Kyouka Jirou was a normal girl.
Well, as normal as one could be in a world of people with superpowers.
Yes, you read that right.
Superpowers.
The year is 2148.
80% of the population has developed a unique ability or trait ubiquitously referred to as a "quirk".
These quirks can range from super strength, to flight, to telekinesis, and even the ability to see the future.
Kyouka's quirk wasn't anything too special, it just manifested as a pair of headphone jacks that hung from her earlobes.
If she plugged them into something, she could channel the sound of her heartbeat through them to create violent vibrations and her hearing was enhanced as well.
It wasn't a flashy quirk, but it was hers.
And it was hers to use to become a hero.
It was strange how certain thoughts seemed to come to people at certain times.
Even stranger, that these thoughts in particular came to Kyouka as she was about to die.
Pain.
That was all she could feel at that moment.
A burning, chilling, cutting pain where her throat was.
The ground beneath her was cold, hard, uncomfortable
Her back hurt too.
Her eyes stung, her vision was wavy, she felt cold drops of… something roll down her cheeks.
The alley walls to her sides and the night sky above her trembled.
She heard laughing, a girl's.
Why was there a girl there?
Why was she there?
Why did her throat hurt?
Why couldn't she breathe?
Why was she dying?
Her vision was drowned in a disgusting golden yellow- no, an angry ruby red.
Her fingers twitched.
Her hearing was fading in and out, accompanied by an awful ringing.
A voice.
A girl's voice.
That same voice that was laughing.
It was closer, louder.
So loud that when the voice's owner spoke, her words echoed.
"Sorry for jumping on you like that. I just couldn't help myself, y'know. You looked sooo cute! I just had to get a taste."
Get away from me.
She felt her lips begin to move, a vibration in her throat, and then-
Pain.
Hack! Cough! Hack!
"Oh, oh, careful now! I'm not sure what it was, but I'm pretty sure I cut something important. Honestly, I'm surprised that you're even still alive right now."
Cold.
She felt so cold.
Sharp teeth and red- blood, her blood- filled her vision.
I don't wanna die…
Her vision was fading.
The alleyway around her grew darker, the air more oppressive.
She felt colder.
She was freezing.
And then, she heard a voice.
Young or old, bassy or trebled, man or woman, she could hear it all at once.
A chorus of voices, all at once, a range of pitches, altogether, they spoke from the shadows all around.
"I can fly like a bird, not in the sky, which can always swim and always dry. I say 'goodbye' at night and in the morning, 'hi'. I'm part of you, what am I?"
What?
Her killer seemed confused as well.
"Huh?"
Kyouka saw a glint of something and then the sound of something tearing, and something else cracking.
The smell of metal filled the air.
It was pungent, sickening.
If her throat wasn't ravaged, it would be enough to make her throw up.
"The answer was 'shadow'. Honestly, I did the whole bit with the shadows and everything."
Green and red.
Green and red, that's what she saw.
Green and red, boring straight into her.
The voice that accompanied those colors was young and brash, it couldn't have belonged to anyone older than sixteen.
Her vision was growing darker.
"Now. What to do with you?"
Kyouka's eyes fluttered open
She was laying on something.
Something soft.
The room she was in was bright.
It hurt her eyes.
She looked to the side.
A bedside table that she didn't recognize.
A glass of water on that bedside table.
It was only then that Kyouka realized how dry her mouth was.
Within moments, there was an empty glass on the bedside table.
Her thirst slaked, the purple-haired girl took in more of her surroundings.
It was a bedroom, a fancy one.
There was a vanity on the other side of the room.
It looked like it was worth ten of her at just a glance.
Then there was the light on the ceiling, the source of the irritating brightness.
Though to simply call it a 'light' would be massively understating it.
The 'light' was a massive chandelier, shimmering with crystals and glass and probably fucking diamonds for all she knew.
And there was the bed.
If it weren't for the fact that Kyouka had been sure that she was bleeding and dying in an alleyway mere moments before and didn't understand why she wasn't at that moment, she could've and would've laid in that bed forever.
