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Anomaly (Chapter 1) - a Shigaraki x f!Reader fic

Ever since he was rescued by All Might from All For One, Shimura Tenko's led a charmed life - except that he's a beta, in a society where alphas are privileged, omegas are prioritized, and betas are an afterthought. But when Tenko finds himself investigating a series of designation-swaps that have devastated the lives of the victims, he comes face to face with the terrible truths at the heart of society's placid, inflexible structure, and the enigmatic villain who's bent on exposing it all. The one they call Love's Executioner - otherwise known as, you. (cross-posted to Ao3)

dividers by @cafekitsune

Chapter 1

Divorce epidemic: Small town in Okayama Prefecture experiences 200% increase in no-fault petitions since previous reporting period Designation dysphoria? Psychologists in Hyogo Prefecture report an increasingly prevalent set of delusions Google search: can designations change The urban legend that just won’t die: No, you can’t change your designation. Google search: my designation changed Suicide rate spikes in Kagawa Prefecture; threefold increase over the course of a month Government forms task force to investigate reported declines in suppressant effectiveness From Omega to Alpha: Chart-topping idol tells all about stunning transformation!

Google search: change designation back

Tenko’s already late when he wakes up, and the fact that he Decays his alarm clock out of spite doesn’t improve things much. He has a hell of a lot to do before work. He knew that last night, but that didn’t stop him from playing League of Legends until three am with Spinner and Twice, and now he’s paying for it. Tenko changes into street clothes, stuffs a frozen waffle into his mouth, and books it out the door.

He’s back before he can even make it to the elevator, because his medication reminder starts freaking out. He forgot his suppressants, like he does about every other day, and he probably wouldn’t take them at all if he didn’t have an alarm set. Tenko thinks it’s bullshit that he has to take suppressants. He’s a beta, not some alpha or omega who’s constantly at risk of going into heat or rut and sending the office into meltdown mode. There’s no reason for him to take this stupid pill every day.

But Tenko’s a beta, and it’s not worth it. He’ll get busted if he fails a blood test, same as anybody else. He swallows the damn thing dry, grabs another frozen waffle, and races back to the elevator.

He checks his phone on the way and sees that he forgot to log off the hero network again, which means his screen is covered in expired alert notifications — most of them yellow, a few of them orange. He swipes them away rather than reading through them. Angsting about everything that happened while he was off duty is All Might behavior, and Tenko’s number one rule for maintaining work-life balance is taking note of what All Might does and doing the exact opposite.

For off-duty behavior, at least. When Tenko’s out in the street, he’s on duty, and that means that when he hears the screech of metal on metal followed by hideous crunching noises and car alarms going off, he picks up the pace and runs a block and a half to get there first. Just like All Might would do.

It’s a car accident. Two cars, one flipped, one wrapped around a streetlight, and at least one person’s been thrown clear. Tenko drops his backpack and goes to them first, assessing the basics for their injuries. They aren’t breathing well — their chest is rising and falling lopsided — and the air around them is flooded with alpha pheromones and panic. If it was some alpha bullshit that caused this accident —

“Help,” the alpha gasps, and Tenko’s about to tell her he’s still assessing when she elaborates. “My husband — in the car — he’s pregnant —”

Great. Nobody stays calm when babies are involved, and Tenko’s still the only one on the scene. He looks around for the nearest bystander, orders them to call emergency services, and addresses the crowd that’s gathering. “Anybody here with life support training?” A couple of hands go up, and Tenko assigns roles at random. “You, grab an AED. Every store on this block should have one. You two, get over here. Get ready to start CPR.”

He waits for them to move, then races over to the car that hit the streetlight. Just like the injured alpha, the omega victim is flooding the scene, bad enough to make Tenko cough — but even as his eyes stream, his mind stays clear. He Decays the broken window on the passenger side and addresses the victim. “My name’s Shimura Tenko. I’m a pro hero and I’m here to help you.”

Most heroes are alphas with a few omegas mixed in, but All Might’s adamant that betas make the best rescue heroes, and Tenko agrees. Alphas and omegas are vulnerable to pheromone releases no matter how many suppressants they’re on, but Tenko could be surrounded by enough overlapping clouds of pheromones to choke an air purifier and still keep a clear head. Alphas make a situation volatile, omegas defer if there’s an alpha anywhere in the mix, even if it’s the wrong thing to do. For high-stakes rescue heroics, where lives are on the line, betas do it better than anybody else. It’s about all betas are good for.

