Application for Release from the Dream
Tomura Shigaraki x Reader
An unexpected accident lands you in a nostalgic place that's not quite what you remember. While searching for a way out, you quickly discover that you're not alone. liminal space weirdness with a pinch of fluff contains: post-canon, death, feelings of being trapped, no quirks in the afterlife. wc: 7k
I. DEATH
For as long as you could remember, it's always been the same dream.
The one where, well, nothing really happens. On paper, it's boring. You couldn't describe it if you wanted to, but there are always similarities. It's always the same. The setting changes, but you know it's coming when you feel it. When the dream seems too comfortably like everyday life then suddenly you're hit with a crippling bout if existential dread. It freezes you in place for a fraction of a second then it's over — once more, your eyes fly open to the darkness of your bedroom. And once again, you're shaking. You're not sure if it's scary enough to be called a nightmare, but you still find yourself in a cold sweat regardless of the label.
It happened again last night, leaving you tired and grouchy when your alarm goes off.
Grumbling your way out of bed, you drag yourself through your morning routine while dreading the rest of the day. And of course, it's the 14th. Valentine's shouldn't be different than any other day, yet it always hits you in ways you never quite expect. The flowers on your coworkers' desks. The constant advertisements for 'love', making you wonder if you'll ever have anything like that in the rest of your life.
Little do you know, you won't. Not in life, at least.
You drag yourself out the door with the same lackluster enthusiasm you've had all morning, exhausted.
Maybe if you'd slept better, none of this would be happening.
Maybe if you'd slept better, you would have seen it coming.
But you didn't and you don't see the bus speeding your way until it's too late.
There's not even time to panic, just a calm realization washing over you and a sharp descending darkness.
Then your eyes snap open.
And you're somewhere else entirely. It's not the street or even a hospital, but it's familiar. You feel like you've been here before.
This place is expansive. It's all marbled walls and tiled flooring. There's a grandness it should hold, yet you just don't feel it. There's something cheap about it, something abandoned.
A heaviness lingers in the air, bringing the space to almost absolute silence. Everything is muffled like a snowy day.
The lighting leaves something to be desired. It's mostly dim yet somehow still flickering here and there. As you right yourself and look down the open space, your eyes begin to adjust. Nondescript signs hang over rows of rooms with huge doors and windows.
You're in an old shopping mall. The one you thought they demolished a few years back.
Carefully, you stand-up. After getting hit by a bus, you expect to be sore. But you're not. Your body moves like air, without the slightest ache. It's strange, almost as if you're a ghost, but you feel quite solid. The ground is firm beneath you and your hands don't pass through the tile as you press your way up. Maybe the accident wasn't so bad. Or it was just a long, drawn out dream.
Something, or rather someone, moves at the other end of the atrium — you're not alone.
II. DESPERATION
Nothing is explicitly wrong, it all feels remarkably normal. But there's a feeling in your gut telling you something isn't right here. Your memories feel hazy, but you know these walls no longer exist. What you don't know is why you're here and who or what stirs at the other end of the mall. As calmly as you can, you make your way to the exit to go home.
The stores you pass are different than you remember. None of the names are quite right and when you look through the windows, you can almost make out the surreal scenery that doesn't belong here spliced in between the clothing racks. Others feel like something is staring back.
You walk a bit faster.
Every step echoes through the space, making you self-conscious about alerting anything lurking in here to your surroundings.
But nothing jumps out.
As you round the corner to the nearest exit, you realize it's pitch black outside. It must be night, maybe the streetlights are out. None of this is adding up and you're starting to get worried.
Barreling through the exit doors, you find yourself—
Entering through the other end of the mall? There's no way. You were just over there and now you're here. The world doesn't work like that. You turn, shoving your way back through the doors only to find yourself where you left a moment ago.
These doors are broken somehow, you decide, but there are other ways out. You'll go out through the parking garage instead. Your pace quickens to a run.
Another exit appears in front of you, you shove your way through finding yourself stumbling in through the main entrance.
