A/N: You guys have nearly got this story to 100 favourites after just three chapters. You have got it to over 130 followers. Thank you all, so much. Those stats are nucking futs and I never would have guessed we'd be here.
Let's get on with it then, shall we?
(***)
She ran.
Himiko Toga, at aged twelve, had suffered more than she ever wanted to. She was only eight when her parents had screamed at her about her Quirk, called her a demon and a freak for the gift that they had given her, and had beaten her as if to try to get it out. She had run away that day, only a few blocks, before being terrified by the sounds of a battle between hero and villain happening right around the corner; when she ran back to the safety of home, and found herself looking at a house which looked like it had been hit by a bomb, what remained of her world fell apart.
The death of her parents in the rubble of battle, on the day the world had dubbed Incident Zero, had left her without a home. She was just another piece of collateral damage from the death of All Might, a piece nobody wanted or knew what to do with. She had been thrown towards an orphanage with little care or empathy from anyone involved, and when the orphanage learned of her Quirk, their horrified reactions turned her experience as an orphan into the experience of a prisoner as well.
Now, finally, she had been helped to break free by an unfortunate accident which happened to Sakura, another girl who had been left without a home following Incident Zero. An accident using scissors and a quick sleight of hand from Himiko had found her with enough juice to take a face and get out of that hellhole. All should have been fine, and indeed was, until she got to an unsafe neighbourhood and heard a Pro Hero in a white mask yell her name. She had been hunted down, and she was terrified. She didn't want to go back.
So she ran.
"Please please please don't be behind me!" She said out loud to herself, panting between words as she was out of breath. Wildly whipping her head around, she couldn't see the guy with his mask anywhere behind her, and inwardly prayed she had lost him, that somehow the trash and debris piled up in this neighbourhood had obscured her frantic changes of direction.
They'd pulled in a Pro Hero to track her down and take her back. She was screwed.
She reached up to her face and felt the familiar sticky feeling of the latest face melting away, her time limit running out at the worst moment. Purple hair was starting to shed itself and run with the fake flesh of the other orphaned girl as she ran away. "No no no, not now!"
She ducked into an alleyway as she ran and crouched behind a dumpster, watching the rest of the grey gunk sluice off of her like a mudslide. Rubbing her eyes in disgust as she got some of the grime out of them, she ripped the backpack she had been carrying off and quickly pulled a black T-shirt and denim shorts on over some underwear, cursing the need for her to strip naked before using her Quirk and how exposed it left her after use.
She gathered herself, chucking the backpack into a pile of trash before smoothing down the creased T-shirt with one hand, running her other hand through her knotted blonde hair in a vain attempt to get it to lie flat over her ears. The thought of going out as herself in public, especially with a Pro around, scared her shitless; her tongue ran over her front teeth, flicking against her sharpened canines as a nervous reaction.
She straightened up, looking around the alleyway, before her yellow cat-like eyes widened at the sight ahead of her. "A dead end? Oh come on!"
She would have to go back the way she came. Back where the Pro Hero-
"Well, well."
She stiffened at the sound of the dry male voice behind her, punctuated by the tap-tap of wood on concrete. She hadn't lost him, after all.
Her pursuer was a lanky, skinny man with a shock of ginger hair poking out from on top of his white mask. A bizarre beige sports uniform seemed to be his Hero costume, along with a weird green gauntlet on one of his hands, but Himiko was drawn mostly to the baseball bat he was wielding, and occasionally tapping against the floor as he walked towards her. She'd seen him on the news before wielding that bat against villains- he was the Pro Hero, Slugger.
Tap-tap.
"Please no..." she whimpered, nearly sinking to her knees in defeat.
He ignored her. "I thought this would be more difficult, going on how they described you. They said you were sneaky, and clever. But here you are in a dead-end, with no weapons, nowhere else to run, and not even another face to hide behind." Himiko could have sworn he was leering at her under the mask. "I get to see the real Himiko Toga, and I'm not impressed."
