AU NOTES
Well, it is that time again; writing some Blood God for all of you. I am mostly focused on this one and My Bloodborne/Elden Ring stories, but I do put some focus on my Shield Hero too. The others have sort of been put on the hold for now, but I'll try to give some focus to them too. I love writing, but I also have my real life and work to focus on, so forgive me if it takes time.
Outside of that, thanks for the reviews and comments. I wondered if I should rewrite the last chapter, but I was content with how it came out and it builds up for the incoming chapters.
First and Last warning though, I plan to write some heavy stuff for the incoming chapters, so if you are squeamish or do feel uncomfortable with written graphic violence…well, you shouldn't even be reading this work, mate! But if you somehow pushed through, these incoming ones will be extra spicy.
PS: This one will be extra-large (resist the urge to put thicc).
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Vampyr 35: [A Disaster is Brewing Afar II]
"…and his current whereabouts are unknown." Aizawa reported to the worried mother in front of him, his body and head bowed in a completely submissive manner. At the teacher's side sat a small creature with holding a tea cup.
Midoriya Inko sat on the loveseat, her small hands hiding most of her expressions, although it was clear that she was clearly distressed. By her side sat another distressed girl, Hatsume Mei, the current problem child of 1-H's development department. The homeroom teacher of 1-A knew that the two students were in friendly terms, but now that he was personally visiting the Midoriya's household, it was clear to see that the two were more involved than he expected.
The creature at the teacher's side took a sip from his (now) lukewarm drink before speaking.
"Miss Midoriya, I understand your grievances and worry, however we are doing our very best to locate and rescue young Midoriya. Our very best are working right now on it." The weird creature was more known as the principal of UA, Nezu. He tried to sound as comforting as possible, but the matriarch of the household didn't seem to be interested in his words.
Tears were rolling down her cheeks, yet the woman tried her best to hold in any sobs and outbursts. She used a handkerchief to try to stem the tide of her tears, Mei placing one hand on her mother-in-law's shoulder.
"H-h-how could this happen? Izuku is…quite strong…" Inko's voice cracked and would sometimes be swallowed by a sob, but she persisted on trying to maintain a tough front to the two males in front of her.
Aizawa's face soured, the teacher clenching his hands into extremely tight fists. He – along with the principal – had been going to every home of every teen affected by the attack to explain the circumstances and apologize for their failures. Some took it well, others launched into long rants and sue threats, but most eventually settled down due to Nezu's intricate and logical explanations. Still, emotions were not logical. The underground Pro understood it very well, as his own mind was very conflicted. His logical mind was firm on the prospect of first finishing his job, yet his heart screamed at him to immediately raid every hole-in-the-wall bar and joint that he had information on to try and locate Midoriya.
Thankfully Midnight and Nezu managed to placate him somewhat. The damage to the school's reputation was grandly diminished not only due to their efforts, but also due to the proactive actions of the teens. Instead of passively waiting for orders, some took to action: Bakugou, Yaoyorozu, Todoroki and many more; classes 1-A and 1-B did their best to not only protect themselves, but to also combat the villain threat that dared to target the hero trainees.
However, the League of Villains was bold. Not a full day after Midoriya's kidnapping the villains posted on their website (annoying hosted on foreign servers and protected by top of the line encryption to avoid shutdown) their victory over the Japanese heroes, writing an elaborate hit-piece against their security and calling out UA as a sham institution. Many net users doubted the veracity and credibility of the article, calling the villains hacks that were only riding a tiny wave of success due to Stain's fans. The League's website had yet to answer to the many posts and provocations, but it was clear that they were preparing something that was bound to shake the nation.
"It was an ambush. Midoriya fought bravely to keep his fellow students from harm's way, but the villains eventually overwhelmed him and succeeded in kidnapping him." Bitterness almost dripped from Eraserhead's voice, the man maintaining his head high to keep eye contact with the worried mother, yet feeling his chest burn with a shameful feeling. He had failed a student under his care.
Hatsume was leaning on the loveseat too, serving as an emotional anchor for the Midoriya Matriarch. It was clear that the girl was distressed by the situation, her sight-pupils constantly shifting and the wet glimmer of her eyes was unmistakable; Aizawa was sure that if he were to bet on the two having a deeper relationship than just friends, he was going to win a full pot, except the circumstances were not even remotely enjoyable for any of them.
After offering their explanations and apologies, the duo of teacher and principal waited to see if the two ladies had anything to say.
Inko wanted to speak, to say anything at all. Yet, her throat felt dry and words refused to escape. It was like the mother was in a trance, in a bad dream that persisted no matter how long she tried to wake up from it. Still, she was the adult in the house, she had to set an example for Mei to follow. She could not crumble down, she had to patiently wait either for news of her baby's rescue or some sort of miracle. Inko knew that Izuku was strong, his power growing rather astronomically ever since he joined UA, but no one else knew her little boy as she did.
"P-p-please, find Izuku!" The matriarch pleaded in an almost desperate tone, the stream of tears pouring down from her eyes thickening and messing up the light make-up she had, causing it to smear on her face and taint the liquid.
Mei, on her own, had almost entered an almost catatonic state. She hadn't spoken a single word ever since she welcomed the two in Izuku's home, the girl finding her mind to be an incredible mess. She wanted to assure herself that Izuku would be fine, he was her immortal boyfriend after all; yet, her heart tightened and hurt with a throbbing pain that choked her throat and sapped strength from her.
Her mind tried to run to her usual hobby and favorite activity, yet she could barely think about any of her blueprints. Nothing managed to stay in focus for more than one second before it all would become a foggy gray mass of uselessness. Her lover had been kidnapped by villains. Her beloved Izuku, taken away by a group of maniacs that would do god-knows-what to him.
She barely registered the moment when Izuku's homeroom teacher and the school's principal left. She had been learning how to socialize better due to the vampire's insistence, but everything seemed to fade away at a moment's notice. She made an effort to try and remember their names – Izuku would scold her if she didn't do so – but her mind came up blank.
They were trying to locate him, she heard that, but apparently the tracker that he had on had been damaged and barely managed to give them a final signal before it died. It pinged that he was still in the Japanese territory, but then again that was barely anything for them to work with.
By the time Mei's mind finally decided to kickstart into usefulness, she noticed that she had returned to his room. More specifically, she had thrown herself onto his bed and was wrapped around on his bedsheets, trying to cover her body with his scent. The room was clean and the sheets had been washed, but her mind calmed down somewhat, Mei noticing that Inko-mama was by her side, holding her hand.
"Hey sweetie, how are you feeling?" The matriarch asked the mechanic girl, her voice still wracked with heaviness. Inko was barely holding herself together while at the same time serving as support for the girl.
Mei lethargically raised her body from the bed and hugged the older woman. She was still not used to expressing herself with others, but Inko-mama was special. She nuzzled against the matriarch, who returned the hug and ran soothing circles on her back with one hand.
"Izuku is tough; he will be back with us in no time, joking as usual with his deadpan jokes and drinking blood like always…s-s-so, t-there is no need to be upset, Mei-chan." Inko tried her best version of a smile, her lips trembling and words being swallowed by sobs. Yet, she still persisted with calming the other girl.
Mei felt her always-perfect sight become blurry, the image of Inko shimmering as something wet spilled from her orbs, running down her face and reaching her lips. A salty taste lingered on, the mechanic realizing that she was crying. She further tightened her hug with the matriarch, the two staying together for a fair length of time, Mei silently shedding her tears while Inko remained by her side, being much more vocal in her grief.
It was well past two in the morning when the matriarch's tears ran dry. She had ended up falling asleep on Izuku's bed, her eyes puffy and expression exhausted. Inko was a mature beauty with a fair number of years notched down, but today her face looked almost like she had aged several years in one go. Not even the first Noumu incident had knocked her down like this; she had been upset, of course, but this time things were different. Her baby-boy was still missing, his condition unknown.
Mei had remained awake, her mind both paradoxically sluggish and rapid. Ideas came and went like dust in the wind, trying their very best to remain in her mind, yet fading into oblivion at the same pace.
She silently covered the exhausted looking Inko with a blanket and picked-up the vampire's laptop from his desk, going to the living room to avoid disturbing her mother-in-law. The girl opened the device and powered it on, opening a browser to search about any news of the incident.
A few media hit-pieces had already been published, trying to criticize UA to the best of their ability. Online response had been divided; Izuku's reputation was not the best online, but it was undeniable that UA's response had been quick and effective against the villain's threat: of all the 41 students and 6 staff members, one student and one teacher were kidnapped, while the remaining had at most light injuries. For all intends and purposes, it could even be called acceptable casualties if one were to look at it from a mere statistical/logical side.
Yet Mei refused to accept that.
Her Izuku had been kidnapped. She barely paid any attention to the so-called "experts' opinions" on the matter, the girl solely focused on gaining information about the incident, any snippet that would tell her more. Nothing truly useful, only rumors and speculations about the reasons behind the incident; she cared little for hearsay.
She was about to close the laptop when the e-mail app installed on it rang with two new messages. Mei wasn't one to snoop around her boyfriend's business, especially since most of it was related to work or study, but she occasionally answered e-mails for him at his request.
Two [Tagged: Urgent] unread mails from: Shield_Melissa; Gym_Assistant.
The mechanic girl perked a bit at the mention of the Shield family name, as they had been the providers of her current personal power tools that were allowing Hatsume to work on her most recent project, but she was unaware of the identity of this so called gym assistant. She knew that Izuku had managed to get someone to look after the gym/warehouse for him, but she had yet to meet said person.
I guess they are wondering what happens to their employment now with Izuku out of commission. She tiredly let the thought float on her mind, not truly willing to deal with such things at the moment, but aware that it was best she solve it soon. Still, Mei first opened the e-mail from the Shield girl.
As Mei read the e-mail, life began sprouting on her eyes. Hope began to spring forth in her chest, the oppressive and dark feeling from before diminishing as she read more and more of the electronic mail. The mechanic girl was quick to type an answer back to the sender, her spelling a bit messy as she cared more for obtaining an immediate answer from the other girl.
It took a few minutes for an answer to come back, but once it arrived, Mei's eyes glimmered with a wet shimmer. She let her hands rest idly over the keyboard of the computer, staring at the screen of the device.
/Sit tight, I'm taking the first flight to Japan.
/We will rescue Izuku!/
Mei felt tears run down from her eyes once more, yet this time it was not due to her aching heart.
"…thank you." She whispered.
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-This is bad, y'know?! Wake up already kid!
