Shahryar - Haha :D

Kilo8 - Most of the faculty takes backseat for the foreseable future (due to the characters being Candidates), but I can promise that you might be close to the goal with one of those characters :v

Detrametal - There is a hilarious potential in Todoroki that I to varied degree explore in DoA, TTB and WRF :V

Yomunot - Let's just say that this chapter will include a confirmation.

(***)

To say that Izuku Midoriya was very nervous when he showed up to the school wearing the Black Course candidate uniform for the first time, would be to say nothing. He was at the point where 'nervous' evolved into full-blown 'frightened'.

He felt like he was being watched. But he didn't see anyone in particular. That was moderately worrying.

Probably some much sneakier Candidates coming to check him out. Izuku does his genuine utmost to be wary of his surroundings, and he is more or less sure that without magic, people wouldn't just… manage to sneak up upon him.

Well, unless they were, like, trained at that.

Or Kacchan.

"The fuck are you doing, Deku?" Bakugou pops up out of nowhere right in the middle of the school break. Izuku almost jumps up in fright.

Shit. He was on the lookout for unfamiliar faces or threats. Bakugou doesn't register as either.

"I was, uhm, looking for you." He decides to improvise. Naturally, it doesn't work. It never works with Kacchan, he knows him too well.

"You're a shitty liar." Bakugou groans. "If you've been looking for the Messy Hair, I saw her talking with a new transfer student from a parallel class. No clue what they were prattling about."

"I wasn't… wait, really?" Midoriya blinks at him a few times. Toga socializing with someone besides, well, him? That's surprising. "Who was it?"

"Worried that she'll find someone better, Deku?" Kacchan decides to be a dick about it. Then again, he always does. "You're not endangered, that guy's a shrimp. Shifty-eyed shrimp. Unless she has some very odd taste."

…

Taste.

Ah, crap. It's not that, right?

The break is almost over, either way. He'll drop by her safehouse after the classes are over. Besides, reminding the observers that she is still out there - and he is still, somehow, connected to her - might be wise. He'll also have to consider Initiating Kacchan… because honestly, he needs someone he genuinely trusts around him.

… damn it, his life is confusing.

(***)

"Here to visit the ghoul?" Todoroki, of course, is still there.

"Uhm, Todoroki-kun, excuse me for asking that question, but…" Izuku scratches the side of his head. "... do you actually have a lower half of your body, or are you a ghost of a student who was murdered and severed in half by the librarians for, I dunno, not returning books in time, forever haunting the library where you died?"

Silence in the library. Todoroki is staring at Midoriya in silence.

"What?" He eventually asks.

"I mean, I'm literally seeing you behind that very bookshelf each time I come here." Midoriya replies. "And I'm still yet to discover if you have a lower body, because the shelf is hiding that from me. So I grew suspicious."

Once again, a total silence. Todoroki seems to be too busy trying to comprehend what was just said to speak. Or, like, display any emotions whatsoever.

"Oh." He eventually speaks again. "I guess that makes sense." Midoriya is actually slightly terrified of the fact that it makes sense. It wasn't supposed to make sense. "The answer is yes, I do have a lower half of my body. I simply really enjoy reading things in peace here, and spend most of my time at school here. The rest is just me preferring to have an eye on the ghoul's lair."

Which, honestly, makes perfect sense. Toga was an ambush predator and that was the only exit from her lair. For as long as you saw her leaving, you could be pretty certain that she wouldn't try to sneak up on you and kill you. Because you were now on high alert.

Midoriya also decides to actually confirm something, so he makes a short trip to the side (Todoroki eyeing him silently the whole time) and… yeah.

Todoroki has legs.

Good to know.

Todoroki gives him a slightly weird stare, but decides to not elaborate.

"So, is she there?" Midoriya then asks.

"Yes, but you shouldn't go in there right now." Todoroki replies. Izuku gives him a questioning stare. "I believe that before she was run over by a love train she genuinely planned to eat you. However, seeing as you're now off-the-table, she needed a replacement prey to replenish her fridge."

