A Blood Stained Path

Chapter 5: A New Life

I was officially pronounced Izuku Aizawa, though that was not the name I used.

The day after the trial was complete, the man I had come to know as Aizawa entered my room again, which had only happened when he came to bring me blood bags and to restrain me at night.

"Hey kid." His voice came out as monotone as ever.

"Hello Aizawa." My voice, whilst it had gotten better, was still off.

"So, as of today, you will be able to leave this room." I opened my mouth to speak but he stopped me by raising his hand, indicating he wasn't done. "However, since you don't know anything about them or how they act, I would like for you to know what they're like first." He produced two pictures from one of his pouches.

Gesturing to one of a blonde man with his hair styled like a cockatiel, he spoke. "This man is my husband, Hizashi Yamada. We don't have the same last name because we don't like to make our relationship obvious to co-workers. He is rather loud, though I have asked him to be quiet due to your sensitive hearing."

I nodded and he gestured to the other picture, this one of a lavender haired boy with bags under his eyes. "This boy is Hitoshi Aizawa, he could be your brother. He is rather quiet and prefers to sit in silence with his thoughts, so try not to bother him too much. He also doesn't get much sleep, so don't interrupt what little he does get."

"So, there's bird man Yamada and no sleep Aizawa. Wait but aren't you Aizawa? How should I tell the difference?" I asked.

Aizawa released a tiny hint of amusement before speaking again. "Just call me Shota. That should make it easier."

"Ok Shota." I smiled and jumped off my bed. "I'm ready now."

"Ok then, I'll give you a quick tour before I let you go on your own, ok?" He offered his hand.

"Ok!" I said, taking the offered hand.

We left the room, the door opening into a small hallway with a few doors along either wall. Opposite my room was Shota's and Yamada's, next to mine was Aizawa's, and across from Aizawa's was the bathroom.

The hallway opened up into a large room that contained an open style kitchen, a living room with a fireplace, and a small dining table surrounded by chairs. Looking out of one of the windows dotted around the room, you could see a small neighbourhood filled with almost identical bungalows, numbering at around nine in total. In the distance, a large, blue structure with an irregular shape sat upon a forested hill.

"As you may have guessed, I am a hero, along with Yamada. However, we are also teachers at a hero school, so we live in a secret location along with the other teachers." Shota explained.

"That's so cool!" I bounded up and down excitedly. "There's tons of heroes here!"

"Well, that's your tour done, so just go to the toilet quickly whilst I go get you some blood." He released my hand and walked over to the fridge. "You should be having one of these at least once a week, but tell me if you start feeling hungry and I'll get you one."

"Ok!" I exclaimed whilst running towards the bathroom. I hadn't seen the inside of it yet, and I was excited to learn more about my new home. That was until I opened the door and saw my face reflected directly back at me.

Sure, my curled black hair had grown a lot over the last 6 months, and now reached down to the base of my neck, framing my face nicely, but the rest of my appearance was revolting to me. Whereas a few months prior, when I had seen my reflection in the stream, I had been scared due to not recognising it as mine, now I recognised it as me and it all just felt… wrong.

I hadn't seen my reflection since drinking the blood of the girls in the park, but now that I could, I hated it. What had that first quirk done to me?

Then I was snapped out of my revery by Shota's voice calling from behind me. "Is something wrong Izuku? Your meal is ready."

Something about that first sentence felt wrong as well. I turned to face him, seeing his face as indifferent as ever, before speaking. "My reflection. It feels wrong." My voice which had been so upbeat and excited just moments prior was now dark and downtrodden.

"Ok, we'll deal with that later, but for now just come and have your meal first." He said. 'It's as Tsukauchi and the doctor said, I'll have to talk with Izuku about it later', he told himself internally.

Grateful for a distraction from my inner thoughts, I quickly went back to where I had seen the dining table a few moments prior, seeing a small translucent bag with a red liquid clearly visible inside of it placed in front of one of the chairs.

I swiftly snatched up the bag and gently plunged my fangs through the plastic material, allowing the sweet liquid inside to fill my taste buds with unmatched delight. Closing my eyes, I calmly drank the from the bag that felt like a pot of gold to me, sighing contentedly when its contents had been drained.

Later that day

My interactions with Yamada and Aizawa went rather well considering I was a stranger who had been living in their house for the last few months. I got along well with Yamada, though his loud demeanour could be quite agitating with my enhanced hearing. Me and Hitoshi got along well during our brief interaction, both of us appreciating the quiet.

I had just returned to my room for the night when Shota entered and sat beside my bed.

"So, what happened with the mirror earlier?" He said bluntly. "You said your reflection felt wrong?"

I was confused, as I thought I had explained it well. "It did." I nodded.

He sighed before the words flowed from his mouth once more. "Ok Izuku, do you feel like a boy, a girl, or neither?"

Now I was more confused, I didn't know what I felt! "I don't understand."

Shota pinched the bridge of his nose, musing about the annoyances of dealing with young children. "All right, when I say 'You are a boy', how does that make you feel?"

An overwhelming sense of dread and negativity came crashing down on me like a meteor. "Really bad." I said, tears on the verge of slipping from my eyes.