A female voice loudly rang on his head, trying to urge him to move. However, his body seemed to be unwilling to follow through with the suggestion. He didn't truly want to move either, just about every cell in his body aching and wishing for rest; he was hurt and tired and a nap seemed to be just about what he truly needed.
-If you stop fighting you will die, Kiddo! Where is that wild side of yours?! You can't even understand me like this!
The voice kept pestering him, almost like an annoying fly that just would not get the clue that it was not wanted around. He tried to suppress it, but his head began pounding something fierce at the mere thought of using his powers. A growl echoed in his mind, Izuku feeling the meager amount of blood inside himself shift to maintain priority functions.
[Pipe down, ghost of the past.]
[I'm busy keeping us alive, I have no need of your nagging.]
His memories stirred and the vampire began to recall the previous events that happened to him before his forced nap. The dinner, his conversation with Kota, the quick bout against Muscular; he groaned, feeling the [Beast Within] also stir, though it remained quiet on its cage, seemingly unwilling to act out.
Izuku groaned loudly, feeling his body strongly protest against any form of movement. It took colossal amounts of willpower to even open his eyes, his body under a constant feeling of sluggishness and weakness. The green-haired vampire managed to open his eyelids after a while, his surroundings unfamiliar. He was in an empty room, no sight of any sort of furniture nearby; it was as barebones as it could be, with the only light available coming from a few emergency lights placed on the walls. Nothing that he could use.
Still, Izuku tried to rub his eyelids to try cleaning the sleep-crust from them, but it was then that he noticed. His lack of hands.
"…ain't that something…" He muttered to himself, eyeing the right arm turned stump. It was in better condition than his left one, considering that the other limb was missing on its entirety, only his gnarled-on shoulder remaining. That Female Noumu had taken a nasty bite out of him, that's for sure. Izuku was used to heavy training that bordered on torture since he could always count on his [True Regeneration], but it truly was a disturbing sight to witness your own lack of limbs. At least the skin had healed over and shut the wounds; else the sight would be quite the body horror to witness. Nonetheless, it was a bother to be missing his limbs.
Izuku managed to stand on his own (with some difficulty), having to resort to the nearest wall as a leaning point. The villains had seem to at least dress him in some shorts, considering his last clothes were burned to a crisp, but the teen wasn't about to thank them for it. His healed skin still felt taut and itchy, the vampire having had to spend massively from his blood reserves to keep himself alive. That villain with the blue fire seemed to have no qualms about killing if the firepower used to subdue him was anything to go on.
Now that consciousness had returned to him and he was not in terribly immediate danger, Izuku lowered his dull body once more until he sat on the cold linoleum floor, doing a mind dive. His tired body was ever so eager to relent control and escape. Soon normal (melted eye balls were a bitch to heal from) sight gave away to the crimson tones of the rivers of life that ran in his veins.
Normally Izuku would feel like rivers of blood were running inside him, yet now it was almost as if the spring had dried up, the remaining life fluid inside him struggling to keep up its normal and basic functions. His head began aching and pounding, but the vampire kept on tugging on his quirk-factor, feeling the [Inner Beast] complain at this.
[Rest up master, we have yet to regain our strength. We need to feed.]
The words bounced around in his mind, yet Izuku let them brush aside as he finally arrived at the mental stronghold of his mind, the ballroom. The vampire cringed as he witnessed the sight of the previously glamorous and glorious place now be a wrecked venue that would not look out of place in a war movie. The red-brick walls were cracked and looked ominously close to falling apart, the various paintings hung on them seemingly dull and lacking their usual grandeur that was so common for him.
"They really did a number on me." He commented to himself, eyes glancing up towards the cage of the beast. It lay open, the black metal bars now covered in rust and wearied to the point one would no doubt proclaim it useless. He sighed, lowering his eyes to observe the unfinished throne that decorated the middle of the room. Even with all the mess around it, that particular piece of furniture seemed to remain unfazed by all. Izuku took one good look at it before releasing another tired sigh. Even inside his mind he appeared as a perfect copy of his actual body, battered and missing limbs rather annoyingly replicated. It seemed that in the same vein that the mind guided the body, the body also influenced the mind.
Still, the teen thanked the world for small miracles. He had – without a shadow of doubt – been captured and taken captive by the League of Villains, however he still felt [True Ancestor]'s power humming in his veins, as dull as it was due to his lack of blood. For one reason or the other it seemed that he had been left alone, though he could not say why or for how long.
Shigaraki didn't seem to be the patient type and all the other murder-happy villains certainly did not look like they were willing to grow a consciousness and stop the man from trying to turn him into dust. Which beckoned the questions…why had they left him on his own?
It was true that there was nothing in the room that he could use to fashion as a weapon, but Izuku did not need common materials to be deadly. Even in his current state he could use [Shadow Control] to stitch people and [Pocket] still a fair deal of dangerous equipment that he could use. All that he needed to regain a good portion of his power was to munch on a neck, and shooting a villain would certainly provide such opening.
He made a mental note to test if he could still use his other quirks in his current state. That done, his thoughts shifted to one of the villains among the attacking squad.
Toga Himiko.
Did she betray him? Izuku had no idea; she had been fairly obedient while taking care of his warehouse gym, and seemed to be pretty much fine with the amount of blood he had been feeding her. He also remembered that she had declined the first invitation to join the villains, so it truly struck him as a surprise to find the blonde there during their attack.
She even had the audacity of attacking Momo and drawing blood from the girl. Even Izuku had only taken a fairly small amount of blood from the heiress during the sports festival, but Himiko seemed to take the chance to gorge on the rich and tasty blood of his classmate. The vampire felt a rumbling growl begin to build up inside his chest, but it was subdued by the weakness that he felt as well as the numb pain that began to eradiate from his torn limbs. Phantom pain was truly troublesome to deal with.
As the pain began to grow, so did his focus. Pain was a proof that he was still alive after all, so he endured it. Clenching his teeth and silencing the growl that threatened to leave his mouth, Izuku bore through with remembering the sensation of feeling the female Noumu's fangs sink into his flesh and tear away at his limbs. It was one of the less exciting parts about regenerating: as flesh mended, bone fused and sinew thickened, the phantom pain from the damage lingered for a while. He merely grew accustomed to a degree of pain that had remained fairly unchallenged from the day of the USJ attack when he reattached his arm.
The pain eventually settled down, allowing Izuku a breather. He glanced once more at the cage of the beast, aware that his dark impulses were also suffering from the same thing.
[Do not pity us master, for it is the same as pitying yourself.]
[We are strong, we will survive.]
He couldn't help but agree with the statement from his tenant. He scoffed at the suspended cage and began to focus on his real body.
"I'll be going now." The vampire spoke as he took a couple of focused breathes. "Let's fix this mess later and see to get you out of that cage." Izuku muttered, feeling the crimson red take over his sight, his consciousness vanishing from the ballroom.
The wrecked place remained silent for a few more moments. The silence was then interrupted by a chuckling that originated from the tattered cage hung atop the throne. The grate door of the cage slowly opened to its full length, the loud and high pitched whine of the metal echoing to break the tension.
Then [Inner Beast] then slowly began to stretch its body, the motions resembling a canine. It them vanished from the suspended spot, disappearing in a puff of smoke-like mist. It reappeared by the throne's side, carrying with it the door of the cage. The quirk quietly placed the tattered metal leaning against the seat, letting both touch; the two remained separated for a moment before they suddenly fused, the metal shifting almost as if it was a liquid and adding to the material build-up of the throne.
[Soon…]
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"WHY?!" Tomura's voice echoed in the bar as he tossed a half-destroyed console controller towards a wall. The weakened plastic casing cracked and broke as it connected with the plaster of the wall, causing one man to sigh before moving to grab a broom and dustpan.
The other people in the room gave side glances at their so called leader's most recent temper tantrum.
Sitting on one of the bar's stools and drinking a glass of whiskey was Magne. The man clicked his tongue, annoyed at the other's attitude. By his side sat Himiko, the girl lazily cleaning a set of throwing knives, although it was clear from her expression that she was less than pleased to be hearing Shigaraki's screaming.
"Nothing that we do sticks to that school's fucking name! We attacked them and even kidnapped their best brat, but nah, those fuckers still manage to clean face!" Shigaraki ranted, scratching ravenously at his neck with one hand while the other twitched in the air dangerously, almost like it was looking for something to decay.
Watching the man-child scream and complain from afar was Dabi, who was by himself on a couch. His eyes dully observed their so called leader, his own mind filled with thoughts. While crude and roughly-put together, their plan had the potential to be something much more damaging to UA and the hero-centric society in general, yet the majority of their campaign had been dampened.
While their servers could not be shut down (thanks to Giren's connections), they were still not gathering enough traction for smear campaigns and massive recruitment. Tomura wanted to amass a group of highly skilled "units" as he called it, discarding the notion of strength in numbers ever since his first failed attempt on UA. They first needed to truly shock the masses into doubting the heroes and the system that put them in place, but the more mainstream media coverage was both a blessing and a curse.
It put more focus on their victory over UA, but the media channels also took a massive chunk of that attention away for their own purposes.
The [Incineration]-quirk user hung his head back and stared at the ceiling of the bar. Their little villain group was more of a mish-mash of barely functioning individuals; the glue of Stain's ideology was bound to reach its breaking point sooner or later and in all honesty he was betting on it sooner. Especially with that little rat among them; but, hey! It wasn't like it was his job to warn his leader about spies. He was here as the firepower of the group, using them much like they planned to make use of him.
It was a business transaction, nothing more and nothing less. He would ditch them the moment their usefulness ran out, but at the moment the relationship was still net positive. Even with Shigaraki being a pain in the ass as he shouted and shouted, expecting the world to fear him and kowtow in adoration of the lanky creep.
Sigh~~~
Dabi released a troubled huff, feeling the thin skin around his orbs stretch. He touched the medical staple rings that held the grafted skin, the sensation of the cool metal pleasing when compared to the rough dead tissue. Stain should be the one leading…but I guess that when you get the Demon King backing you, there is little room for parley for anyone else. He mused, lazily glancing at the other villain–…no, criminals in the room.
The Hero Killer had been put out of commission by that kid, who could even kill Noumus; Dabi remembered watching that on the news and then pinching himself in disbelief. Even while battered, bruised and outnumbered, Stain could have managed to flee from the throes of D-tier rank-and-file scum calling themselves heroes. Hell, the Hero Killer had killing intent so potent it even scared that particular bastard still in fear.
