than recovering at home as you usually seem to do. I'm Nurse Tanaka".

Denki nods with a smile, "well I'm fine, promise, just usual aches and headache, can I leave yet or do I gotta stay for a Doctor to buzz me out?" he asks, already itching to leave.

A surprise to no one, Denki had spent a few nights at the hospital growing up. His quirk was a hard one to control, especially with how emotion based it was, and he'd ended up here a few times when he'd got too excited, scared or angry as a child, even as far as middle school. One time he'd been unconscious for a week because of a tantrum he had at age 6, leaving his parents considering Quirk Suppressants or Cancellation Bracelets as a permanent addition. But the Doctors had advised against it due to his age.

"We have to do a full physical; to make sure your nerves are okay, but otherwise you're free to be checked out by a parent," Nurse Tanaka explains as she takes his chart and places it at the end of his bed. "They're just out in the hall talking to some of your teachers about the incident, but I'll send them in for you".

He nods and watches as she leaves, laying back down as soon as she was.

Denki already knew how this would go.

They'd do him the regular check up: an Electrocardiogram after school for as long as he needed to check the signals on his heart, a deep tendon reflex check, and an Electroencephalogram to check his brain signals.

Standard procedure.

He didn't need as many checks since his body had some form of protection and resistance for his Central Nervous System, muscles, all that stuff.

Denki smiles as his parents come in, the usual worried but relieved look on their faces as they do, making the boy smile wider for them. He hated making them worry. "I'm fine, promise! See" he raises his hands and points his finger guns at them, "still got some spark left in me".

~~~

"Yo dude did you see that attack on 1A student the other day?" Jack asks down the headset making the hum. Denki couldn't tell Jack or Dusty that it was his class at the attack, that it was his friends who nearly died.

"Oh yeah it was mad" he exclaims, making another part of the raft as he does. "Wonder if they'll find the dude that attacked them".

"The fact that they haven't released anything in the news makes me doubt it. But have you seen the video?"

"Video?"

Denki knew that the Unforeseen Simulation Joint had no working cameras during the attack, which was why he had been tasked by Aizawa to use his headset as a communication device, or attempt too, due to the lack of power there from a villains quirk, so how did they get a video?

There's typing on Jack's end, "yeah, they think one of the villains had taken it during the attack. Wanna watch it? It's pretty... bad..." he mumbles, voice lowering as he explains more about the video.

Denki bites his lip, hands fidgeting on the controller. How bad could it be right? He'd already lived through it. "Sure".

It took a few minutes for the link to send, the notification popping up on the top of this PC. Since he and Jack had wanted to play Raft they'd each made Discord accounts for a call under their aliases they knew each other to keep the secrecy pact. Denki would rather have people not know who he was since he still wanted a life away from people constantly asking about his classmates, teachers and how he'd completely failed the Sports Festival when he was beaten by the 1B student. What was her name again? He remembered she was extremely pretty and looked good in green, even more than Midoriya did.

"Thanks" he mumbles.

"Oh yeah, how was your trip?" Jack asks, carrying the conversation past the silence that had followed the link being shared. "You got any fun stories?"

"Not really" Denki lets go of the controller to flex his hands. After what happened his fingers ached more than usual, something to do with how much electricity had passed through them and how small the muscles were. "Mostly boring family stuff, relatives I haven't seen in ages telling me how much I've grown".

A laugh comes through the headset, "I would say I relate but I honestly can't remember even meeting grandparents".

"You got no aunts or uncles either?"

"Nope," he sighs. "Family is sorta... close knit but separated at the same time. I know my parents and siblings, but besides my sister we're not close. I lost my older brother when I was younger".

Denki lets out a low whistle, "damn dude that sucks... I'm sorry".

"It's cool," he sighs before stuttering. "Well- not cool but ya know what I mean".

He chuckles, "I get ya. When my Grandad passed close to my parents getting married, a few weeks after, my dad used to joke it was so shocking that his heart stopped working". Even if Jack wouldn't understand how bad of a pun it was it was still funny on its own.

"No way" Jack's laughter fills Denki's ears, "That's so bad".

"But so good," Denki snorts as they keep playing.

Another hour went by until Denki couldn't handle the pain in his hands and fingers anymore that he needed to stop, telling Jack that his parents wanted him for something before bidding him goodbye and leaving the call.

Bath was first, to ease muscles, that always helped. Nice and warm and filled with the nice smelling bath salts that people got him for birthdays and christmas.

Denki had completely forgotten about the video until he went back into his room and logged back onto his computer to catch up on an anime he'd missed due to all the hospital trips. The link staring at him as Discord opens on his and Jack's chat. Both of them wondered when Dusty would get back on, he'd been mute since 2 days before the USJ was attacked and was still mute - nothing like the usual Dusty.

"Should I even watch it?" he mumbles, slouches at his desk chair as the cursor hovers over the link.

Sure he'd been there, sure he'd fought villains, but he'd been at a completely different terrain compared to the main attacker. Kirishima had told him some of what had happened after he and Bakugou had gotten there, and it wasn't good. Tsu had nearly been killed by the dude's quirk, Aizawa cancelling it just in time, and All Might had had more trouble defeating the Nomu than expected after he showed up.

Was... was it worth the watch?

Denki clicked on it before he could overthink it anymore.

The video came up on someone's Twitter, probably how it was spreading around. It started all black before it entered an area, too shaky to tell what it was but Denki gathered that it was the USJ. His eyes tried to focus on everything that was happening, but for a while it just seemed shaky and a crowd of feet gathered close by as whoever it was walked.

Eventually it focused on someone. The first thing Denki noticed was the hands, covering the mans? Boys? Face and body, latched onto different places, but they hid his face well. His limbs were thin and long, making him look lanky as he stood on the USJ grounds. His voice could hardly be heard between the shaking of the camera and other background noise.

Sweat was beginning to gather on Denki's neck, the anxious feeling coming to the surface as glimpses of Aizawa fighting could be seen. Part of him marvelled at how good the pro was at hand to hand combat, but as soon as he saw the Nomu approach him he knew that it was going to turn bad.

His eyes hurt by the end of the clip. 20 minutes was the length. In that time he'd caught sight of the villains attacking his teacher and a Nomu, a monster, nearly killing two of his teachers and his friends.

Denki wished he could have helped. Maybe if he was there he would have been able to stun the villains bodies enough that All MIght could have done them serious damage easier. Maybe he could have helped Aizawa take them down if he was given the chance.

Or maybe he would have frozen or short circuited, messing things up as he usually did.

He scrolls down the feed to see someone had posted an audio. Reading the caption he realised that it was a 'refined' version of the voices that were in the video.

A lot of the audio was scrambled so badly that Denki could hardly focus to even try and make out the words. He heard shouts from his classmates, picking up Bakugou's 'Die!' and Midoriya's shouts of his moves, but past that nothing.

Clicking, he closed his eyes as he listened, taking a deep breath. He expected the voice to sound scary, daunting, something off of those horror movies like Saw or Hannibal Lecter, something that would make all of the memories of the USJ attack come back at once.

What Denki wasn't ready for was for the voice to sound so familiar.

