Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Blonde hair cascaded around Himiko’s shoulders as the sun beat down on her face. As she stared at the cluster of trees in the distance, her fingers itched to style her hair into buns with wispy strands sticking out like the petal of spider lilies. The coarse fabric of the deep blue school-issued sports attire left Himiko longing for the warm embrace of her cream-colored sweater.

Sighing, Himiko stretched her hands over her head as she glanced at the expanse of dirt. There was no reason to make a big deal over having to wear her hair down again and slip back into the role of an ordinary school girl. After all, she had managed to maintain the act for years. 

Her eyes drifted toward a brunette standing a few meters away from her. Beneath the rays of sun, her throat flashed against the collar of her sports uniform. Smiling, Himiko pictured sinking her fangs into the side of Uraraka – her new classmate’s neck. What would her blood taste like? Would it be as sweet as the sound of her soft voice? What would it be like to slip into Uraraka’s skin? Would Himiko feel as light as a feather because of Uraraka’s quirk?

Himiko was about to lick her lips when she bit down on her tongue to hold herself back from the temptation. She wasn’t supposed to be weird. She wasn’t supposed to stand out from the crowd. Himiko just had to hold out for a few weeks until the League got all the information they needed. 

Beneath his scarf, Aizawa gestured to the edge of a field and passed Himiko a ball. Swallowing hard, Himiko gripped the ball as her spine stiffened. Don’t get expelled. You already got expelled from middle school so the last thing you need is to get thrown out of high school.

Briefly, her hand drifted to one of the vials of blood stowed away in her pocket. One drop would’ve been enough to have the ball fly far enough to have been a home run in a baseball stadium. 

As she looked over her shoulder at the students clustered by the edge of the field, Himiko’s blood ran cold. She imagined the choir of voices calling her a monster over using a quirk that relied on drinking blood. Himiko could already picture the eyes of all those hero students who had flashy little quirks widened with horror. Because regardless of whether or not her quirk made her place high in the test, Himiko knew that they would agree with her that she didn’t deserve to stand among them.

Of course Himiko wasn’t an idiot. She knew that sooner or later her classmates would find out what her quirk was. Just not today. She wasn’t ready yet.

Pulling her arm back, Himiko prepared to summon all the strength she could muster. It didn’t need to be perfect – just as long as she didn’t suck the most. As Himiko flung out her arm the ball flew about twice the distance of Hagakure’s. Not impressive by any means considering how far that explosion kid had flung the ball, but it was probably enough to avoid expulsion.

But from the looks of it all the arm strength she’d presumably gained from wielding knives had paid off enough to be at least passable at Aizawa’s assessment.

Panting from the effort, Himiko brushed her bangs out of her eyes, an explosive voice echoed from behind her. “Why the fuck aren’t you using your quirk? Are you holding back because you think you’re better than us?”

Himiko’s face went as pale as a ghost as she turned around to face her fuming classmate. Sure, she hadn’t given the quirk assessment test her all. But was it so wrong for a spy to want people to underestimate her. Trembling, Himiko picked at her nail beds – she wasn’t ready at all to reveal her quirk. Then again, when had life ever been kind enough to actually give her a choice about these sorts of matters.

“Calm down, Bakugo. Not everyone’s quirk is physical and good for this kind of stuff. Focus on yourself,” Uraraka sighed as she rolled up her sleeves and Aizawa handed her a ball.

Stars in her eyes, Himiko blinked back at Uraraka who gave her a comforting nod. Himiko barely held back a wistful sigh at how the faint scent of strawberries seemed to drift from the girl. Why did someone so perfect have to be a hero student? Well, technically so was Himiko but in her case it was all a sham.

Five fingertips settled onto the ball and it burst through the air – its momentum not slowed down in the slightest by gravity. Soaring higher and higher the ball cut through the clouds like a missile and Himiko gasped in awe. Just when she thought Uraraka couldn’t be any more incredible she was proven completely and utterly wrong.

