Chapter 45: Midoriya Izuku XL

A/N: And here goes the spotlight showcasing Himiko Toga. Let's see how you all think of my version of her.

"Soooooooo… How'd you get so so so good at drawing, huh? Was it like, something you figured out at school? Oh! Or maybe it was after you decided to start jotting down all of your juicy plans to murder heroes and villains alike? I'm sure that it helps to visualize such things, right?"

Surprisingly, Toga's constant gushing doesn't get on Izuku's nerves. In fact, he instead has a rather vague feeling of resignation to the act, some part of him relenting to the thought that there's nothing he can do about. That this is just how his life will be from now on…

He blames Hatsume.

"Nothing like that," Izuku ends up responding, if only to placate Toga's rambling inquiries. He's fairly sure that she won't let up, and that she'd likely grow more demanding (or overburdening, at least) as time went on. And he's fairly certain that he doesn't want to find himself in a scenario that features an agitated Toga Himiko with sights set firmly onto him.

"It's just something that became second nature to me over the years, I guess," he continues. "I kind of had to learn how to draw if I wanted accurate depictions of the people I was observing, you know?"

"I think I can understand that!" Toga cheerily replies with a nod, hair flailing around without a care. "I do the same thing whenever I cut someone up! I usually splay their blood all over the alley in a rather particular way! It's my own sort of art, you know? Let me see the person like how they're supposed to be seen!"

"Right…"

Toga lets out a cheery hum of agreement. "So how does it feel for you, hmm? Killing someone with your own hands? You've done it yourself, haven't you?"

Izuku feels a chill run down his spine — not as a reaction towards Toga's question, however. Izuku attributes his reaction more towards the way that Toga's hand had brushed against and continues to linger on the small of his back.

The only reason she's even close enough to do such a thing is because Izuku had allowed it. At the time he had seen no reason to refuse; he had asked the girl to teach him the secrets of her stealth-oriented abilities, and she had agreed to do so. It had taken a few minutes making some space in the bar, but once that was done Toga went straight into her lesson. If anything, Izuku's inclined to believe her eagerness stems from the fact that she's teaching something to someone she idolizes. As to whether such a thing plays as a benefit or a detriment… Well.

The first thing she had asked of him was to copy the stance that she promptly demonstrated. However, after a few minutes of fruitless attempts, and dissatisfied with his apparent inability to mimic her, Toga offered to help fix up his posture. He agreed, if only because her words were backed with a truthful-beating heart.

But now, he's starting to have suspicions that 'fixing his stance' wasn't all that she wanted to do. Fixing his footing and similar things shouldn't take a whole five minutes, after all. He supposes that, just because she was truthful in her words, doesn't mean that she didn't have any ulterior motives to follow up with her initial act.

Which is a rather dangerous loophole. Normally I'd be able to identify ill-intent though… Is it just because she…? Hrmm. I have to find a way to remedy that eventually…

"Well?" Toga asks, tired of waiting through Izuku's bout of silence. He ends up flinching when this time, she brushes against stomach. For a brief moment, he's reminded of all the times Bakugou went on to 'punish him.' One of his favorite targets was his stomach area, after all.

Before she can go further and rouse any more distasteful memories, Izuku decides to speak up. "Are you done yet, Toga? Any longer and I'll have no choice but to call the exercise off."

"What?" she squeaks, jumping just a little. "But why?"

Izuku holds back the urge to shout back in response. "We're long past the window of innocent posture and footing correction. If you only agreed to my request to find an excuse to grope me, then I'm afraid that—"

"Okay!" Toga shouts, backing away in an instant. "Sorry, sorry," she says, her eyes drawn to the floor.

Glad that the session of unsolicited touching has ended, Izuku lets out a sigh. He shakes his head, and then does his best to mimic what he remembers of Toga's stance, ready to continue the lesson. When he looks towards his current teacher, however, he can't help but let out a different sort of sigh.

Izuku's hopes for a normal lesson are dashed, however, when he notices her shallow breaths and the gradual redness filling Toga's cheeks. From the look of things, it seems as if getting caught has further aroused Toga, rather than instill any sense of shame into her.

"Toga."

The girl in question breaks out of her self-imposed turmoil. "Huh?"

"If you don't get along with this impromptu lesson I'm just going to leave," Izuku says, tapping his fingers against his side to emphasize his point. "You either control yourself within the next minute, or my willingness to let you in on the team will come into question, alright?"

"Of course, Whisper-kun!" Toga giggles. "Okay, okay. Um, take up my stance again. Like this!"