It felt like she was laying on a cloud.
Major upgrade from bloody concrete.
Speaking of bloody concrete…
How did I get here?
"Ah good, you're awake."
Kyouka jumped.
Her eyes darted around the room, searching for the source of the… oddly familiar voice.
"If you're looking for me, you're in the wrong place. Get out of bed, walk down the hall and take right up the stairs. From there, just follow the sounds of bitchfit, and you'll get here soon enough."
Young and brash, and a bit… crass, as well.
Even so, she felt somewhat compelled to follow its instructions.
She had considered not listening to the voice in her head that had appeared when she was dying, but in the end, she rationalized that that wouldn't get her any closer to figuring out what had happened.
So, she swung her over the side of bed, her bare feet touching the plush carpet below.
It appeared that someone had also undressed her.
She distinctly remembered leaving her home dressed in a t-shirt and jeans.
The nightgown she was wearing was a bit big on her.
A loan from her mysterious benefactor/possible kidnapper?
It was likely.
She needed more concrete answers.
She walked across the very spacious, yet sparsely decorated room to the door on the far wall.
Her hand grasped the ornate golden door handle.
Down the hall, right up the stairs.
These directions in mind, pushed the door handle down and went on her way.
rich
Adjective
having a lot of money or valuable possessions
Example(s):
'His great success in the day trading business has made him quite rich.'
Rich is a word that Kyouka has heard used by a wide variety of people throughout her life.
Kids with big allowances in elementary school.
The owner of the music shop that she used to visit in Junior High.
Asshole playboys that flaunted whatever cash they had around at her part-time job in High School.
A lot of people would throw around the word 'rich' to make whatever earnings they made seem more impressive than what they actually were.
There were very few people who could claim to be rich and actually have the assets to back up their claims.
The owner of the home that she was currently in, they were definitely of the few.
Every inch of the home that she traveled through simply screamed opulence.
Granted, she had only walked through two-and-a-half hallways and up a single flight of stairs, but that was a very minor detail.
Just by eyeballing them she could guess that altogether the paintings, the carpet, the wall lights, the wallpaper all ran a cool hundred mil at least.
That was what she would call rich.
So maybe, just maybe, she got incredibly lucky and got saved by somebody with enough money to tell Death to fuck off.
"Sure, let's go with that. Now move your ass. She's still yelling. And it's getting awkward for me…"
She?
"Less thinking, more hauling ass."
Ah, right!
She rounded another corner and heard something from the far end of the next hall.
The sound of someone yelling.
"- T THE ACTUAL FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!"
She stopped dead in her tracks.
Did she really want to-?
"Oh, quit being a pussy and walk down the hall!"
Listen to the voice in her head that was currently at her?
Yup, no doubt.
She was in front of the door that the ruckus was emerging from in a blink.
She didn't even remember moving her legs.
"OF ALL THE IDIOTIC JUVENILE THINGS THAT YOUR GREEN-HAIRED SMUG ASS-!"
"Get ready to knock."
Huh?
"Knock in 3… 2… 1!"
"Wait, where do you think you're going?! Get back here, you-!"
Knock! Knock! Knock!
Kyouka heard a sound more akin to a wild animal than a human woman, and then a sigh.
Moments later, she heard a subdued but still authoritative, 'Come in.'
She complied-
"Ah, I see that you're awake. Welcome."
-and realized that she was incorrect in her initial assessment of her benefactor's financial status.
They were not rich.
No, they were-
ultrarich
adjective
ul· tra· rich | \ ˌəl-trə-ˈrich \
extremely or extraordinarily rich
Example(s): Man, that's an Oil Tycoon. He's not just rich, he's Ultrarich!
How did her initial assessments of this person's finances change so quickly upon meeting one woman?
Well, that's quite simple.
It's because that one woman, who was smiling at her politely from behind an impressive mahogany desk, was Momo Yaoyorozu.
The Yaoyorozu Zaibatsu was one of the largest organizations in the world.