This can't be happening.
The next set of doors does the same. You sprint to the next one, and the next until you're out of options.
Seeing the only shop name you've recognized so far, you barrel through the doors of Banana Republic, looking for another way out. You vaguely remember this store leading outside with a large entrance at the sidewalk.
As soon as you set foot inside, you regret it. The walls are lined with regular clothes, just like any other shop. However, everyone in here is a giant banana. The customers, the store associates, everyone. You duck behind a rack of clothes, nearly toppling it.
Through the hangers, you can see them milling about. No one seems to notice you. They go about their business as if nothing is weird about this at all. It's like being trapped in a strange dream.
Slowly, you stand up walk quickly to the exit.
They still don't look up or acknowledge you.
When you have a straight line to the door, you run through it —
Suddenly you're in a room full of water. The edges are glossy, reflective. A large plastic castle in neon orange sits to your left, the size of a house. A goldfish the size of a seal swims past your shoulder. You rush to the nearest door you see, feet struggling to grip the blue pebbled ground as it shifts beneath you. Stumbling through the exit, you find yourself with dry hair on the tiled floor, but no tidal wave follows. The water seems to be contained in the other side of the door.
Desperately, you run for the next exit again.
"It's no use," a white haired man calls out, making you nearly jump out of your skin. "That's just going to keep happening no matter what you do."
"Then how do I leave?" you yell back, out of breath as you slow to a stop.
"I don't think you do," he replies, "at least, I haven't figured it out yet."
"How long have you been here?" You walk a bit closer.
"A while."
Even in the muted light, you can make out most of his features. Long white hair makes it's way past his shoulders. A few scars litter his face and his eyes are a deep red that begs to draw you in. His clothes are all black, a hoodie and skinny jeans with red shoes. While looking over him, it occurs to you that you're not wearing what you were when you left for work this morning. Instead, you're dressed more casually. More you.
"Are you dead too?" he asks.
"Dead…" your voice trails off. Is that what this is? There's no way. You were just on your way to work. The last thing you can recall was being hit by a bus and then —
You were hit by a bus.
You were hit by a bus. There's no way you could have survived that.
"I'm…dead," the words catch in your throat, barely making it past your lips.
III. REFLECTION
You never really knew what would happen after death. For the most part, you made peace with that. Other times, that scared the shit out of you. The times when you'd wake up in the middle of the night in horror of the unknown. That's what death meant to you — a massive nebulous unknown. Ignored through the day and brought forth only by your subconscious. You never had theories or thought about it, it just was. And you (mostly) came to terms with that.
You've had a lot of time to think about it over what feels like days.
Sitting with the man you now know as Tomura in the empty food court, you explain it as well as you can. Somehow, he gets it.
"Same," he says, picking at a chip in the table. "I never really thought about it. Except— it's weird, but there were these dreams. Not nightmares or anything, they seemed normal but they just felt—"
"Like they reminded you of your existence. You had the dreams too?"
"Wait, you know what I'm talking about?" he looks astounded. "None of my friends ever got it. They thought it was weird."
"Yeah, I have them all the time." Had, you don't dream anymore. His eyes stare intently at you. "Everything was fine, there was just this overwhelming feeling. And I could never sleep after."
"Me neither." For the first time since you've arrived here, the corner of his lips flick up to a smile.
Later that day, you continue exploring. It's strange, you knew this space so well. It's where you would go when you felt like you fell into the cracks in life. When you needed space to think and figure it all out.
It seems fitting that you've been doing a lot of thinking since you arrived. There's not much else to do here. Tomura is nice enough, but he mostly keeps to himself. Or maybe he thinks you keep to yourself. Regardless, you find yourself wandering around aimlessly quite often.
Gasp.
Forever 20.
You walk past a few bleak looking shops, remembering the last time you went inside of one. A few have caught your eye, but you'd rather not be eaten by an oversized fish or taken by the banana people so you haven't gone inside of any of them again.