"Don't make me go back sir..." She tried, but her voice was coming out weak and small no matter what. "They hurt me there, don't make me go back-"
"Oh you're not going back." He scraped the bat against the floor twice to punctuate his sentence. "Not after you attacked another little girl to get out."
She gasped. "I never touched anyone! Sakura, she cut herself in the week, I just-"
His voice was mocking, the tone of an adult who enjoyed the superiority he was having over a child. "Oh sure, you tick off of other people's blood, and she just conveniently happened to have an accident to give you some. Sure. I believe ya kid."
"I'm telling the truth!"
"And I'm telling you I don't care." Tap-tap."You're going to the Police, and then you're going to be dealt with, like the little freak you are."
Her mouth fell open. He didn't sound like a Hero now; there was prejudice and hate and venom in that tone. "Huh-"
She wasn't ready for the smack from the Pro's signature bat, a clean strike into her stomach which took the wind out of her and knocked her back into the dumpster, collapsing in a crumpled heals amongst the trash. "You disgust me you know."
She almost threw up from the hit. "What did I do?"
"What did I do?" Slugger mocked her in a high pitch tone, before resting his bat on her shoulder as if he was about to tee off a golf swing into her head. "They told me about your Quirk, little girl. You drain other people's blood to make it work, and you seem to love it."
She couldn't help it. It was how she was wired, she enjoyed the taste of it when she used her Quirk. She couldn't control liking that. "I c-can't help how I was born, mister-"
He bumped the bat against her cheek. "Can't help it? So I suppose your parents are to blame are they? News flash, they died on Incident Zero, missy! The fact you turned out as such an awful creature ain't on them!"
"Please..." Her tears were welling up before they were cut short with a jab by the bat into her stomach again. "Agh-"
"You are dirty." Another smack with the bat. "Broken." Another. "Your Quirk is a freak of nature, a villain's Quirk." Another smack, this time so hard that she could have sworn she heard a rib crack. "You don't belong, and you never will!"
"Please... please stop..."
"Stop? You attacked me first, remember? I'm only getting what I'm due here-"
"I-I didn't touch you-"
"Says who?" The masked Hero gestured to the whole alleyway and the piled-up bags of trash, and barked a laugh. "Who are they gonna believe, you little freak? A Pro Hero with years of service, or a crazy little girl with fangs who ran away after drinking her friend's blood?"
"Why..." The pain across her chest was throbbing, but it was nowhere near the bitter upset she was feeling at that time. "Why are you doing this?"
"Didn't you listen?" Slugger swung his bat over his shoulder and crouched down to her level. "You were doomed from the start, little girl. A freak like you will never belong in society, not while you hold onto this disgusting Quirk. So I'm gonna take you to people who will get rid of it, you got it? Quirk Therapy is a wonderful thing-"
Her yellow eyes widened in fright. "I don't wanna go to-"
"Jeez, you could be more grateful. I'm doing this to help you out, kid. Think of this as an act of charity on my part, okay?"
"Charity? You're beating me up and you wanna get people to torture me-"
"Torture? I'm helping to treat your illness, you ungrateful little psycho!" Her response earned another hit from the bat, this time into the shoulder, and she nearly howled with the pain. "If I let you go, that sick mind and those sick habits will hurt more and more people. I'm taking ya to people who are gonna cure ya."
"I don't wanna be cured!" She yelled, yellow eyes flaring in anger despite all her pain. "I just wanna do my thing and live, love and be me, mister! So leave me alone!"
"Oh little darling, I didn't say you got a choice." Slugger stood up, and levelled the bat at her like a sword so that the end was pointed into her face. "Now are you gonna come quietly, or am I gonna have to beat you silent before I take you in?"
"So this is what it means to be a Hero these days."
She flinched just as much as the Pro Hero standing in front of her- neither of them had heard the new arrival who now blocked the exit. "H-Help me-"
Slugger turned, in a combat stance. "Can't you see I'm a little- Jesus, what the fuck are you?"