Yet, a first year like the vampire brat managed to resist and subdue him. Stain had wounded the kid heavily, nothing truly outside of his M.O, but something about it was different. It was almost like…
A passing of the torch type of deal, huh? But to a hero-in-training kid? That Midoriya-brat sure is special, managing to gather this much attention from all these big shots…even he wants something to do with him. Dabi mused as his eyes focused on a particular TV monitor that remained off on a corner of the bar. Shigaraki may rant like a lunatic and trash the place on the regular, but no matter what, he'd never even got close to damaging that one in particular.
He could understand why, since when that man decided to speak, one couldn't help but listen to it.
Still, even Dabi couldn't help but become somewhat curious about their new capture.
What is ticking in that head of yours, Midoriya Izuku? He wondered, sparks of blue fire emerging from his clicking fingers before it was extinguished. Your own little pet villain, you already racked a body-count, and powerful people gunning for you. What will become of you?
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~Clack~!
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~Clack~!
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~Clack~!
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~Clack~!
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The rhythmic sound of bamboo striking stone echoed in the beautiful garden of the Yaoyorozu mansion, the simplistic tool emptying its liquid content on a small pound until it them returned to its first state. Observing the simple, yet elegant movement of the design was the one heiress of the family, Yaoyorozu Momo.
The black-haired beauty stared at the mechanism, her onyx pupils dully entranced by the movement. It was something simple that helped her mind to unwind – even if only for a moment. It had already been a day since they had been once more attacked by the league of villains; the attack itself wasn't what caused her current state of mind. Momo had been unable to help her class with much more than some token equipment and some minor resistance. The villain she had defeated wasn't much when compared to what other members of her class had defeated. To further rub salt on her wounds, her vice-class president had been kidnapped right under their noses.
Midoriya had been kidnapped by the villains and she wasn't of any use; Izuku was rather independent and extremely skilled, so many tended to forget that he was not older than many of them. That he was still a first-year student. Even Momo herself sometimes forgot that fact.
He had advanced so quickly, grown so fast when compared to most, that she had been unconsciously placing many of her expectations on him. She remembered that even when they were in bad terms, Izuku did not shirk away from responsibility and took on both their works when she purposefully pilled her work as class president on his back. He grumbled to himself, but bore through with it.
Momo heard someone approach her, her internship training showing its fruits. Yoroimusha wouldn't exactly be her first (or even second for that matter) choice for internship training, but Izuku had helped her choose someone that would improve her skills, not teach her how to needlessly appeal to the media. She wasn't bashing on Uwabami, but Momo was under the impression that she'd be learning practical battle or even rescue skills under the heroine: PR and media control were of use for those interested in it and the [Creation]-quirk user was not one of those.
Her butler was approaching, followed by Jirou, who also displayed a gloomy expression that she tried to hide behind a plastic smile.
"Thank you for your work, Hattori-san." Momo spoke in her usual tone, but anyone that knew her could hear that her voice was lacking its usual warm and gentle tone.
The silver-haired butler did a half-bow. "It was nothing, Yaoyorozu-sama." And motioned for Kyouka to sit down alongside the heiress. The purple-haired punk nodded along and moved to sit.
"Hey…" Jirou greeted her friend, trying to inject some energy into her own voice. "..how are you doing?"
Momo took a deep breath and stood up, reaching the nearby table with a silver platter housing a tea-set kit. "I'm doing well enough…would you like some tea?" The heiress waved the butler away before he could offer to brew the tea for her. She wanted to do something, feel useful at least on this.
"Yeah, thanks..." Kyouka muttered.
For some moments the two remained silent, the only noise echoing being that of the porcelain and silver utensils that Momo used to start make the beverage. A short while later the heiress sat two steaming cups of black tea on the table. She soon took her own seat and inhaled the fragrance that was emanating from the cup, blowing a bit on it to cool it down enough so that she could drink it, all her moves made with elegance one would expect from the heiress of one of the richest families in all of Japan.
Kyuka sighed and also grabbed her cup, eyeing the liquid and seeing her own reflection on it.
"…"
"…"
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~Clack~!
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~Clack~!
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""You…"" They both began their sentences, but stopped once they realized they cut each other off. The girls chuckled a bit, Momo taking another sip of her drink.
"You go first, Kyouka-san." The heiress offered.
The punk rocker girl nodded in a thankful manner. "Yeah…" She said, but no spoke no further words. Jirou seemed to be tasting her words before speaking, wondering what she should say. Eventually she seemed to have decided on her words, taking a deep breath before speaking.
"Did you feel useless back there?" Jirou's question made Momo lower her cup on the table, the black-haired beauty's expression a pensive thing that even while marring her features, seemed to be a perfect match for her. Jirou lowered her own gaze a bit, staring once more at her reflection on the dark liquid of her tea, the beverage relatively untouched by the rocker.
Momo grimly smiled at her friend. "I would not go as far as say useless…but I feel like I certainly could have been of much more use had I been a bit more proactive." The Yaoyorozu heiress replied, running her left hand over the length of her right arm, the skin nicely healed from the cuts that she had suffered.
Kyouka bit her lower lips, her hands pressed on her own lap. "Well…that's…nice." She muttered, her voice cracking a bit. "How was he?" She asked, managing to lift her gaze to match Momo's.
The heiress's expression tightened. "Hurt…badly."
Jirou dryly chuckled. "Yep, I imagined it." Her voice carried a bitter undertone. "He is always at the top, right? Developing some new move or training a new skill."
Momo couldn't help but agree with a head nod.
"Hey, Yaomomo…" Kyouka called out, making the heiress fully focus on her. "I think that I'm not sui–…"
"Stop it!" The heiress harshly stood up from her seat, her chair being pushed backwards and dragging on the stone floor, producing a harsh scraping noise. "Those words, they are not you, Kyouka-san!"
Jirou's lips trembled, but she maintained her composure. "If Izuku – who is so hard working and so skilled – got done in like that, what could I have done? Even if I was there, by his side? Of what use would I be, Yaomomo?"
The heiress cut short the distance between herself and the other girl with rapid steps. Once she was in Kyouka's personal space, the heiress hugged the girl within a tight embrace. "We weren't there, so there is little point thinking that! We trained, we worked hard and we did our best. We will be prepared to be his side next time, no matter what! We will make him acknowledge us next time instead of rushing all on his own."
Jirou returned the heiress's hug, a choked sob escaping from her lips. "Y-yeah, we will!"
Momo nodded, closing her eyes to avoid displaying their wet shimmer. "Indeed!"
Kyouka couldn't help the chuckle that followed along her. "He he, look at us; crying like two little worried housewives!" She muttered, separating from the hug.
"Haha, don't be like that." Momo giggled at the remark, drying out the tears at the corner of her eyes. "If we are the worried housewives, does that make Izuku the working-overseas husband?" The heiress asked in a joking tone, the two girls further falling into a chuckle fit as they tried to ease their minds from the tension.
Jirou also dried the moist accumulated on the edges of her eyelids. "Wouldn't that be funny?" She commented with some sarcasm.
[XXX]
[XXX]
Izuku held in a sneeze, wondering if people were talking about him. He wanted to shrug it as nothing more than his imagination, but considering that he had no arms to do so (either shrug or place it in front of his nose) all that he could manage to do was to hold it in.
His internal clock wasn't the best, but he figured that he had been left alone for just about five hours after he woke up. Combining it with the time he remained out of consciousness, it would not be unlikely for about a day to have gone past by now, yet there was no attempt on the part of the villains to communicate with him. Were they trying to create a sense of isolation in him? Deprive him of human connection in hopes that he would be as desperate as to break in at the first touch of "kindness"? Might they be under the presumption that he would develop a case of Stockholm syndrome?
Possible options for sure.
Nonetheless, it would take much more than this to do him in. For the moment the vampire remained with his back to one of the walls, trying his best to call upon his remaining powers. A pounding headache remained persistent due to his lack of blood, but he did his best to push through it to continue his task.
[Shadow Control] was not affected by his lack of blood, but the other quirk-factors did not respond well to his deprived, somewhat starved state. He did manage to open [Pocket] inside his shadow matter, but it only remained open for mere seconds and it did not push out the items that he had stored in there. He could (and did) take inventory of what he had, but it was clear that he would not be pushing out any of his blades or guns any time soon.
As he tried to pull on his quirk-factors the headache became too much and his sight blurred a bit. Izuku hissed with clenched teeth, incredibly bothered by his lack of arms as he could not even hold his head to massage it or something. He felt as if the back of his eyes were being prickled by pins, his lack of blood an issue that his body had no trouble reminding him about.
[We suggest rest, master.]
[Our remaining blood is too thin to be called upon at the moment.]
Izuku heard the [Inner Beast] whisper in his head, the normally rough and primal voice now subdued and much different from what he was used to. If the situation was during his normal every-day life he would suspect his wild side was playing at something, but considering the situation at hand his tenant was unlikely to be playing around. The [Beast Within] might wish for constant release, but even it knew when it was the time to rampage and when it was time to behave. He agreed to his quirk and stopped pulling on the other factors, easing up and feeling his pounding headache decrease into a continuous mild annoyance at the back of his head.
Taking a deep breath, Izuku tried to focus on his senses. While access to his quirk-factors had become limited for now, his natural senses were still available to him. He closed his eyes and focused on his hearing, trying to get a better sense of his surroundings; the vampire could not hear any heartbeats nearby, alerting him that currently he was alone in his cell and most likely in this facility he was being held hostage. The walls were thick and a few sniffs told him that the he the cool plaster covered thick steel-plated walls. Whatever this place was, it was design to hold in physically strong people.
His impromptu search done, the vampire opened his eyes to stare at the blank ceiling that. Being left alone with his thoughts wasn't so bad, but he was certainly lacking in means to pass time outside of sleep; which was not even a reliable choice, considering his sleep requirements were much less than that of an ordinary person.
Well, I was in need of a vacation. He mused to himself, trying to keep himself thinking positive thoughts. But you both made a mistake, Shigaraki, All for One! His thoughts turned dark and venomous, the vampire's features warping into something odious and cold. You've given me time…I'll make sure to plan it well. Your demises, that is!
[…It seems that it has begun…]
[Hmm, truthfully….]
-What are you plotting?
[Nothing that you need to stick your nose into, ghost of the past.]
[XXX]
[XXX]
Four days after the League of Villain's attack
"Sensei, I'm tired of waiting! Can't we just do it already?" Tomura complained, sitting in a slouched manner as he grumbled and stared at the television in front of him.
Kurogiri remained a few paces behind the gangly man, acrid yellow eyes focused not on his protégé, but on the other person that had been summoned to follow them, Himiko Toga. The villainess seemed to have some history with the vampire, as she stated to have fought him a few times on the past. The gaseous villain still had his guard up against her, but it was fairly normal to do so when dealing with a murderous assassin such as her.