It's a rather simple stance, or at least so Izuku thinks. All she's doing is bending her knees and slouching her back ever so slightly, making her profile a bit shorter. So when he copies her once more, he's once again surprised to find out he's doing something wrong.

"It's okay!" Toga says with a toothy smile. "It's a simple fix! You're just too stiff and rigid! You just need to relax your muscles a bit!"

Izuku blinks. "And you needed to physically touch me tell me that?"

Toga shakes her head. "Well no, silly. That'd be dumb! But your stance is already better than it was before I… hehe. Then before I touched you!" She rubs her hands together. "Right now, you're subconsciously adjusting! So the next step is just to relax your body! Can't exactly evade someone's senses when you're shambling around like a robot now, can you?"

Rather than further argue, Izuku does as he's told, letting his limbs and muscles slacken.

"More!" Toga yells.

Izuku slackens himself some more

"More!"

And further.

"More! More!"

Eventually, he reaches the point where he's just barely able to keep himself standing, his limbs just on the verge of letting up. Toga lets off a satisfied nod at the sight, however, so he knows he's doing something right.

Toga then skips over to stand in front of him and takes upon her own stance. With his quirk Izuku can sense Toga gradually loosening her muscles up bit by bit. He double takes when her knees bend even further than what she had previously demonstrated, but still stopping before she ends up in a full on crouch.

He finds himself questioning just how she can keep such a state up so effortlessly when he finds himself struggling just to stay up, sweat trailing down his head and his muscles begging to be released.

"Now," Toga begins, "the important part is that you can't just be crouching. That ruins the whole point! When you're crouching, all your weight is being supported by your legs. But when we're like this, our knees are playing an even bigger role!"

"Look Toga, can we just—"

"When you're like this, your body ends up in the prime position to initiate a pounce. It's a simple trick, forward pouncing, but it's the first step! On the other hand, when you get as good as me, you can move in all sorts of ways!"

"Toga—"

"It's all about making sure you stay out of people's direct line of sight. Especially their peripheral vision! The mechanics are a bit wonky and stuff, but if you ignore all the 'hows' and whys' then you end up getting something like—"

"My legs are aching. Can we just—"

"—this."

Izuku blinks. One moment she's a full meter in front of him, and then suddenly she's draped over him, arms coiling over his shoulders. Her face buries itself in his neck, and Izuku pushes the girl off of him the moment she sniffs.

"Wow!" Toga says, catching herself on her feet as she stumbles back. "You smell nice~"

"Hmph. Impressive, I must admit." Izuku brushes the comment off. "So how'd you do it?"

Toga clears her throat. "Hrmm… How do I put it into words…" She sways around side to side, scratching at her head. "Aha! It's like… You stop your heartbeat for just a little bit! And then you redirect all your killing intent so it disappears entirely! Kind of like a reverse aura!"

Izuku looks on in disbelief.

"What?" Toga questions.

"You're telling me that you… What? Will your body to stop an integral life function? Just like that?"

Toga nods her head. "Mhm!"

"But… that doesn't even make any sense? My quirk is hearing, at its core. I should still be able to sense you through the vibrations you'd be making in the air as you travel. How…"

"I told you, I don't really know the inner workings of it either!" Toga reiterates. "It just works, so why can't we just leave it at that?"

"But… Even if you can slow your heart, pull in the presence you impose on the environment, conventional means of detection and all…" He stops his train of thought before he gives himself a headache. He can work through the details another time.

"Must really take a special kind of crazy then," Izuku mutters under his breath. "Wonder what that says about Sir Nighteye, then."

Hearing Toga's explanation, his prospects of learning the technique have diminished greatly. However, now that he knows what to look for…

"What was that?" Toga asks, perking up.

"I have something I want to test," Izuku says in place. "Could you perhaps do that again; coming after me in that state? But do so from all the way from the otherside of the bar?"

"Oh! You trying to see if you can sense me or not?!" She asks, bouncing from toe to toe.

"Something like that."

"Okay!" Toga does as she's told, moving to one side of the bar while Izuku moves to another. "When do you want me to start?"

"Whenever you're re—"

Before Izuku finishes his sentence, however, Toga disappears from his senses.

Right. There's a decent amount of space between myself and Toga's starting position. And even if she is a bit faster than the average person… Three, five seconds tops.

Izuku takes a deep breath, and searches. Seeing as his makeshift arena now stretches further than the imposed section they had cleared out for their lesson, in truth Toga could be anywhere. Whether she was weaving through the tables on his right, or skimming past the bar on his left is anyone's guess — the unpredictability makes for the perfect test.

He searches, and searches. One second, two seconds, three.

And just when he thinks his time is up, just as he's bracing himself for impact, he senses the slightest of movements to his right.