Instead, you sit outside of a particularly nice looking one with sunset colors glowing through the front display. A few purple clouds gently press into the window. You wonder why the stores are like this. Why some are so alluring and others terrify you. So many of them feel like distant memories, others completely new. If only you could grasp the meaning of it all.
Time passes.
Days, weeks. It doesn't make a difference. Space and any other laws of physics don't matter anymore so you're not sure if time applies either. When the sun never rises outside and you never need to sleep or eat, nothing divides the days or gives you any indication of how long has passed. It's all set, constant.
At least, for you it is.
"They changed when you showed up," Tomura says, gesturing at the shops. "Some of them were empty before. And a few of them are different now."
"Weird," you mumble, staring through the window of Fish Locker while watching the oversized goldfish swirl through the water. They remind you of a huge fish tank you saw at a restaurant you used to go to as a kid.
"It's not that weird, if you think about it."
"Think about what? What are they, anyways?" you ask, hoping he has some insight you don't. He doesn't exactly have a manual on this place, but he's been here for longer than you and that's worth something.
"You haven't figured that out yet?" he half laughs, "they're dreams."
IV. DREAMING
There's an old theater in the corner of the mall that you used to go to. It wasn't the biggest, nor did it have the most comfortable seats. But there was something about it that felt safe to you. How the imperfections had settled into the space with age. Like the familiar way the seats creaked when you leaned back too far or the way the screen went fuzzy at the edges.
You find yourself walking there now, hoping it's not filled with sharks or something.
As you walk down the aisle and make your way to a seat in one of the middle rows, you're shocked at how normal this feels. The floors are sticky and speckled with popcorn, like you remember. There's a faint smell of fake butter mixed with the sugary sweet of nearly everything else they used to sell at the concession stand. It's the first time you've smelled anything since you arrived here.
You find a seat, leaning back with your feet on the chair in front of you. Some previews start rolling.
But they aren't previews.
It's your life.
Bits of memories presented as trailers with dramatic music. Happy ones, sad ones. Some you thought you'd forgotten.
Seeing it all together like this makes you realize how beautiful it all was. The good and bad all blurring into one very human experience.
You stay for a while, watching.
The longer you're here, the more you start to notice.
That could be said about anywhere, but it's especially relevant when the rules you thought you understood in life don't apply anymore.
For example, you stepped into the elevator only to find that it drops. Every. Single. Time.
You wonder if maybe it's another dream, like the shops seem to be, but it's getting harder to remember the dreams you had in life compared to what you're seeing here. Tomura sees the same things in the rooms, so it's fair to assume half of them are his. Which half, you're not quite sure anymore. Even when you were alive, some of your dreams felt foreign to you. Like they were someone else's. Maybe it's related, you're not sure though.
"Still afraid to go in them?" a voice calls out from a few store lengths down. "They won't hurt you. At least, I don't think they can. If you die or fall or something, it just spawns you back out here to restart. Trust me, I've tried," he adds under his breath.
You wish you had his confidence.
More time passes.
And then more.
You think about what Tomura said and the certainty he said it with. If you're here forever, you might as well go exploring. Roaming the halls at a safe distance from anything exciting is getting boring. It's making you feel stagnant and stuck. While you know the dreams will begin to feel the same with time, at least for now it's something different than staring at walls and windows.
Bed Bath and Beyond, you read, always surprised to find the ones where the name stayed exactly the same. Tentatively, you press the door open.
What's the worst that can happen, you ask yourself, you're already dead. Your worst outcome still lands you right back here.
It's not like you can change anything, you remind yourself before stepping into the beyond.
After ripping the bandaid off and going for it, you find yourself roaming dreams more often. There are some, like Bed Bath and Beyond, that defy any idea of physics you've ever learned. They drop you into too many or few dimensions that you haven't learned to process. You need a break from these, they make your existence feel itchy.
Others, like Banana Republic are more surreal. Bananas instead of people. Water slides where you would typically see escalators. Giant fish tanks. Cotton candy clouds. Reality is unexpected, but at least comprehendible.