He had been trained to hide his presence and to maximize the usage of his quirk, but Kurogiri was not confident he could beat the girl in close quarters without a very through plan. She was what one define as the very definition of chaotic random, her behavior erratic and unpredictable. He'd have to ask Giran how the broker had ever managed to get the girl to change her mind on the deal they had offered, as initially she had been clearly very opposed to joining them.
Kurogiri's eyes shifted as he felt a shiver go up his spine, the baritone villain turning his gaze to Shigaraki's back just in time as Toga's eyes turned and settled on his frame. He wasn't sure how, but he could feel the split of her lips, the girl's features doing their best to replicate what should be a smile. Yet he could not describe that as a smile, no matter how much he tried.
"You won't have Toga-chan, you know~?" She spoke in a sing-a-song tone, leaning her body forward and backward.
Shigaraki was too busy talking with their master to pay any attention to their conversation, something that eased Kurogiri's nerves. Whenever it came to A.F.O the teen would practically ignore the whole world, which suited the gaseous villain just fine as it meant less messes for him to clean up. He was a bartender, not a housemaid! His mixology certificate was framed and hung atop the counter's wall, yet due to the blue-haired man he'd spend much more time sweeping and collecting decayed remains than mixing drinks.
The villain wondered why he was having these foolish thoughts. Ever since his encounter with the vampire kid back on their first attack on the USJ, Kurogiri had been feeling…strange. Normally he was glad and happy to serve anyone that his master deemed worthy of support, yet as time passed he would get more and more annoyed at Shigaraki and his antics. It was hard to deal with the petulant man, some days Kurogiri feeling that it be much easier if his master placed someone less…intellectual by Tomura's side.
The shaggy villain expected and demanded respect from anyone he met, unaware that people only gave him the light of day because he had the master's backing. Take All for One from the equation and Tomura's claims would amount to no more than empty threats of violence from a thug with a slightly useful quirk. Once in a while the villain would have his moments, but a true villain was not overly reliant on luck.
Kurogiri could somewhat acknowledge, if not respect, their captured target. Midoriya Izuku might not be that old, but the teen had potential to become a great hero in the future, something that was recognized even by their master. Few would be capable of doing what the vampiric teen had done. A pity that the child saddled his future with the heroes, since if he were to turn to their side, Kurogiri was certain that Midoriya would both benefit much more and would be an extremely valuable addition to their roster.
The gaseous villain glanced to the side to check on Toga, but he narrowed his eyes, his fog body ready to portal away any attempts on his aide's life. He might not like Shigaraki, but their master had entrusted him with the man's life. He could barely sense the girl that should be right in front of him, his sight fully working, yet it also seemed to trick him into seeing a mere mirage of her.
Himiko is simply standing there, Kurogiri stated in his mind, his acrid eyes fully narrowed and focused on her. He almost did [Warp] her away, but before he could, Shigaraki turned to them, the television behind him now off.
"Oi, you two." The lanky man called, focusing his red orbs on the duo.
Kurogiri snapped to attention, maintaining his calm and collected appearance, but also noticing that Himiko also suddenly appeared in his senses.
"Yes, Tomura?"
"What is it, Shiggy-chan?"
The villain narrowed his eyes and clicked his tongue at the nickname, but surprisingly did not throw one of his fits, muttering something to himself about affection points. He scratched at his neck, but it was less gruesome than his usual motions. Maybe he'd head something good from their master.
"I need one of you to interrogate that brat while I work out some plans. Sensei said that he wanted that bastard's quirk, but that we should also try to recruit him to our cause." Shigaraki explained while walking, not waiting to see if the duo followed him. In the end they both glanced at each other, exchanging suspicious-filled gazes, but eventually the two followed their leader as he headed towards one corridor that led to their leader's room.
Arriving at the room, Himiko had the first look inside the habitation. It…well, she wasn't exactly sure what to expect from the crusty looking villain, but the sight certainly was surprising. It was a fairly standard 6-mat sized equipped with the basics for living. A bed, a desk decked out with a fancy gaming set-up and a door-less wardrobe. It was fairly in order, although it lacked any personal flair or anything that would indicate that it was used by anyone for anything more than sleeping.
Tomura didn't wait for reactions or commentary, heading straight to his – rather simplistic – white plastic chair. He turned on his computer and waited for it to boot up, Toga taking a peek as the screen lit up. She was not a computer nut or a technology geek, but she was certain that the boot-up process should not involve all that coding on the screen. Nonetheless, the process finished and Shigaraki began messing around.
Himiko wondered why the villain had them here, but her questions were soon answered as a pop-up window opened on the screen, displaying live video feed of somewhere else.
Kurogiri hang back and merely waited for Shigaraki to speak, whereas Himiko got tired of waiting and simply plopped down on the floor, leaning her back against the door frame until the he finally decided to speak again.
On the screen it was possible to see fairly little, the other place shrouded in darkness, the only light available coming from the various glass tubes that housed something in murky liquids.
Shigaraki dragged his plastic chair back to sit, the position awkward to look at.
"Oi, doc! You got it ready?!" Tomura loudly asked, his tone and speech consistently rude and without any honorifics. There was some shuffling on the screen as someone began to approach the other camera.
"What do you want, you rude brat?" Harsh words echoed from the other mic, the person speaking them a fairly older male. The camera adjusted its sight and suddenly zoomed in on the other person, revealing…
"A caterpillar~?" Himiko asked while tilting her head to the side.
The person on the other side of the call grumbled, clearly annoyed.
"I have a myriad of projects that need my direct supervision and attention, so if you called just to annoy me…" The elder man complained, just about ready to cut the call short.
"Keep your mouth shut there!" Shigaraki glared backwards, his previous good will towards Himiko suppressed by his anger.
Himiko gave a surrender pose, although it was clear that she was not truly intimidated by the display. "~Sorry, sorry~!"
The villain sighed, but then turned his gaze back to the screen of his computer. "No, that's not it! I wanted to know if you finished working on my SSSR unit?" Tomura exclaimed, pointing towards the tanks at the back of the room on the video feed.
The elder exhaustedly sighed, taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyelids with a very irritable motion. "Do you think creating and manipulating these High-End Noumu is easy? Do you know the countless hours or research, trial-and-error experiments and funds we needed to sink on these few samples? Does that simpleton mind of yours can even comprehend the depth and richness of my research and work?" The so called doctor began ranting rather ravenously at the screen.
Shigaraki seemed less than impressed with the spiel. He used his left pinky finger to clean his earhole, uncaring about the situation. "Did you do it or not, doc?"
The doctor groaned and ran a hand over his face, giving up on the prospect of challenging the young villain. "Forget it…worthless brat." The elder whispered the last part. He did move away from the camera and towards one of the glass tanks. A murky fluid suspended something within, and as the doctor approached it, lights lit inside it to give everyone a clear view of the contents. Blue-ish black skin that resembled tough hide. Abundant muscles. A mouth filled with razor-sharp teeth and an exposed brain.
It was without a shadow of doubt a Noumu.
"The frame began to breakdown the very moment you brought it back in and it took just about all my best compounds and regenerative quirks to stabilize it. Acidosis, extreme muscle degeneration, blood poisoning and even DNA-degradation…hell, it suffered clinical failure five times before I managed expunged whatever was eating it from inside out. If its brain was not modified it would have burn out right then and there. What did you end up fighting out there?" The question seemed to be born out of genuine curiosity, even if the mad glint hidden by the doctor's glasses seemed to point out otherwise.
Shigaraki – on the other hand – seemed to grow more and more agitated and angry at the statements. He almost reached a hand to scratch his neck, but eventually settled his hand down, his red orbs staring straight into the aforementioned glass tank. "I don't care for your science mumbo-jumbo, doc! Did you repair it?! Is it functional again?"
The doctor's brows furrowed and it was clear that his already distraught mood was further soured by the petulant tone of the blue-haired villain's voice, but he took a deep breath and calmed down.
"Yes, it is ready to deploy again." The doctor spoke in a defeated tone. "I managed to inject a few more quirks to further enhance it, so it should fight with about 37,65% more efficiency. Although…" The elder then quieted down, seemingly focused on his thoughts.
Shigaraki's eyes lit up in a sort of infantile excitement. "Great! Then, Kurogiri!" He shouted and dragged his plastic chair backwards, an annoying scrapping noise echoing in the room. "Fetch it already!"
The [Warp] villain held in a sigh, and began to open a portal. As the tear in reality appeared, a voice from the computer stopped him.
"Would you care to listen, brat!?" The doctor exclaimed, unable to contain his temper anymore. "This is not a toy you can simply play about thoughtlessly! Besides, what's your obsession with this one?"
Tomura said nothing, red orbs slowly moving from the computer screen to a nearby object on his desk; a group of disembodied hands that sat there, one in particular at the top of the pile. It had no particular distinguishing feature besides its size, being somewhat long with chunky fingers. "I don't know…" He muttered.
"Creepy bastard…" The doctor muttered, moving away from the glass tank. He then began heading towards a different section of the laboratory he was in, the camera following the doctor with surprising accuracy. It captured him as he approached a surgery table, an unconscious person atop it. "Master also told me that you wanted to design a particular Noumu with this one as a frame for it. It is rather rare for you to want something besides firepower and strength, so what's this all about? It even has a nice support-type quirk already."
Shigaraki suddenly snapped to attention towards the screen. His cracked and dry lips split into a creepy grin. "Yes, but before you do anything to her, I want use her as bait. It will be fun seeing that kid kill her. In the end you only need the body, right?"
The doctor rested his arms at his back. "Alive subjects are much better, you can see the best results from them, but a corpse is fine too."
"Then," Shigaraki once more pointed towards Kurogiri. "go fetch her already. I gotta see how long this grind will last." The villain leader then turned to Himiko. "Oi, you, stabby bitch."
The girl put on her best plastic smile, although killing intent began to emanate from her frame. "What do you need, Shiggy-chan?"
"You said that you wanted some alone time with that Midoriya-bastard right? Well, you can have him later, but first I need you to do something for me."
Himiko nodded, standing up with a bounce on her step and a knife on her hand. "Who do you need stabbed?"
The villain's expression darkened, the deranged look quite the sight to see. "For now, no one, but I need you to look for a few clues for me. Everything you can get on this bastard, from friends to family, any personal info that might be useful to break him. I saw this trick on a detective sim and wanted to try it out."