The newcomer had been deadly silent on arrival, a red scarf around his neck and a tattered white mask fluttering gently with a cool breeze that seemed to stir in the alleyway. How he had arrived in absolute silence was beyond Himiko- he was wearing heavy duty metal boots and plates of armour on top of a black combat suit, which should have been loud as anything. Between the hunched back, spiked black hair, bandages across his arms and the fact that the guy had no freaking nose whatsoever, he looked fierce. Badass, even.
He focused his red eyes on Slugger, still clutching the bat. "You're the Pro Hero Slugger, aren't you?"
The Hero's grip tightened slightly. "That's me, pal. Who the hell are you?"
His question was ignored. "What are you doing to her?"
"This little freak tried attacking me-"
The red eyes narrowed; Himiko realised he was holding a knife now. "I saw that she didn't. Don't try that lie with me, Hero."
Slugger grimaced at him, as if something had dawned on him. "Hey I know you... We were looking for you in Tokyo, back along. You're that vigilante who dropped off the grid all that time ago, right? What was your name? Stetson? Stalwart?"
"Stendhal..." The raggedy man straightened up just for a second. "The idea of Stendhal died a long time ago. You... You can call me Stain."
"Heh, whatever man." Slugger gestured with his bat, and nearly hit her in the face again. "You don't know a damn thing about this girl, so back outta here and let a Pro handle this."
The newcomer, Stain, didn't move a muscle. "I know what I saw, and what I heard from you. I'm going nowhere." He turned to look at Himiko, sharp red eyes meeting her bright yellow in a gaze which somehow didn't send a shiver up her spine. Despite his appearance, and the intense glare, she didn't feel threatened. "...What's your name, kid?"
She gulped. "H-Himiko Toga, sir-"
"And what is your Quirk? The one he despises so much."
"I..." She hesitated as the bat wavered in front of her face, but when it didn't move she swallowed and carried on meekly. "I can transform into other people. I... need their b-blood to do so, and depending how much I drink, I can stay transformed for longer."
She had braced for the inevitable, the disgust, the horror that was usually directed her way. Instead, the skeletal face of Stain softened before her very eyes for a second, to her complete shock. For the first time in her life, a stranger didn't see her Quirk as something to be feared, and there was no hint of pity in his gaze like there had been from the people who had tried to change her. He couldn't be... impressed?
"What a gift."
Her eyes widened at that statement. "E-Eh?"
"A small price to pay from those closest to you, and you could become them." Stain looked down at the knife in his hand, and ran a finger over it delicately. "You could be a great Hero with the ability to disguise like that. You could be an actress, or a spy, or even an undercover cop. Your potential is frightening, Himiko."
"The fuck is wrong with you?" The Pro Hero in the alleyway clearly didn't agree with his analysis. "Maybe freaks attract freaks, because how the shit are you telling me she could be something great? She hurts people with her Quirk! The sooner she's put down, the better for society."
She watched with wide eyes as Stain turned to face Slugger, and she herself gasped at the fury that had suddenly appeared in the eyes of the former vigilante. No, it wasn't just in the eyes; that wouldn't do what was in front of her justice to describe it like that. The man's whole aura had turned violent and apoplectic with sheer, unbridled rage. "How dare you."
"H-Huh?!" Slugger took a step back, holding his bat in front of him as if to ward off the raggedy man. "Hey man, back down now, I'm warning ya-"
"I heard everything you said to her. I saw what you did." Stain took another step forward, lurching, and Himiko saw for the first time that the man had a katana on his back. "You call yourself a Hero? No, I won't let you hurt her like that and get away with it."
Slugger gulped, seeming to regain some fighting spirit from somewhere despite the malevolent aura coming off of the man in front of him. "T-Tough talk asshole, but you really think you can take a Pro on your own? I'll take you in and give both of you freaks to the Police."
Himiko was surprised to see Stain smirk, and a long tongue come out of his mouth to lick his lips as if delighted. "Oh really? Who said I was alone?"
"Wha-"
"SPINNER!"