~~~ TW: abuse, neglect and graphic description of badly done medical procedures. Also I'm aware 3 hours isn't that realistic, but some people can survive days or years without medical help from a gunshot wound so we're pretending because it's a fanfic ~~~

The room was cold. So cold. The exposed brick and stone the room was made out of made Tomura hold himself tighter. Well, as good as he could anyways. His body was burning, sweat pouring from everywhere, yet he was shivering in the damp clothes. Kurogirir had helped, best he could by wrapping the bullet wounds with bandages and pushing medical cloth inside them to stop the bleeding, but that could only do so much.

Sensei had refused medical treatment for three hours. An hour for each wound.

"How could you be so stupid?" He asked as Tomura lay being treated by Kurogiri.

He's embarrassed to say he screamed. He's embarrassed to say he cried. Begged. Tried grabbing at Sensei as he cried out for help as Kurogiri moved him to the room. No pain medication had been given, not uncommon for Sensei, but Tomura had screamed his voice raw for it in the first hour.

No one had come.

He didn't know how long he had left to wait as he shivered on the floor, mumbling to himself about what had happened at the attack to try and stay conscious. A stream of words leaving his lips best he could form as if he was telling a story. Tomura imagined he was telling Jack and Sparky. His online friends, no, they couldn't be his friends. Online... players, telling him how good of a job he did until All Might had to come and ruin everything. How everything would have gone okay if the stupid 1A brats didn't intervene.

Part of him hated the idea of calling with them again. He knew they'd be people who loved the hero society, who loved how the villains failed and the heroes won. How amazing it probably was that a boy like Tomura could think he would be able to take down the greatest Hero of all time.

Pathetic. Idiotic. Suicide mission.

Tomura knew that it was all of those things, but also knew that what he did was right. That he should have succeeded. He needs to show how villainous All Might and the precious heroes he worked with really were.

For Sensei.