Himiko whined, but did put away her knife. "Hmmmm…okay~."
The leader of the villains then made a shooing motion. "Now get the fuck out. I need to unwind." He said, putting on some headphones and clicking on an icon on the screen.
Himiko didn't remain for long, but she managed to see something on the screen.
"League of Le–"
[XXX]
[XXX]
[Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood!]
Izuku clamped his jaw shut, his fangs and bones creaking as the vampire tried to distract himself from the immense pressure in his head. He had been left alone for what he surmised to be three or four days, having been served neither food nor water. Nobody had visited him, which suited him fine, but without any nourishment, even Izuku's immortal body was bound to start failing.
His stomach hurt a fair bit and his [Hunter Instincts] were growing together with the hunger pangs. Were the villains trying to weaken him through starvation? To make matters worse, he had even begun to hear voices in his head. They would come and go, only haunting him when the [Thirst] was at its most intense. Worse yet, Izuku recognized the owners of said voices.
[Don't ever think I'll forgive you, brat! I was so close to it! A bit more and I would have achieved everything I ever wanted!]
[MIDORIYA! FIGHT ME! SHOW ME BLOOD! LET'S RIP EACH OTHER APART AND SEE THE COLOR OF OUR INSIDES! SHOW ME A GOOD TIME, VAMPIRE!]
Izuku hissed at himself, his seiza sitting position being disturbed as he bent forward, his stomach groaning as it begged for sustenance. It was tortuous, something indescribable. Those two were the only ones that would ring in his head, repeating a few sentences; an annoyance, but something to distract him from the absolute sheer boredom of being in this reinforced room by himself.
He even worked on a theory as to why Wolfram and Muscular were the only ones that he could hear shouting inside his head. They were the ones who Izuku had killed by sucking up all their blood. He cared little for the blood echoes of the duo, the whispers of their lives buried deep within his life stream. Yet now that his blood had thinned and become scarce, their echoes began to break through.
Still, it wasn't like they were alive inside him. [True Ancestor] only took so much from its bite victims. Quirk-factor and blood echoes sure, but it would be impossible for Izuku to bring something like…was it appropriate to say soul? Anyway, Izuku could not do such thing, only keeping snippets of genetic information from the rivers of blood that flowed in other people's veins.
[Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood!]
But if the [Inner Beast] were to continue its incessant begging, the vampire figured that he might as well kill his curiosity and dive into those blood echoes. Anything to distract from the [Thirst].
[!]
His head immediately snapped to attention, eyes shooting open as a warping portal emerged at one of the far off walls. His closed mouth opened before the vampire had any input on it and he pounced almost like a wild animal, saliva dripping from his mouth in thick, drizzling slobs. It mattered not who came through that, they were going to become sustenance for him!
"Noumu, fight!" A hateful voice echoed from the portal, Izuku already seeing red as he approached the warping portal, only for something to blur from the portal inside the room and a mighty crack sound echo in the room as the vampire felt a fist almost bury itself on his skull, face-first.
*ccccccccccccrrackkkkkkkkkkkk*
He was punched back by a rather known fist, his nose terribly broken and head ringing as bone fractured under the rock-hard fist of the creature. The vampire managed to right himself while airborne, but before his bare feet could even touch the cold floor, the monster was upon him again, another impossibly fast punch cocked and just about to slam into his gut.
Black matter burst forth from Izuku's shadow and barely managed to restrain the incoming fist, the air pressure caused by it fluttering his misshapen hair, yet doing nothing to stop Izuku from clamping his jaw around the offending arm.
His fangs met heavy resistance, the hide-like flesh of the creature with female features tougher than he remembered during their first fight; with an animalistic growl, Izuku kept the attack, his pearly white fangs eventually piercing the flesh and finding the sacred nectar that he so heavily needed.
[FETID! FOUL!]
[WHAT A DISGUNTING CONCOCTION!]
Yet as the crimson fluid filled his mouth and touched his taste buds, Izuku almost vomited it in the same bite. He forced the first mouthful in, the other creature's free arm grabbed his right leg and pulled him off with a forceful move, even as his fangs were still buried in its arm and the wet sound of ripping flesh echoed in the room.
Izuku was thrown against a wall, impacting it harshly and cracking the plaster that covered the metal behind it.
*Gulp*
"Hrhkkk!" A gagging sound happened to echo inside the room, yet no further liquid was spilled.
Izuku stared at the Female Noumu with his slit crimson eyes, his throat moving as he pushed the liquid down, the usually sweet flavor of blood missing from the liquid, the vampire only tasting something putrid and sickly nauseating in the life liquid. It still provided sustenance and was packed with an incredible amount of nutrients, but it was the worst thing he ever had the displeasure of tasting.
But he had no time to be complaining as the gaping hole that should have been left on the Noumu had sealed shut into a jagged mess of scar tissue.
He spat out the stringy chunk of flesh that was in his mouth, the meat sucked off all its content. Izuku growled as the blood barely reached his stomach before it began to be metabolized, almost as if fuel to an engine; he huffed, a crimson cloud steaming off his nose instead of a clear white.
Izuku's stretchy-looking taut skin began to regain its healthy tone, the vampire hissing in pain as dead nerve cells in various patches of skin began to regenerate, the pain of being burned alive by the blue flames hitting him once more: that, however, did nothing more than further sharpen his focus. Pain proved that he was alive!
"Arhhh!" He growled, his body heating up and finally starting to resemble his usual manner.
The Female Noumu returned his growl, her figure hovering a few centimeters from the floor before she shot towards him like a bullet.
[Rip that flesh puppet apart!]
Izuku agreed to the proposition! Now that his engine had something to run with, [True Ancestor] began to pick up the pace. His perception began to speed up and Izuku's eyes could now track the incoming blow. He dodged the brutal incoming uppercut and dove inside the creature's guard, black matter still coming out from his shadow and resembling eldritch tentacles coming from the depths of hell.
Those tendrils allowed the armless Izuku to cling to the Female Noumu's frame from the back, his eyes glowing with terrible crimson light. Blood burst from his neck in a gory fashion, the jet-crimson red fluid immediately shaping itself around his jaw to resemble the draconic mask he used; the difference, however, was that the build did not slim down to resemble cloth.
No, it was more like a jagged bear trap. It sunk into the creature's neck with a meaty and weet sound, Izuku growling all the time. He felt the Female Noumu's hands reach behind to grab him, the long and chunky fingers grasping his sides and trying to dig into his flesh with its blunt claw-like nails.
[Pitiful existence!]
[You blood is foul, but you shall serve one last and grand purpose!]
Izuku pulled on [Coagulation], the effect immediate as the Noumu's entire body froze in place. The vampire let more blood flow into himself, the terrible and disgusting smell and taste permeating his mouth and nostrils, yet Izuku drank deep from the well that was this Noumu.
Before the creature could break away from the spell, Izuku further called upon [Coagulation]. The Female Noumu croaked and growled, the noise inhumane and grating on the ears. The vampire didn't want to keep on hearing it, so he focused his [True Regeneration] on the stump that was his right arm. Like a clogged pipe that was suddenly cleaned, blood burst from the skin, ripping apart the carefully healed stump in a fashion that could only be called macabre. First the fluid hardened to resemble the missing limb, the crimson clashing against the healthy tone of Izuku's skin. This will do for now! Izuku mused to himself, flexing the faux limb.
He shoved his newly made limb inside the Female Noumu's mouth, the blood-arm beginning to bubble and heat up.
*SSSSSIIIIIIIZZZZLLLLLLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE*
*KRAAAACKKAKAAAAAKKKKA*
The teen roared, the combination of [Flammable Blood], [Explosive Blood], [Acidic Blood] and [Corrosive Blood] violently blowing the creature's head, sending chunks of grey matter and bone everywhere and painting the leftmost corner of the room into a mess of blood and brain matter.
Izuku himself was thrown on the floor, red smoke-like steam emanating from him. He was quick to stand up, the sudden fight and battle fervor making him almost forget the warp portal on the wall. He was not alone in the room anymore.
Shigaraki had entered it at some point, together with Kurogiri and another figure that he did not recognize, the person was covered in some sort of black-and-grey bodysuit that covered them from head to toe. The vampire wanted nothing more than to rip the lanky villain's throat and let him bleed out, the twisted and foul blood that ran in Shigaraki's veins not a thing Izuku wanted to drink any of as he already had whatever he could need from it.
*Clap Clap Clap*
Tomura slowly clapped. The villain was clad in his usual get-up, many hands wrapped around him for whatever reason.
"What a hero you are, Midoriya! That was a splendid show of compassion towards your fellow beings." The villain laid the sarcasm thick, not bothering to hide his tone or intent.
Not that Izuku wished to mingle with him anymore than necessary too, but if Shigaraki had come here and exposed himself to this extent, it was clear that he was confident in some sort of measure or back-up plan. It would not due for him to simply pounce on the villain and violently rip his throat off, no matter how appealing the prospect seemed.
"That guy is a hero trainee? He is nuts!" The bodysuit clad man spoke in a course voice. "I want him on the team." Strangely enough, his voice changed in pitch, as did his mannerism.
Shigaraki pointed one hand at Izuku. "You see now, Twice? That's the secret mini-boss that I told you. Understand now why had to remain at the base camp to guard until his HP was low enough?"
Izuku remained on guard, letting his right arm begin healing. It was painful, but nothing that he couldn't power through. However a weird scent caught his attention. He let his eyes search the source, finding it to be a puddle of sludge on where the Female Noumu's corpse should be. His slit eyes widened, the vampire's gaze returning to Shigaraki to find the villain to be still pointing at him.
"That's what we are dealing with, so don't hold back. It's also good XP for your quirk. Maybe if you level up enough you could do more with it."
"I see…makes sense, boss-man!/Don't fuck with me, that guy is crazy dangerous!" The one called Twice replied in one breath, giving Shigaraki a salute which then broke off into a middle-finger gesture.
The villain smirked and then gave his back to Izuku, making his way to the portal. Izuku felt tempted into throwing a [Blood Spear] through the man's head, but Kurogiri was standing guard, acrid yellow eyes staring at the vampire. In the end he managed to hold in his hatred towards the villain, if only barely.
Before Tomura went past the portal, he half-turned to the vampire, a taunting smirk visible under the gloved hand that covered his face.
"Good job, hero! If you tried to attack me, I would have dusted off one limb of that neko hero that we got as a souvenir from the attack, but you held back! Good boy!" The villain sneered hard, especially as he felt the killing intent flowing from Izuku's body in waves. He felt a shiver go up his spine as he stared at Izuku, the image of Stain mirroring the teen for a second.