A massive conglomerate composed of a successful trading company, several construction businesses, and several dozen hero and support company ventures.
If anyone could claim that they had 'more money than God' it would be the family at the heart of the conglomerate.
They just seemed to be a cut above the rest of society.
And the heir to the family, Momo Yaoyorozu, was a specimen among specimens.
Being born with enough money to buy Japan would be enough to make anyone a wee bit… pompous.
But according to most people who had met her, she could hardly be regarded as haughty or rude on most occasions.
On the contrary, she was cited as being rather kind and polite, the kind of person who'd see someone in trouble and do everything in her power to help them out of it.
This, alongside her athletic achievements in Olympic Marksmanship and martial arts and her academic achievements, have netted her something of an independent minor celebrity following.
A following that just so happened to include Kyouka amongst their ranks.
The woman just… inspired her.
And, well, Kyouka wasn't gay, but she couldn't deny that the young heiress was pretty hot.
"You should take a seat, I'll grab us some glasses. Is red good for you?"
Red?
"Wine."
Oh.
"I'm… underage."
The black haired scion gave her a little smile with a finger to her lips.
Kyouka thought her heart stopped.
"I won't tell if you won't."
"Um… uh… O-okay."
She heard a snort.
"Simp."
She paid the voice in her head no mind and accepted the glass of crimson liquid with all the grace of a young, sexually-inexperienced, possibly bisexual college-aged girl.
She made no move to drink from it, mostly because she accepted it on a whim with no regard for her own alcohol tolerance or lack thereof, due to the fact that she was incredibly straitlaced and didn't like the taste of most alcohols.
"C'mon. Drink it. Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug!"
She watched as Miss Yaoyorozu took a sip from her own glass.
Watched the bobbing of her throat as the rose-colored beverage slid down from between her full and perfect lips.
Listened to the pure satisfaction in her short sigh afterward.
Everything the woman did was just majestic.
"Jeez, and they call me the pet. Talk about a bitch in heat."
Please let me have this, Strange Manifestation of My Possible Mental Deterioration Due To a Near Death Experience.
"Alright, you know what? Whatever. I'm going for a walk. Just be sure to stop soaking your panties long enough to listen to what she's going to say next. Because if you call me that again, I'm just going to shoot you."
Mhm.
She felt an outward feeling of slight disapproval and disgust, but paid it no mind as the black-haired woman looked her directly in the eye and began to speak.
"So, I understand that you may be confused and that you may have questions, but I ask that you listen closely and don't interrupt until the end. Alright?"
Kyouka nodded mutely.
"Alright, so to get the most shocking bit of information out of the way first, let me tell you this: you were attacked, nearly killed, and then actually killed by a subordinate of mine and brought back as a creature of the night."
"...what?"
"Oh, don't worry. Like I said, that's the most startling bit of information. Everything that I explain from here on will either be slightly less or just as world-breaking as the change in nature that your mortality has undergone just was."
"I repeat: what?"
Nosferatu.
Known as 'Vampires' to the common man.
Vampires are powerful demons created from a human virgin drained of blood by a vampire of the opposite sex, only for the same vampire to offer their own blood in return.
A simple enough process to facilitate the creation of one of the most powerful creatures to exist on Earth.
However-
"Wait wait wait! Hold on a sec."
Kyouka needed an answer to the question that was rolling about in her mind, and she felt that it couldn't wait until the end of what was likely to be a fairly extensive exposition dump.
She couldn't help but feel her heart sink when she noticed the look of disapproval on Miss Yaoyorozu's face, though.
However, seeing as she was given the go-ahead to speak her mind, she pushed on.
"You said it was one of your subordinates that well…"
"Killed and turned you?"
"Uh… yeah."
She was just gonna have to repress the wild mix of emotions that rose up whenever she was reminded that she was dead, for the sake of her own mental health.
"Ahem. Well, that would mean they're a…"
"Vampire, yes."
"I-I see."
"That leads me to the next point."
Vampirism was something a trial for those afflicted.
The thirst for human blood was relentless, especially amongst newborns.