Oh. Shit. That transfer student. So it really was what Midoriya was afraid of.

"Getting cold feet?" Todoroki asks. Midoriya nods slightly. "I'm not sure if you have a way out from that unless you get strong enough to either fend her off yourself or join a cabal strong enough to keep her at bay."

… Todoroki is, almost certainly, right. Toga clearly has an unexplainable obsession with him, and… it's not that far from an obsession to murder, frankly. Straight rejection would probably do the job.

"My life is a bad dream and I can't wake up from it." Midoriya sighs. Todoroki blinks at him twice, but doesn't elaborate. "Also my dad just vanished off the grid a few days ago, and I'm starting to grow suspicious. It just keeps getting better and better, doesn't it?"

"... does your dad disappear like that very often?" Todoroki asks. Midoriya gives him a questioning look. "Because you sound significantly unfazed by his disappearance."

Yeah, he was probably starting to think that Midoriya was a weirdo. Considering what sort of person Todoroki was, that was telling.

"Yeah, it's his job." Midoriya replies. "He's a… well, an archivist by education. He's good at sifting through documents, so he gets hired to investigate stuff, like genealogy and so on. It's super boring, but it pays the bills. Except, when he really gets into something, he totally forgets to charge his phone and can vanish for days."

"Do you think he'll adopt me if I ask?" Todoroki says after a few seconds of rather awkward silence.

"... what?" Midoriya blinks at him a few times. "You don't have a father?"

"I do have one." Todoroki replies, without a hint of emotion on his face. "But I'd prefer one that disappears often."

Oof. A very big oof.

"Not exactly a fan of your father then, I see." Midoriya replies, trying to sound calm about that. "I don't think that it'll work when he is still alive and you're still underage. But it shouldn't be long before… Wait, are you still underage?" He had no idea how old Todoroki was.

"Seventeen and a half years old." He replies. So they are more or less of the same age, being in the third year of the UA. "But among the Initiates the age doesn't really matter. You either stand on your own or are forced to lean on others."

… ah. The offer was a joke, as Todoroki's last words prove that the adoption bit really didn't matter. His lack of emotional expression made realizing when he was joking very hard. Good to know.

"On the other hand, I must say that you're adapting extremely fast." Todoroki then continues speaking. "You're talking with me about our fathers while your girlfriend is probably busy butchering Minoru Mineta in the room next door. Fascinating."

…

"I… just tried not to think about that." Midoriya sighs. "Also, that's his name?" Todoroki nods. Good to know. Aizawa not caring to remember the names of dead students unless they were dead official Black Course students was… bad. Midoriya isn't going to go the same way. He can at least remember them.

He can only wonder how Todoroki found out his name. He is surprisingly well-informed about things in general… which is a bit strange. Was it normal for powerful Black Course students to know surprisingly many things?

"So… you're not denying that she's your girlfriend?" Todoroki then says. Midoriya promptly freaks out.

"No, she isn't, I mean, she looks nice and pretty, b-bbut the whole 'ghoul' bit is a bit of a turn-off." Midoriya babbles out a reply.

"... a bit?" Todoroki's brow raises. By less than a centimeter, but seeing that he actually displayed emotions indicates that deep inside he was utterly shocked. "You do realize that she has murdered him by now, probably ate his liver, definitely cut out some choicy bits of meat to stuff in the fridge for later and maybe even began to suck out his bone marrow? I heard it's a delicacy for ghouls."

…

"Too much information." Midoriya mumbles out. "Way too much. Is there a book or something that I can read to learn more about ghouls? I think it might help me, uhm, survive until graduation."

"Wikipedia?" Todoroki asks. Midoriya stares at him in total shock for at least five seconds.

"Please tell me that you're joking." Izuku says. Because, honestly, he can't tell from Todoroki's facial expressions.