Shigaraki clicked his tongue in annoyance, hands twitching. "Kurogiri, keep this portal open for Twice. Our guest has been hungry for quite a while, let's make sure that he is well fed." Tomura spat out hatefully, red orbs giving one last glance at Izuku.
That was a mistake…
Izuku closed his left eye and stared at Shigaraki with his right eye. The orb's slit pupil soon changed in favor of turning into a diamond shape; blood was soon spilling out of the socket almost as if running out of a river. Izuku soon shut his eyelid off and favored the left.
Shigaraki felt as if something had gone past him, almost as if an invisible weight had been settled on his shoulders. Yet he paid it no attention and vanished through the portal. That night the villain would dream with something that he had long forgot.
"You heard the boss-man, Midoriya-guy! It's nothing personal!/ I fucking hate you, Toga-chan wants to interrogate you!" Twice spoke his bit, shouting the last part.
Izuku kept fiercely gazing at the duo of villains, baring his fangs at them. They wanted to challenge him? To corner him? Well, there would not be enough bodies, but they could try.
[Let them come!]
[We will rip them apart!]
[Shall we teach them to these villains, master?]
Izuku wondered what his quirk was talking about.
[Something that they forgot long ago. We shall teach them again.]
[The fear of the night. The place of prey.]
[What the rules of nature dictate!]
[XXX]
[XXX]
[One week after Midoriya Izuku's kidnapping.]
"…finally…~" A girl muttered to herself, dark and deep bags surrounding her eyes. She created some distance between herself and the screen of her computer and took off her glasses to rub her eyelids, trying to grant her dry orbs some measure of moisture.
Another girl occupied a desk not too far from her seat, although the girl in question was leaning on the desk, passed out from no doubt overwork, as heavy bags were also present around her eyes.
The two were in a laboratory in UA High's grounds, yet they were alone there. Normally such exclusive access would not be easy for teenagers to acquire, but somehow the two girls managed to have the place all for themselves. Much as UA was a place for heroic learning, it also was a school that needed funding, and while the principal Nezu was an extremely intelligent being, he was also only one creature and thus could not do everything by himself.
Donations (depending on their source, of course) were always welcomed, and one coming in the form of new heavy machinery and new-generation materials directly from I-Island was hard to deny without extensive reasons. Considering that not even the chimera principal could come up with such reasons, Nezu had little choice but to accept the donation and give the person responsible for it a show of his "appreciation" of her donation.
Melissa Shield had spared no effort to reach UA and contact one of the most notorious first years on the Support Course. Barely had the American arrived on the mainland of Japan the girl locked herself in her given laboratory with Hatsume Mei, the two working on something that no one had access to.
The [High-Specs]-quirk user could eventually break through their firewalls and security, but he held in his curiosity and waited. The girls were highly emotional at the moment and he would prefer that their efforts were directed in finishing whatever they were doing than antagonizing him back. He knew the two were highly attached to Midoriya Izuku – one of the so-called problem child in UA – but he had little information on Melissa and her current capabilities.
Sure, she was quirkless, but that meant very little considering she was David Shield's daughter.
Melissa stood from her seat and stretched, trying to shake off the lethargy from her muscles. After the incident on I-Island, the directors and investors decided that the whole place needed to go through a security overhaul. It had been too easy for such a small group of mercenaries to invade the tech-haven with only a little inside help; her father himself a major backer of the increase in security.
It would take a while for some of the greater changes to be fully established, but for now I-Island had its own law-enforcement task force and changes had been made as per the use of force. The whole place wasn't going to be militarized, but it was rather clear that more effort would be placed in the affair.
After Melissa returned from the hospital (receiving a clean-bill of health and many questions as per the methods used to save her from death), she focused on quickly speeding through her last courses so that she could be a full-on engineer and Support Item Developer. She wanted nothing more than to speak with Izuku again, but considering the his current status on mainland Japan and the heavy opposition from the HSPC, she figured it would be better for he to first finish her graduation and become a full-fledged engineer.
Yet, about two week ago her personal computer exploded with warning messages. She checked on it, finding all the warnings to be related to Izuku's health status and quirk-consumption. The Full-Gauntlet was still linked up to her personal server and computer, still feeding information to it. She had honestly forgotten about it, but now she took upon herself to constantly check on it.
She was not stalking him! She was merely returning the favor, as he did save her life.
Through the Full Gauntlet she had some access to his usual routine and even geolocation. The most common information available to her was pertaining to his health. Quirk usage, hormone levels and blood levels were where the majority of her focus went, the girl noticing that those were constantly changing, thus she deduced that he was most likely going through training.
It was fun for her to observe the data charts of the vampire. Even if she could not see what was going on, she knew that Izuku was giving his best out there, working as hard as always. Sometimes she would spend hours imagining what sort of training he was going through, using the data to try to imagine the sessions and his line of thought.
Yet on what she supposed was the last day of the training course he was going through, his cortisol and quirk-usage levels sky-rocketed, the Full Gauntlet capturing a great detail of information from him, including heavy levels of damage suffered. And then suddenly the signal became corrupted, the girl jumping from her seat back on her lab in I-Island.
Loss of signal was almost impossible. I-Island had top-of-the-line internet connection, exclusive servers and its own set of orbit satellites; unless they manually shut off the connection, it was almost short of impossible to cut connection like that. She knew that the Full Gauntlet was tough enough to withstand any sort of training, so the options were being limited to Izuku himself destroying the equipment (unlikely and ludicrous to even think of such possibility) or …
Villain attack? She mused in her mind, immediately sending an email to the vampire's working electronic address. He commented something about villains attacking UA before, but they managed to track him down again? What is going on? Aren't the teachers or the authorities doing anything about it?
She anxiously waited for some sort of answer on the email while also working on a few other projects to pass time. It took a while, but eventually someone answered her. She was sure it was not Izuku, the way the person wrote being completely different from the vampire. Her answers came not long after as the other person identified themselves and desperately asked for help while explaining the situation.
Melissa might not be that familiar with Hatsume Mei, but if the girl had access to Izuku's personal and work-related emails, she must be someone whom he trusted. Thus, Melissa did what she thought necessary.
She made arrangements for a massive amount of her personal lab's machinery to be sent to UA while also booking the first flight available to mainland Japan. Izuku had saved her father's life, her own life and even rescued I-Island from the threat of Wolfram. She did not even hesitate.
Of course her father did oppose to her sudden decision, but one news report later, she had gotten permission. Besides, she would not be on any fights or front-line confrontations to help his rescue. Melissa might be quite determined to help, but she knew that her skills were better suited for other matters, mainly backline support. She was an inventor, an engineer like her father. If David Shield built things for All Might, then Melissa would be Izuku's Shield, ready to protect and back him up against anything.
The girl's first set of actions when reaching Japanese soil was to rush straight to UA to talk with iconic principal. She couldn't just suddenly show up and demand information about the hero course, but she could apply for a special entry test for their Support Course. Being the surrogate nephew of All Might allowed her to pull in a few favors and the board of the school would prefer to be in the Symbol of Peace's grace.
She didn't reveal to Uncle Might her presence here yet, sure that the hero would argue against her interest in the matter. Still, after a written test supervised by the school principal himself, she was quickly graded and approved. Not many hours later she was on her lab, the second person needed for her plan to help Izuku arriving not too long after.
Hatsume Mei.
The two girls didn't know each other, but when they focused on each other's eyes, there was a spark of recognition.
Thus, they exchanged very little words when it came to personal greetings or anything of the sort. All their being was focused on identifying what happened to Izuku and what they could do to help him.
First they needed to understand how he had been kidnapped and how did the villains managed to interfere with the signal of the Full Gauntlet. And while the duo worked on that, Melissa also had a small side project running. Since I-Island had announced their interest in militarization projects they had gotten some hefty donations from the US to work on the development of few weaponry; she might not be privy to the bigger projects, but small developments projects did get spread all around the island for anyone interested.
The heroes would work something out to help, but Melissa wouldn't be able to settle down unless she had some insurances of her own. Couples with Mei's almost maniacal willingness to work for Izuku's sake and well… If she suspected that the heroes would not be enough, Melissa had some reinforcements in mind.
Nonetheless, she finally managed to understand what happened. It was quite a simple matter, really.
The villains didn't have some super advanced tech that rivalled I-Island's or possessed a genius that hacked into her build. Simply put, her Full Gauntlet had never gone out of commission or been destroyed. The signal wasn't corrupted, but downgraded and split due to the effects of some sort of [Compression] quirk. It messed with the mass/scale of her equipment and even compressed the data that it would send out to her. It basically slowed down the bit-rate that was to be sent to her servers.
After about a week of piecing together the tiny packets of data, she managed to get the location of where the Full Gauntlet was.
"Impressively exquisite work, Miss Shield." A squeaky, high pitched voice echoed from her back, the language perfect English instead of the expected Japanese. Melissa turned around to greet the person, her tired eyes having to glance down to find the owner of the voice. The very Principal Nezu being escorted by a scruffy teacher and a dominatrix by his sides.
She blinked twice, wondering why the chimera was on her lab room.
"I can see that you are confused, but it is a fairly simple explanation." The principal exclaimed in a friendly tone, although his smile did not extend past his muzzle, his cold eyes staring at the American blonde and her pink-haired friend. "You both pushed yourselves beyond for the sake of Midoriya-san…an admirable effort for sure. However, you are both overworking yourselves. Too few hours of sleep, too much worry and stress; it tends to make one blind to their own slip-ups. You both did impressive work for sure, but you seem to have forgotten that while your own servers are very secure, you do run proxy and did collect information from our own data bank."
Melissa would widen her eyes if she could, but due to all the accumulated exhaustion and stress of the week, the girl merely massaged her eyelids and sighed out in frustration.
"…how great…" She sarcastically muttered, glancing at Mei, wishing that the girl would offer her a way out. Considering how the other girl had passed out not too long ago, Melissa found herself short of options. Working within the law was fair – but also constricting – yet the girl found that in her desire to help Izuku she had been rather quick to toss any concerns aside if it improved her chances of helping the vampire sooner rather than later.
The girl then halted her thoughts. Sure, she had been caught by the principal and some teachers, yet instead of restraining or securing her work, the duo merely stood there, emotionlessly staring at her. The chimera principal kept staring at her, patiently waiting for…something. He had not accused her of anything, merely stated a few facts about her work.
"You are not here to detain me…" She stated, testing the waters. Seeing the furry animal-hybrid remain passive, she followed along and glanced at Mei's frame. "…nor do you seem to be here to get Mei."