And because the condition made them far stronger than most humans, even with meta-abilities, mortal beings became the perfect prey.
This is what led to the creation of the Hellsing Organization.
A specialized institution based in Britain, who protected the nation's borders and dealt with high value targets.
They answered directly to The Queen and were an integral part of the true power-structure of the western power.
The Yaoyorozu Zaibatsu was a subsidiary of the original outfit that was stationed in Aichi Prefecture in Japan and established in 2092, headed by Motoharu Yaoyorozu.
"And the subordinate that turned you last night was a gift from the main organization, sent here over fifty years ago. And while he's certainly… unique, he's one of our best operatives."
Kyouka didn't know how to feel about that strange pause, and she didn't have time to worry about how she felt about it, as Miss Yaoyorozu continued.
"You were attacked last night by a newborn who we believe is responsible for a number of attacks around Japan. We'd been tracking her movements and had hoped to capture her, but I assume you remember how that ended."
The smell of metal filled the air.
It was pungent, sickening.
She nodded.
The Yaoyorozu scion took another pull of her wine, emptying the glass before setting the crystalline instrument on the desk.
Even her hands are perfect.
"Now there's the matter of what to do with you."
The short-haired young woman ceased her ogling and snapped to attention.
"Huh?"
Kyouka Jirou had a new job.
A job as a personal secretary.
A job that she honestly would have been elated to have a mere 48 hours before simply because of who she was working directly under.
Granted the situation could've been better-
"We have a position open. One that comes with free room and board as well."
"Um… what happens if I say no?"
"You die. And you stay dead this time."
-but beggars can't be choosers.
"So you see, that's the situation. We're sorry that you're receiving this news so suddenly."
This is how Kyouka found herself back in her parent's home, sat next to her new employer as she had her new position explained to her father for her.
The talk was going incredibly well.
"Oh no, this is wonderful news! To think that our Kyouka's getting the chance to work for the Yaoyorozu Zaibatsu! I've always known that she'd go places. That's my girl!"
The Yaoyorozu heiress really did live up to all of the rumors.
When she spoke, she was clear, concise, and charming.
She just presented herself as the type of woman people wanted to trust.
So when it came time to convince Kyouka's father that it would be for the very best that his daughter move to Yaoyorozu Family Residence in Aichi, it was no surprise that the man was eating out of the palm of her hand.
"Dad, please."
"You're all quite spirited, aren't you?"
God, her giggle's so cute.
"How are you still standing in her presence with your ovaries exploding every ten seconds?"
Please stop speaking in my head at random to insult me.
"Stop giving me things to insult and maybe I will."
Kyouka held back a sigh.
It was no use arguing with the voice of her sire who she hadn't even met in person.
Miss Yaoyorozu had explained that, as a creature of the night, she had developed some kind of a telepathic link with the vampire who had sired her.
He could both hear her thoughts and transmit his own directly into her mind.
It had been less than 50 hours and she already wanted to lobotomize herself.
"Aw, I love you too Koko."
My name is Kyouka.
"When you've done something to make me remember it, tell it to me again."
You're an asshole.
"I'm an asshole, what?"
I'm not calling you that.
"Well then, I suppose you wouldn't like to hear little Momo's three sizes…"
Her jaw clenched.
She could feel her jaw clench.
"I'm waiting~"
…You are an asshole… Master.
Cackles erupted in her mind.
She was almost certain that he didn't have to do that.
He just wanted her to hear him laughing at her.
It was said before, it would be said again.
Kyouka Jiro's sire… was an asshole.
"You be sure to come visit a ton, alright?"
"I will."
"And call your mother a bunch too, it's sad enough that she wasn't able to come see you off. She'll really want to hear your voice more now that you're going away."
"I will."
"And don't go bringing any boys to our doorstep, I'll chase those chumps off with fire and fury if ya do!"
"Got it. Expect to meet my three girlfriends here the week after next."
"Three?! Damn, my girl grew up to be a player! Must get it from her dad."
"I'll tell Mom you said that. I'm sure she'll be proud too."