If that’s all Tenko’s good for, he’ll take it. He does a visual assessment of the victim’s injuries — as much as he can with the way the car’s crumpled — then remembers there’s a second car. “I have to check the other victim. I’ll be right back,” Tenko says, and the omega seizes his arm. An alpha wouldn’t be able to resist what the omega’s putting out, but Tenko’s able to free his arm without trouble. “I’m not leaving. I’ll be right back. Count back from a hundred for me, okay? By threes. I’ll be back before you’re done.”

The driver of the second car is dead. They weren’t wearing a seatbelt and they’re crumpled against the windshield, but Tenko checks the brachial and radial pulses just to be sure. Is there anyone else in the car? He hears muffled crying, Decays the back passenger window, and peers in.

Fuck. There are kids. Two of them. Both buckled in, both bleeding, neither of them with crush injuries, which means it’s safe to get them out. Tenko Decays the door, too, then wedges himself into position to catch the first kid once their seatbelt’s off. The kid flops down into Tenko’s arms, and Tenko supports their head and shoulders, trying to figure out how to maneuver them out of the car.

“We’ve got him!” There’s an EMT out there, with a stretcher and another one coming closer. “Pass him out and get the other one!”

Works for Tenko. He wedges himself further into the car. The second kid is freaking out a lot worse than the other one, and Tenko realizes that this is going to be a more complicated rescue in a hurry. This kid’s quirk is active. And given that she looks to be about six years old, the likelihood that she can retract the claws sprouting from between her knuckles when she’s this scared is pretty low.

Tenko’s been a kid with a dangerous quirk. He knows the drill. “I’m going to get you out of there,” he promises. “I need you to do something for me first. Make an X with your arms like this so your claws stay pointed out. I’m going to unbuckle you —”

“I’ll fall!”

“I’ll catch you. That’s why I’m here.” Tenko knows better than to put on an All Might-style grin. “Cross your arms — perfect — and count to three for me. We’ll go on three.”

“One,” the girl sobs. “Two —”

Tenko Decays her seat, seatbelt and all, and catches her. He kicks out the window on the other side, passes her through it to another pair of EMTs, then crawls out the way he came in. By this point there’s an incident commander, somebody Tenko recognizes vaguely, and he heads her way. “What’s next?”

“We can’t get the victim out of that car,” she says. “His legs are crushed. It’ll be a miracle if he makes it to the hospital, but he won’t if they have to spend an hour cutting him out. Can you —”

“Tell them to get ready. I’ve got this.”

The victim’s got enough people comforting him that he doesn’t get mad at Tenko for leaving and not coming back, so Tenko ignores him and searches for a starting point. He needs to do this fast. Once the EMTs are in position, Tenko plants both hands on the hood and activates Decay at full strength.

He used to think his quirk was evil, that nothing good could come out of destruction, but he knows better now. There’s no such thing as a good quirk or an evil quirk. It’s about how you use it, and as Tenko uses his to free the omega victim from the totaled car and deliver him into the hands of the EMTs, he remembers all over again that his quirk is a good thing. Or at least it can be. Tenko sticks around until the ambulances have left, confirms that the cleanup crew don’t want him to get rid of the cars, and hits the road before the press can put in an appearance. He’s even later to work than he was already going to be, but he has a feeling his boss won’t mind.

There was never really a question about where Tenko would go after he graduated from UA — All Might’s agency, because nowhere else would take a beta hero and it was where he wanted to go anyway. Tenko should probably be a little less shameless about cashing in on the benefits of being raised as All Might’s ward, but he also knows All Might is pretty sensitive to his help being rejected, and after everything he’s done for Tenko, the least Tenko can do is make him happy by accepting a few perks.

Tenko’s a hero because of All Might. Tenko’s alive because of All Might. If All Might hadn’t killed All For One almost fourteen years ago, Tenko would still be under his thumb. Still thinking he was built to destroy, still carrying around Tomura as his name. Tomura. The one who brings mourning. Tenko remembers explaining his new name to All Might in the hospital after he was rescued, and he remembers how All Might’s famous smile shifted into a teeth-clenched grimace. You can pick any name you want, he said to Tenko. Except that one.

In the end, Tenko fell back on his old name, the one his parents gave him before they realized he was a beta and therefore a disappointment. What he did to his family is hard to live with, still. On his bad days, Tenko believes every word Sensei ever told him, and some part of him always will. The rest of the time, the rest of him knows better.

He’s barely set foot on the training floor in Might Tower before Twice tackles him. “Hey! Shimura! Saw you on the news —”

Tenko grimaces and breaks Twice’s grip. “I got out of there way before the cameras got there.”