"Why would I?" Todoroki seems vaguely surprised with Izuku being surprised. "Trying to write down anything about more scary things tends to warp the medium, so you won't find anything substantial on the internet. But the majority of things we deal with on a day-to-day basis are just the supernatural equivalents of animals, plants and… well, humans. Why wouldn't they have their own pages on wikipedia?"

Midoriya isn't sure if he is more relieved or disappointed right now. He is very familiar with Call of Cthulhu' setting, he just seriously didn't consider the result of the internet and modern culture walking into it.

It's… confusing.

He didn't expect scary supernatural stuff to have goddamn entries on wikipedia, that's for sure.

"Guess it's time to read up on ghouls some more." Midoriya admits. Probably before meeting her again. Just in, you know, just in case.

"Good." Todoroki nods scarcely. "If you have any further questions, you know where to find me."

Midoriya does, indeed, know where to find him. Which is still rather creepy, despite his earlier confirmation that Todoroki does, in fact, possess a lower body.

(***)

Fifteen minutes later Izuku Midoriya is seriously worried about… well, everything. Because he actually read ghoul's entry on wikipedia.

He's boned.

He's absolutely and totally boned.

Ghouls were an entire species of solitary predators feeding on humans. They could hide within their population thanks to a limiting shapeshifting, being virtually indistinguishable from humans during the day.

At night, where they were supposed to hunt, their 'default' form was slightly less human. That explained why Toga was wearing a facemask during her night visit - because she was hiding the fact that her mouth was wider than it should. The picture on wikipedia (because of course there were some) could be best summed up as 'cheeks split open to make bites bigger'.

Together with improved biting strength, the results were… dangerous. Toga could probably cleanly bite his hand (if not arm, his arms weren't THAT thick) off if she wanted to.

They could shapeshift into their night-time form during the day and into the day-time form at night, but it made them… hungrier. It's as if they had a stamina bar, but one replenished only by eating.

As a result, engaging them during the day was preferable, as they stopped fighting smart when overly starved. And simply couldn't survive a prolonged engagement without feeding. It's probably what Shinsou's cabal tried to do, now that Midoriya thinks about it.

She must have fled from it and then launched a hit-and-run campaign… that they lost. Big time.

Ghouls could shapeshift slightly further, if they wanted. Like, prolong their tongue to get all that delicious bone marrow at one go. Or enhance their jaw for stronger bites. Or morph their arms into something slightly longer and much stronger, that also ended with claws that could rend through metal.

Or just make themselves surprisingly flexible by targeted temporary shapeshifting focused on their joints. Or bones.

Oh, and then came the best part. They were solitary predators because of the relative scarcity of their standard food. Or at least the fact that when a group of ghouls fed, they were going to warrant an organized response from their prey. The part when Todoroki told him to use protection suddenly changed into a nightmare fuel when he realized the implications.

Due to the solitary lifestyle they (in most cases) reproduced with the non-Initiates. They were unable to realize the true nature of them and their eventual children, helping raise the latter (while, in a way, 'guarding' the ghoul's lair for them). When the children grew up enough to go hunt on their own elsewhere…

It wasn't uncommon for the unaware human parent to become a snack. For either their spouse… or their children.

"I'm…" Midoriya mumbles to himself, hunching over the keyboard of the library's computer. "... so boned."

"Are you alright?" Someone asks. Midoriya freaks out and almost falls down his chair. What the hell?! How didn't he notice someone approaching hi…

A girl his age. Brown hair, two long bangs on both sides of her face. A relatively honest looking smile on said face.

Chief among all, a black uniform. With marks of a Candidate.

Shit. Midoriya needs to work on staying conscious of his surroundings. Freaking out over the ghoul entry on wikipedia ISN'T an explanation for that screw-up.

"E-err, yeah, I'm alright." Midoriya replies warily. "Thank you for asking, but… who are you?"

"I'm Uraraka Ochako." She replies, still looking surprisingly… hyped? "A new Candidate, I just transferred here today. I thought that your face was familiar, so I wanted to come to talk to you, but then I noticed that you looked super spooked and I got kind of worried." Hyped AND a bit of a chattermouth.

