Chapter 10: Desire

Toga Himiko scowled at the man whom entered the room with a small tray of food held carefully in his large hands. She sat cross-legged on her bed, glaring without saying anything as he sat the tray on a nearby nightstand and smiled at her, his intimidating stature, huge muscles and even his sharp, oversized canines failing to dwarf the sincerity of his good nature.

She looked away from the kind look the hulking man in the red costume was giving her, harrumphing. Kan Sekijiro chuckled at her childish display, shaking his head at her as his dark red eyes studied the small blonde girl, "This is a terrible first impression, I know, but please allow me to feed you this food in apology, since you'll be unable to eat well in that straightjacket."

Giving the bulky man another contemptable stare, she huffed, "You could just let me out of it. A girl could get the wrong idea being forced to hang out alone with a man all tied up like this..."

Holding up a waggling finger, the hero known as 'Vlad King' shook his head again, "I'm sorry, but you're not the only person whose hands are tied; I can't let you out of your restraints until the people who put you in them give me the go ahead. You know, it wouldn't have gotten this bad if you had just been a little bit more civil."

"Exactly what did you think was going to happen when you repeatedly attacked every guard, therapist and custodian that dared come within reach of you?"

Still looking grumpy, she puffed out her cheeks, "I just want to be able to do what I want; if they don't want to play with me, you should all just let me go."

Vlad raised an eyebrow, "So that you can harm others elsewhere? I think you miss the point of your being here in the first place young lady. We aren't holding you here just to tie you down and make your life stagnant; my goal is to help you deal with the urges you told your doctor about concerning your quirk."

She frowned, "You're just going to tell me the same thing that Mom and Dad did... it doesn't help, you know? I wore that mask until I started to forget what I really am deep down, but then I met this boy, and I realized that even if I forgot, who I am will come out."

The huge man nodded, his face serious as he leaned into one gloved fist, "You're talking about the middle schooler that you assaulted before you ran away from home? Reports were that you had knocked him unconscious and were drinking his blood..."

Her own sharp canines glinted in the light of the room as she smiled widely, her eyes ecstatic at the memory, "Yes, he was the first and most delicious person I've ever had! There is nothing like a long-time crush to sweeten such a union! So long I had waited for us to come together; I can remember how good it felt to finally be one!"

If it wasn't for the restrictive jacket holding her in place, Vlad was pretty sure she would swoon or break into a dance, her face euphoric as she stared off at nothing, remembering the event.

It took her a moment to realize that Kan wasn't reacting with the usual measured disgust that people showed whenever she let them see her real face. With the psychiatrist, she had expected a level of clinical detachment, but Sekijiro simply appeared completely unfazed, almost as if he had expected what she said, and for some reason wasn't offput by it.

She frowned, "Who are you, again?"

Kan threw his head back and laughed, "I don't blame you for not knowing me; I'm not one of the top ten or anything..." He stood up and gave her a courteous formal bow, "I am the Blood Hero Vlad King! I am something of a veteran to hero work, and currently work as a teacher at U.A. And of course, now I am also your assigned councilor!"

It was adorable to Sekijiro that she tried so hard to hide it, but her eyes lit up with interest that her youthful face simply couldn't suppress, no matter how hard she attempted to couch her expression to feign disinterest, "'Blood Hero', huh? What's that about?"

A large, fanged smile spread across Vlad's face as she asked. He was fairly certain that this was the reason that the Principal had assigned him to be her special hero case worker. By way of explanation, he lifted one palm upwards and blood surged from his body into a shape representing something like an upside-down tear.

He spoke as the blood then sank back down into his palm again, "Through the use of my quirk I have almost perfect autonomous control over all of the blood in my body. I can change the pressure of this liquid to eject it in almost any way imaginable, and coagulate it instantly if I ever need to bind something."

"Additionally, my body creates a huge amount of this material at will, at a far greater pace than possible with normal cell division..."

Not hiding it at all anymore, Toga leaned forward as if looking for the vanished blood, clearly salivating as her brow knitted in confusion, "But even if your quirk creates cells, what about plasma...?"

Vlad nodded, smiling approvingly, "You might have skipped out on school early, but you know your blood! Indeed, my quirk has to draw water for my huge volumes of blood, which it does by pulling moisture from the air around me. If I make a whole lot of blood at once, the sudden change in my environment can create steam around me!"

Looking excited, she bounced a little on the bed, "How do you make the energy for so much cell division, though? You're really big; wouldn't that eat up your physical resources?"