Heart beating fast, Himiko took in every little detail of Uraraka and scribbled them down in a mental notebook. The way she bit down on her lips. The trembling of her knees. The way her shoulder cracked loud enough that Himiko could hear it as she threw the ball. Uraraka had one word written all over her: desperation.

This wasn’t just a game for her, not just an assignment – not even just a matter of following the school’s plus ultra motto. Uraraka was heaving over with nausea as the ball soared out of sight – she had thrown the ball as if her life depended on it.

She was hiding something. Himiko knew a mask when she saw it. The flush in Uraraka’s cheeks looked just a little too dull. As the monitor indicated that her ball had flown an infinite distance, the smile that flashed across Uraraka’s face didn’t quite reach her eyes.

Whatever Uraraka was hiding behind that mask, Himiko needed to find out what it was.  

Flushing scarlet, Himiko brushed her bangs in front of her face as Uraraka glanced in her direction. As her stomach did a somersault, Himiko made a note to herself to figure out Uraraka’s given name so she could come up with a nickname for her. A nickname that was as cute as the pink in her cheeks.

Himiko slapped her hands against the sides of her face, snapping herself out of her daze. It didn’t matter how cute Uraraka was – Himiko needed to stay on her toes. Himiko had to cross her fingers and hope that Uraraka couldn’t see right through her in the same way that Himiko could sense Uraraka’s mask. Because if Uraraka figured out that Himiko was a UA traitor… well she doubted that the heroes would show a bloodsucker any mercy.

As her classmates filed out of the changing room, Himiko stayed behind – moving as slowly as humanly possible while slipping on her socks. Stepping through the door frame, Uraraka looked over her shoulder as if waiting for Himiko. Shaking her head, Himiko flashed an encouraging smile and waved Ochako away. With a nod, Uraraka reached for the doorknob and took the hint that she didn’t need to wait up for Himiko.

Even though the idea of standing beside Uraraka and getting some idea of what her deal was seemed tempting, Himiko had some business she needed to attend to first.

The second that the door shut behind Uraraka, Himiko made a beeline for the bathroom adjacent to the changing room. Her shoulders sagged with relief upon seeing that the entire room was empty. Sweat still clung to the name of neck – a testament to how fast she had run lest she get expelled. Licking her lips, she craved a drop of Iida’s blood so she could have run just a little bit faster. So she could have been someone else even if only for a moment.

Her reflection shone back at her in the bathroom mirror and she turned away from it so fast she almost got whiplash. Hurrying into a stall, she tried to tune out the images flashing through her mind. Gold predator’s eyes. Glistering fangs. Flushed cheeks attempting to mimic the color of the blood she so desperately craved. Each detail was the embodiment of everything she hated.

Himiko took a deep breath and dug the tips of her fingernails into her shins as she tried to ground herself. She wasn’t the girl who had sliced a classmate’s throat with a boxcutter. Her so-called parents had made sure that every record from that court trial had been wiped. Even with Shiggy’s foret into hacking she doubted that he would be able to dig up much on Himiko’s bloody middle school days even if he dug around into the deepest reaches of the dark web.

Even though hair fell around her shoulders in the same way it did back then, she wasn’t that girl. Right now she was just a normal girl. An actress who could pretend that all her life she had wanted nothing more to be a hero student. In this role, All Might was her idol, not Stain. If anyone asked, she’d say that she’d want the shining pedestal of their shitshow society to remain standing tall.

Taking a deep breath, Himiko hurried inside a stall and typed in a familiar phone number. Her ribs constricted in on themselves, the pressure so intense she felt as if she bones her piercing into her lungs. Why was it so much harder to pretend to be someone else while she was wearing her own face?

As the ringing stopped, she exhaled and leaned against the wall of the stall as some of the knots in her chest dissipated. “Hey, Shiggy.”

“Use my codename. Are you asking to get caught?”

Snorting, Himiko rolled her eyes. She was ninety-nine percent sure Shiggy had only wanted code names as a video game reference. The same way he kept referring to All Might as the “final boss”. Honestly, she wouldn’t have it any other way because Shiggy was a decent boss quirks and all – pun intended.