“People were filming,” Spinner announces, putting Tenko in an instant headlock. All Might must have ordered them to jump him. “The HPSC reposted the video —”

“And it’s already been played ten thousand times!” Midoriya reports from somewhere far away from Tenko. His natural quirk is good for fuck all against Tenko, and All Might doesn’t want him using One For All against anybody but villains. “It’s excellent press!”

“Somebody died,” Tenko says. He winds Spinner with an elbow to the gut and twists free. “They shouldn’t put that on the news.”

“You should have become an underground hero if you wanted your exploits to stay off the news,” Tobita says. He’s keeping his distance, or else Tenko would bite the Twice clone that’s holding him and go kick his ass. “And if you’re going to do hero work in street clothes, you might want to put a little more thought into your look.”

Tenko finally shakes free of his friends and looks down at himself. “What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s tragic that you have to ask,” Tobita says, and sighs dramatically. “Then again, you are a beta. Maximizing attractiveness isn’t at the top of your priorities list.”

Tenko grits his teeth. “Are you sure you aren’t gay?”

“I’m waiting until I’ve found my mate. Then we’ll see.”

If Tenko talks to an alpha or an omega long enough, mating inevitably come up. It’s why he hangs out with betas when he can. Betas don’t talk about ruts, because they don’t have them, and they don’t talk about heats because they don’t have those either, and they don’t care about finding mates in general. Whatever the difference is between betas and everybody else, it strips away the desire to couple up and reproduce along with the fertility. Or at least it’s supposed to.

Tenko thought everybody felt the way he does and was just embarrassed to talk about it. It took him until a few months ago to realize that his fellow betas aren’t secretly yearning for a mate. It’s not an unspoken beta-designation thing. There’s legitimately something wrong with Tenko’s brain, something he’s never going to mention to anyone ever again. He doesn’t give a shit about having kids. It’s probably best for everybody if his quirk dies with him. But his stupid ass is out here yearning anyway, and yearning in the worst possible way. There aren’t even any female betas – betas are all male, and Tenko’s straight. Female alphas want omegas, and female omegas want alphas. Tenko and his fucking yearning are stuck together for the rest of his life.

Tenko doesn’t think about it very much. His life is good. He’s gotten really lucky, multiple times, so much that he could almost call his life charmed if he hadn’t stumbled into it after accidentally killing his family and being kidnapped and brainwashed by a monster. If yearning for a mate is the only thing that’s wrong with Tenko, Tenko has it pretty fucking easy.

All Might arrives, finally, and rescues Tenko from the middle of a pile of Twice clones, giving him a bone-cracking hug. “Well done,” he says, and lets Tenko go. “Gather ‘round, everyone. Today’s assignments are in. As you know, our agency is unique, and there are places for each and every one of your unique talents to protect and serve others!”

All Might’s agency used to just be him and his sidekick, Sir Nighteye. Sir Nighteye didn’t approve of All Might taking Tenko in — he called it letting in a stray — and All Might took it so personally that he turned letting in the strays into his agency’s entire policy. Almost everybody, from the heroes to the support staff to the PR department to the maintenance guys, is somebody who somebody else threw away. People like Twice, who went from the foster system straight to jail. People like Spinner, who grew up in a shit town that treats mutant-type quirks like trash. People like Magne, who’s trans, and Toga, whose quirk scares people, and even Tobita, whose failure to launch fast enough out of high school would have kept him from being a hero. Betas and omegas, people whose designations get them almost uniformly rejected from hero academies across the country, are the majority. The news calls All Might’s agency ‘eclectic’. The tabloids call it a freak show.

The hero community’s gotten used to it. All Might’s always fielding requests for team-ups or visits, so much so that he has to sort through them and pick just a few. Twice and Tobita get a PR visit — going to a foster home to meet the kids and talk about heroes and quirks. Spinner has a surveillance job, like usual, and Toga’s headed down to the hospital like she almost always is. Everybody else gets farmed out to other agencies, until it’s just Tenko and Midoriya and two pieces of paper in All Might’s hand.

He glances at one of them and sighs. “This was for young Todoroki, from Hawks, but unfortunately he’s, uh, indisposed.”

“Again? He was in heat two weeks ago,” Tenko says. He remembers — he got a bunch of horny texts from Touya, because Touya apparently forgets how to read when he’s in heat and thought he was sending them to Hawks or his other alpha fuckbuddy. “He’s making it up for more vacation time.”

“He’s not! Some people experience rapid cycling,” Midoriya, also an omega, pipes up. “It’s very difficult to control. He’s probably not having fun.”

“And everyone at my agency gets the same amount of vacation time,” All Might reminds Tenko. Tenko rolls his eyes. “No designation is privileged over the others here.”

