Alright. Alright. I absolutely hate this page. I just discovered that I posted chapter 34 as chapter 33, and guess what? This is the third attempt to post the correct chapter because the file pastes incorrectly and I have to do it again. Fix this mess of a page, someone, please. Also I'm not writing the responses to your comments for the third time in a row, sorry.
(***)
"I am going to have to correct myself then." Yagi manages to NOT scream at them. He is amazed by his own willpower. "You've performed not two, but four feats generally considered impossible. No, wait, make that five, I forgot to add the Special Exclusion Zone discovery."
"Uhm." Izuku makes a sound, but immediately regrets it when Yagi stares daggers at him.
"Actually, my bad once more, it's not five but six impossible feats." Yagi adds dryly. "Because you've also become a Warlord, although that's connected to the SEZ discovery." Izuku shrinks a little more, Toga clearly hugging him even closer now. "And wow, looks like I have to make that seven, because you've also succeeded in bribing me."
"Eh?" Midoriya appears to be (again) surprised by his own success. "R-really? So you want to…"
"Young Midoriya, even if I don't use that knowledge myself, it's still something that I can use to make powerful, ambitious Initiates run errands for me." Yagi replies calmly. "That's extremely valuable. You just offered a potential personal tutor of yours a statue of yourself in gold as payment, who wouldn't agree to that?"
"Oh, that's… great to hear?" Izuku replies. In Toshinori's opinion, he ought to work on confidence in moments like this. "So, uhm, I assume that whether this works or not depends on what Aiko tells us. Aiko, could you share that secret with us?"
"I offered it to the frost one." Aiko replies.
"I have no problems with you telling us all at once." Todoroki replies. "For as long as the rest of us won't do anything stupid, such as trying to post the secret on facebook."
"We're not stupid, Library Freak." Bakugou retorts. "Deku is an outlier." Midoriya gives him a murderous glare (he is too tired to be nice about it to be honest), but doesn't say anything.
"Oh, okay." Aiko replies. "You need to go boom."
Silence.
"I see, so I guess it'll be one of those talks." Yagi is the one to interrupt the silence. He never talked with a Demi-Power before, but he knows how hard communication with most of the supernatural entities is. "Aiko, what do you mean by 'go boom'?"
He feels vaguely wrong by referring to her by her name, but… she doesn't have a surname, so he can't just do a 'Young X', and using her title would force him to admit to himself that he's speaking to a Demi-Power.
He prefers not to think about that.
"You take magic in, so much that you go boom." Aiko replies. "Body, boom. Mind, boom. Identity, boom. Then you build yourself back together from what's left with a thought in mind, and you become a magister. They are funny."
Oh. That explains a lot. At least to Yagi and Todoroki. The rest appear to be slightly lost, although probably not for long.
"So you need to basically go past sanity and form damage, in some particular way, so that you as an individual are basically broken apart completely. And then you reconstruct yourself from scratch?" Yagi asks. Aiko nods. Todoroki remains expressionless, but the rest appear to have caught up. "Well, that explains why the magisters aren't making this public."
"Uhm, why?" Midoriya asks. He's probably expecting something… extreme. Something, deep. Alas, not the day nor the place for that.
"Because if they made it public, Initiates left and right would have attempted to blow themselves up with magic." Todoroki decides to be helpful. "Resulting in grotesque human casualties, massive drain of magic resources and accidental creation or summoning of who knows how many crimes against nature."
"Oh, that makes sense." Izuku decides. "But it also sounds like something that keeps the magisters number low as a result, and honestly, those guys feel kind of important? Even if the only one we've run into was hostile? I mean, I only know about our forest friend and Shoto's dad, but…"
"... you can consider him hostile as well." Todoroki comments dryly, drawing eyes to himself. "What?"
"I assume that it's a test in itself, isn't it?" Yagi asks Aiko. Aiko gives him a stare filled with complete lack of comprehension. "Discovering the truth and amassing resources necessary for the ritual means that comparatively weak initiates don't get to attempt it. You have to be powerful to do so. That's probably a factor in the success rate, isn't it?"
"Uh-huh." Aiko nods. "Clay must be good."
"Clay?" Izuku asks, sparing Yagi from having to ask the question himself. .