Some are just nice. Like real life, but idealized. A journey through the woods or a secluded spring. These are your favorites.
Many are exceptionally ordinary. You wouldn't realize you were in a dream at all if you didn't know what to look for. You're getting better at being able to look for the differences. Clothing racks and book shelves hidden in the scenery where it doesn't belong, all alluding back to the mall you're trapped in.
And then there are other spaces, the ones that still scare you too much to enter. Hands clawing at the windows and buildings reduced to rubble.
When you put them all together, they're remarkably dreamlike. You're beginning to see where Tomura's theory came from. He seems to be right.
Which leads you to the next and most human thought: what does it all mean? Why this?
Fortunately, you don't have to be alone in these thoughts. Sitting with Tomura outside of Horizon, you watch the sunrise through the front window.
"I have a theory," he says, "about all of it."
"Oh yeah?"
"I've been thinking for a while. About being here and why I ended up here. And now, how you're with me and no one else is."
"Why is that?"
"I—I think everyone ends up exactly where they think they will. Think about it, this is the closest thing to an afterlife we believed in. It's not like we thought we'd disappear or go to hell or something, we just didn't think about it without the dreams."
"Thus the dreams in the shop windows," you add, gesturing ahead of you. "I'll buy that. Now, if it's all just dreams, why are we in a mall?"
He pauses for a moment.
"I don't know about you, but this is where I went when I didn't feel like I could be anywhere else."
"Me too," you nearly whisper. It's strange, you seem to have so much in common yet you never remember meeting him in life. You wonder if that would have changed anything.
"Do you think it would have been different, if we'd met before?" you ask, knowing he's probably already thinking about it.
"Maybe?" He shakes his head. "Probably not. My fate was pretty sealed. And I don't think it would have changed all of this."
You nod.
"Does it matter to you though? What happened before?" his eyes search yours for the answer before you can find it.
"I don't think so," you reply. "I mean, it's not like that changes anything now."
"No," he smiles at you. "I guess it doesn't."
"One last question," you add, "about your theory. Why is it just us then?"
"I don't know. " His cheeks turn a shade of pink you forgot exists. "Maybe we're just special. Maybe we were meant to be in this together and that's the whole point."
Something about this makes your heart flutter. For the first time since you've arrived, you relax a bit. It's not great, being stuck here, but you feel like it could have been much worse.
V. CHANGE
Your time here grows repetitive, once more. What feels like months have passed and none of it matters. You're trying to unlearn the separation of days, weeks. There's no time, no change, and nothing to make any difference. Everything is the same over and over and over again.
You visit the dreams. They're enough to hold your interest for a while, but even the idealistic ones grow old with time. At some point, they all blur together. Mall spaces pretending to be something else. It's too quiet here. The air is too heavy. You miss smells, taste, even temperature differences. There are still moments when you find yourself with the same feeling as when you arrived here.
Stuck.
Usually when that happens, you find Tomura. Talking to a human is the closest thing you have to touching grass anymore. You could be in worse company too.
The two of you have gotten to know each other a lot better by now. You know his favorite video games, songs. Which dreams he likes the most; how he stays far away from the theater. You know what his friend's names were and tiny stories about them. And he knows all of that and more about you. There's something about a never-ending expanse of time that puts life into perspective in a way that draws all the deep conversations out first. You have a lot in common, including the ongoing stuck feeling.
Right now it's hitting harder than usual.
You search for Tomura to no avail. He's probably in a dream. Not too weird, he spends a lot of time in them. You'll leave him be for a bit.
Instead, you head for the next best thing: the theater.
Sitting in the front row this time, you watch as the screen begins to roll through your life.
Some time passes before you realize it's not the escape you're looking for. Childhood memories mix in with everyday adult life. You see the patterns, but you can't break them. One particular scene gets under your skin.
Why didn't you do something different?
"It'll all lead to the mall forever anyways," you yell at the screen, watching yourself choosing to walk through this space when it was alive and filled with people.
