An olfactory illusion of smell permeates the air, a metallic mixture of copper and iron generating rust. The aroma is more delicious than any flavor. A young girl inhales the scent through her nose, her cheeks puffing up from the air flowing in until they turn red. She squeals like the little schoolgirl that she is while she blushes intently, skipping in the direction of the alluring fragrance. Her navy blue skirt flicks and swishes with every hop, swaying in sync with the loose red neckerchief tied around her Kansai collar. Blonde buns bounce atop her tiny head as she prances merrily along the canal that stretches beside the desolate street of her neighborhood.
She slides down the empty channel like it's a slide on a playground, giggling on the way down. Once she reaches the bottom, she dusts herself off and springs back to her exaggerated steps. A bridge running over the halfpipe stretches overhead further down the path. The sweet scent pulling her by her nostrils strengthens as she draws closer to it, the source coming from under the overpass. The girl's skipping slows to a stop when she finds a group of boys crowding around the smell's origin. Quickly, before they can notice her presence, she runs to hide behind a torn tire tread and some filled up trash bags. From the secret spot, she can see the boys are kicking another boy who's been beaten badly. The boy that's been hurt is slick with blood, and she knows when she breathes in the air that he's the one with such a mouth watering aroma.
A wide spread grin stretches across the girl's facial features, tiny fangs glaring in the sunlight. A sharp kick cuts the already battered boy's cheek open, eliciting a spray of blood like the juices of a peeled tangerine. Some of the droplets dot the blonde girl's clothes, but a singular bit of residue lands on her chin. Full of delight, she licks the liquid from her skin and relishes in its tangy flavor. A pair of feline eyes narrow into thin slits as they watch closely, the girl's yellow gaze captivated by the scene in front of her. The boy being kicked around curls in on himself defensively, not even trying to fight back. Every bit of blood they take from him makes her shiver.
Only when who the girl supposes is the group's ringleader holds a hand up to signal the end of the boy's misery do they cease the beatdown. Everybody steps back as though they're giving their victim some room for his labored breathing. All but the boss of the bunch, a spikey haired blonde, who stalks forwards to get closer. The group's leader bends down to grab the bloody boy by his notably green hair, forcing his punching bag to look at him. "Learn your lesson yet?", the rhetorical question goes unanswered and then the blonde boy slams the other boy's face into the rough cement of the canal to grind it back and forth, "Know your place!"
Blood smears across the ground from the beaten boy's broken nose. A muffled moan expresses the boy's suffering enough to be satisfying for his tormentor to stop. The blonde boy then steps on his victim's back and uses the body as leverage to stand up, "Stay beneath my foot!" When the blonde boy spits on the submissive boy and adds, "Fucking villain..", the blonde girl that has been watching the whole time snaps out of her trance. No longer does she marvel at the scene. Her grin recedes until she loses her smile completely, replaced by a pouty frown. Suddenly, she's no longer entertained by the band of bullies drawing blood from their victim.
"Yeah! Stupid villain!", one of the other bullies chimes in with a cackle. The girl balls her pudgy hands into tiny fists as she listens to the rest of the boys join in on the mocking laughter. That same bully who's wearing a backwards baseball cap points towards their victim's feet with an elongated finger, "Hey! How come Deku has All Might sneakers if he's a villain?", a malicious grin stretches across his face as he suggests, "We should take his shoes!" The bullies cheering in collective agreement drowns out any weak noises of protest that their prey can muster.
They remove the green haired boy's shoes without much resistance. A final few jeers about the boy being a villain despite their cruel behavior being highly hypocritical is what they leave their victim with after stealing his sneakers. Each of them climb up the canal to ride away on their bikes, leaving the beaten boy to wallow in his own blood. Only after all of the bullies have left does the girl venture out from her hiding place. She stares at the unmoving green headed boy with something akin to pity in her eyes, looking past his physical injuries and considering the mental abuse he'd just suffered as well.
The girl can empathize with the boy, having been called a villain herself. She wonders if the reason why the boy didn't bother fighting back was to try and prove them wrong. He has his eyes sealed shut, completely unaware of her presence. Her shadow looms over him as she tries to figure what about the boy could seem so villainous to warrant such a brutal beating. The boy appears unassuming, almost plain. Then again, nobody would imagine a young schoolgirl like her has such a 'vile villainous quirk' either. The blonde girl frowns and shakes her head to clear out all of the negative thoughts swarming her mind. She instead does what she always does to push down those dark desires and impulses. She smiles. An ear to ear grin like earlier returns to her face as she bends down to the injured boy's level.
"Hi!", her bright and bubbly squeak of a voice doesn't match her mood but it completely fools the boy when his eyes snap open to see her grinning at him. The bunned blonde waves to him despite being so close before reaching that same hand out for him to grab, "My name's Himiko Toga! What's yours?"
Timidly, perhaps even cautiously, the boy matches the gesture with a shaky hand before taking hers. "Izuku Midoriya..", his soft voice blows away with the wind that runs through the canal. Himiko pulls and helps him to slowly sit up. He winces from pain but bites back any complaints. When he's propped upright, he realizes they're still holding hands and quickly pulls his away; a blush blends with red splotches of blood on his face.
