No True Pair

The Bunny: No Idea Anymore Exactly But Definitely A Few Years – Does Have Enough Meat On Its Bones That Picking It Up Makes You Groan – A Squiggly Pattern Of Black And Light-Brown Fur. We had some pretty intense grooming session to get its fur all pretty, but unfortunately after that, it seems to have been scared off a bit...

Fandom: Boku no Hero Academia

Characters/Ships: EraserCloud

Important Themes/Tags: Alternate Universe – Canon Divergence, villain!Shirakumo, technically inspired by Tokyo Babylon but no knowledge of it necessary for understanding

Description: A few years after Aizawa graduated high school, he already has his hands full completing missions as an underground hero. When he finds the time between those missions, he likes visiting Shirakumo, who found work at a veterinarian office after his dream of becoming a hero was cut short due to his heavy injury in second year. One day, Aizawa meets a young boy all on his own on a street who defends a puppy against older bullies. The boy doesn’t want to talk to Aizawa at first; Aizawa figures out that it’s due to his quirk and can reassure him that whatever his quirk does, due to Erasure, he doesn’t need to worry about it. Once the boy trusts him enough to talk, he’s talking up a storm, as if all the words were kept sealed away inside of him a long time. Aizawa learns that a quirk counsellor advised the boy (who is Shinsou) not to talk until he manages to control his quirk, Aizawa is enraged about that. The two of them meet up more often as Aizawa wants to provide Shinsou with someone to talk to, and he learns that the first time Shinsou accidentally activated his quirk, his mother fell under its influence, which led her into a car accident and thus in the hospital. Despite understanding where his anxiety originates from after that, Aizawa visits the quirk counselling centre Shinsou attends and reproaches them for their treatment of Shinsou. The leading counsellor points out that the quirk counsellors have to look after their own health and safety first and foremost, however, reminding Aizawa about a tragic accident just a few weeks ago in which a quirk counsellor died because a child’s quirk was too powerful for them to contain, and that the person who is qualified to deal with Shinsou will return to their office in a few weeks. When Aizawa vents his frustrations about that to Shirakumo, Shirakumo gently reminds him that Aizawa is in a unique position due to his quirk, seldomly having to worry about what someone’s quirk can do if he faces them head-on, as he can just erase it. When Shinsou and Aizawa meet up the next time, Shinsou tells Aizawa excitedly that he will soon visit a specialist that promised to make Shinsou’s quirk harmless – warning bells ring in Aizawa’s head at that declaration and he cancels a meeting with Shirakumo to secretly follow after Shinsou to his appointment. The person who promised to treat Shinsou is none other than a young Overhaul. Aizawa is able to save Shinsou before he can damage his quirk, but on his attempt to escape, he is driven into a corner by Overhaul’s lackeys. Suddenly, however, a portal opens behind Aizawa, he is knocked out, and a shadowy, misty figure rips Overhaul’s minions to shreds and threatens Shinsou not to tell a single soul about it. Over the phone, the mysterious villain reassures someone that Erasure is safe, while gently cupping Aizawa’s eyes. When Aizawa regains consciousness, he is in the process of being carried home by Shirakumo, who claims that he got worried after Aizawa cancelled their meeting and thus got the police and other heroes involved. Aizawa is still foggy-brained enough that he doesn’t notice anything strange about that claim and simply snuggles closer to Shirakumo in response to the other’s pleas for him to be careful in his hero work because he would miss him terribly should something serious happen to him.

A/N: What can I say, the scenes in which Tokyo Babylon’s main antagonist Seishirou stepped in the way of protagonist Subaru’s enemies (sometimes knocking him out beforehand so he wouldn’t witness it and have no recollection of it) to defeat them instead and be possessive over Subaru shaped my teenaged self and stayed with me. The concept of Shirakumo being turned into Kurogiri but hiding it as a secret identity is just very juicy to me.

Also, another thing I adore about Tokyo Babylon is its social commentary and dealing with moral questions while the answers to them are most often not easily black-and-white. And I always love it when the BnHA world leans into this side of its worldbuilding, too. So even more than the specifics of villain!Shirakumo’s modus operandi, I refer to this story as “Tokyo Babylon-inspired” because I associate this discussion of societal issues with no clear-cut answer with TB. (Lots of the specifics of it from the outline were cut because it was too detailed for the summary here.)