You don't know what overcame you, but you're certain: you need a break from this. While you're not sure if mental health is a priority after death, you're starting to see that staring at your own life for this long is only making you wish you'd done things differently when you had the chance to. There's only so much you can take at once before you start to feel even more stuck. Maybe this is why Tomura avoids this place.
You stand up and walk out, hoping you can find him somewhere now. Peeking through the windows, there's no sign of him.
When you come across a few that you thought you knew, they look different inside. You reach a store you used to spend time in, you're faced with something different. Darker.
Do the dreams change?
"I've never seen that before," Tomura says, considering the window. He arrived a few minutes ago after a dream shifted with him in it. "At least, not before you got here."
"Maybe there's someone else here? Someone new?" you ponder.
"No," he replies. "You spawned at the same spot as me — right there." He points at an open area a few shops away. "If anyone is going to drop in, I think it would be the same place."
The two of you decide to walk around, just in case there is someone new here.
Four laps go by and there's no sign of anyone. You find a few more changes to the dreams.
"Should we go in one and see?" you ask, unsure if that will answer anything.
"I guess," Tomura shrugs. "I don't know what else we can do."
You follow him through the door of Journeys.
What was once a winding trail through a soft forest has been replaced by something darker. The trees are still there, but they feel less feathery and more like claws ready to grip around you.
The soft feel of moss beneath your feet has been replaced by damp, slightly muddy ground. With every step, sticks crack from beneath your feet. The sound is sharp, unnerving. Everything in you wants to be silent. Unseen.
"Should we turn aro—" your voice is drowned out by a large screech. Suddenly the forest is closing in on you. The once flat trail buckles ahead.
Without thinking, you grab Tomura's hand and start running back to the door. It's much further than it was before. This room has always done that though, the trail stretches on endlessly as you run to no avail. It's never tried to eat you though. Can you die after death? Or will it just hold you here forever?
Your legs grow tired, you're making no progress. If anything, the door seems to be getting further away.
"This way," Tomura yells, pulling you through a small gap in the trees. Branches squeeze around you, barely leaving space to move. You can feel them digging into the skin of your ankles as you try to thrash your way out. A stick snaps, freeing you for long enough to lunge through a door, finding yourself in a neighboring dream.
Your feet slide out from under you as you jump into an endless night sky. Sparkling stars shine through fluffy purple clouds. Weightless, you float to the door and back into the mall. As your feet hit the tiles, you both collapse on the floor outside of Airy.
Tomura looks down at your hand, still wrapped around his and quickly yanks away.
"Sorry," he replies quietly at the thinly disguised hurt look on your face. "I'm not used to — it's just, holding hands is new for me."
"It's fine," you mumble. "I shouldn't have — I just wasn't paying attention to that. Sorry."
"No, it's okay." A blush spreads over his cheeks and he turns his head slightly to hide it. "You can. It's just new." Quickly, he switches to another subject. "So, uh. What happened before they changed?" he asks, sitting up.
"Huh?"
"The stores, the dreams are different. Did you see when they changed?"
"No," you explain. "I was in the theater. I think I was in there for a while, I was having a bad day and I yelled something and left. Wait." You know that what you're about to say will sound crazy, but you have to throw it out there. He's entertained every other random thought you've had, you're sure he'll understand. "Do you think that caused it?"
"Yelling? Did you scare the dreams into changing or something?"
"No, I yelled because I was frustrated. I don't think I was scary. I said something about how it all just leads to being stuck here and then they changed. What if your idea was right. That we're here because we believed in something close to this. But the dreams are real connections back to life and that actually got through somehow?"
Tomura sits with your words for a while.
"You're saying the dreams are all like portals, they actually connect to our lives?"
"Yeah, something like that." You don't have any real proof of this, but for now it's all just conversation anyways. Everything is. So you continue, "and what if we could change more than that? If we have a direct link to ourselves before, maybe we can make ourselves believe in something else. Something better."