“Oh, please. No one even knows who you are, Shiggy.”

“Screw you. That’ll change soon enough,” Shiggy grumbled – his voice as coarse as sandpaper. “And cut it out with the dumb nicknames.”

“Shiggy is a great name! In fact, I think you should legally change your name to Shiggy.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re impossible to deal with?”

“Yeah. My parents,” Himiko said.

Silence enough through the nearly empty bathroom as only static sounded from the other end of the line. For a moment, Himiko wondered whether the connection had broken off. Or if she had somehow scared off Shiggy by being weird just like she had done with everyone else in her life.

“... Sheesh,” Shiggy sighed.

Letting out a dramatic gasp, Himiko held a hand to her chest. “Did you just sheesh my trauma, Shiggy?”

“Well, what am I supposed to say?”

“I don’t know. How about ' that’s rough, kid' ?”

“Like that’s any better,” Shiggy said. “Anyways, what’s the status on that bullshit hero school?”

“We had a quirk assessment exam today. Mostly parkour and whatnot using our quirks. The kids with heroic quirks did best. Obviously.”

“How predictable. Bet you showed those fuckers up with your quirk, right?”

Himiko grinned wide, trying to channel any false confidence she could muster as her voice echoed through the bathroom. “No. Can’t put all the cards on the table yet, Shiggy.”

“Whatever. Soon enough we’re going to tear down that stupid school and hero society along with peg by peg. You just keep your cover so we can speed up the process, okay?”

Humming in agreement, Himiko looked on toward the entrance to the bathroom – her nerves trembling over how it could slam open at every moment and shatter the small infinity of where she could slip off her mask on school grounds. To not have to pretend to be normal. Just chit chat with Shiggy over stupid little things.

“Oh. And Shiggy one more thing.”

“What is it?”

“There’s this girl in my class. She’s hiding something. I don’t know what it is but I just know in my gut that she’s pretending to be something she isn’t.”

“As if your gut is to be trusted. After all, wasn’t it your gut that told you to stab my Nintendo Switch with a fucking knife!” Shiggy hissed.

Himiko visualized Shiggy’s Switch. It had been so dull and gray. Even the case Shiggy had kept it in had been extraordinarily plain despite all the color options that were out there. “Your Switch looked boring, okay? You didn’t have any cute accessories at all. So it needed a super-cute knife.”

“You are lucky I didn’t turn you to dust over that.”

“Like you would kill off your favorite spy.”

A facepalm audibly sounded at the other end of the line. Himiko hoped that Shiggy hadn’t been wearing his hand when he facepalm himself – after all that was his favorite fashion statement. Even though Himiko didn’t think it was a particularly cute accessory, Himiko did appreciate how bold Shiggy was to wear real human hands on his face. But based on how Shiggy wasn’t screaming with rage, all signs pointed to that he didn’t accidentally dust the hand on his face.

“I wish that stupid hero academy were a boarding school so I wouldn’t need to put up with you every day,” Shiggy said.

“Too bad.” Himiko stuck her tongue out, hoping that Shiggy could sense it even if her couldn’t see it. “By the way, what’s Kurogiri making for dinner tonight?”

“Why the fuck would I know?”

“Can you ask him to make dino nuggies?”

“Why don’t you ask him?”

“Because he has to listen to you,” Himiko snickered. What was even the point of Shiggy being able to tell Kurogiri what to do if he didn't focus on priorities like dino nuggies.

Suddenly, the bell echoed from the speakers. Slipping out of the bathroom stall in a hurry, Himiko muttered into her phone. “Gotta go! See you later, Shiggy!”

She hung up before Shiggy could get another word in. Swinging her gym bag over her shoulder, Himiko sprinted down the hallway as her stomach curled with dread over having to sit at a tiny desk for who knows how many hours. Himiko wasn’t exactly hyped up for math class – she’d be lucky if she didn’t accidentally fall asleep during it – but it was all just a part of the process. After all, every day at UA brought her one step closer to tearing everything down in the way that Stain preached.

One step closer to living in a world in which she could love as she wanted.

