Chapter Text
He was never far from her mind these days.
Shigaraki.
When spitballs stick in her hair during class and the teacher turns a blind eye, and her fingers start twitching. When the trio surrounds her in the halls, talking about her like she wasn't there, a dozen people walking by without a glance, and her fingernails started compulsively picking at the back of her neck.
Needless to say, for multiple reasons, she had bought herself a sturdy pair of gloves. Nevertheless, she still has scars there now.
She hated what they were turning her into. So simmering with anger and resentment that a murderous villain is always the first persona her power pulls on.
She trembles with rage as he stands in the remains of a destroyed bathroom, juice and soda dripping off of them. Ash and water and porcelain shards mix together on the tiled floor while they stand there and seethe murderously.
It takes several long minutes for Taylor to peel their minds apart enough to fix this.
The anger, the rage, feels good, compared to all the other things she could be feeling right now. It is very, very tempting to allow it to consume her. If any place deserves the Carrie treatment, it's Winslow.
She takes several deep, heaving breaths and reels her psyche back in, pushes Shigaraki away. Another bubbles to the top in his place...there always has to be one at the top, apparently. Taylor hasn't been one hundred percent herself since she got this shitty, unruly power. There's always someone in the background, watching, waiting, sharing Taylor's every thought.
She dissociates as she cleans, and her skin and hair starts to dissolve into purple smoke around the edges as she does. Their mind buzzes with static, not a single thought in their head. They are quick, efficient, methodical. Cleanup like this is familiar to them. They've done it a million times before.
A shut off valve halts the stream of water from the destroyed sink. A raided janitor's closet produces the items needed to clean up the dust and the porcelain shards and the dirty water. A well made portal disappears the evidence. They can't do anything about the missing sink, but hopefully Winslow will assume the work of hooligans rather than superpowers.
They don't have enough of a mind left either way to care.
...
Taylor slowly comes back to herself, her mind warming up like the thaw of spring, her apathy cracking apart like shards of ice. Kurogiri slowly slips away from her as her determination hardens.
The deck is stacked against her. Circumstances are pushing her in the opposite direction she wants to be going in. The world wants her to be a villain, but he's better than that. He's going to prove them all wrong.
She leaves school, and as she walks, she breathes, practices her self control exercises. As she does, another now familiar persona slowly rolls over her.
Taylor stops in some dirty back alley on the way home to coax a stray cat while she tries to just breathe and reach some kind of emotional equilibrium, their hoodie pulled up to hide their face and dripping hair.
He's interrupted by a man...a mugger...who threatens him...her...them...with a knife.
"Don't you have anything better to do?" They sigh, emotionally and physically exhausted.
"Give me all your money!" The man screams, then goes blank faced under the power of their quirk.
"Go turn yourself in." They order, and the man turns and walks away.
They've been doing this for months now. Taylor isn't really sure what happens to the guys, if the quirk wears off before they make it to a police station, if their coerced testimony is inadmissible, if they just get labeled as crazy junkies. Whatever happens to them, Taylor hasn't heard anything about their little good deeds on the news or PHO. But still, it's something.
Shinsou feels a thrill of glee at the casual quirk use. In his universe, it's illegal without a license. 'Independent Hero' isn't really a thing. It's all just classified as vigilantism if you're not officially trained and licensed to government standards.
Some of her personas are more thrilled about this than others.
Tonight. They decide. Tonight, they debut for real. No more skulking in the shadows.
They're as ready as they'll ever be.