"So, let's say that's true. That we're going into the actual dreams we had and not just some copy of them. How do you know that changes anything real? What if we're just causing the weird feelings we had in the first place and it's one big loop that leads here?"
"Maybe, I mean," you explain, "I can't say I'm completely right about this, but what if I'm not wrong? The dreams changed. Isn't that the type of thing that would happen to someone whose thoughts changed? Maybe I actually got through somehow."
"Well," Tomura smirks. "We'll never know unless we try it. What do we have to lose?"
VI. ADAPTING
Your experience in the afterlife started with the first dream you went into, so it only makes sense that you start there too. Well, maybe it doesn't. But you have to start somewhere.
"Ready?" Tomura asks, already pushing the door open. He seems to bounce back from uncomfortable encounters faster than you.
"As ready as I will be," you mumble while following him into Banana Republic.
None of the banana people so much as glance as you walk in, they're pretty mundane for how surreal and strange it is for you. One sorts clothes behind the checkstand while another holds a sweater up in front of the mirror.
Tomura doesn't seem phased by this. Maybe one day you won't be either.
"I've had this dream since I was a kid. They're so weird," he whispers. "Anyways, what's the plan? Do we just start screaming or something?"
"Uh, no. I don't think it's that simple. We do have to yell, I think, but maybe let's do something better this time? I'd rather not make everything darker again."
"Yeah, good point." He pulls a jacket off the rack for a closer look. It's much elongated to fit a human. "Well, after you then."
One issue. You didn't think this far ahead and you have no clue what to say now.
"Uhm," you think for a moment before speaking. "The afterlife is great."
"Louder, " Tomura stares expectingly at you.
"It's great! The afterlife is amazing!"
One of the bananas drops the clothes and hangers they're holding onto. Another side eyes you from the register before quickly returning to their work. You're surprised, you didn't realize they could notice you. After some head shakes, they resume their milling about.
Hopefully the message got through, you're not sure what else would.
"That's probably enough," you say to Tomura, "let's see what happened."
When you exit, everything looks the same. However, that's how it was the last time until you walked around for a better look.
The two of you start roaming the mall, doing a few laps before giving up.
"It's all the exact same, at least it looks like it from out here," Tomura says, slumping onto a bench.
"Yeah," you reply, feeling let down. You really thought this would work. "Maybe I was wrong."
"You're really giving up on that after one attempt? That's not enough, we need to try harder than that. Maybe it was just that dream. Or something you said didn't land. I don't really know, but I think it's worth trying again."
You nod. Somehow he always softens the disappointment. It would have been nice to have someone like him in your life. You're glad he's here with you now.
"So, it's decided. We try again."
You take a break from it for a bit, letting yourself process it all before planning what's next. Maybe he's right, it could have been the dream. Would you really notice anything different when there are huge bananas roaming around? All of the existential dreams you had in life were more ordinary.
You tell this to Tomura.
"Hmm," he considers. "Maybe you're right. I still think we need to try a lot more of them, we can start with the normal ones though."
"Yeah," you agree. "Let's see how many we can get to in one go, then decide if it's working from there."
"Maybe we divide and conquer then," he says, "it'll take less time that way."
"Sounds good."
It's agreed that you'll each start with the more simple dreams that are distinctly yours and go from there.
Heading at a row that's familiar, you step through a door and find yourself in a classroom. Your elementary school class.
And in that moment, you realize that you're in your underwear while giving a presentation. Mortified, you remind yourself — it's only a dream. Still, they all stare and you can't help but feel uncomfortable.
"I, uh," you stutter, "this is the afterlife. And it's good, great even." You feel like a broken record without anything else to say.
No one reacts, they continue gawking as the heat creeps up in your cheeks. Like the last dream, this one might be too far removed from expected reality to make much of an impact. Regardless, you still find yourself hoping.
This scenario is getting to be too much. Rushing out of the room, you press through a side door. Then—
Was it that simple? For a moment, you think you made it out. This hits you like a punch in the gut for some reason you haven't figured out yet. Isn't this exactly what you wanted?
