(This chapter contains some minor manga spoilers concerning Shigaraki's backstory, but no major references)
Shigaraki remembered a time when he was little. A time when his name was Tenko.
A time when he lived in a home with a pretty backyard he spent so much time in.
However, it was also a time he lived with his parents.
His parents were good people, he knew that, but they weren't good people to him.
He had a little sister then too. His parents were a bit better to her than to him. Her hair was dark just like his. She was kind and quirkless at the start, just like him.
They used to play together. He remembered that: The little games of chasing one another with sticks and pretending to be heroes-the games of tag and painting each other's nails with paint instead of polish.
They didn't have a lot of toys, so... They just ended up playing together with their imaginations instead.
But as the years went on, Tenko's father became less kind, his mother more and more ignorant of how cruel her husband could be to his child. And when Tenko would be kicked around, thrown out of the house for doing something wrong like dropping a plate or talking about heroes, he cried for hours.
He hid himself in his family's shed, his eczema from the excoriation going untreated and getting irritated. It was painful to feel the tears seep into his scars, but still he just cried and cried.
Sometimes, though, whenever he cried so silently and long and alone that his parents had forgotten he even went outside, his sister would creak the shed door open.
A sliver of light would enter the dark space. Tenko would look up to see her standing there, a guilty look on her face.
It wasn't her that caused bruises on his skin or the emotional scars left by the yelling and the screaming. It wasn't her fault, but still, there was remorse in her eyes. Like she could've done more, stopped his parents from their acts of abuse and neglect.
She went to sit next to him. His sister was quirkless, still too young to understand that he was quirkless too- but it was one of the reasons his father resented him so much.
As she sat at her brother's side, Tenko's little sister nestled into his shoulder, held his hand, promised him it'd be okay and that she didn't want to see him cry.
That was one of his last memories of her. Her touch as she held his hand. Her kind words before she fell asleep on his shoulder...
He saw a lot of his sister in you.
In your kindness, a person he'd once forgotten. But he saw a lot of his mother in you too. Someone who once cared, but forgot about him. And though you were never inherently cruel in any way, it was difficult not to see his father in your eyes the day he felt you'd abandoned him.
"Tomura."
Shigaraki looked up from where he sat, hearing his master's voice through the phone that Kurogiri was holding at his side.
"Yes, Sensei."
"Remember that the success of our plan is dependent on you following my orders. You mustn't let your emotions get in the way, you understand?"
"Yes, Sensei," Tomura repeated, scratching at his neck.
He had a tendency to become impulsive when things weren't going his way. And when he got frustrated, it was difficult for him to make clear-headed decisions. It was only natural he would receive a talking to in order to prevent this operation from going wrong.