"...Please don't."
Kyouka chuckled.
Her parents were dope, but they could both be dorks too.
Miss Yaoyorozu was already sitting in the backseat of the sleek black sedan that they had driven to their home. She'd received a call when Kyouka had gone to her room to pack her bags.
The Driver, a kindly looking older man with dark eyes and an otherwise unremarkable visage, graciously took her bags and loaded them into the car for her to give her a moment to say goodbye to her father.
"Hey Kyo, listen. I just wanna say… good luck. With the entrance exam, I mean. I know that I've been a bit hesitant in regards to you becoming a hero, but that's because- well, I just thought it'd be good for you to have a backup plan. But backup plans don't really get any better than what you've got going now, so… go get 'em, champ."
She wrapped her arms around her dork of a dad and hugged him, making sure to keep her grip light so that she didn't accidentally crush his ribcage.
She felt arms wrap around her, she leaned further into the touch.
Their embrace was short- twenty, maybe thirty seconds- but even so, after the past two days that she had just had, it made her feel more secure than anything else in the world.
"You come from a good family, Kyouka."
They were on their way back to the manor when Miss Yaoyorozu offered her this compliment.
"Oh! Um, thank you, Miss Yaoyorozu."
It was sudden and unprompted, but wholly appreciated.
"No need to thank me. I'm just making an observation out loud."
"Ah, um, okay."
The conversation petered out there and silence filled the vehicle.
Kyouka started fiddling with her earlobe jacks, a nervous habit that she'd picked up from her mother a long while ago. Absent-mindedly, the short haired girl noted how lovely the night sky was.
Miss Yaoyorozu had pulled out a folder from a tray in the seat in front of her and began scanning through the documents within it intently.
The Driver stayed focused on the road ahead, which was a lot more vacant and… forest-y than she remembered.
They… didn't go through a forest to get to Shizuoka before, did they?
"Keep quiet and watch. It's your first real day on the job after all."
Kyouka… really didn't like the sound of that.
The road that they were on ended before it could go any deeper into the forest.
The Driver stopped the car at the end of the road and spoke as he unbuckled and exited the vehicle.
"I'll go on ahead."
Miss Yaoyorozu nodded.
The Driver said nothing more, but he did spare another look at Kyouka.
A look was all it was, but for some reason, it made Kyouka's stomach drop slightly.
Moments later, he was gone.
"Hey Koko."
Kyouka.
"Don't care. Take a look at this."
She gasped as her vision went dark and her hearing cut like someone had torn out a plug out an amp.
When her vision returned, she was no longer in the car.
Not in the forest on her own two feet or anything like that.
She wasn't anywhere that she'd be able to get on her own two feet as far as she was aware.
No, she was perched high above a forest clearing.
A forest clearing filled with… people?
"Not quite. Take a closer look… and a longer sniff."
All at once, her vision and sense of smell became sharper.
The former made her balk, the latter made her gag.
Are those zombies?!
Walking, rotting, milling corpses.
Around fifty of them wandered about the clearing with no real direction or objective.
It reminded her a little bit of some of those old pre-quirk era comics that she had found once.
"Technically they're ghouls. They're essentially failed vampires. What you would've become had you ever gone past first base before I found you the other night."
Kyouka felt herself become sick.
"Choke it down. Lesson's not over yet and you're not even looking through your own eyes anyway. Now, see the prick there in the center of the clearing?"
Her vision shifted again, this time landing on a particularly… Well, 'ghoulish man' would be a bit on the nose when one considered the current situation.
His red eyes were wide and beady, his skin pale and unhealthy, frame tall and lanky, his overall demeanor the picture of impatience.
He was waiting for someone, and as she thought for a moment, she formed an idea as to who it was.
"I'll give you three guesses. The first two don't count."
We're here to… kill him?
"Correct. Well, I'm here to kill him. You're here to sit back and learn how to do the work that we do. So start taking notes. The lesson's about to start."
With that, her vision shifted once more and she noticed new movement.