"Uh-huh, oniichan." Aiko nods again. "Good clay, you can make good pottery. Bad clay, even if you shape it well, it'll shatter when heating. You need to be good clay to become a magister."
"How do you tell good clay from bad?" Yagi decides to continue the interrogation.
"You exist." Aiko replies. It's not helpful.
"Could you elaborate on that?" Yagi asks back.
"Good clay exists good." Aiko replies. "Bad clay exists bad." She appears to be thinking that it worked as an explanation. It didn't. Aside from Izuku, clearly enough, as he has that 'wait, I got it!' look at his face.
"Aiko, so in short…" He looks at her, the deity responding in kind. "... being 'good clay' means being successful in life? Being someone, uhm, unique, someone made special by their own hands to begin with? So, like, a famous writer or a celebrity, if you weren't an Initiate, and someone like Shoto for Initiates?"
"Uh-huh." Aiko nods. "Frost one good clay. Success very likely. No one's bad clay here, actually."
Since stalkers can't become magisters and a demihuman becoming one is almost unheard of, Yagi can only assume that she's omitting Toga and Uraraka in that assessment.
"Well, if pulling so many impossible things in short succession didn't prove Midoriya is a 'good clay', then that would set the bar way too high for anyone else." Yagi comments dryly. Midoriya gives him a vaguely insulted look. "The same about Todoroki's skills."
Speaking to them doesn't stop Yagi from being half-way through sketching a rough plan for his own apotheosis. It'll require a lot of debts and favors being called, but… and, well, there are still clear holes in the story that he needs filled first.
It also strengthens his understanding of the exact reasoning behind magisters hiding the truth of how becoming one of them looks like. People enjoy thinking that they are special and unique, even when they aren't.
How many people would attempt to become magisters, despite grossly overexaggerating their chances of surviving the process?
Making the truth public would cause massive and completely unneeded casualties among the Initiates. Initiates they all needed to keep the supernatural more or less at bay. Because while magisters are a walking definition of nuclear option, they are in the end rarely needed unless the situation fucks up seriously.
Yagi himself, if tasked with supernatural security of some area, would have preferred ten highly qualified 'normal' Initiates (like himself or Aizawa) to a single magister. You needed a certain number of them nationwide to be called for help when shit really hit the fan, though.
In the meantime, he has to know more.
"I have two more questions for you about it, Aiko." Yagi says. "First one is as follows: What exactly makes magisters so resistant to sanity and form damage?"
"Clay is clay." Aiko replies. "It can change shape. Pottery can't, unless broken."
And that explains an awful lot. He can see on Todoroki's face (despite it being mostly expressionless, as always) that he isn't the only person who realized the truth. Seeing as the others look lost, Yagi decides to explain it to them.
"'Convince magister to do something' is considered an idiom meaning doing something impossible or very hard." Yagi says. "They are… slow to change their opinions and worldviews, so to speak. It makes perfect sense if, as Aiko claims, they are 'pottery' now. Hard to 'change', as a result."
"Which also explains why they no-sell all but the strongest sanity or form damage." Shoto sighs. "I should probably work on my emotional expressions a little before I try that. Because I'm not sure if I want to stay like this for the rest of my life."
"At least you're aware that you aren't supposed to be like that, Library Freak." Bakugou grumbles from his seat. Todoroki gives him an expressionless stare, but says nothing.
"And now, the second question." Yagi decides to move over to the important thing. "Aiko, I need to know more about the ritual in question. I'm mostly curious about two things: the 'thought in mind' you mentioned earlier and the magic used to 'break' yourself."
"Uh-huh." Aiko nods. "Thought is some concept that you built yourself around. It becomes your name. As for magic, it has to be a lot of it, but from more than one Power at once. So their influence cancels or overwrites each other and leaves you space to wiggle in."
Oh. OH. That makes perfect sense. Using just a single type of overpowering influence would just make you into a smaller version of whatever Power you employed. More than one, in the meantime…
"Do you have to use the magic connected to the Power you're most proficient in, or is it more of a 'pick whatever is available to you'?" Yagi decides to clarify that small part, because it's the biggest remaining hole in his knowledge.
"Whatever's available to you." Aiko replies. "It's just fuel. But they have to be from different families. Also, Archons and Ancients don't mesh well with each other."