As the man roared there was a blur of motion from the wall to the left of the Pro Hero, and Himiko realised that another person clad in a blue hoodie had somehow been clinging to the wall vertically, hanging off of it and defying gravity. In a blur of green, this latest new arrival dropped onto Slugger and swiped down with a clawed hand, grabbing the bat and throwing it away to the other end of the alleyway. Slugger screamed as something punched into his right shoulder for a moment, before smacking the newcomer away with a palm strike into the trash bags in the alleyway.
When the now-named Spinner straightened up and dusted himself off, Himiko was struck by one detail about her second hero. Not that he looked reptilian, although the green scales and clawed hands were something she had never seen before. Nor was she shocked by his purple hair, which stood upright about his head like he had suffered an electric shock, or the massive sword which he was carrying on his back just like Stain.
The thing that actually struck Himiko, more than anything, was that he didn't look that much older than her- he was still a teenager, and yet he'd attacked a Pro Hero for going after her.
Spinner nodded to Stain reverently as he walked to stand beside the older man. "People like this guy don't deserve to be Heroes."
Stain nodded. "I agree. Did you get it?"
The older kid opened up his scaly right palm, and revealed what he had punched into Slugger- a short knife with a serrated blade. "He has this coming."
Slugger reached up to his bleeding shoulder with a snarl, and Himiko was glad she couldn't see his face under his white mask. "What did you do you damn-"
In an instant, Himiko was shocked to see an abnormally long tongue lap against the blade of the knife, as Stain tasted the blood on the knife. Almost immediately, Slugger's limbs wobbled like jelly and his legs completely collapsed underneath him, all of the strength gone from his body. "Gah!"
So many emotions went through her head as she watched the Hero fall unceremoniously into the trash. Horror that the situation had escalated like this, gratitude that these two had come to help her, hope that this may mean she didn't need to go back, but most of all wonder at Stain's power. He had used blood as part of his Quirk to help her.
He was like her. He would understand.
"You bastard!" Slugger screamed from on the floor like a wounded animal. "Is this your Quirk? The hell did you do to me?!"
"Only what you deserve," Stain said, tossing the knife back to Spinner, who wiped it on a rag and secreted it back into his hoodie's pocket. "Total paralysis. You won't be hurting her anymore."
"How dare you..." Slugger's anger appeared to be mounting. "You dare attack a Hero on duty, you pair of villains!"
"Villains? Us?" Stain turned to the stricken Pro with a snarl. "The only villain I see is the one who beat a defenceless child up in an alleyway and threatened to torture her Quirk out of her. And you think we're the bad guys?"
"You're supposed to be a vigilante," Slugger sneered. "You're supposed to help people, not attack Pro Heroes-"
"I don't see a Pro Hero in front of me. I see a fake who bullies those weaker, someone unworthy of the title."
"Are you-"
Stain suddenly drew his katana from his back, and levelled it at Slugger in much the same way as Slugger had pointed his bat at Himiko; she saw how effective it was at silencing the Hero. "I tried to become a Hero once. I saw how many did it for the wrong reasons, and it disgusted me. All those people in it for money or fame, who would never sacrifice anything of theirs no matter the cost, who would never do what needed to be done."
"I tried to tell the world what needed to be done. I became a vigilante and did whatever I could to hunt down and stop the worst of the worst. The Heroes saw a vigilante and cried foul because I was doing what they should have done, because I wasn't seeking reward or glory. Because of the monsters we let become Heroes."
He stroked Slugger's cheek with the worn blade, gently. "All Might was worthy. He was noble and pure and self sacrificing, and we should have built a world around ideals like his. But you all failed him. When he needed your help most, you were nowhere to be found, and he gave his life to save us all from evil incarnate."
A shadow fell across his face. "You're not worthy of following him. Your prejudices make you weak and you defile the idea of Heroics. You embody that flawed system we cannot escape from, where anything is excusable and where it's perfectly acceptable to trample on those less fortunate. Look at the ruin of our sham-filled society after All Might died, and tell me you have brought on a better world. You have failed us all, and you will pay the price."