"Tomura '' Kurigori calls from the doorway to the cell making him look up, hair stuck to his forehead as the man walks over and brushes some out of his face. "Are you ready?"

~~~

Kurogiri pulls the last bullet out of the boy's upper arm, the pain shocking Tomura's nerves and muscles that even Sensei struggled to hold him down. Over a few days he had managed to heal up enough to get out of the bed and move around; Tomura didn't know how to feel about Sensei being able to move around again.

"Stay still or this will be worse" All for One spoke harshly, nails digging into the boy's skin as it was patched up, antiseptic and bacterial wipes cleaning the area of dried blood before Kurogirir started on the stitches.

He didn't need many, the bullets had gone straight through besides his arm, and even then they had missed a lot of his major veins and arteries much to Tomura's luck. So now he needed the hole closed up. 10 stitches. He could manage another 10. He had too.

"Yes Sensei" he gasps as he feels the needle puncture his skin, cries falling from his lips.

Tomura did his best to not thrash around. His legs tensed and hugged to his chest even as they ached, his other arm wrapped around his stomach while he sat on the chair beside the bar counter where he was being treated. 'People need to see what being an idiot on missions can do'. A lot of the villains had left after the second wound was sowed, but the shame lingered heavily on Tomura's chest and neck that he was hunched over permanently to hide the sweat and tears from onlookers.

As soon as Kurogiri had finished, All for One let go and grabbed the boy's hair, tugging it harshly in a tight grip. Tomura swore he felt some strands being pulled out of his head. "Next time, don't fuck up, or I'll cause worse injuries than bullet wounds".

"Yes Sensei '' Tomura whimpers, nodding as best he could as he stares back into the man's eyes through the mask.

"Meeting, 20 minutes. Eat before you pass out and change out of those clothes".

He couldn't hold anything down. Kuroguiri had attempted to make him eat but he'd thrown up soon after when he'd got to his room, the sick in his bin making Tomura gag as he got changed.

He'd tried. He'd really tried. This was the first real statement mission, the one that had truly shown the Leagues intentions, of what Tomura Shigaraki was here to achieve, and he'd completely messed it up. Even if the Nomu being beaten wasn't his-

No. It was.

It was his fault.

It took longer than he would have liked to change into another pair of black joggers and a black t-shirt. He didn't care for much of a design as long as they covered him. Tomura used his uninjured arm to allow his hand to scratch at his neck, nails digging deep into the skin that he was sure there was blood but no one mentioned as he stared at All For One opposite him at the desk.

He was in a different room to the meeting he'd been in last week. It was smaller, filled with only a desk and a chair, no curtains due to the lack of windows, but a lamp allowed the room light. All For One's office. Normally he was brought in here when he'd done something good, something that deserved a reward for his good work, at how well he was defending All For One's honour and showing the society outside these walls how much of a fake hero they were.

This time was different.

"We lost a lot of minions during the attack" Sensei starts, hands clasped on the desk, dark wood polished to be spotless. "They were your responsibility".

His head lowers, "I'm sorry Sensei. I have failed as a leader". Tomura continues to scratch with one hand, his other almost limp besides him. It was a surprise he still had the energy to stand, pain causing anything above his knee and below his waist to feel numb to where if he was shot again he didn't think he would feel it. "Next time-"

"Next time?" The chair slides out from under the desk as All For One stands. His nails scratch harsher. "Who says you are worthy of a next chance after how you humiliated yourself out there?"

Tomura could feel Sensei staring down at him, his own eyes stuck on the man's shoes as he refused to lift his head. It wasn't polite to stare. "I promise I will show you-"

"I've been training you your whole life, Tomura... Was it wasted?" A hand finds the boy's chin, forcing his head up in a grip that causes his jaw to ache and skin to sting. "Maybe I should have left you for the heroes".

"No" tears gathered in his eyes.

If he had been left to the heroes they would have killed him. A quirk like his, how could they risk someone who was so destructive to live in their perfect society. He was a defect to them. As disgusting as they could come. No one would have taken care of him like Snesei has, would love him how Sensie does. Sensei was the only one who saw Tomura's true potential.

All For One lets out a small laugh. "Next time... I'll let them kill you. Prove you're strong enough when the new recruits come. I won't be here, since you ruined the Nomu I'm going to have to make the next one even stronger" his grip tightens forcing a whimper from Tomura's lips. "Show them who's in charge. Show them what it means to be a part of the League of Villains. Reminds me of your worth".

"Yes Sensei" the words stuttered while still in the man's grip.

Letting him go, All For One dismisses him to his room, telling Tomura that he needed to rest up before the new recruits showed up tomorrow.

His body ached in pain and hunger yet he had no energy to do anything about it. When was the last time he drank something? His eyes welcomed the white spots as soon as his head rested on his pillow, he'd never been more thankful for the mattress he had earned. The room still smells like sickness even as Tomura starts to fall asleep.

He'd do better. He could do better. He was worth it. He... he was worth it.