Well, that's about everything that Yagi Toshinori needs to know to have a shot at becoming a magister.
That is, once he parses what he just learned with what he already managed to gather, cross-references all gained intel to make sure that it fits and throws a few snippets of his pre-established knowledge out of the window (they were clearly someone's misdirection that he previously fell for).
"Well, I'll most likely ask you for a final assessment of my preparations before I try it." Yagi says to Aiko. "But in the meantime, that's all that I wanted to know. Young Todoroki, anything more to ask about?"
He shakes his head.
"Good, so I believe that we can conclude this meeting officially." Yagi announces. "You fulfilled your side of the deal appropriately, so you can expect my continued… patronage. I'll start by driving you all home, especially Midoriya."
That kid being seen in public before Todoroki gets the Warlord to agree to the armistice and prepare a Summit to discuss the situation sounds like a great way to get him assassinated. Or kidnapped.
Toga whispers something to Midoriya's ear. He looks vaguely surprised, then glances back at Yagi.
"Uhm, T…, err, Himichan is going home with me and Ochako." Izuku announces. Uraraka looks like she doesn't enjoy that fact at all, but decides to not complain about it at that time. Yagi, honestly, doesn't care about their love drama for as long as they don't murder each other over it.
He is honestly surprised they murdered each other only once, and it was the one type of murder among them that doesn't cause any paperwork.
He would like to add 'and a feeling of loss, a sadness caused by a young life being extinguished', but one of them is dead and the other IS a cause of many young lives being extinguished. Yagi literally couldn't care less about either of them dying, if he is to be honest.
"Very well then." Yagi nods. "What about Aiko? I have no idea how the Special Exclusion Zone works, so…"
"Oh, uhm, no problem with that!" Izuku says quickly. "I just have to open the door on UA ground with the intent to go there and voila. I can also bestow the same right to other people by giving them special keys that I can craft there from contribution points."
Less than a minute later, he gives Aiko a hug. The deity hugs him back, before saying them all goodbye and walking back into the Special Exclusion Zone.
Izuku isn't sure if he likes how quiet Himichan is the whole time. Sure, being hugged by her constantly is nice, but… seeing her like this isn't nice.
He knows that she is a ghoul. A murderer. A predator that's supposed to prey on people like him. But… he grew attached. Very, very attached. Not even about all the sex things they were doing (although she was extremely sexy and somehow she always knew how to make him conscious of that), just…
… it was fun to have her around?
She was kinky, but in the funny slash comedic relief way (at least publicly).
Yes. Izuku remembered the fact that she was a ghoul. He just… didn't really feel it. He never saw her actually eat someone, so for him the whole 'she eats human' was… something he knew, but he didn't feel.
Except for Geten's fingers thing, but let's be real, that guy was a murderous asshat. Izuku mentally treated him as an outlier.
He feels like he reached the point where he had enough 'other' friends to have a shot at successfully killing her without much repercussions, for as long as they managed to draw her into an ambush (which shouldn't be hard considering how trusting she was towards Midoriya), but…
He just couldn't do it.
If he was to be honest, it bothered him at night.
Izuku honestly had no idea what he was going to do after returning home from the most epic (and tiring) field trip of his life. Sit down on the couch and just… watch the TV until he grows tired enough to go to sleep? He wasn't sure if the three of them were in any shape to even talk about what happened.
Then he sat on the couch. Before he had time to do anything, Himiko practically jumped after him. Three or four seconds later it became apparent that Toga was just waiting for him to sit on the couch so she could land on him and bury her face into his chest.
Mental changes brought by sanity damage were no joke. Even if they were supposed to be temporary, unless you get a really bad hit.
Uraraka somehow managed to grab a knife in the meantime. Izuku gave her 'please don't start a fight' look, and she put it down, but it was rather clear that she didn't enjoy that fact all that much.
"Himichan?" Izuku asks softly, hugging her back. "What's wrong?"
"I-I'm sowwy." She lets out. Izuku never expected to hear that from her, and he isn't sure how to even respond to that. His ability to feel emotions is… drained for today. Might be some leftover sanity damage.
"For?" Izuku asks. Uraraka decides to sit on the couch behind Toga. She is on edge, metaphorically and literally, if Izuku is to be honest.