Laughing in good humor, the red clad hero held up a finger, "You really are one smart cookie! I might have powers based on blood and sharp canines, but my similarities to a vampire end there; my body draws on sunlight to fuel my quirk, storing energy in a special organ within my chest. I might have fashioned my hero name in honor of Dracula, but I don't actually drink blood..."

Suddenly she looked rather disappointed, frowning, "Oh... then what's the point of those sharp teeth?"

Kan shrugged, "Well, since quirks are the product of progressive mutations, maybe the teeth were needed at some point? They still enable me to eat steak very easily, so I'm not complaining, and in college I would crack open beers like no one else, hah!"

He watched her a moment, noting that her disappointment might have been based on finding that they had less in common than she might have originally thought. "You know, I don't drink blood, but I know a thing or two about crazy strong hunger."

She perked up, "Really?"

The large man nodded seriously, "In both my career as a professional hero and in my lifetime in general, I have pushed myself on numerous occasions to use my quirk at an output that has tested both my physical and mental resilience. I can store a rather large supply of converted solar energy, but once I deplete that I'm just like anyone else..."

With a troubled look he glanced around the room, thinking as he rubbed his thick, squared jaw with one hand, "Apparently if I use too many of my internal resources, I am at serious risk of doing myself harm, and if it wasn't for my ability to reabsorb blood that I have pushed outside of my body, I would certainly be dead by now!"

Laughing light-heartedly, he grinned at her in a way that severely downplayed the nature of his morbid statement, "There have been times when I couldn't retrieve all of my overspent resources, though, and that was when I learned of a true and terrible hunger. I starved so badly that everything looked like food... including people."

He frowned at the uncomfortable memory as Toga practically bounced in her excitement, "Did you eat someone?! Who did you eat?!" She rocked back and forth, grinning maniacally.

Vlad scratched at the back of his neck, looking a little perturbed, "Well... no one, really. There was one time early on when I bit a good friend of mine, half-crazed with hunger and not thinking straight. He is known as the 'Hunting Dog Hero, Hound Dog'. Obviously, he fought me off, and without any blood to use my quirk, it was rather one-sided."

"The fortunate thing for me in that situation was that not only did I count Ryo as a good friend, but with his own animalistic quirk he understood my sudden struggle to control my more basic impulses. He forgave me, and with time he even taught me to get a better handle on my instincts."

Himiko frowned, clearly disappointed, "Well, I'm not trying to quit my blood drinking habit; I like doing it. This just sounds like a different version of what my parents wanted..."

Surprisingly, Kan nodded understandingly rather than admonishing her for her choice, making the girl watch him in a mollified manner rather than kicking him in the face, which she had been considering for some time now. He gestured in a placating way, "I'm not here to tell you to stop wanting what you want; that is not what my friend taught me about instinct."

"Living with your urges isn't so much controlling the desire itself as much as tempering your response to those needs. If you really need blood to be happy then we will get you some blood... erm..." He grins lopsidedly, "...I mean assuming I can get permission to get it for you. Either way, we are going to find a way to channel that want of yours into something positive."

Toga simply blinked at him for a moment. This certainly wasn't anything she would have been expecting.

.*.

Dabi coughed, hacking away until his burned-out lungs finally allowed him a respite in which to breathe normally again. His mother leaned in and carefully wiped at the corner of his mouth with a cloth. She didn't say anything, but Toya could see the red on it before she secreted it away below his bed. He was bleeding internally, but that didn't surprise him.

Even with the constant stream of medicine to help contain his pain, the white-haired youth was aware that his insides were fucked beyond all recognition. From the way that the doctors kept having secret council with his parents, he could put together that he wasn't recovering the way that they had originally hoped.

Once again, he was not surprised. After all, this wasn't his first rodeo with severe damage to his innards, and seeing how messed up he was even before making a living bomb out of himself, he was surprised he'd even managed to survive as long as he had. They tried to hide it from him... to think that not so long ago he'd wanted them to feel that pain.

Toya had desperately wanted them to agonize over the suffering that he endured. He had wanted them to beat their chests in misery over his pointless and hateful passing. But now, knowing that he was making them miserable and seeing them try to hold it all in so that he would not see it... did they not want him to feel responsible?

In his mother's case, he got the distinct impression that she was holding back her worried tears and putting on her brave face to cheer him. After all that he had done, and despite it being his own fault that he was dying, she thought and acted only for his sake. He wanted so badly to hate them all the way that he had before.

