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Shigaraki didn't know why the sky always called him.
He wasn't a bird. He was a decay, a destruction. Death followed him wherever he went.
And yet, every time he saw a bird or he saw something or someone flying, a longing feeling lodge in his heart as if telling him that he belonged there.
Shigaraki looked at the sky like a dying flower chasing the sun.
He didn't remember much from his past. Just snippets and voices that sounded so familiar.
His mother's hands shielding him.
A bird flying in the sky.
“I wanna fly like it,” a voice whispered at the back of his mind.
But he would always be shackled to the grounds. He would always feel trapped.
He just kept scratching his neck until it bled. The pain grounded him. Nails digging deeper and deeper in his skin, blood trickling down his shirt — there were things he could control. It made him feel exposed, but he wanted to do it.
He couldn't stop doing it.
“Take my hand, my bright star,” his mom said, grabbing his hands to stop him from scratching.
He held her hands like a lifeline, something to keep him grounded because he didn't want to feel the void in his chest ever again.
But the void kept getting bigger and bigger. —
And Shigaraki kept scratching, trying to fill the void.
“My bright little star,”
But stars belong to the sky and Shigaraki was trapped on the ground. He was so far away. Even when he stood on the tallest building, even when the wind ruffled his hair and his clothes, urging him to fly.
To escape.
But nothing was enough. It never was.
All For One had given him power, purpose, a name.
But not warmth. Not the hand that held him when he is hurting.
Not the voice that called him a star.
That was gone.
Stolen.
It left a void that kept expanding until it would swallow him whole.
He just kept scratching to stop the feeling of being nothingness.
And he only left decay after him.
The feeling worsened when Hawks pretended wanting joining the league. Feathers. Wings. Arrogance wrapped in charm. Every time Hawks landed in the hideout, dust fluttering around him like he owned gravity, Shigaraki felt something twist in his stomach. Jealousy? It was something deeper. It ached so much and he didn't know why.
Shigaraki watched him land with perfect grace, not even pretending not to be jealous. He hated him.
But more than that, he hated that he couldn’t do the same.
The blood on his neck increased in its flow, but the void inside his chest didn't stop expanding.
********
In one night, Toga found him standing on the edge of a broken rooftop, arms hanging loose at his sides.
“You planning to jump?” she asked casually, as if it were a joke.
“No,” he said.
But his voice cracked. He was aware that she knew how often he looks up at the sky, how he looks at Hawks’ wings.
Toga didn’t say anything. She just stood beside him, close enough for her shoulder to brush his.
And in the quiet, he whispered:
“I wished I could fly.”
In the next day, He found Toga in the corner of the hideout, lounging on a torn-up couch with a magazine upside down in her lap. She looked up the moment he entered—eyes bright, like she’d been waiting for him.
He didn’t like that.
“You breathe a word about last night,” he said, voice low, “and I’ll decay you where you stand.”
Toga grinned like he’d just told her a joke and raised two fingers to her lips and mimed zipping them shut. Then she giggled. “Secrets are fun when they’re between best friends and family!”
He stared at her for a moment longer, jaw tight, fingers twitching.
But he didn’t raise his hand.
He couldn’t.
It was an empty threat because he didn't want to harm Toga or any other member of the league. Not her. Not Spinner. Not Compress. Not Twice. Not Kurogiri. Not even the bastard Dabi, who always grated on his nerves.
The truth itched in him worse than the raw skin on his neck —
Somewhere in that ruined heart of his. Amidst the void, the league became something he never expected.
A family.
A broken one.
Twisted and cracked.
But it was his.
Even though the void was still there, their presence lessened it.
********
Toga found him on the roof again. She didn't say anything as she sat beside him, her legs were swinging over the edge like a child.
And she was a child.
His heart ached for her. For all the wrongs that had been done against her.
They sat in silence for a while.
Then she said, “You still want to fly?”
His throat tightened. “I don’t know.”
The sky above them was like a painting, brushed with stars that were scattered like diamonds. A deep blue colour cradled the night and the moom hung between tthe, casting a little glow that bathed the world in a quiet light.
********
He was sitting alone in what they called the living room when Toga entered. The scent of blood hung around her like perfume.
Someone's face was hers now. Blue wings rippled on her back—wide, clumsy, but strong enough.
She hovered slightly off the ground, flapping clumsily. “I can hold your weight for a bit,” she said, trying to make herself adjust to the wings. “Wanna go?”
Shigaraki’s heart beat so loudly in his chest that he could feel it trying to get out of its confines. His red eyes were widened, looking at Toga because he couldn't believe that she was offering.
Then his eyes narrowed. “This is ridiculous.”
She shrugged. “You don’t want to?” she asked, tilting her head slightly to the right.
A Pause. The urge to claw at his skin increased and he tried to calm himself.
The void was still there. Yelling and trying to consume him. A silent scream that echoed inside his chest, clawing at the walls of his ribs, whispering that he was nothing—no one.
Just decay in human shape.
Then, “Fine,” he said.
The flight was awkward in the beginning. Shigaraki’s weight nearly dragged them down, but she held on, teeth gritted and eyes sharp with joy.
And then, they rose.
The buildings shrank.
The wind screamed in his ears.
And something cracked inside him. Not pain. Not rage.
And for a —just a breath—he felt it. The way the sky had once welcomed him as if he belonged there, not on the ground. Not among the decay nor the destruction.
The void kept shrinking until he could breathe freely. He closed his eyes, feeling the air brush against his skin like a forgotten lullaby. It wasn’t cold or sharp like he expected—it was gentle, lifting him, carrying him like he was something light.
Like he wasn’t broken.
Like he wasn’t ruined.
He didn’t speak. He couldn’t. If he did, he was sure the feeling would shatter.
Toga’s arms tightened around him from behind, steady and sure. She didn’t laugh. Didn’t tease. Just held on—like she understood this moment wasn’t meant to last.
And high above the world, above heroes and villains and corpses and regrets, Tomura Shigaraki floated in borrowed wings.
And felt, for the first time in a long time, whole.