"F-for e-everything." Himiko replies, her voice still shaky, but slightly clearer. "F-for b-being a g-ghoul, f-for e-eating p-people, f-for t-teasing y-you, f-for n-not b-being u-useful, a-and f-for b-being t-there, you d-deserve b-b-better and I…"
Her voice fails her and Izuku has a moment to think. A moment to try to comprehend what was just happening.
Who was he speaking with right now? Was it the feared Nightmare of Blood, the murderous ghoul of UA, or did the sanity damage pull the Himiko Toga, the initiate that died for the Nightmare to be born out into the light? Was that even a possibility?
He can feel the front of his T-shirt getting wet. He can hear her sobbing. He… he has no idea what to do right now. He chalked her behavior down to getting some sort of Fear debuff and ignored her, instead of…
Shit. Now he feels bad about it. Should he be feeling bad about it? She's a ghoul, dammit, he should…
He hugs her closer.
"It's alright." He says softly, while Toga keeps clinging to him. "I'm not angry at you for that."
"Y-you should b-be angry!" She raises her voice, then appears terrified of the fact that she did so. "I-I'm a m-monster, I… w-why I d-didn't s-see that e-earlier, w-why I w-was a-alright with that and…"
Yeah. It's positive. Something (the aberrant's sanity damage, most likely) has made her mind more… human? Human again? If that continues, it would be… bad. How can one be a ghoul while abhorring cannibalism?
How to calm her down? In her state… What if she does something drastic? Why is she even clinging to him so much, he's just… They are, kind of, in a relationship, but… how much does he actually know about her?
It was a lot of 18+ actions, some tidbits of knowledge about her ghoulish endeavors on the UA (like the fact that she killed a lot of people), but… did they ever, like… tried to get to know each other?
"It's alright, Himichan." He decides to pat her head a little. It worked with Uraraka, right? "You were doing that to survive, that's…"
"I w-wasn't!" He realizes from her tone of voice alone that he did something wrong. "I… I e-enjoyed it! I c-could h-hunt l-less o-often if I w-wanted to but I d-didn't! I-if n-not for y-your c-charm I'd k-kill you, I'd k-kill you all at s-some p-point and…"
What is Izuku supposed to say now?
Well, that's good to know? But hey, it doesn't matter, because I still love you?
Uhm, no. There is a point where he has to draw a line. There is a point where he has to say 'Enough!'. He could understand Toga killing to survive. It's a sad reality, but he doesn't think that he can spend his entire life without doing the same thing to other people. But to go beyond that… to just kill because you felt like it…
Then again, it was Nightmare of Blood's doing. The girl that was crying into him… it wasn't the same person. There was a chance - a big one - that the Nightmare would be back for more tomorrow morning or a bit later than that, but…
"Then hunt only as much as you have to from now on, Himichan." Izuku replies. He notices Uraraka's eyes go wider in the background. Yeah, not what she expected him to say. Honestly, not what Izuku expected himself to say. "It wasn't you who did that, it was the Nightmare of Blood. It's like being mind-controlled, you weren't yourself, Himichan. It doesn't count."
She pulls her head back from his chest, looking at his face. What was she looking for (tears streaming off her face)? Signs of Izuku just lying to her? Good luck trying, Izuku is extremely, one hundred percent sure that he meant it.
He might be an idiot. He is almost sure that Todoroki would have looked at him weirdly. This isn't the sort of world where being universally forgiving and helpful will equally universally pay back. But he just… he just doesn't want to make it worse.
Uraraka is staring at him over Toga. Izuku has no idea how to describe the look on her face now. Is he doing something wrong?
He has no idea. And it might be some sort of leftover sanity-damage induced mental damage speaking for him. Will his decision still make sense for him tomorrow? He has no idea.
He gestures at Uraraka, asking her - no, begging her - to take the couch for the day. He really thinks that Toga is in no shape to sleep alone. Thankfully, she agrees, although it's clear that she doesn't like it.
Toga keeps crying into him.
(***)
Izuku wakes up in the morning painfully aware of two things.
One, he was lying in his bed, on his back - with Toga lying on him.
Two, she was entirely naked and awake. And, judging from her mischievous smile, she did all of that on purpose.