Nezu paced a bit around the laboratory, eventually glancing at one of the stools, although the seat was a bit outside of his reach. Melissa noticed it and stood from her own chair, moving to try to help the principal. The chimeric being accepted the help without qualms, being picked up by the girl almost like a stuffed-plushie and being set atop the seat.
"Here you go."
"Why, thank you."
The scruffy teacher and the dominatrix (her mind was too tired to bother trying to conjure their names) remained back on, contend with simply staring at them. Their gazes felt dull, robotic, but Melissa had other matters to focus on, those mostly being the principal who had graded her test and was currently keeping a very intense stare focused on her.
"Now, Miss Shield, your commitment to a fellow friend is rather inspiring, commendable even." The furry animal spoke in a measured tone, never raising his voice any more than the absolute necessary. Melissa couldn't help the shiver than ran down her spine as she matched gazes with the animal, only to be intimidated by the emotionless black eyes of the hybrid. His high-pitched tone should take some of the seriousness away, but somehow it seemed to only add to the fear that gathered at her stomach. "But I'm afraid that such unauthorized course of actions cannot be allowed to run any longer."
Melissa felt something akin to a sinking feeling inside her.
"A-ah…"
"Your actions were rushed, you barely managed to cover after yourself and were it not for the tech you brought in with yourself then I'm afraid that someone would have already been made aware of your little shindig here. That you pulled rank and your association with All Might to suppress any questioning about the nature of your actions…" with each word spoken Melissa felt her hope vanishing a little more.
She focused heavily on the intel gathering and data analyses, trying to find any pattern that would allow her to tap into the communications of the villains. Mei had worked very hard into the side-projects that Melissa brought over since they were supposed to be an ace in the sleeve just in case anything went wrong with the rescue. Would their efforts be for naught?
"Honestly, I'm very split on what to do here: to think that you would manage such a leap in the search just on your lonesome; a major number of highly skilled technicians and hero offices have been trying anything to track the League down and get a lead towards Izuku's location, and suddenly an undergraduate from I-Island messes around a bit and finds such strong lead." Nezu calmly spoke as he searched something from his pockets, soon producing a sort of remote control. Which the chimera then pressed a button on it, the scruffy teacher and the dominatrix-woman fizzled away from existence with a blur of static.
"Eh?" Melissa couldn't help the foolish noise that escaped her lips, the girl only now noticing the small devices that were on the floor: volumetric displays, easily mistakable for the inferior tech of holographic projection.
The furry principal looked thoroughly amused by the American's reaction. His lips quirked up, the chimeric-being tapping his soft, padded paws on the desk.
"Now, now Miss Shield, I could – if you truly want it – punish you and detain all your equipment and store away all the information you have brought up; or, we could make efficient use of all the work you have accomplished in such a short span of time and we can chalk up your slip up as a beginner's mistake." Nezu explained, his words simple, yet calculated. Melissa knew that she had very little alternatives the moment she was caught in the act, but if she could help Izuku, then it would be worth it in the end. Even so, she knew that taking the principal's words at face value would be a foolish thing to do.
Nonetheless, with her current options being either house-arrest or acceptance of a shady deal with a creature of high intellect such as the principal of Japan's number one hero school, there was little room for hesitance. She left her seat and approached the furry creature, extending one hand towards him.
"If you put it like that then the answer is rather obvious, right?" She joked a bit to clear the mood, though her steps lacked her usual jovial demeanor. She had been awake for a long time after all.
Nezu barely held in the burst of incessant, sycophantic laughter that threatened to escape from his muzzle. He shook hands with the Shield's daughter, his beady eyes switching targets from the girl's blue orbs to the computer screen behind her. Being displayed on it was a rather strange amalgamation of blueprints that the chimera had never seen before; it looked to be some sort of auxiliary exo-suit, though the principal was sure that most of the ones available in the market didn't seem so high-tech.
"You both need to rest up a bit before we can proceed with planning. It is my understanding that you two want to follow up closely on Midoriya's rescue, right?" Nezu stated, seeing Melissa offer a thankful nod back. The furry being chuckled. "Do you permit me a question, Miss Shield?"
The girl tilted her head curiously, but her eyes did not refuse. She was a bit tired, but she could afford to answer a few more questions. "…it is only fair."
"Why are you so interested in this cause, Miss Shield? It can't be just gratitude." The creature questioned, seeing Melissa suppress a yawn. "You could have anonymously tipped us or used a varied myriad of options to have relayed this information to us. Yet you choose to ingress here in UA – even going so far as to use such forceful methods – and to work in as close as possible to my student and his partner, going so far as to even risk your own future."
Melissa mulled over the question for a short while, but soon opened her mouth. "…If I were to put it into words…" She glanced at Mei, seeing the mechanic girl cradle a hoodie close to her face. "I finally found what I was looking for."
The principal curiously tilted his head. "Meaning?"
Melissa smiled to herself, memories of the fun time she spent with the vampire back on I-Island playing at the back of her mind. "Even when surrounded by fellow scientists and inventors back home, I always felt that there was some sort of disconnect between us. But when I started talking with Izuku, something just…clicked." Melissa tried to explain, the words just coming out on their own. "So even if I'm just a quirkless little girl here, a stranger who has found an even stranger war brewing here, I finally found what I was looking for."
Nezu nodded in acknowledgement. The furry principal then hopped off from his elevated seat, turning to leave the laboratory. "Rest you, Miss Shield; and do please take Mei-san with you. We will need you at your best when the time to act his rescue comes."
Melissa hummed an agreement. She then turned her gaze to the screen of her computer, the blueprint displayed being the side project that she had forwarded to Mei, the kinks and other small adjustments done, the only thing left to do now was build and test it. Mei would work on the hard frame while Melissa was going to work with the hyperweaved materials and AI-tech necessary to run it.
[Avid Series - Multi-Tasking Assistive Exo-suit: Chinook Mk.I]
[XXX]
[XXX]
[League of Villains' Underground Prison]
Inside the steel reinforced walls of the prison, a fight broke out again. The walls resisted as best as they could, although one could see that they had been thoroughly tested, signs of deep gouges, scorch marks and deep indentations marring all the four walls, their plaster being removed a long time ago, only to be repainted in an odd combination of red colors.
The clash continued, two beings fighting with all they had to kill each other. On one side stood a female creature with blueish-black skin, its body completely littered with a myriad of cuts; on the other stood a teen draped in crimson armor, a crimson-red Odachi grasped on his right hand, the left sporting a black revolver.
The two stared at each other with firm gazes, murderous intent emanating in waves and directed at the other. The teen holstered the gun on his hip and took a wide stance, sheathing his bladed weapon, yet never dropping his guard against the bare-handed creature.
The female Noumu screeched a challenging roar, its body levitating a few centimeters from the floor before it suddenly shot towards the teen in red armor. Fist cocked, the Noumu rushed akin to a steam locomotive, the juggernaut unstoppable.
"[Jetstream]." A quiet whisper left the armored teen's mouth. He patiently waited the rushing creature, his stance not shaken neither his willpower depleted.
The Noumu passed by him, its body riding on momentum as the creature turned around to try and ascertain the situation. Its instinct told that something wrong had happened as its fist had not even grazed the target, yet it had travelled the calculated distance. The being tried to look down at its fist to check its state, but the motion resulted in a strange sense of vertigo as the world spun around its sight.
*tumble*
The Noumu was reprogrammed to not feel fear or complain about a loss of limbs. So long as it could fight and execute its orders, other matters fell to the wayside. Yet the creature couldn't help the confused grunt. Its neck could not look at its entire body like this.
*Sppuuuuuurt* *Sppuuuuuurt* *Sppuuuuuurt* *Sppuuuuuurt* *Sppuuuuuurt*
Neither should its neck resemble a fountain. Consciousness rapidly failed and faded away as the severed head began to degenerate into the basic sludge pile that originally composed this creature.
With the creature finally dead, this marked the tenth time he had killed this particular Noumu today. Izuku tiredly huffed, the mask that covered his face releasing with a hiss~ and sliding the plates that covered his mouth to the sides. He examined his weapon for any damage or chip on the blade edge, sheathing it soon enough and staring at the purple-black warping portal that opened soon enough.
The vampire remained on guard as Kurogiri exited from the tear on reality, although this time the villain seemingly had arrived alone. The baritone gaseous man stood at the side of the portal, acrid yellow eyes dutifully staring at the vampire. A few moments of silence went by, neither interested in casual conversation.
Soon enough the villain caved in, exhaling a tired sigh.
"How do you fare, Midoriya Izuku?"
One could clearly hear the tiredness that clung to Kurogiri's every word. Not that Izuku would show him pity, but he could comprehend exhaustion; every day he had been forced to fight clones of the Female Noumu, the fights the only form of sustenance that Izuku had had for the past week or so. It was difficult to tell the passage of time when you were locked in a cell with no windows.
"Well enough…" Izuku nonchalantly answered, unwilling to put more effort into it than necessary.
The conversation died down, although it was clear that the villain wished to talk about something, yet he was unsure of how to approach the vampire with the subject. Eventually he released another sigh and simply began speaking.
"I don't know how or what you did to Shigaraki Tomura, but I came here to make amends and try to work out a deal for you to dispel it." Kurogiri stated, moving his hands to his back.
Izuku raised a brow at the villain, crossing his arms over his chest as he pondered. "I have no idea of what you are talking about."
The gaseous villain moved one hand, the portal shifting to expand, giving more room to whatever was coming out of it.
Izuku's nose was the first to pick up on the scent, his slit pupils widening as he stared hard at the portal. From it came the figure of the female Noumu, yet instead of the being sporting a fighting stance, it carried something on its arms. Better yet, it carried someone.
Izuku's orbs momentarily lost their aggressive demeanor, the fear-bringer gaze substituted by emerald green orbs full of compassion and affection. "Tomoko-san…" He uncrossed his arms, his right hand raised almost as if to grab the woman. Realizing that she – technically – was still under the villains' hold, Izuku soon switched back to his alert state, chastising himself mentally for dropping his guard.
"Shigaraki had a few plans in mind for her, but I figured that losing a bargaining chip against you would not be worth the effort of trying to traumatize and antagonize you." Kurogiri stated, seemingly in control of the bioengineered weapon. It walked a few steps and stopped, carefully depositing the person it was carrying on the dirty floor, a thin blanket all that was provided together with the person.