Gotcha!

He shifts his body to meet the incoming threat, raising his arms in front of him and positioning his feet to entrench himself in his spot. Unfortunately, Toga appears before he's even a third of the way done with his preparations. He ends up stumbling to the ground, Toga landing on top of him and pinning him to the ground.

"Not bad!" Toga says, leering at him from above. "I saw you moving to defend yourself at the last moment! Too bad you were too slow though."

Izuku lets out a sigh. "It's your uncanny speed; you're just like Tomura in that regard," he hypothesizes. "I don't think that stooping your heart and that… aura retention thing would be enough. But seeing as how fast you are… coupled with years of discipline on the skill. Hmm. Quirk bleed-through at work again, it seems. I don't think that this is something everyone can learn, Toga."

"Aww." Toga pouts. "So that means you can't learn from me?"

Izuku shakes his head. "Afraid not," he says, though a part of him relishes in relief. He may be missing out on a useful skill, but at the same time he won't have to spend more time than necessary with the crazed girl before him. "Cheer up though. It's a skill almost entirely unique to you. You're special in that regard."

Toga blinks. For a second, her face is blank. But there's a sudden shift, a grin steadily growing across her face and her cheeks redden up. It doesn't take long before Izuku realizes his mistake.

"You think I'm SPECIAL?!" Toga shouts, gabbing Izuku by the shoulders.

"OI! BE QUIET YOU FUCKS! I NEED CONCENTRATION IF I WANT TO MURDER THIS BOSS!" Tomura yells from a distance. Izuku had forgotten that the boy was still on the same floor as them, still playing away at his game.

Izuku's mind races for a way out of the situation he's planted himself in. Thankfully, the answer is essentially in front of him.

"Hold up!" Izuku shouts back in return. (He ignores Tomura's threats of coming over to beat some sense into him). "I said 'almost entirely unique!' There's still somebody else out there who can do the same thing!"

Toga freezes. "So I'm… not special to you?" Her face hardens. "Who is it? I'll kill them so I'm the only one! I'll be really essential to the team then, right? You won't let me go? You'll keep me? You'll let me stay right? Please, please?"

Izuku gulps, finding himself pushing his head into the ground as Toga's pleading face inches ever closer. It seems that he's accidentally touched upon a rather sensitive subject.

"Erm… Sure? You'll have to find out on your own though." Nighteye doesn't deserve it after all… I think.

"Yay!" Toga backs away, leaving Izuku with plenty of space to breathe.

"Oh yeah! I almost forgot!"

He hears it coming the moment Toga decides to act upon her urge. Unfortunately, there's not much he can do considering the fact that he's still pinned to the floor. Thankfully, the small slash made his way only results in a small cut on his cheek — a small mercy, if one considers Toga's usual proclivities.

Izuku's unease is lifted as Toga removes herself from atop Izuku. However, said unease comes crashing back down into focus even before he's able to properly stand. The sight of Toga licking at the blood that's tainted her knife, coupled with the knowledge of just what Toga's quirk does, has Izuku reeling.

"Mmmhhhmmm!"

Unfortunately, there's not much he can do but watch as the girl in front of him transforms into a sight he'd rather not be reminded of. In fact, he would have preferred that the image that has manifested before him had stayed buried in the back of his mind. After all, the memories attached to the appearance are rather…

He watches as one of Kurogiri's portals appears over Toga's hand, depositing a hand mirror. He can only watch in resignation as his clone fawns of his — her — own appearance, poking at her cheeks and running her hands all over and through the jungle of his hair.

"I knew that I smelled hair dye! Your boring black and straight hair doesn't do this nice broccoli hairdo justice! And these freckles! You look even cuter with them! I just want to find some blood! And then, and then—!"

It all comes crashing down to his mind within moments. So. This is what Kurogiri meant.

After all his research, Izuku understands the girl that is Toga Himiko to some degree. He knows that she freely attaches herself to people she grows to adore, and that she just as easily comes to dispose of them when they prove too fragile to handle her. This unfortunate circumstance — and even if it is rather sick and twisted, it's still a habit that's come to fruition in the first place due to her (lack of an) upbringing, so he can't really fault her for it — has prevented her from making any meaningful relationships.

As it is now, Izuku is the next person that Toga Himiko has decided to attach herself to. But something's different this time — he isn't just some average civilian. He isn't like any of Toga's previous victims: he knows just what he's dealing with, knows potential triggers that can set the girl off. And he can sympathize in a way; she's just as much a victim of the current society as he is, after all.