It made everything so much easier when he had been able to blame them all for his shit life. When all of his pain could be pushed into his vengeful hate. Hate was so much easier than sorrow. It had direction and purpose. It could be channeled, and he could put his energy into fulfilling the agenda that hatred gave him.

But not this. Not what he felt now as his weakened and helpless body slowly failed him. He wished they would go away. He didn't want to watch their veiled pain anymore. He realized now that he had never really wanted to see it. After all, if he had been dead, he would have taken his exit stage left and been spared the reality that came with aftermath.

It was all Toya could do to keep the restless emotions from his face. He closed his eyes tightly, and on occasion, his mother would lean forward and quietly wipe a bloody tear from his ruined tear ducts. This was never what he wanted. Before he had been sure of what he wanted, but now all he was left with were regrets.

On multiple occasions he opened his mouth to speak to Rei, or to say something to Natsuo, but no matter how many times he tried he ended up closing his mouth and looking away, unable to even meet their gaze in his current state. He knew he needed to say something before the candle of his life burned down, but what was there to say?

Fuyumi approached from his other side, and Toya just watched her, his wheezing breath the only sound other than the beeping machines and the general murmur of distant hospital noises. She took his hand in both of hers and sat next to him, laying her head on his bed beside him. His little sister had always been like this.

Whenever they bickered as children, or when her parents argued, Fuyumi was always the first to try to smooth things over and bring the family tension down. In fact, she was so kind that she alone was the family member he had been unable to hate before. How in the world could he have ever blamed anything on Fuyumi?

Now that sweet girl still comforted him, still trying in her own way to hold together a family that had been blown to pieces. There were different kinds of courage in this life, and she certainly possessed one that Toya wished he had seen sooner. She had always been there. If only he hadn't found her so invisible.

Maybe he could have leaned on her back then. She had been pretty young at the time, but he had to wonder what might have gone differently if he had asked Fuyumi for advice instead of voicing his problems to an immature Natsuo. Toya frowned as he thought on it, watching as she held his hand cupped in hers so warmly.

Even back then he was pretty sure that she would have sought to help him, and while she would have lacked severely in experience, she would have certainly been wiser than Natsuo. At the very least she would have comforted him as she always did, and honestly that was really what he had needed the most then wasn't it?

Sighing at what might have been, Toya did his best to scrap his reminiscence, as hind-sight wasn't going to be doing anything to help him in the present. It was a tragic irony that it was always so easy to see your mistakes after you made them. If only he had the sort of judgement needed to look ahead and avoid his errors...

If he had that, he might have lived through his last mistake. Another bloody tear welled in his left eye, and he turned his head to regard Fuyumi, doing his best to squeeze her hands back through the awkward grip allowed to him by his restraints. He had let his selfishness lead him this far, so much he had again forgotten his sister.

She had never deserved the pain that the family kept thrusting onto her. She didn't deserve the sadness Toya was so clearly causing her now. In a moment of clarity brought on by his state of mortal contemplation, he knew that he needed to do something outside of his own personal interest for once, for Fuyumi's sake.

His voice rasped at her and she perked up immediately, as did Rei and others across the room. "Sister, I lived a really stupid life, and I hope you can forgive me. Know that I never hated you, and I'm sorry for everything."

Blinking her gray eyes at him as she straightened her glasses and pushed a red streak of hair aside on her otherwise near completely white mane, she smiled at him, "Well, given the track record for the men in our house, I doubt you're done doing stupid stuff, but I suppose that's why I'm here, right?" She smiled brightly at him, though her expression was a little strained.

Toya frowned; there she went again, trying to make him feel better even as he was trying to alleviate her concerns. If anything, it only made him feel even more guilty, and a little angry. After all, there was no point in her giving him assurances of a future together. He was dying, there was no future to speak of for him!

At the very least, she should just forget about him and focus on what remained of the family. After all, they all seemed to be on the same page through some miracle. Even his father spent much time at the hospital, being a presence if nothing more, but showing quiet support in doing so. He wanted to shout at her and only barely kept himself from it.

Anger wasn't going to help; if playing the role of the villain was going to push her away and force her to abandon him, she would have done so long ago. All he would accomplish by venting his frustrations on Fuyumi would be to cause her even more pain. He shuddered, trying not to give into despair, and strangely having a harder time of it as Rei also pulled closer.