The sunset casts a glow over the sidewalk. You're on your way home in the area you grew up in. It feels so normal. Almost too normal.
However, the details are starting to come together. It's one of the dreams and you can see that now. At a closer look, the bushes in front of your neighbor's houses are all leafy clothing racks.
It occurs to you that this is it. Here's your chance. With so much going on in the other dreams, it's nearly impossible to get anything through. It won't work if the setting is already too weird — nothing would stand out enough. It has to be ordinary, like this one.
Your mouth opens to call out, but something stops you. There's a deep ache in your gut.
It's not right, not without Tomura here.
What if you make a change and he's not there to shift along with you? If any of this is working, it seems very possible to be separated.
You don't want to go alone.
So, you hold back — watching the scenery and reconsidering the plan.
Tomura seems to know a lot of things and at this point, you've determined that he's probably right most of the time. But he doesn't know everything and none of it's for sure.
The shops that make up the ones that are distinctly his dreams haven't changed. Yours did though, without him.
Which gives you a new theory.
You're in this together by dumb luck, some ill fate that leaves you both in limbo in a shopping mall. It's not that you're meant to be, you're tied together by the basic circumstance that neither of you had any real beliefs to begin with mixed with a weird affinity for this specific mall. An occurrence so rare that it created a population of two.
It's a sweet idea, but thus far nothing proves his statement that you were meant to be together in this. So, if your theory is correct and you mess it up now and change the past without him, you'll leave while he's stuck here. It'll be nearly impossible to find him again.
The sun fully sets just over the horizon, glowing a deep bronze. You turn and walk out the door.
VII. SYNCHRONIZATION
"Okay, where should we start?" Tomura asks while laying out the plan at a table in front of the food court Panda Express. The pandas in the back have been doing circus tricks ever since Tomura made some change in a dream earlier. It's a bit distracting.
"Maybe let's go over the main parts, what's working for us and what isn't."
"It just seems unpredictable," he remarks, gesturing at a panda walking a tightrope. "Sure, we seem to be able to change things but we have no clue what to expect after. Definitely not that."
"Maybe we need to be more specific then," you reply. "What would you want," you ask, "if you could pick an afterlife and do it all over again — which would it be?"
Tomura thinks for a while. "I guess I'd just want to go wherever my friends are going to end up."
"Do you think they'll make it here?"
"No," he says quickly. "It's not — this really wasn't their top pick of places to go. One of them actually made fun of me for it, not like he went anywhere better though."
"Dabi?" you guess, at this point he's told you enough about their personalities that you feel like you already know them.
"Yep, that's the one," he laughs. The two of you sit quietly as a panda lands a double backflip behind the counter. "Really though, I'd just want to be somewhere open. Somewhere everyone could be free without feeling trapped. Maybe we could all sit on a nice beach somewhere."
"That sounds nice," you add, "I think I'd like the same."
With some vague idea of a plan, the two of you get back to work. You'll visit the dreams together, making the same changes together as you go.
Starting with Lush.
It's one of the nicer dreams, so you don't mind visiting it.
You enter together, finding yourself surrounded in trees. Long strands of moss hang down around you, everything has a faint glow to it. It's pretty enough that you can almost ignore the camouflaged clothing hanging from the upper branches.
Stepping into the water of the spring, you always expect it to be cold, but it's always completely neutral. You feel like a weight has been lifted off your shoulders.
"This is it," Tomura calls out, "this is exactly what the afterlife is like! Peaceful."
"Tell all your friends!" you add.
The two of you laugh. You stay here for a while, taking a break from everything outside of here.
Little by little, dream by dream, you make your way through the mall. Sometimes you take breaks, checking in and making sure you're on the right track. You still don't know if there is a right or wrong way to approach this so you just try to stay consistent.
Eventually, a large crack appears through the atrium roof overhead. Neither of you are entirely sure what it means, but it's too late to turn back now. You're committed.