Good to know that there were Candidates like that. Izuku is no longer alone in that club.

Also, this is sus. On several levels at once.

"My face was… familiar to you?" Midoriya replies while blinking at her. "Is that, like, a pickup line or…"

"W-w-w-what?!" And now Uraraka freaks out, waving her hands in front of her defensively. She feels… very much not like an Initiate, if Izuku is to be honest. "N-No, I just… is your name Midoriya Izuku?"

"Yes?" He replies. Not exactly the reason for worry, he's studying here for almost a year, people know his name. Not a lot of them, but finding that out is relatively easy. It could be a set up. It probably was a set-up. Because unless his memory was betraying him, this was literally the first time ever he saw that girl. "How do you know me?"

"We were classmates in Rozaryu, but I looked kind of different and stuck to myself so you probably don't remember me." She replies. Oh. That makes sense. Kind of. He has so-so memories of his classmates back then, if he is to be honest, but in his opinion she'd have to change her looks a LOT to actually be there. "I don't think that we've ever spoken with each other, but I remembered your face and…"

Suspicious. Seriously suspicious. He transferred from Rozaryu High School to UA almost a year ago, after the accident. A drunk driver ran over several students when they were leaving the school. Two fatalities. Kacchan was alright, but Izuku spent two months in the hospital and, after that, he just… he just didn't want to see that school again.

It was a bit too painful for him.

Kacchan, being himself, of course transferred to UA (a school relatively close by, either way) right after him.

"I have to ask." Midoriya interrupts her. "There was a large tree between the main school building and the gym. Like, a very large one. What type of tree was it?"

"T-tree?" Uraraka looks surprised by that, staring at him in confusion. "There was a tree there? I only remember a fountain and a lawn, t-though?"

"That's… the right answer." Midoriya replies. That's when Uraraka realizes what it was about.

"Oh, you were testing me!" She exhales with relief. "I was seriously worried for a moment that my memory was wonky or something! Good idea, by the way."

No. He isn't trusting her over something like that. She could have done her research beforehand. She did pass his test, however. So, for now, he wasn't escaping the talk, instead he decided to ask some further questions.

"Yeah, I'm a bit new to all that so I'm being super cautious." He smiles back at her. "Sorry for not trusting you, but…"

"Nah, I get that it's a good idea." She replies. "I'm past my orientation, so…" She doesn't look particularly happy about that, however, her smile dimming a little.

Right, Aizawa probably spooked her good. He does that to people.

"So did you approach me because you saw a familiar face?" Midoriya decides to get to the point. He doesn't want it to feel too much like an interrogation. "I don't think that I can help you a lot, I'm a new Initiate myself."

She sighs.

"Well, after the orientation I was… honestly, it was kind of terrifying." He can relate to that. He can also relate to fidgeting when serious talks are involved. "So when I saw you… I mean, unless you were Initiated back then and were doing bad things behind the Censor, I figured out that you probably weren't going to try to do something mean to me. So I thought that I could at least… come say hello? Maybe hope to work together further down the line and… uhm…" She shrinks slightly. "...any tips on how to survive here?"

Yeah, that's a brilliant question. He is, unfortunately, the last person to ask it.

"... the only tip I have for you is to not follow a girl with messy blond hair anywhere." He replies. "She's a ghoul and I think she already mauled and ate one of the new transfer students." He glances towards the door to her lair at the other end of the library hall. "She's probably butchering him in there right now."

Uraraka glances at the door in question. She can see the concealment glyphs on them. It's easy for her to connect the dots. It's someone's permanent lair… and no one had decided to assault it yet.

"Oh." She goes slightly pale. "That's… oh. Did no one…"

"... the faculty is tolerating her presence." Midoriya interjects. "Sees her as a way of weeding out the weak. And the students… Well, she has a reputation. She wiped out the last group that tried to go after her. You need a cabal to take her down, and she doesn't target their members, so they don't have the incentive to risk their lifes without a reason. But if you're a loner, you… probably shouldn't show up around her."