Give it time, and Toga's relationship with him won't just be some shallow, one off thing like she's often used to. He'll survive (he has too) and in turn she'll stick around. Follow him, maybe even grow to love him, in her own sick and twisted way.

He hates to admit it, but he can see all the uses such a one-sided adoration could provide. Just by leading her on, he would never have to worry about betrayal — she would never do that to somebody she loves.

But eventually he would falter, somewhere down the line. Whether by complacency or general laxity, Toga would have found an opportunity to find into her possession his blood. If Izuku were to even go through such a thing (and even now he's having doubts due to just how much of a bastard it makes him feel) it would be better that Toga find out who he is now rather than later.

In the long run it would be best if she grew to love him, Midoriya Izuku, and not the persona of Michimoto Jakku. There would be no risk of her image of him being tainted, no risk of her mind disagreeing with what she believes and what is the truth.

So yes; he understands Kurogiri's actions — appreciates them to some degree, even. But that doesn't mean that he has to like it.

It doesn't change the fact that Toga Himiko is a loose cannon, but not exactly in a way that would hinder any operations. She's a spirited and lively young girl driven by her emotions rather than her mind, and that kind of mindset can make things harder than need be. But for now, he knows that he can at least depend on Toga's perception of him to keep her in line, no matter how shallow or in depth her attraction is.

(But he'd rather not, rather not take advantage of and manipulate a girl who's likely faced more hardship than even he has. It'd be wrong, immoral. So he won't. He'll never. There are other ways, after all).

"Right," Izuku says to himself, though a little more loudly than he had meant to if the cessation of Toga's rambling is anything to go by. "Well, that's all the energy I have for tonight. I'm heading to bed, if you don't mind."

"Oh! No no, it's alright!" Toga says, all while still wearing his visage. "I'll follow you up!"

Izuku decides not to fight her decision, too tired to do so, and simply nods. Toga falls into step beside him, humming all the way to the second floor. Just when he believes himself in the home stretch, however, is the moment Toga decides to speak up.

"You know," she begins, "you really are acting different."

Izuku groans. "Not you too. You barely even know me; we've barely interacted longer than two minutes if you don't count tonight. What do you know?"

"Well… Take tonight for example! True, I may have only talked to you for like a minute before, but that single minute or so was really telling! Grumpy! Mean! Straight to the point! You never would have just gone along with me learning your identity and then asking for me to teach you if you were the you from when I first met you, you know? When before you were a prickly cactus full of barbs, now you're a cactus with its thorns all dulled!"

Izuku scrunches his face up in thought. Would I have? He shakes his head. "I think that you're overestimating how standoffish I was… Am. I've already talked with Mustard and Magne and Muscular one to one. Tonight was no different, just featuring you instead of any of the others whom I still need to speak with."

"Hrmm." Toga harrumphs. "Think what you want, 'Zuku! But I'm on to you!"

Great. Now I have two separate crazy girls shortening my names. And I've grown to integrate both of them into my life in less than two weeks. What does that say about… Wait.

He turns to face Toga. "I never told you my name. And I sure as hell don't have it written down anywhere in my room; not even in my notebooks. So unless you've kept hidden the fact that consuming your target's blood actually lends you their memories, how did you—"

"I got Big Sis Magne to spill!~ She's so sweet and nice for telling me, you know?"

"Oh. Right. Of course." Izuku sighs. "My carefully built persona is falling apart at the seams due to my teammates. It's such a wonderful turn of events, you know?" Another sigh. "That's it. I'm going to bed."

He walks over to his door and turns his doorknob to enter his room, but stops at the last moment. He turns his head to his right to find Toga mimicking his movements, but on the door directly to his right.

"Where are you going?" he asks.

"My room~" Toga takes on a conspiratory smirk. Izuku doesn't like where this is going.

"Your room… which just so happens to be next to mine?"

"It was vacant! Kurogiri let me have it!"

Izuku's eye twitches. Least I don't have to share a room with her. Hatsume I can bear with. But being alone in an enclosed room, leaving my sleeping body vulnerable to Toga?

He starts to see the signs of her quirk running its course, her superimposed layer of near-perfect disguise melting away into a thick slurry… And that means that she'll be naked soon.

Fat chance.

He hurriedly enters his room, but not before trying one last trick to scare her off.

"Good Night."

His efforts, unfortunately, do the opposite of what he had intended.

"Ooohhhh!~ That felt heavenly 'Zuku! Do it again!"

He slams the door in her face.

A/N: Fun Fact: This whole section featuring Toga ended up being way longer than I had anticipated. Originally it would have taken up half the chapter, with another scene with Izuku interacting with a different set of characters taking up the spotlight in the other half. Well… guess that's for the next chapter then, hmm?