No, but if Tenko took a week off of work just to fuck, everybody would have questions about that. “Which of us is getting sent to Hawks instead?”

“We aren’t able to meet that request,” All Might says. He looks at the last piece of paper. “Young Midoriya, you’ll stay here at dispatch. Tenko, you and I have been summoned to Shiroiwa, in Kagawa prefecture.”

That name sounds familiar. Tenko can’t remember why, but he’s never against an away mission. The fact that All Might hasn’t said what it is means it’s confidential, which means Tenko can lord it over Midoriya later that he got to do something cool while Midoriya minds the desk. “Sounds good.”

It’s eight hours to Kagawa by car, four and a half by Shinkansen, but in All Might’s jet, which All Might takes on long trips so he won’t bring traffic to a standstill, it’s a cool hour and a half. Tenko’s not at all interested in climbing the charts, but he has to admit that there are perks to being in the top 10. Like no crying babies on the plane, and snacks. Tenko’s frozen waffles this morning feel like a distant memory. He starts raiding the pantry.

“Tenko,” All Might says, and Tenko looks up. “I meant what I said. Your work this morning was exemplary. You should be proud.”

“I was just who was there.”

“I’m proud of you,” All Might says. “Even if you aren’t proud of yourself.”

He studies Tenko for a moment. “Is something wrong?”

“No.”

“Let me try again. Something’s wrong. What is it?” All Might asks. Tenko shakes his head. “I’ve known you since you were eight years old, and lying’s not your strong point. What’s going on?”

There’s no way Tenko’s bringing this up to All Might. But he needs to tell All Might something, or All Might won’t let it go. Tenko picks a topic at random. “My phone yelled at me because I forgot to take my suppressants this morning. I’m sick of taking them.”

All Might’s expression shifts in sympathy. “Are you experiencing side effects? There are multiple brands —”

“No, they’re fine. I just don’t want them,” Tenko says. All Might raises an eyebrow. “I’m not a hypocrite. Alphas and omegas not taking theirs fucks them and everybody else over, but nobody suffers if I stop taking mine except some big pharma exec who won’t make money off my prescription. I shouldn’t have to blood test once a month at random like the alphas and omegas do if I’m not the problem. It’s bullshit and you know it.”

All Might sits down in the seat across from Tenko’s. “It’s true,” he says. “Alphas and omegas off their suppressants are a disaster. You’ve read your history. Society’s most significant advancements didn’t occur until after primitive suppressants were developed and distributed. Suppressants provide for a stable society.”

“Yeah, but —”

“And even knowing that,” All Might continues, “alphas and omegas don’t want to take them. Someone needs to set an example.”

“An example,” Tenko repeats. “I have to pop pills my whole life to set a good example?”

“If a rule applies to everyone, no one can claim they’re being unfairly singled out,” All Might points out. He steals a cookie out of the package Tenko just opened. “Betas frequently set a good example. You set one during your rescue today.”

“By doing something.”

“By proving it could be done,” All Might says. “Think about how an alpha or omega hero would have handled those victims and that scene.”

Tenko doesn’t need to think about it. He’s seen it. “Alpha commands,” he says. “And omegas do that weird thing where they’re, like — hitting on you —”

“Platonic seduction,” All Might says, which is one hell of a contradiction in terms. “These approaches both have something in common. What is it?”

“Is this a trick question?”

“No.” All Might eats another one of Tenko’s cookies. “Think about it. They have the same end goal as you did — a controlled scene, calm victims —”

“Except they’re doing it by force,” Tenko says. All Might nods. “You’re saying my way is better.”

“Yes,” All Might says. “Adding extra force to an already stressful scene increases the potential for chaos, particularly given the diverging reactions of each designation to those uses of force — and yet, the prevailing wisdom is still that heroes should use force in controlling a scene.”

“That’s not what you do,” Tenko mutters.

All Might smiles halfway. “I’m not an alpha.”

Everybody thinks All Might’s insistence on training beta and omega heroes is some weird fixation, because they can’t imagine All Might being anything but an alpha. But All Might isn’t an alpha. He’s a beta, just like Tenko is, so he knows it’s possible for a beta to be a hero. “Everyone assumes my ability to control scenes without force is unique to me. You proved that others can do it, too. That makes it much harder to ignore as the preferred strategy.”

“Yeah, yeah. Betas make the world go round, as usual,” Tenko says. He manages to grab one cookie before All Might eats the last one. “I still don’t want the pills.”

All Might sighs. “Are you unhappy with your designation, Tenko?”

“No,” Tenko says. He never envies alphas or omegas, except when he thinks about being alone for the rest of his life. “It’s just a pain in the ass.”