Chapter Text

Staring at her desk, Himiko gripped the handle of her favorite kitchen knife with all her might. In swift methodically motions she slid the blade into the spaces between her fingers. The knife nearly got caught on one of the joints of her left index finger.

Almost but not quite. After all, Himiko was an expert when it came to knives.

As the dim fluorescent light flickered on her ceiling, Himiko hummed to herself. The faint scent of whiskey clung to the walls of the bar so firmly that Himiko could even smell it from her bedroom.

With a wistful sigh, Himiko just barely avoided burrowing the tip of the blade into her thumb. She marveled over the aroma of alcohol from the next room over enveloping her and counted her lucky stars that the bar was a world away from the sharp scent of citrus back in the house where she grew up in. That godforsaken house had always had a faint scent of Lysol – almost like the Togas were desperately trying to scrub away the fact that their daughter was a monster.

Tilting her head to the side, Himiko started singing under her breath. “Oh, I have all my fingers. The knife goes chop chop chop. If I miss the spaces in-between my fingers will come off.”

Himiko licked her lips and pictured playing her game with another person. She imagined blood oozing from fingers the second the blade snagged on skin. And she would lick up the blood, savoring the taste of iron – and the second her face warped she would finally feel whole . One step further from the girl who sliced a classmate open with a box cutter, one step closer to becoming the people she loved.

“And if I hit my fingers the blood will soon come out. But all the same I play this game 'cause that's what it's all…”

The words got lodged in Himiko’s throat and she trailed off. Setting the knife aside, she dragged a hand across her face. What was even the point of playing the knife game without anyone to join her? Shiggy certainly wouldn’t – after all, his hands were too important. And as for Kurogiri, Himiko wasn’t exactly sure whether he had regular hands under all that mist, let alone blood.

Aside from those two Himiko highly doubted that there was anyone in the world who cared for her enough to want to play her favorite game with her.

Himiko’s eyes went glassy as she stared at the carpet. Bringing her index fingers to the edges of her face, she tugged her mouth into a smile. She made sure to keep her lips sealed shut. After all, she couldn’t put her fangs on full display unless she wanted her smile to look creepy like her parents always said it did. And she had to pretend to have a normal smile, act like a normal girl if she didn’t want to get caught at UA for what she was.

After what felt like an eternity, the door to Himiko’s room creaked open and a hoarse voice spoke up. “Hurry up, dumbass. It’s time for dinner.”

As she turned to face Shiggy, Himiko’s expression shifted to a more earnest grin. A smile that was jagged, messy and a perfect reflection of the bloodsucker Himiko knew she was. And yet Shiggy didn’t flinch away.

“I hope it’s dino nuggies!”

Tapping four fingers against the sleeve of his shirt, Shiggy sighed. “It’s always dino nuggies this, dino nuggies that, dino nuggies everything in between with you.”

Himiko leaped to her feet and stuck her tongue out at him. “Like you don’t like dino nuggies too.”

With Shiggy trailing behind her, Himiko skipped over to the main room. Steaming plates were perched atop the bar counter and yielded perfect golden-brown nuggets. Lighting up like fireworks, Himiko dove for a plate and chomped on a nugget shaped like a brachiosaurus. As the crumbs dissolved on her tongue, Himiko considered whether she should ask Kurogiri to cook the dino nuggies rare next time so the meat would be all nice and bloody. Then again, she really wasn’t interested in hearing Kurogiri’s lecture about the dangers of salmonella yet again. 

While Kurogiri’s glowing eyes curled with fondness as he wiped down some shot glasses, Shiggy slid onto a barstool next to Himiko. As he absent-mindedly chewed on chicken nuggets, four of his fingernails clinked against the bar counter.

“Found out anything else about UA you haven’t reported back to me yet.”

“Nope!” Himiko shook her head. “It’s only the first day. I haven't gathered that much info yet.”

Silence stretched on for a moment, as Shiggy licked crumbs off his fingers. Himiko eyed him to make sure she didn’t miss it if he accidentally dusted a dino nuggie. Because she would most definitely pounce on him for turning something so precious to dust. It didn’t matter that the nugget was destined to get destroyed being eaten anyhow.

