#my ​mental image is similar to what shigaraki had for a little bit. I forget when but he and mirio were fighting and mirio was like

[millidew]

sometimes I forget dabi mha isn’t actually missing patches of hair on his head in a what-could-be-loosely-defined-as-an-edgy-diy-undercut-but-is-really-more-because-of-his-burnt-skin sort of way

[codenamesazanka]

Here’s what I think went down: 

All For One invaded the Shimura household, held captive everyone there. He singled out Tenko, and started whatever thing he did to condition into Tenko the wrathful instinct Shigaraki gets with the hands, a la Pavlov. 

This involves torture - most likely making Tenko participate, as well as something happening that caused the injuries to Tenko’s eye and lips. It also killed everyone, but preserved the hands. He reinforced, besides traumatic fear, aggression and anger, knowing that it would be there later and he can redirect it.

Eventually, All For One cleaned up, scattered Tenko’s memories, and had him run away, confused and unable to remember or explain to anyone what happened even if he did get someone to stop and try to help. 

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(Long post!! I thought about putting it under a spoiler but I feel like this is my magnum opus of meta and creating a theory, so sorry! You gotta scroll through! Please! I hope you read and find it convincing!) 

Everyone is pretty much theorizing that All For One was the cause of the Shimura household demise, because what are the chances AFO was able to come across a dead family with hands all intact, a traumatized and very impressionable 4-year-old with a extremely destructive quirk, and is the grandson of his previous hated enemy and essentially the nephew (come on, All Might thought of Nana as a mother, he would’ve loved all her family like his family) of his current hated enemy? 

All For One was there. The question is, what happened and what did he do? 

I realized in a previous post that Shigaraki’s reactions to the hands reads very much like a conditioned response a la Pavlov’s experiments. Little Tenko first sees the hands and immediately has a strong psychosomatic reaction, as well as an unexplainable, powerful sense of anger. Ever since then, whenever he wears the hands, he still feels that rage. 

Maybe a bit far-fetched - AFO using an elaborate psych experiment? But AFO has shown that he’s willing to go the distance and create meticulous plans years in advanced, and he’s a master at psychological manipulation. 

And two things: 

the flashback of the corgi, which yes, serves as an even more heartbreaking piece of Tenko’s memories, but also, Pavlov’s experiments is famously known for his use of dogs. The corgi is symbolic and a hint. 

@sweetened-apples​ noted that Gigantomachia seems to have been conditioned to calm down and respond to AFO’s voice. 

There’s that extremely visible ‘click’ sound, also a known and commonly used conditioned stimuli, and without seeing the scene, the Doctor knows immediately Gigantomachia must have calmed down. 

This is what convinces me greatly that AFO did something to conditioned Shigaraki, using the hands as the trigger. 

The ask from a wonderful, wonderful anonymous contributor (thank you!!) helped me piece more of the scene together. 

In chapter 88 and 222, Shiga's shirt is dark, and his pants are light. In chapter 69, they're both light. Why is this? If he ran away after killing 'Father' which happened in that chapter...

[...]

there’s a bunch of blood running down his arms and on the floor, pooling around the hand. [...] Exactly how much blood did he get covered in? How, why, no one noticed and now its gone? No stains, nothing? Also, for the anon and what you said, your right. Blame whoever attacked him for the injury to his lips, there was blood there in the flashback. Could it’d have been the weapon?

Chapter 69: As anon noted, the shirt and pants are both light-colored. Also, the shirt is bloodstained, blood is dripping down from above, also likely staining the pants as well. 

Chapter 88 and 91:

And that’s consistent in Chapter 222:

It’s implied in the same chapter that after what happened to his family, Tenko had ran away, looking for help - he did so right afterwards. If so, how is he so spotless, after being covered in blood? Plus - why would he make sure to change his clothing, if he was in such a rush? 