“Indeed,” All Might agrees. “But the fact that you’re a beta is why you’re on this mission and my successor is minding a desk.”

“Huh?”

“Here.” All Might picks up a folder and slides it across the table to Tenko. “I saw your expression. When I mentioned Shiroiwa, it meant something to you.”

“That’s the town where the suicide rate blew up,” Tenko says. “They think heroes should be investigating this?”

“At the moment, it’s not clear what this is,” All Might says. “No one will talk about what happened. It’s the opinion of earlier investigators that shame and distrust are keeping them quiet. They need to see people they can trust, who don’t provoke the sort of intense emotions that alphas and omegas do.”

Betas. “So we’re supposed to interview people about their dead relatives?”

“We’re supposed to interview anyone,” All Might says. “My presence will draw them out. Officially, I’m here to provide support and comfort in this trying time. It’s your job to talk to anyone who will speak and try to discern exactly what happened here. Prior to the first four suicides, which all occurred on the same day, Shiroiwa hadn’t seen a death by suicide in seven years. It’s hard to imagine there wasn’t a precipitating event.”

“Talk to people, figure out what happened,” Tenko says. “You sure you don’t want Midoriya?”

“People who are suffering need to feel listened to and understood,” All Might says. “As evidenced by how you brought so many people who’d previously felt invisible to the agency, the person in my agency best equipped to do that is you.”

Shiroiwa feels haunted. Tenko’s not superstitious, but there’s no other word for it. Something bad happened here, and he needs to figure out what it is so it can’t happen anywhere else. People are slow to talk. Tenko asks them how they’re doing, and it’s fifteen minutes of small talk before anything starts to come out. But once it does, Tenko starts to get a picture of things. Or at least where things started. Everybody who’s killed themselves attended a school festival the week before the first death.

“Did anything weird happen at the festival?” he asks, over and over again. “Or not weird. Even just something that stood out?”

Nobody has a good answer. It’s two hours into the event before someone tells Tenko what happened to some of the people who killed themselves. She’s weird about it, too. Embarrassed, even though she has her face covered. She beckons Tenko away from the others and keeps her voice low, so he has to lean in. “Their designations changed,” she says. “Alphas to betas, omegas to alphas, betas to — anything. Anybody to anything. You knew who it happened to. The scents switched on a dime.”

Designation switching is an urban legend. Or something that happens in porn. Tenko keeps nodding, anyway, and the woman keeps talking. “People who it happened to, they got shunned. Like it was contagious. Maybe it is. I don’t know.”

“Did everybody who got switched kill themselves?” Tenko asks, and she shakes her head. “Was there any pattern to who did or didn’t — or who was affected —”

“No kids,” the woman says. “It was a school festival. The place was covered with kids, but none of them got swapped. Only adults. And as far as who killed themselves and who didn’t — I don’t know. I don’t know why some of them survived it.”

“Can you point to anybody who did?” Tenko asks, and she points to herself.

Now he gets why she’s hiding. If they’re treating people with the switch like they’re contagious, then no wonder. “Come with me,” Tenko says, and she shakes her head. Her original designation and swapped designation don’t matter, but Tenko can’t tell what she is now. “If you talk to All Might, you can explain what you just told me, and we can stop this from happening again.

“Stop it? You don’t even know what started it.” The masked woman shakes her head. “I have to go.”

“Wait.” Tenko catches her arm. It doesn’t matter if she’s crazy — she’s the only lead, and if she got her designation switched, they can confirm it. Her hand closes over his and forces him to let go. “Look, if you won’t come explain, point to somebody else who got switched. Nobody’s going to believe this designation-switching thing without proof. You know that.”

She nods. Beckons Tenko closer again. “Look for Minami Mizuho, Motobuchi Tadakatsu, Shimizu Takako, and Hatagami Arisa. They were too embarrassed to talk. They sent me.”

“Thank you,” Tenko says. “If you’re right about this — what you just told me is going to help a lot of people. Even if it was hard to talk about.”

“It’s weird that it’s so hard to talk about,” the woman says. She’s about Tenko’s age, huddled inside a coat that’s too big for her. “Nobody can be quiet about designations most of the time. Except when they change.”

“Yeah,” Tenko agrees. “It’s probably scary.”

“Scary?”

“Yeah. Saying it makes it real.”

The woman thinks about it for a moment, then shakes her head. “It’s real enough for them,” she says. “Ask them.”

Tenko gets to it. Finds the people she named in the crowd, talks to all of them, and doesn’t remember until he and All Might are back on the plane that he never asked for his source’s name.

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