"And when I say 'You are a girl', how does that make you feel?"

The seemingly infinite mass of negativity that washed over me just before was immediately cast aside and replaced by happiness and contentedness. "Good?" I replied, the tears that had threatened to fall were quickly washed away.

"So, you prefer to be called a girl?" He asked yet another question. It was starting to annoy me.

After thinking about it for a while, I went with what felt right. "Yes…?"

"Ok, one last thing before I put you to bed. Do you want to be a girl? I want you to think about this and tell me in the morning, ok." He got up and patted me on the head. "Now, lie down so I can put your restraints on."

I nodded, lay down, and thought.

That night, Izumi Aizawa was born.

Several Months Later

That Christmas, I was introduced to the other heroes that taught at U.A. Nezu was as Shota described, really smart and, well… and a sadistic rat. He pranked everyone at the celebration by climbing up to the top of the easily house-sized Christmas tree at the end of the neighbourhood, before interjecting into a conversation, teacup still in hand. That was the least extreme prank he pulled, they got worse in later years, after all, we were only four at the time.

Thirteen was one of my favourites. She was fun and bubbly, never failing to put a smile on our faces with her bright demeanour and truly hilarious antics. There were also Midnight, Power Loader, Cementoss, Vlad King, Snipe, and Recovery Girl. I got along well with Cementoss, Snipe, Power Loader and Vlad, though it was clear that they didn't have much experience with younger children.

Midnight, however, was a… different story. At first, I didn't like her at all, she was obviously inexperienced with kids in general and still kept up her flirty demeanour with us, and we were only four! I just couldn't tolerate her at first, and it stayed like that for years until I eventually warmed up to her.

Then there was Recovery Girl. She was by far my favourite of the teachers, outside of Shota and Yamada. She was sweet, very attentive to our needs and gave us nice treats. That was also when I was introduced to the only child other than me and Hitoshi that lived there.

Her name was Kanade, and she was Recovery Girl's granddaughter.

Kanade Shuzenji:

.Quirk- Healing Energy. The user converts the lipids (fats) in their body into a healing energy that they emit from their palms. This supercharges the healing process and supplies it with energy. Healing factor is increased so that it is half the rate Recovery Girl heals at.

Oh, I still remember meeting her as if it were yesterday. It was one of the best days of my life, and set me up for one of the worst. But that's a story for another time, for now, let's get back to how I became a hero.

9 Years Later

At that time, this quirks in my possession were:

.Explosion

.Metal Claws

.Mist Jump

.Smoke

.Combustion

.Water Cutter

.Hydrokinesis

.Femme

.Fire Immunity

.Healing Energy

.Shapeshifter

.Minor Regeneration

I hadn't gained a new quirk since I was eight, though that was for a reason. All except one or two of the blood bags I drank were taken from a group of people with almost exactly the same quirk, that being Minor Regeneration. For whatever reason, my own quirk cannot copy multiple quirks that give the same function, so I did not gain multiple regeneration quirks. Anyway, we should get back on track.

I was walking down the coastline of a beach, Dagoba Municipal Park to be exact, litter picker in one hand and bin bag in the other, picking up the near constant flow of rubbish the ocean currents deposited there.

I had worked with Shota every day for almost two years cleaning that beach, he had wanted to teach me the value of community service, and Dagoba was the perfect place to do it. People took advantage of the fact that the currents deposited a lot rubbish here, and so they illegally dumped theirs there as well, culminating in a massive dump being cleaned up by a twelve-year-old girl.

Though I'd had Shapeshifter for years at that point, I was still getting used to constantly keeping it active to keep myself looking a certain way, and I was starting to get uncomfortable from the strain, so I quickly finished my beach cleaning and ran to the nearest girls' toilets, quickly letting go of the quirk I had been holding for the last four hours.

My breasts quickly receded to be barely visible and a bulge appeared between my legs. Whilst I was on hormones, and had been for the last few months, I had only started using Shapeshifter to simulate where my body would be right now if I was born with two X chromosomes rather than one X and one Y in the last two weeks, so I didn't have much practice in maintaining it for long periods of time.

After resting for a while to alleviate the strain from Shapeshifter, I activated it once more and left the bathroom before starting to jog back towards the neighbourhood I had called home for the last nine years whilst listening to music as usual, my long black hair trailing behind me despite having it in a ponytail.

I was roughly halfway through my routine run, and was passing near Tatooine Station when an explosion rang out from my left, my head instinctively snapping towards it. A crowd gathered in front of a barrier being hastily set up, behind which a scene which would horrify most was unfolding.

Fires burned across the charred and destroyed street, broken glass lay around shattered windows, and at the centre of it all, a monstrous construct of dark green sludge attempting to suffocate a middle schooler who kept releasing large explosions with his quirk.

A hero, known as Death Arms, rushed the villain, launching his fist forwards with his quirk boosting the power behind the punch. His fist merely sank inside the villain's viscous form, before he went flying backwards after taking a whip like hit from the living sludge.

This isn't going well for the heroes or the kid, I better start building up mist. My thoughts rang through my head as a small amount of mist began to leak from my body, accumulating on the ground as a pathway between me and the villain.

