Everyone was born with a dormant mark. Invisible. Waiting. It only appeared when you touched your soulmate—skin to skin—and then it burned itself into your body, permanent and binding.

Shigaraki never thought it would happen to him. Not with these hands. Not with everything they’d destroyed. Soulmates were for people with futures. He had none. Just ashes in his lungs and hatred under his nails.

So when it happened? When he collided with someone during the chaos after a scuffle, your bare skin brushing his? it took a second too long to register.

Then came the burn.

Like fire curling around his wrist, biting into flesh, dragging its teeth along his skin. He stumbled back, eyes wide, breath catching like static in his throat.

There it was. Shaped like a small circle. Faint cracks along the edges.

No.

No no no.

He turned and ran.

The air split around him as he vanished, warp gate swallowing him whole, the mark still burning like a curse beneath his glove.

Back at the hideout, he ripped the cloth from his wrist and stared. It was still there. Evidence of his soulmate. Not even a hero, some random civilian. A stranger.

“This is wrong,” he whispered.

His thumb pressed into the mark, trying to rub it away. Scrub fate from his skin. It didn’t fade no matter how much he scratched at it.

Something other than rage was boiling in his chest. Fear.

Someone was connected to him now. Someone who could be hurt because of him. Someone who had no idea what they’d just become a part of.

What his he supposed to do now…?