Their comforts made it more difficult to keep his bloody tears at bay, as if a fountain of sadness within him had been pressurized for so long and now he saw their tender compassionate gestures as the signal for release. So it was that he was crying when Kai Chisaki was escorted into his hospital room flanked by several heroes.

Dabi's mouth fell open as he stared at the yakuza boss, "What the fuck...?"

Todoroki Enji was the one to announce the unexpected visitors as Chisaki leveled a curious gaze Toya's way, the latter working quickly to wipe his eyes on his shoulders as best he could. His mother reached out and dabbed at his recent tears too, but he growled in annoyance, since this only made it more apparent that he had been crying.

"We don't have formal permission for this yet, since getting it would require appealing to a staggering number of agencies and likely require far more time than would be acceptable. Son, given the state that the doctors say you are in, I have consulted other heroes and they have given us the only solution to your problem available."

All-Might stood to Chisaki's right, stepping forward as he spoke, "Through an accident, Kai Chisaki has healed enough to use his quirk, and with your permission, Todoroki Toya, he will be allowed to use it to repair the damage done to you by your quirk."

Silence reigned as Toya and Chisaki glared at each other. Finally recovering his composure enough to close his mouth, Toya shook his head, scowling, "This asshole? After what we did to him, I'm pretty sure I'd be lucky if he only turned me inside out. Also, what the hell happened to him? He looks... younger somehow."

Without turning his head away from Kai, Aizawa Shota answered from Chisaki's left side, "I am here to prevent him from using his powers aggressively. The moment he does, I will cancel his quirk."

Toya scoffed, "But you'd have to let him start using it in the first place. I've seen what this guy can do; it's fucking instantaneous. If you let him..."

Endeavor cut him off, the big man's tone annoyed, "You don't have any better options right now, Toya. I would never have assented to this if we weren't all convinced that it's your only real chance to avoid a painful death."

"Tch." Toya glared at his father before letting his eyes wander over to the window, watching the rays of sunlight from outside quietly play over the strange scene in that hospital room. Considering all of the trouble that he had caused for the heroes of this city, why were they willing to go so far to help him? What if Chisaki used it as a chance to escape?

They were all terribly naive. However, Todoroki Enji's words were not without weight. Toya could literally feel his own body dying, especially as the drug currently in his system started to wane, or perhaps he was developing a tolerance to it, or both. In any case, he could more acutely feel the damage to his insides the more time passed.

If this was really the only desperate measure they could think of, if his straight-laced father would really consider doing something outside of the rules then that meant that Enji truly believed what he was saying. So, what it boiled down to was whether Toya wanted to live badly enough. He was already as good as dead, so getting killed by Kai wouldn't change much.

He could say no. It crossed his mind as he returned his glare to his father, whom stoically stared back at him in that unflinching manner of his that Toya found so infuriating. He could accept his fate like a warrior, removing the chance of a messy death at the hands of a justifiably vengeful Kai Chisaki and doing one last thing to spite his old man.

That was the original plan, wasn't it? To die while causing that old bastard some grief... his eyes fell to where Fuyumi looked up at him from his side, her eyes full of hopeful worry. On his other side he could practically feel Rei's gaze burning into him with the usual over-active concern she had been showing for him lately.

He closed his eyes and grit his teeth, knowing before he spoke that he didn't really have much choice in the matter. He couldn't let what he had only just ruminated on concerning his sister be lost on him now that he actually had an option to make it up to her. If he chose to die in order to take another stab at Endeavor, he'd be stabbing her too... again.

"Alright then, but if he turns me inside out, this is totally your fault, dad."

Rei's tone was scolding, "Toya...!"

Before she could properly admonish him for putting everything on his father, Endeavor nodded, "Very well, I will take full responsibility."

Toya sighed; his father never made it easy to get under the big man's skin. It wasn't only his body that stood up like an iron wall. The man's conviction and determination had always made it difficult for Toya to feel like he could get some sort of win in their arguments.

All-Might stood back, the thin ex-hero gesturing to Chisaki, "Please do what you can, young man."

Chisaki growled, apparently having picked up a new sore point, "I'm not as young as I look! Whatever..."

The former yakuza boss strode forward and lay a hand on Toya's leg, narrowing his eyes in concentration. There was an intense grinding and squelching sound, and his quirk worked just as quickly as Toya had said it would. Kai stepped back after only a moment to look upon his work, Toya staring at his own body.

"The scars... even my scars are gone."