A few minutes passed and none of the arriving heroes attempted to make a move on the criminal, and more importantly, no attempt at saving the boy had been made. Sighing, I removed my earbuds, depositing them inside a bag on the side-lines.

I prepared to start moving forwards, but my eyes met with the boy's, and a sudden memory stopped my movement.

I was in a preschool, and a red eyed boy with spiky blonde hair was surrounded by other children. It was the same boy that was dying before my eyes. He was creating small explosions in his palms and a familiar voice rang out.

"You're so lucky Kacchan! When I get my quirk, I hope it's just as cool!"

'Kacchan? Wait… Kacchan! No, no, no, no, no, no! Not again, I won't let what happened to her happen to Kacchan!' My internal thoughts went wild, and my hand moved to the picture I always kept on me.

I snapped back to reality and my instincts took over for the first time in over 5 years. The mist around the villain surged upwards, covering it in a thick blanket of fog and I warped directly in front of the confused sludge, palms outstretched and covering its eyes.

Two explosions rang out into the evil doer's eyes and it recoiled sharply, allowing Kacchan to gain at least a moment of freedom as he gasped for air. I immediately grabbed his shoulder and warped him just in front of the barrier, before starting to warp away myself, but it was too late. It took me a moment to lock onto a location within my mist and in that time the villain recovered and lashed its whip like arms towards me, blowing away the surrounding mist and severing my connection.

I summoned a hastily constructed guard and closed my eyes, preparing for the beating I was about to get. But it never came.

Opening my eyes revealed one of my favourite heroes, the number one hero and the symbol of peace standing above me, holding back the foul tendril that was about to put me in the hospital.

"Thank you for distracting the villain whilst I made my way here, young lady, but allow me to handle it from here." His loud voice boomed out above the sound of the raging fires that surrounded us. He grabbed my shirt and pulled me behind him whilst his fist wound back before launching forwards. "DETROIT…" The move made contact with the sentient sludge and splattered it all over the surrounding area in an awe-inspiring display of power. "SMAAAAASH!"

A tornado like column of air rose high above the skyscrapers of the city, a whirlwind caused by sheer strength ascending beyond what seemed possible for a singular man. All Might stood at the epicentre, holding me behind him by the back of my top with his other hand clenched into a fist raised above him in a victory pose as he panted. A singular raindrop fell onto my head, shortly followed by another, and another, prompting me and the other civilians to look up to see a swirling mass of clouds rotating high above us.

"Holy crap… He changed the weather with a single punch!" A random pedestrian yelled, people around him murmuring in agreement before a chorus of cheers erupted through the crowd.

After all the sludge was gathered, the press interviewed All Might whilst Kacchan got praised and I got chewed out by the other heroes on scene. I was barely half a kilometre back into my run home before I heard someone sprint up behind me and begin jogging beside me thanks to my enhanced hearing. They clearly had a large, heavy frame due to the volume of the sound created by their feet colliding with the pavement as they ran.

"What do you want?" I said in a monotone voice, looking forwards and concentrating on my run all the while. It was a useful skill Shota had taught me.

The voice that replied shocked me momentarily before I swiftly regained my composure. "Well, young lady, I'd like to talk with you about your actions today!" All Might spoke from beside me.

"If you want to chew me out for public quirk usage and putting myself at risk like those other heroes from earlier, then I don't have time for it. So, I'd suggest you don't waste time you could use saving people All Might."

He let out a hearty laugh at that. "I'm not here to scold you young lady, in fact, I'm here to thank you, and offer you something." I stopped running and he stopped to my side, looking grateful. "So, I take it you've decided to hear me out?"

"Yes, though I need to get home soon so make it quick." I replied.

"I shall try young lady. Well, after seeing you jump in like that to save that boy earlier, I would like to train you to get into a hero school, provided that's what you intend to do." His boisterous voice echoed through the mostly empty streets.

"Sorry, whilst I appreciate the offer All Might, I think my guardians' training will more than get me into U.A."

"Whilst I don't intend to insult your guardians ability to train you for a hero programme, how can you be sure that their training will be enough to get you into a school as illustrious as U.A?

"Because they themselves are U.A. alumni." My voice remained monotone, though slight annoyance crept into my mind at how quickly my time was ticking by. "Well now, I must be taking my leave. Thank you for the offer All Might." As I prepared to start running again, All Might moved to the side to allow me to continue on my path home.

"Very well then young lady, enjoy the rest of your day and good luck with your exams!" All Might spoke his final statement to me for that day before disappearing into a side alley as quickly as he had appeared behind me.

As I returned home and to my room after the day, my mind wouldn't shut up and I resorted to doing more studying for the written portion of the entrance exams, not that Nezu would have allowed me to not possess enough knowledge to get through most of the first year of high school before I begun it.

Hello everyone! Hopefully this chapter has cleared up some confusion over whether our protagonist is Izuku or Izumi, and as always, I hope you enjoyed. Please leave any criticisms or questions you have in the reviews and I'll try to address them at the end of future chapters. Have a nice day and go Plus Ultra!