"Why have you brought her here?" Izuku's voice became a rough and venomous thing, the vampire suddenly aware of the terrible look of his environment. The walls were caked in a mix of dried blood and plaster, the floor also covered in gunky fluid (originating from the clones' deaths) and blood. It wouldn't be unfair to call it either the lair of some degenerate and violent serial killer or some sort of rancid abattoir. It was not the sort of thing that could be called welcoming.
Kurogiri motioned for the female Noumu to back off. "As I've stated before," The villain then motioned for the monster to back off, the creature obeying it mindlessly. It crossed the portal, Izuku's nose picking on its scent and committing it to memory. That one was the original, its frame and shape bringing about a strange sense of recognition and melancholy to the vampire. "I want you to undo whatever you did to Shigaraki. I don't know what it was, but I'd prefer to solve it before he finds the link and does something that would derail our plans. Think of it as an offering of peace." The villain stated, backing off to a corner and motioning one hand to the unconscious member of the Pussycats.
Izuku vanished from his spot, appearing by the heroine's side in a second. His hands hovered over her body, the armor protecting his limbs sliding off as he touched her face with the back of his hand. The effect was instantaneous, the aggression and tension that clung to his frame like a corrosive black cloud vanished. That was not to say he fully dropped his guard. Shadowy tendrils emerged from his back and pointed towards Kurogiri, various spikes and one pistol aimed at the villain.
There was a pleased growl that echoed in the back of his mind, both the [Beast Within] and his own thoughts appreciative of the one good thing that happened ever since his kidnapping.
He also noticed that Ragdoll's injuries from the attack were treated, even if she was unconscious, at least she had been treated. She was also still draped in her scuffed hero costume, his nose capturing her scent and further calming him down.
"I suppose it would be too much to ask you to [Warp] me out of here." The vampire stated, cradling the heroine on his arms in case the villain changed his mind.
The villain shook his head. "Even this much is pushing the boundaries…"
Izuku released a huff. "I thought so…but why?"
Kurogiri's gaseous form exposed little emotion, but the vampire could swear he spotted what could be called a worried face from the villain.
"Whatever you did has not allowed Shigaraki a modicum of sleep. Anytime he tries to, he soon wakes up shouting bloody murder. A mind deprived of rest ends committing several mistakes that could lead to ruin. It would be in everyone's interest to allow our young master a fitful sleep." Kurogiri explained in his baritone voice, Izuku finally letting his eyes leave Tomoko's frame to then focus on him.
The vampire narrowed his eyes, wondering what to say. His grasp on Ragdoll tightened a bit, the teen doing his best to avoid sinking in his sharp claws on her skin.
"I already have Ragdoll secured; it seems to me that your leader's mental health is an issue that has little to do with me. Why should I care if Shigaraki doesn't get his beauty sleep?" Izuku spat out.
Kurogiri shook his head. "You are smarter than this, Midoriya Izuku."
The vampire felt the underlying threat in the villain's words, but he had had no information on what was going on outside of his jail cell. Ever since Shigaraki's last visit no one else had come to talk to him, his only interactions being with the Female Noumu clones that would arrive from the portal that appeared on what he figured out to be once a day. Neither food nor water were given to him, the vampire having had to survive solely on the limited supply of blood that was provided to him by the fights, and even then he was forced to drink their disgustingly fetid blood.
You will have to forgive me if I'm not bending back at the prospect of lifting up my little gift for Shigaraki. Izuku snarled in his mind, yet the words did not reach his mouth. He had to milk as much information about the outside as possible.
"Shigaraki can be particularly petty when in an irritated mood. Aggravating such matters by cutting into his sleep could result in terrible sorrow for you, especially if he were to find out you are the cause of his night terrors."
Izuku let a snarl leave his mouth, his fear-bringer gaze coming back with a vengeance. His body shook in barely controlled anger, his teeth grinding into each other as he clenched his mouth shut with enough strength to bite through bone.
"If you dare to touch anyone that I cherish, you'll find out that hatred can run quite deeper than any sense of heroism, villain!" His voice echoed in the room almost like it had a physical presence.
Kurogiri remained passive, his acrid yellow eyes tightening by the slightest margin. "All these things are mere possibilities, Midoriya Izuku; possible outcomes that can be avoided. One needs only to cooperate. Besides, it isn't like you are not profiting from our little deal."
Izuku stared at the villain, crimson slits burning with righteous anger. The scars that ran along his face became extremely pronounced, the villain fearing that he would have to call on reinforcements from the hideout. Tension thickened, hanging between the two almost like a physical thing.
…
…
…
The vampire relented. Huffing and holding back a string of expletive, he extended his left into his shadow by his feet, the limb sinking into the pool of darkness; a few moments later a red pill was extracted from it, the vampire tossing it in an arc towards the villain.
"What is this?" Kurogiri asked, securing the pill into one of his breast pockets.
Izuku took a deep breath to avoid snapping at the villain. At the moment he was merely a messenger, and as the saying goes: [Do not shoot the Messenger].
"This is the solution to Shigaraki's current problem." Izuku curtly said, making it very apparent that he'd talk no more.
Not that Kurogiri seemed to care for the vampire's misgiving with his current leader.
"I'll need much more information about this little wonder drug of yours if I am to consider our transaction complete." The villain pointed out, holding the small red pill at arms-length, ready to toss it into a [Warp] gate at any time.
Izuku grumbled to himself, but after a few more moments he talked. "As you can see, my quirk allows me to freely manipulate my blood. I just isolated one of my quirk-factors and concentrated it into my blood and compressed the fluid to make that."
The villain nodded at the explanation. "I take that you can do that with all your current abilities?"
Izuku glared at the villain, his expression affirming that he would speak nothing more than necessary.
"Midoriya, I went out of my way to make a rather dangerous exchange for your sake. Let bygones be bygones, if only for now. You have much more to gain by cooperating with me than trying to betray my trust in you."
…
…
…
"Fine~…" The vampire sighed, Ragdoll's presence on his arms helping to dull the edge that was his anger at the villains momentarily. Besides, he would only explain the very basics behind his technique. "I can only compress quirk-factors that already have a disposition for body-modification and even then I can only do it with a single quirk-factor, else I compromise the atomic structure and the quirk-factor's effect." He explained, watching the villain listen to him with a neutral, if slightly positive demeanor. Izuku then answered the villain before could ask the question that floated in the air. "That means only one effect per pill, and that one has a quirk-cancelling effect."
"What about…"
"No, it won't impair Shigaraki's [Decay]. I made your pill instructing the blood to resonate with my quirk. TL;DR, Your leader will be able to sleep without worrying about his blood turning into poison or acid." Izuku's explanation seemed to suffice for the villain, as he nodded and turned to leave.
Once he left, Izuku could finally relax. The armor that clung to his frame released with a hiss, dropping from his body and falling into the shadow that surrounded the vampire in a circle, the pieces sinking into it almost as if falling into a pool. Once relieved of the armor it was possible to see that Izuku wasn't wearing clothes, but allowing shadow matter to wrap around his body to cover his important bits. The darkness clung to him almost like a bodysuit, allowing him a modicum of respect; it was far from ideal, as it clung tightly to his skin and left very little to the imagination, but he could mold its shape however he wished for and it allowed him to quickly attach his blood armor without having to worry with fumbling about latching anything on as the shadow matter could be infused with his own blood to secure the pieces in place.
It was an enormous relief to see Ragdoll fairly well. She was unconscious, but a quick eye exam did not point out anything major looking as far as injuries went. Izuku was no EMT or medic, but due to his regeneration he ended up studying a fair bit about the human body, thus he was certain that he could at least provide first-aid should the heroine need it. Her body was warm and her breathing pattern was stable, so for the moment Izuku placed her on the cleanest corner of the room.
[Warm and fertile! Her scent is succulent!]
[How about a little taste, Master?! Let us rid our tongue of this foul stench with her crimson nectar? She wouldn't oppose to a few drops, right?]
It would be better for him to also maintain some distance from Tomoko, considering the warmth of her body had been getting a rather…physiological reaction from the vampire.
He had been starved and forced to fight like there was no tomorrow, so the teen had been more reliant on his wild instincts for the past week. Combined with the bouts of [Thirst] he had been forced to suffer before the Female Noumu clones began to arrive and one could begin to understand his reaction to a member of the fairer sex. Still, he was not a fiendish beast merely guided by his needs, so the vampire took a deep breath and let Ragdoll rest, taking the chance to take stock of his own items.
It was one of the few activities he had available that helped pass the time. This isolation would gnaw on the sanity of those of weaker will, but Izuku had endured bullying and loneliness for all his childhood years. A few days in a dirty cell were not enough to break his spirit; the vampire took the time to run some light experiments with his quirk-factors, nothing that would run off his blood as feeding on the clones was a last measure that he only did when the [Thirst] reached the unbearable point, but since he had free time from school, he might as well make meaningful use of it.
[Shadow Control] had been one of the quirk-factors that Izuku used the most due to its malleability and zero-consumption of blood. He had been developing it for so long that he could say it was an integral part of his arsenal. To further add value atop it, the dark matter was an excellent conduit for other quirk-factors, hence Izuku's constant use and development of the skill. [Pocket] was also been a valuable addition, the two quirk-factors being mixed as soon as possible by the vampire. Nobody expected his shadows to start spitting out bullets or other weapons after all, although he had to be on good health to make effective use of the factors.
Izuku kept to his corner, eyes closed but still attentive enough to respond to any threats. Time went by in a slow manner, the vampire's nostrils being tickled by a sweet scent that he did his best to ignore.
…
~Drip…
…
…
…
…Drip~…Drip…~Drip…
…
…
…
~Drip…
…
…
…
…Drip~…Drip…~Drip…
A slight noise began taunting the vampire a bit. He ignored it, sure that it was nothing worthy his interest.
…
If only Izuku noticed that it came not from any corner of the room or any hidden speakers, but from himself.
…
…
…
More specifically, from the corners of his mouth, thick drizzles of saliva dripping droplet by droplet.
…
~Drip…
…
…
…
…Drip~…Drip…~Drip…
…
…
…
~Drip…
…
…
…
…Drip~…Drip…~Drip…
[XXX]
[To Be continued!]
AU END NOTES
Short end notes thing this time, considering I still want to build up more and more until the Kamido-raid battle and this chap is a springboard for the future to come. Not that much happened (or so I say), but I plan on making the next one even more fulfilling!
See you next chapter,
Ryujin Maou out!
PS: This [ONE] chapter is a bit more open to the idea of rewrite, but I want to keep the core idea similar. Still, I write this story for both myself and the viewers, who help immense amounts by reading and commenting their ideas so everyone is contributing a bit. I'm merely a vessel.