The dreams themselves have changed too. Most have taken on a golden hue. Some of the doors have cracked, getting jammed in a way you can't easily enter.
You take it as a sign that you're not meant to.
This doesn't leave many options. At this point, all that's left are a handful of stores that you've been avoiding and the theater.
"I know you hate it in there," you say. Tomura doesn't argue. "I'll go in first and you can try after. It's one of our only options."
He nods. As much as you can tell he doesn't care for this, he gets it.
You walk through the doors, take a seat, and wait for the movie if your life to start.
This time it's a birthday. One of the last ones. You watch for a moment, taking in the memory. It's more bittersweet than you remembered it. For a moment, you wish you could console yourself. Then you realize that's exactly what you're here to do.
"It'll be okay," you call out to your living self. "Life gets better then the afterlife is great. It's nice here. Everything is open, free." You scramble to find more words, "and there are beaches. Beautiful ones! Next to forests that practically glow! And you don't have to be alone," your voice waivers, that one is true. I spite of everything you'd change about this place, you haven't felt alone in a while. "Tell everyone, they'll love it! You need to tell everyone!"
Feeling like that's the best you can come up with, you stand up to leave. Tomura is leaning against the wall as you exit.
"I heard what you said in there," he says softly. "I like it. I'll say the same thing, so we don't get separated." He hesitates while turning to the door.
"Do you want me to go in with you?" you ask.
Tomura shakes his head. "No. There's a lot more I need to tell you about, but right now isn't how I want you to find out." He scratches the side of his neck, nervously. "My life wasn't great and I have to face it myself first. This time I can actually change something."
"I understand," you reply. "Youll do great."
With that, he disappears through the theater doors.
Some time passes.
Tomura's not yelling as loud as you were, so you can't quite make out what he's saying. You know it's working though.
Most of the windows you can see have changed. They're all brighter than before with more open space. A few are filled with sand. The banana people are now lounging on a beach somewhere sunny. It suits them.
Another crack echoes from the other end of the mall as Tomura walks out. He takes a deep breath, "it's done."
There's a thunderous boom as half the building crumbles away. It shakes you to your core; Tomura seems unphased.
" We're close," you exclaim. "Just a little more."
"There's one closeby that we can still get into," he shouts over the destruction. "Come on."
You chase after him to a door you've never been through, stumbling into what looks like a barren wasteland.
"This is it," he yells, wind kicking up dust at his feet. "Everything's going to be great. We'll have an afterlife filled with friends and we'll never feel trapped!"
You feel like he's saying it more to you than the dream itself, but the idea seems to get through. Without warning, the ground fractures below you, leaving a massive chasm through the space. The door leading back to the mall breaks along with it.
Through the dust, you see a singular side door connecting to the next dream. It's is all that's left. There's nowhere else to go.
Tomura grabs you by the hand, pulling you through it. The wall crumbles as you pass, leaving you inbetween. For a moment, you're terrified. What if this wasn't the right choice? What if it all just leads to nothingness?
Regardless, you're in it together which is worth something. Gripping his hand tighter, you keep ahold of him — wherever you end up, it won't be alone. One last bang reverberates through every fiber of your being. Then everything goes black.
VIII. REBIRTH
When you open your eyes, you're in another dream.
Sand presses against your cheek while the ocean laps at your feet. It feels cool, refreshing.
Tomura lays to your side, hand still firmly wrapped around yours. Long white hair drapes over his face. His eyes flutter open slowly.
It's bright here, golden.
But the more you look around, the more you're realizing this isn't a dream. At least, you don't think it is.
There are no hidden clothing racks or checkstands. A breeze blows through the trees in the distance. You can smell the salty air, feel the grit of the sand. Nothing feels off, it's just nice.
And there are people.
A blonde girl skips towards you, followed by a few others in the distance. You recognize some of them as Tomura's friends. And there are some familiar faces too, ones you've missed.
It's going to be okay.
[Tomura Shigaraki masterlist]
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