Shiggy avoided eye contact with Himiko. “You should make… a friend. For intel purposes.”

“How am I supposed to do that?”

“I don’t know. Didn’t you have a ton of friends back in middle school?”

“That was years ago so I’m rusty.” Himiko shot Shiggy a grin. “Maybe you can tell me what makes me winsome. After all, you’re my most recent friend.”

“Am not!”

“Shiggy, I’m hurt.” Himiko laughed as she dramatically held a hand to her chest. “Just kidding, I know you’re a tsundere.”

“Oh, fuck off.”

“Ha! You didn’t deny it.”

Sighing, Himiko gobbled up the rest of the nuggies. She probably should’ve asked for ketchup with its striking crimson hue – but she’d been so caught up in scarfing up her dinner she hadn’t prioritized the important things in life like her favorite color. The same shade of red that her ice cream was back when she went on outings to the mall with her middle school friends.

She recalled the polaroids taken with her arms wrapped around her friends. Blonde hair cascaded around her shoulders like a mask. If they’d known why she’d chosen red ice cream they would’ve been disgusted. As disgusted as they were when they backed away from her on the day she rammed a box cutter into a boy’s throat. 

Himiko pictured her new classmates. Like Ashido with her bright pink skin and even brighter smile. Or Hagakure with her upbeat attitude. Or Kirishima with his candy-apple red hair that Himiko wasn’t sure was natural or dyed. If any of her classmates figured out what Himiko really was – got wind of exactly how much of a monster she was, they’d all run away. Just like pretty much everyone else. One hundred percent guaranteed.

“I just don’t know if there’s any point in making friends at UA. It’s all going to blow up in my face anyways once I reveal myself as a spy sooner or later.”

“Just think of it as a means to an end to get more information. Who’d want a pitiful friendship with hero brats to last a long time anyways?” Shiggy scoffed.

“But what if they sense something is wrong with me? What if no one wants to be my friend?”

“That’s ridiculous. I’m sure you can rope at least one of those dumbasses in.”

Setting down a wine glass he had just wiped down, Kurogiri turned down Himiko. “Also, might I add that if they do reject friendship they are not rejecting you but rather the person who you are pretending to be.”

Himiko nodded slowly. “Thanks, Kurogiri. I guess that makes it a little bit easier.”

Right. The bite of being pushed aside wouldn’t sting so much if the blonde girl trying to befriend her classmates in 1A wasn’t real. And some hopelessly optimistic part of Himiko hoped that maybe, just maybe she’d find a friend and kindred spirit in someone like Uraraka.

Because as much as Shiggy doubted Himiko’s gut, Himiko could sense that there was some sort of invisible string connecting her and Uraraka.

As the bell rang, Ectoplasm rose from the teacher’s desk and seemed to practically glide across the floor. With a yawn, Himiko rose from her seat and stretched her arms above her head as Ectoplasm started to wipe away calculus equations with a sponge. Curling her lip, Himiko stared intently at the summation symbol like something would suddenly click in place and it would all make sense to her.

But no such luck. 

With a sigh, Himiko fished a pink bento box Kurogiri had packed her out of her bag. She figured it was no surprise she was a little behind on math given that she’d never completed middle school. Not that she was exactly a math genius in middle school either. Himiko just hoped UA didn’t expel hero course students for sucking at math – but since calculus wasn’t exactly a prerequisite for fighting villains or evil robots Himiko figured that she was in the clear.

Winding the corner to the hallway, Himiko spotted a familiar brown bob. Himiko stood a little taller as she slipped on her most normal closed-lip smile. No need to scare off Uraraka with a fang-toothed grin and send her running for the hills just yet. Operation friendship was a go.

Himiko waved as she skipped over. “Hey, Uraraka!”

Warm brown eyes with a surprising steeliness underneath faced Himiko. “Toga.”

“Oh, please. Just call me Himiko.”

“I’ll just stick with your family name. We’re not that close.”