From my other post, regarding the scene in Chapter 69, let me restate: 

We thought this hand was the ‘father’ hand, but it’s not. The hand Shigaraki wears on his face is a left hand. This is a right hand. It’s so carefully intact. Shigaraki is covered in blood, the blood coming solely from above him, ruining his shirt but not his pants, not even fully covering his hands. You would think a chaotic situation would mean a mess, everywhere. Tripping and slipping, knees and hands in a puddle of blood. But Tenko is not.

Finally, this scene:

There’s what looks to be a bloodied weapon of some sort, and the shadowed, crazed fearful look of an adult. We assume it’s Tenko’s father (also Nana’s son).

Then we see that Tenko is found with his eyes and lips wounded. 

I think yes, that weapon was used to hurt Tenko, and I think the one who did so is that man in the right part of the image. But why would he hurt Tenko? Why would he look like that? 

Well, where have we see a similar look? 

The story of Rei Todoroki is also a tragic one, where, during a mental break, she injured her son, Shouto Todoroki. 

I think, maybe, AFO had did something to Tenko’s father, making him hurt Tenko. Caused a mental break, forced him to attack his son? Forced Tenko to kill his father in self-defense? The oneshot Tenko had the titular character’s father also attempt to kill his son, and though it’s not the same motivation or context at all, I feel there’s a good chance of a parallel.  

And isn’t that just as sadistic as AFO is? Having Nana’s beloved son attack Tenko, as well as forcing Tenko to retaliate to protect himself, thereby killing his father? We already know AFO has a habit of putting Shigaraki into life or death trials to prove his worth. 

Speaking of the oneshot Tenko, the character in that was also filled with rage, starting when he had to watch his father kill his mother. 

It’s a very natural reaction. You watch someone kill someone you love, and you gain intense hatred, aggression, and anger toward them. 

Here’s another interesting thing to note: In the oneshot Tenko, Tenko’s mother had taught him to redirect his rage. She told him, that his power isn’t one to used for killing, that he should think of other ways. This leads to Tenko redirecting his anger at samurai and swords, vowing to destroy all of it to rid the world of war. 

Looking back at Chapter 88, during the raid scene, during Shigaraki’s first flashback of AFO finding him, I always found it just a little strange that his internal state went how it went. Shock, then fear at being defeated, then a flashback to what seems to be a melancholy but hopeful, touching, scene of AFO rescuing him, then climaxing in anger. 

I’ve tried out several analysis of that scene - that being bound and on the verge of arrest made him feel helpless, like he had did as a child; Gran Torino asking about his Master made him wish for his Master to come save him again, like that time; them trying to get to AFO, who saved him, made him angry that they would try to hurt his Master; anger that the heroes, who wasn’t there for him when he needed them to be, was suddenly here to be his ruin? But most of all, why ‘I hate you’? I mean, yes, all those feelings are wild, negative, and the raid is a high-adrenaline fueled moment where reason isn’t big on the mind, but. 

For what was supposed to be a bittersweet memory of someone coming to his rescue, Shigaraki has instead associate it and filled it with a hellish wrathful. 

I think, after what AFO did to his family, after creating the hands, Tenko rightfully had nothing but fury, had wanted to kill AFO. Maybe it was so much so that AFO would later call it a ‘innate warpness’. Like AFO wanted to induced - just can’t have it be directed at AFO! So he messed with Tenko’s memory, made him forget exactly what went down, but Tenko would always associate that fury with the hands. 

Finally, finally, with Tenko confused and pretty much amnesiac, AFO had the child clean up. Wash away all the blood, put on a different clean set of clothing, hence the reason for the different outfits in the flashbacks. A blood-covered child would get everyone’s attention, would immediately bring police and Heroes onto the scene. 

But a well-dressed child, with what seems to be only slight cuts on his face, scatter-minded and unable to tell anyone what had happened because he can’t remember? A lot more benefit of doubt. 

So yeah. This is my theoretical outline of what went down.