"So, Zuku, my beloved." She raises her upper body. Her lower body is still resting comfortably on him, although judging from the positioning alone, it's not going to stay comfortable for him for a long t… oh, crap, it's already not comfortable at all. "Looks like you're very happy to see me."
… in all honesty, yes. Yes, he does. He never really saw her body, especially up close and in full detail. Now he does, and…
Wow.
Himiko is… lean. Lean, but it's rather clear that there isn't an ounce of spare fat on her body, aside from her breast area that is. Everything else are muscles. She isn't sculpted, she doesn't have to be since she is naturally stronger than normal humans, but…
It's a very beautiful body. And one that fit a man-eating predator very much.
"Your pajamas aren't particularly… thick." Toga says, while grinning at him wryly. "You think that we can get there together without taking them off? Just with some… friction?" She immediately makes it clear what she means by it. By actually starting to test that.
"You could have at least given me a wake-up kiss first, Himichan." Izuku smiles. Himiko's smiles like a (very fallen) angel, and leans forward for it. Their lips meet, their tongues intertwine. Himiko is about to pull back from the kiss when she discovers his hands on both sides of her head.
He isn't letting her go.
"If you wanted a longer kiss, you just had to ask…" Himiko decides to tease him some more..
"I…" Izuku replies, the smile on his face suddenly gone. "... want to talk about what I learned about you yesterday."
"I don't know what you mean by it." Toga replies quickly. Too quickly. "And could you please…"
"I think…" Izuku replies dryly, almost coldly. "... that getting two-handed Ignition point blank to the head is going to hurt you much more than it'll hurt me, Himichan." He can see her eyes go wide. "And even if you kill me, I expect an awful lot of people to be going after you. From Kacchan through Shiozaki to, probably, Todoroki. Actually, are you sure that since our deal, you won't also end up on Yagi-sensei's personal shitlist?"
Silence. Her eyes grow narrow. He knows that he's going to lose the fight in the close-quarters, but she also knows that she'll come out of it very injured. And with a lot of enemies.
"So, am I talking with Himiko Toga…" Izuku continues. "... or the Nightmare of Blood? Because while I find the former one to be one of the sexiest girls I've ever seen, I have to draw a line somewhere. And killing for fun rather than in self-defense or because you have to is a good place to start."
Their eyes are locked with each other for a longer time. Neither of them say anything. Eventually, to his surprise, it's Toga that averts her eyes.
"I… don't know." She replies. "I like hunting. I like killing people. But, I like it but I also don't like it. And I don't like myself for liking it. It… wasn't there before. I have no idea what happened to me."
"And that… very in-character way of waking me up?" Izuku asks back, his hands still on her head.
"I guess that Himiko Toga and the Nightmare of Blood agree completely when you're involved." Toga replies. "I think I just… tried to not think about what I am for a moment, alright?"
"Himichan, look at me." He says. And, clearly against herself, she does. Their eyes stay locked with each other for a few long seconds. "I'm going to trust you and take my hands off your head. But we're going to have to establish some rules, Himiko."
He takes his hands off her as promised. She doesn't attack him. It doesn't seem like she even considered that. His charm was holding steady.
"No more killing because you feel like it." Izuku says. Calmly. Authoritatively, even. "You kill only as many people as you need to live without your health being impaired. And you only attack humans for food if you didn't get to kill any in valid self-defense, and if there are no devolved demihumans in the vicinity that you can eat instead, got it?"
"They are… stronger than average Initiates." Her eyes start drifting to the side. Is that guilt on her face? "I can easily get injured and…"
"Himichan." Izuku cuts in. Her eyes cut back to his own. "You're not alone anymore. You can ask us for help in hunting them. And if someone attacks us with clear intent to kill, it's free hunting season, even if they can speak human language, got it?"
"Y-yeah." She replies, only for her eyes to start drifting to the side. "Can we, uhm, can we get back to what we were doing? I just… I think I need it even more. To, you know, not think about it for a moment and, uhm, focus on what I'm sure I'm actually okay with. Please?"
He agrees. The atmosphere is a bit awkward in the beginning (Izuku is ready to blast her with his magic if she tries something funny, to be honest), but then she appears to be back to her standard behavior. Midoriya, when stuff like that is involved, enjoys her standard behavior.
They are too into it to notice Uraraka standing behind the bedroom door, hearing the whole exchange in detail.