Himiko giggles, a blush of her own fading in when she remembers the reason why she had been drawn to the boy in the first place. Oddly, coupled with a few freckles on his cheeks, she thinks he looks really cute covered in all that blood. A tinge of the taste she got earlier lingers on her tongue, making her mouth water. When her slanted eyes land on his shoeless feet, her smile sobers and she swallows her saliva to temporarily quench her thirst. Himiko's pitying look returns as she thinks about the bullies calling him a villain.
Izuku surprises her when he musters some strength to the tone of his weak voice, "Y- You don't have to pretend to be nice to me, you know.." The boy stares at her with eyes as fragile as glass that she can see the cracks in them. She falters as she thinks he's seen through her facade of a grin and discovered the cracks in her own mask. When his shoulders slump and he looks away though, she realizes that he's not reading that deep, that he's simply seeing the surface level of what he's used to. "I'm fine", his mumble is back to its delicate decibel as he lowers his head.
It's Izuku's turn to be startled when he hears Himiko's tougher tone, "You're not fine" She stands up from her crouch so that she can broadly gesture at their surroundings, "There's rocks and broken bottles down here, so it'll hurt to walk around without shoes", the gesturing of her hands goes to his feet before she grabs at her own. "I'll lend you one of mine! If you wear one shoe, only one of your feet will hurt!", the girl slips off a red sneaker and holds it out to the boy. It's her favorite, the color of blood, but she offers it with a smile anyways.
"W- What.. ?", Izuku's bafflement leaves him in a staring stupor. When he doesn't take the shoe himself, Himiko tosses it towards him. He reflexively catches it, snapping out of his daze. "N- No, seriously, I'm fi– Um, I mean, I don't need it!", he holds the red sneaker out for her to take back while frantically shaking his head. The bright color of the shoe matches the blush returning to his bloodied face as he stumbles over whatever other words he fails to muster.
Himiko hops back on one foot, her grin growing as she releases a teasing titter. "Then give it back to me!", she turns and skips a small distance away before turning back and urging him on with a wave to follow, "Come on! Come give it back then!"
"Eh.. ? EH?!", Izuku's brain slowly processes that the girl is running away from him. Hurriedly, he forces himself to his feet to chase after her, "W- Wait! Your shoe! What is with–" Izuku grunts when he steps on a pebble. Suddenly, the blonde's tactic is clear to him and he's left with no other choice. He begrudgingly pulls on the single sneaker Himiko gave him, "You gotta be kidding me.."
Himiko half limps as she tries to stay ahead of the boy when he pursues her. "Ow! Ow! Ow!", the fabric of her sock isn't enough to protect her foot like a shoe sole can as she runs through the empty channel. Behind her, Izuku winces with every step in a similar state of self inflicted pain as he tries to keep pace with the girl.
"W- Wait up! Stop!", Izuku begins to close the distance between them when Himiko starts climbing the halfpipe to reach the road above. He clambers to follow her and matches her movements. The incline makes for a concrete hill to slightly hike, one that leaves both of the kids breathing heavily by the time that they reach the top of it.
"There!", Himiko puts her hands on her hips to pose as triumphantly as she sounds, "Now we're out of the pit!" The sidewalk makes for a more flat surface that the two can stand on evenly with one another. Until Himiko bends down to pull off her other sneaker, "Here. Take my other shoe too. Now both of your feet will be protected on your way home!"
"N- No, thank you!", Izuku tries pushing the offered shoe away but it winds up in his hands anyways. He looks down at the red sneaker. The one he has on already fits surprisingly well. "I- I don't need your shoes..", but he still tries to return them.
"Then throw them away", Himiko waves the shoes away when Izuku tries giving them back. The boy's perturbed expression leads her to respond with an exaggerated shrug and an excusive explanation, "They're old anyways!"
"H- Huh.. ?", he takes another look at the red sneakers but sees nothing that would show they're aged like the girl says they are. Considering how young she is, they should be muddied or scuffed from playing, but there's not a single mark. The shoes are brand new. As though they had been bought just for Izuku to last a lifetime.
Himiko looks at the boy closely, still trying to see what kind of path he'll choose to walk. "Hey, Izukun", he blushes when she twists the kanji in his name to be affectionate and not 'Deku'. Though he can also hear how serious her tone is. He can see her solid expression. "Whether you walk on this side of the divide or that one..", he can see the split between her quiet neighborhood and the clamorous city that the canal makes. And he can understand that there's something special about the way that she's addressing him that goes beyond just kindness.
The sun becomes the settled heart of the horizon, illuminating the line between villains and heroes, with Izuku's shadow casted in the middle. Himiko squints to see whether the boy's future will be as bright as the sky or as dark as his silhouette as she says, "I hope to see you standing proudly."
AUTHOR'S NOTE
Okay, so the major takeaway from comments as of late is that not many of you are fans of Izuku keeping the blood coughing disease. I don't want to just retcon and write it off without reason, I'm already committed currently, but I will get rid of it. I did some thinking and I came up with what I hope is a good way to resolve the issue with valid reasoning. Though that won't happen immediately either.
On the other hand, I did also expect some sorta backlash on the flashback chapters, but hopefully you see with this one that they do serve SOME purpose. Though those also likely won't last forever either since I can only think of so many before they do become pretty pointless.