"H-Hey now..." Slugger's voice wasn't the vicious taunt of a predator like it had been with Himiko earlier. This was the wobbling tone of a scared little man, paralysed and unable to act, robbed of power. "We can talk about this-"
"Tch. And now you seek to save your own skin, rather than apologise." Stain lowered the katana to touch the tip over Slugger's heart, as Spinner shook his head in pity... no, that was disgust Himiko could see. "Society needs to be corrected, so that people can live in peace and happiness free of hatred and abuse. If nobody will stand against the fake Heroes, then I will purge them one by one, until they all are gone with the villains too."
"You monologue like a v-villain man-"
"Villain? Vigilante? Does the title matter in a world like this anymore?" Stain shook his head at the fallen Pro. "All I know is that this is our mission. If you are a Hero... then I am a Hero Killer."
As Slugger's eyes widened, Himiko realised what was coming and didn't look away; she didn't want to. As Stain pushed the katana forward through the Hero's heart, Slugger crumpled, the light fading from his eyes as his head slumped forward. It was the first time Himiko had seen anyone die in the flesh, and the part of her which wasn't screaming about how much trouble they would be in if someone found them was drowned out by the part that felt... relieved. She wasn't bitterly gloating at the death of her assailant, but it felt just. It felt right.
Stain left his katana buried to the hilt for a good twenty seconds, staring at the mask of the Hero as if searching for an answer, before withdrawing it and wiping it on a rag offered to him by Spinner. "One step closer."
Himiko propped herself up against the side of the dumpster, her back aching, and despite everything flashed a toothy smile to both Stain and his young follower. "You... ah, I owe you both."
The younger one, Spinner, acknowledged her with his own smile. "Least we could do. We've been watching him for a while, but the way he treated you? We couldn't stand by and watch."
Stain now turned to her, and crouched down to her level, keeping his back to the corpse he had just created. For a moment, Himiko couldn't read his gaze, and tried not to lose herself staring into those deep red eyes, or to unnerve her saviour by focusing too much on his complete lack of a nose. Then, after what seemed like an age, the fire in those eyes softened. He was concerned. "... I'm sorry."
"W-What for?"
"We didn't step in immediately because we didn't know what your situation was. I listened for too long because he accused you of being a villain, and you got hurt." He rubbed a calloused hand over her bruised shoulder. "I apologise."
She winced. "It's okay mister. Did..." She paused. "Did you mean what you said before you k-killed him?"
"Hmm?"
"About fixing society. About standing against abuse. Cleaning out the bad guys."
His gaze became hardened, resolute. "Without question."
"Can I get in on that?"
Spinner seemed to jump in shock at that. "You're serious?"
She nodded, and with everything she had she knew that she wanted it. She had nothing to go back to and nobody looking out for her, but his words had struck a chord in her like nothing ever had before. "I've seen the worst in people for too long, and I don't like it. I don't like not being able to live like me, I don't like that people write me off or want to fix me, that all my Quirk does is disgust them." She took a deep breath and looked down at her feet. "Please, mister Stainy, mister Spinner."
"...Shuichi."
She turned to look at the lizard man. "Huh?"
He nodded, clenching a clawed fist. "Shuichi Iguchi. That's my name. Mister Spinner just makes me sound old."
She giggled, briefly cursing in her head how it hurt her rib cage. "You're older than me, mister!"
"Yeah, but I'm still young too! I'm the big brother type, not your dad." He jerked a thumb at Stain with a smirk. "That's his job."
"You are not calling me father." Stain shook his head, turning away, but the corner of his mouth twitched ever so slightly. "Just because I took you in and trained you."
"He took you in?" Himiko gasped in realisation. "You're a runaway too?"
"Heh, yeah." Shuichi ran a hand through his hair. "The world wasn't kind to Mutant-types even before Incident Zero. All Might dies, and society treats us like monsters even more."
"That's awful..."
"Yeah." He pointed to Stain. "This guy found me at my lowest and gave me something to believe in, and a roof to call my home. Never looked back since."
"Then you have to take me in too!" She reached out and tugged on that long red scarf, pleading, making her yellow eyes as wide as possible. "Please, mister Stainy!"