“Suit yourself.” Himiko tried not to let her smile slip at how cold Uraraka’s voice sounded. Maybe she just needed a little time to warm up to Himiko. That was how the friendship-making process was supposed to work, right? Himiko hadn’t made it messed up and weird just yet like she always did.

“Would you like to sit with me at lunch?” Himiko asked.

“I’m not eating in the cafeteria.”

Himiko shrugged nonchalantly. “No biggie, I’m fine with eating wherever. Where are you headed?”

“None of your business,” Uraraka spat out sharply.

Petrified, Himiko froze up and blinded back at Uraraka. Damn it, Himiko had probably missed some important social cues. Maybe it was more conventional for high school kids to eat in private. Or it was just Uraraka’s preference.

From the corner of her eye, Himiko thought she spotted Uraraka’s lips curling with something like regret. It almost looked like she was mouthing the word sorry, practicing how it felt on her tongue. But she said nothing.

The icy expression on Ochako’s face didn’t fit her rosy cheeks and soft features. It was shaky as if it could just slip off at any moment. It looked eerily like a mask. Like pushing people away wasn’t actually in Uraraka’s nature. Like she was pretending to be the kind of girl she wasn’t.

But maybe Himiko was just projecting and overthinking everything.

Even if eating lunch in private was Uraraka’s preference, maybe an ice cream outing after school was still on the table. After all, the classmates back at Himiko’s middle school loved doing that sort of thing.

“Well, if you don’t want to eat lunch together maybe we could grab ice cream after school?” Himiko asked.

“No, thank you. Just go bug someone else, okay?”

“Um –”

“I’m not here to make friends. Just take a hint and leave me be,” Uraraka said.

Shoulders sinking, Himiko took a step back and let Uraraka disappear around the corner.

Taking a deep breath, Himiko mentally recited the new mantra Kurogiri had instilled her with. She wasn’t being rejected. The girl she was pretending to be was being rejected. Himiko just wished she hadn’t gotten her hopes up – but that was her own fault honestly. Maybe her and Uraraka weren’t actually birds of a feather after all.

Perched on the rooftop, Ochako kicked her feet over the edge. The wind beat against her face and she half-wished for it to whisk her away and make her float away from all her problems, from all the debts she owed. She stared at the pad on her thumbs and groaned. Nothing was ever that simple – otherwise she could have used Zero Gravity to float away and escape all her problems ages ago.

Guilt twisted in Ochako’s stomach as she cracked open the bento box sitting beside her. The curry sitting atop the rice was unseasoned since she hadn’t scraped enough money together for spices, but she would have to make due. At least, the food was filling and she was saving money on cafeteria food.

Even if she’d wanted to grab ice cream with her classmates, she wouldn’t have been able to afford to. It wouldn’t have even mattered if they offered to pay for her because Ochako knew she shouldn’t let anyone behind her wall unless she wanted everything to crumble.

Still, she wished she hadn’t been so callous to Toga.

But Toga had been so persistent, Ochako suspected that she would’ve invited Himiko’s attempts at friendship if her resolve had wavered even slightly.

Sighing, Ochako dove her hand into her pocket, and fished out a weathered photograph. The paper had been folded over far too many times. The red and green hues had faded over the years. Ochako’s father wore a Santa on his head as he held up Ochako to perch a star on a discount artificial tree. Meanwhile, Mom’s smile shone as brightly as Christmas tree lights as she showed off a tray of gingerbread cookies.

Clutching onto the paper, Ochako grounded herself in the last photo her family had taken all together. She had priorities to focus on. There was no time for anything as frivolous and fleeting as high school friendships that were doomed anyhow.

Maybe in another life she could have eaten lunch with Toga. But in this reality it would remain nothing but a fantasy. Ochako set her bento box on her lap and started digging in so she could just get enough nutrients and just get her day over with. Shoving a spoonful of rice into herself, Ochako soothed herself with the knowledge that pushing Toga away now would probably hurt both of them less in the long run.

With everything she had done and everything that she was about to do, Ochako couldn’t afford to make friends at UA. Or anywhere for that matter.