From the trees, out walked a familiar face.
This is where he…?
What was The Driver doing there?
Why was he walking into the middle of the field of ghouls, straight at the actual vampire among them?
He just ambled along, straight through the horde until he reached the center and stood right in front of the vampire who stared at the older gentleman dumbfounded.
The Driver smiled softly before taking out a handgun-
BANG!
-and blowing a hole in the back of the head of a ghoul right next to him.
Smoke rose from the barrel as everything seemed to just… sit still for a moment.
Even with her impressive hearing, Kyouka was straining to pick up any sound besides the rustling of the branches and leaves in the trees.
And then suddenly, all at once, all hell broke loose.
The vampire broke out of his stupor and simply waved a hand.
Moments later, Kyouka watched in horror as the kindly older man who she had seen not even five minutes before was swarmed and torn to pieces by the horde of ghouls.
Like a deer ripped apart by a pack of starving wolves, the ghouls brought him to the ground, each of them biting at whatever inch of flesh they could find, ripping the bits off and digging into the muscles and sinew below.
Kyouka felt herself draw closer.
Not of any conscious will on her part.
No. It felt like one of those on-rail VR experiences that they would show off at the mall.
This one showing off a gritty grindhouse film.
He was being eaten.
He was being eaten.
His left eye was gouged out. His ears were no longer there.
His organs were being consumed, ripped out and shoved into the next waiting mouth.
Then the skin of his face was being peeled off.
A hole was opened in his skull, and teeth sank into his exposed, bulging brain.
He didn't scream. Didn't struggle. Didn't pray for God or call for help.
His one remaining eye stared forward blankly.
Glazed over like they were covered in film.
Blood splattered across the bridge of what was left of his nose.
He was gone.
Kyouka was sure of it.
And yet, before he was consumed completely, she swore that she saw something.
For the briefest of moments- less than the blink of an eye, really- she could swear that she saw his eye flicker to her.
To exactly where her perspective sat to view the carnage.
She couldn't move on her own if she wanted to, but she was certain that if she were in control of her own body, she wouldn't have even been able to will herself to run.
And if that look wasn't to haunt her nightmares for the decade, the smile on what was left of his lips would have been.
Why are you showing me this?
"Shhh. We're about to get to the best part."
The ghouls ate and ate and ate, and the blood from The Driver's body pooled and pooled and pooled.
And then, under the cover of night, in the darkness and through the brush, it crawled.
Like a swarm of bugs, it crawled until it found itself behind the vampire.
And then it rose.
Higher and higher and higher still until it reached the height of the vampire's shoulder blades.
And from there, it formed into a person.
A young man, no older than sixteen at most.
A young man wearing grey slacks with a matching vest and a foam button green shirt.
A young man with messy green hair and mismatched eyes; one green, one red, both filled with an unfitting feeling for the situation in front of him.
Mirth.
Kyouka knew he was in an instant.
He raised a gloved hand, his fingers twitched slightly as he smiled much like The Driver did moments ago.
And much like The Driver did as well, the young man looked directly at her.
"Lesson one-"
Kyouka saw a glint of metal reflecting off of the moonlight.
Seconds later, the ghouls, who were just finishing their feast, exploded into a shower of gore and blood.
And the vampire who had created and commanded them was once again shocked into a stupor.
A stupor that didn't last long as the greenette pulled out another handgun-one much more lavish and distinct than the first with its gold trimmings and engravings- and put it to the back of the unaware ghoul-maker's head.
With a single pull of the trigger-
BANG!
-there was a vampire in the clearing without a head.
And Kyouka's vision went dark once more.
When it cleared again, she was no longer in the forest.
She was staring directly into pools of red and green.
Wha-?
And then a familiar voice filled her ears, originating from directly in front of her.
"Lesson one: We do a little trolling here and there."
For the first time since she'd been introduced to world of the supernatural, Kyouka found herself screaming in absolute terror.
"Izuku, stop that!"
"Make me!"
And unfortunately for her, it would only be the first time that her unrepentant sire was responsible for it.