She is clearly processing the revelations for a few long seconds. She's also no longer slightly pale - she's now much more pale. Very pale.

"A-and you?" She's worried about him? Odd, at least for an Initi… ahh. She's probably a new one like him.

"... I honestly think that she has a crush on me." Midoriya replies. Uraraka gives him a shocked look. "Which is really freaking me out, but in the meantime, it keeps other Candidates off my back."

He decides against mentioning certain things. Such as the fact that for some reason he didn't feel the immediate need to flee from Toga. Like he logically should. Or the fact that he was actually feeling something akin to… fascination? Curiosity? He wanted to see Toga in her more ghoulish form and…

Kacchan would probably scream at him for throwing self-preservation instinct out of the window. But he was always a massive horror nerd. A part of him was looking forward to seeing scary things, just… he wasn't exactly looking forward to risking his life.

What a conundrum.

It was probably going to shorten his estimated lifespan significantly. Damn it.

"O-oh." She glanced nervously at him and the door to Toga's lair. Then her eyes return to him. "I-I'll have that in mind. Look, I know that it's a bit too early for, you know, trust or anything, but… could we exchange contact details? On the phones. I think I'd feel better if there was at least someone I knew here."

"Oh, sure." Midoriya replies. That's actually a good idea, he considered asking for himself.

(***)

"Fascinating." Todoroki (still behind his bookshelf) says when Midoriya comes close. He is on the way out of the library, as Toga is clearly not leaving her lair and… honestly, Izuku doesn't want to see her right now.

"What?" Midoriya halts his journey and gives Todoroki a questioning stare.

"Nothing." Todoroki replies. Midoriya doesn't buy it for a second. And he must have made it visible on his face, because more words come. "You have a really strange luck when girls are involved, you know that?"

"Jealous?" Midoriya says while winking at him. He isn't sure if the joke went through.

"Yes and no." Todoroki replies. "Stay safe out there."

He has a feeling that Todoroki was hiding something, but he couldn't be sure. In a way, his utter lack of emotions - and occasional, if strange, jokes - were major assets for him. You could never be sure if he was speaking honestly or not.

In the meantime, he quickly asked Todoroki to not talk about anything that happened (or what Izuku told him) with anyone else. Yagi-sensei clearly said something about him being a blabbermouth unless explicitly told to keep something secret. Izuku decided to bank on that.

He also asked him to relay a message to Toga that he was there, but discovered that she was 'busy' and went home instead. He also told her to call him when she'd be free.

Mostly because he wanted to talk to her about Initiating Kacchan. He was planning to do it (or, at least, try to do it, it's not like he can do anything if he refuses to be Initiated) as soon as possible.

He needed someone he could trust. Being all alone (he really couldn't count Toga or Todoroki as being 'in his team', since he had no idea how to deal with the former and the latter was… himself) sucked.

(***)

"I'm hooome." Midoriya says absentmindedly after returning to his apartment. He immediately heads towards his bedroom in order to drop his backpack then.

He takes three steps. Halts abruptly. Processes it for four seconds. Then turns his back and runs into the living room/bedroom mix that his father was normally sleeping in.

It was empty.

Literally, empty.

Everything was gone. Even furniture. Only bare walls were left.

Bare walls… and a door that wasn't there yesterday. A door that, now that Izuku thought about it, had to be covered by a wardrobe.

He could see that something was scratched off them recently. Something that, he realized immediately, was probably glyphs.

"Well…" He says while staring at the mysterious door. "... fuck."

(***)

Another one bites the dust (RIP Mineta, we all know why you were lured into that room and honestly, Izuku can probably relate). Also, the challenger appears (kind of). Uraraka is here, and Todoroki is still not telling Izuku anything but clearly enjoying the mess.

And then, wham. Surprising end of the chapter. Heh. Feel free to speculate :P