For a moment the hunched man didn't look at her, before he sighed and turned to her. "If you come with us, this will be common. We do things which are awful because they have to be done, for a better society."
"If that's what it takes then I'm in!" she shouted, jumping to her feet with a fist bump before realising with the beating she'd taken just how bad an idea that was. "Oww..."
Stain rolled his eyes good-naturedly, before stashing his knife away and picking her up in his arms like she weighed nothing; Himiko was surprised how gentle he was being. "I admire your enthusiasm, but save your strength. We'll heal you up first before we start your training."
Something burst in her heart, and she felt tears coming to her eyes for the first time in a long time, tears of happiness. "You're taking me?!"
The ragged man nodded, the corners of his mouth turning up ever so slightly. "You can come with us. We wouldn't leave you out without a home anyway, but I like your spirit, young Himiko. And I meant what I said about your Quirk, by the way." Stain shifted his arms slightly to move his arm further away from her ribs. "I'll tell you more about mine, when you're rested. You'll find we're quite similar, after all."
She tried and failed miserably to wipe her tears while being carried. "Thank you so much."
"It's the right thing to do." Stain nodded at her, before turning to Spinner. "We might want to get the car here, rather than walk her down the street. Less attention and less pain."
"Yes sir." Spinner saluted, before digging a set of car keys out of a hoodie pocket and running off to the road at the end of the alleyway.
"We'll get you rested up in no time." He looked back down at her in his arms, and Himiko felt safe for the first time in a long time. "Even as the world threw its worst at you, you seized a chance to try to change it for the better with both hands."
"Hell yeah. Someone's got to try, right?"
"I agree." His gaze softened. "I'll feed you, give you somewhere to stay, and keep you safe. I'll train you, help you make the most of your Quirk, teach you how to look after yourself. With just the one rule."
"Hmm?"
"My name is Chizome Akaguro. Chizome, Stain, or sir are acceptable going forward." He smirked at her, suddenly, and caught her off guard. "Mister Stainy gets you double training... Dad gets you triple."
She chuckled, as Spinner rolled up at the end of the alleyway in a beaten-up old family saloon that looked like it was about to fall off its axles at any given moment. "I might end up on double training a lot then, sir."
His grin widened, and it would have looked sinister in any other context. "Heh. We'll see about that."
As Spinner came around to the side of the car and opened the door for her and Stain, Himiko watched with wonder as Stain lowered her gently into the backseat of the car, taking care to run the seatbelt over her gently and not press down on the shoulder Slugger had hit earlier. Entirely by accident, it seemed she had found someone who would accept her for what she was, someone who would help her grow in the face of that, who would support her and look after her because they genuinely wanted to, not because they had been told they had to.
The world had suddenly, in the space of five minutes, gotten a lot less frightening and a lot safer for Himiko Toga, and whatever happened going forward in the crazy, chaotic world...
She didn't have to run anymore.
(***)
Himiko Toga. Aged: 12.
(***)
A/N: Slugger is from Episode 1. If you forgot him, don't worry, so did I. He wasn't meant for greatness.
Stain is a marvel of character design. I fall into the "Anti-Villain" camp as the best way to describe canon Stain, but he is a remarkable case study who I could spend hours breaking down for analysis. It always struck me in canon that he was dealt with so soon, in a world where All Might still shone as Number One- the idea of dealing with his ideology in a world without All Might is so much fun.
There will be a fair few non-Izuku chapters which crop up throughout this. Toga has a bigger role ahead (and she's so fun to write, bless her), but there are others who will get their own chapters because the potential for them in this setting is just too great and I have some lovely arcs planned. Let's face it, the anime and manga aren't always about Izuku- the episodes focusing elsewhere are sometimes the most fun (Red Riot Unbreakable anyone?).
Hope you enjoyed this. As always, follows, favourites and reviews are greatly appreciated, and I'm always happy to have a witter over PM. Just don't flame me with stuff and I'll be happy. As for my lovely guest reviewers, thanks for those too, I just may not answer any guest reviews with questions within these ANs due to the desire to keep spoilers etc out of the main story- hope that's alright.
Ya boy, out.
