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It wasn’t easy being Himiko Toga, something she should have realized long before she ended up on the streets, tired and malnourished. Not in terms of food - even she was surprised just how much bakeries threw away at the end of each day. Rather, the thing she was craving was the same thing she had been craving for her entire life: the sweet, succulent taste of blood.
It was only natural for someone with a blood-based Quirk to rely on the stuff. If only her parents weren’t so obsessed with appearing ‘normal’, as if that meant anything in a world of Quirks. In hindsight, Himiko was glad she snapped and attacked that cute boy from her school. She had experienced more freedom in one day out on the streets than she had from her entire life under her parents’ roof.
But freedom didn’t satisfy her cravings. With every passing moment, she could feel her urges grow stronger, begging her to pounce onto the first person she saw and suck them dry (not in a sexy way. That could come later). When she peered out of the alleyway, spotting a cute girl with black sclera and skin as pink as her hair, she felt something within her snap for the second time.
By now, Himiko had all but mastered the art of masking one’s appearance. From the other girl’s perspective, a blonde teenage girl appeared out of nowhere and dug her fangs into her shoulder. She ought to consider herself lucky, though - things would have been a lot deadlier for her if Himiko hadn’t been impatient enough to forgo her knives.
“OW! What the heck?!” The pink girl flailed her arms around, trying to shake Himiko off, but her fangs had already pierced the skin. Trying to separate her at this point was like pulling Excalibur from its rock, and this girl was not the fated hero.
Himiko shut her eyes, joyful tears streaming down her face as the pink girl’s warm, delicious blood flowed into her mouth. As expected, it tasted like bubblegum and candy, so sweet that she thought she might melt.
And then her tongue started burning.
“GAH!” She pulled away in absolute disgust. “Wha the hell wath thah?” she shouted, her tongue still sticking out. Had she been given a mirror, she might have seen the bubbling green substance hanging off the tip of it.
“My Quirk makes my blood acidic, jerkwad!” the pink girl pouted. “Haven’t you ever seen Alien?”
“Nu! My parenths din’ let me watch moo-ees!”
“Well if you can’t educate yourself, at least ask permission before sucking people’s blood. That’s really rude, you know!”
Himiko just rolled her eyes as she walked off. She sincerely doubted that anyone would willingly give up their blood to a monster like her. Not that it mattered anyways. As she just demonstrated, she was perfectly capable of taking it for herself. All she needed was to find a victim whose blood would leave less of a bad taste in her mouth.
To her, there was nothing worse than foul-tasting blood - it was like licking all the way to the center of a jawbreaker, only for the core to taste like rotten eggs. Such an experience was vile in every sense of the word, and Himiko prayed she’d never have to go through it again.
———————————————
After washing her mouth with whatever water she could find (the stormwater drainage pipes were probably clean enough), Himiko was back on the prowl, ready to find another cutie for her next meal.
She didn’t have to wait for long, as her eyes soon landed on a surprisingly muscular boy with blond, spiky hair and piercing red eyes, the same shade as the blood she was about to suck out of him.
He was distracted as he passed by, jogging at a brisk pace as loud rock music blared in his ears, which meant Himiko had no trouble latching onto his back like a clingy cat.
“What the fuck?! Get off me!” Tiny explosions popped in the blond’s hands as he tried grabbing at Himiko, but he had trouble reaching behind his back.
Naturally, Himiko didn’t pay him much mind, too busy unclenching her jaw. She chomped as hard as she could, practically jamming her fangs through his sweaty, exposed neck. But the moment they tried to break through the surface…
BOOM!
A sudden explosion forced her off the boy, and she felt the foul taste of nitroglycerin coating her mouth, not a drop of blood to be found. Really, it was a miracle all her teeth were still intact, but that didn’t mean it was a painless experience. “Owww… What kind of anti-fang skin do you have, weirdo?”
“You’re calling me the weirdo? You’re the one who tried to attack me while I was working out, which was a huge mistake!” Another, much larger explosion burst from his palm. “Now you’re gonna see what happens to shitty D-tier villains who try and mess with a future number one hero!”
It was times like this that Himiko was incredibly grateful for her ability to disappear on the spot. That guy might have had an ego the size of a bus, but it was clear he had at least some of the skill to back it up.
———————————————
By now, Himiko had become a bit more selective of the kinds of people she chose to attack. Anyone whose Quirk looked like they might hurt her was immediately off the table; that included a man made of pure electricity, a woman with a bowling ball for a head, another woman whose hair was permanently on fire, and a man made of sludge, whom she doubted even had blood to begin with.
But the one who did catch her eye was an absolutely adorable-looking girl with green hair and a hunched over, frog-like posture. She didn’t even wait a second before leaping out of her hiding place to get her fill.
“Ribbit, what are you doing?” the frog girl asked, only sounding mildly concerned about her blood being drained. That worked for Himiko, as it meant she could continue sucking away with even less guilt than usual.
Himiko squeezed her eyes shut while stifling a moan, the blood every bit as delicious as she hoped it would be. One might find drinking from a frog to be gross or unsanitary, but Himiko thought that added more to the experience. The taste felt more real to her, more familiar. This wasn’t a five-star, finely crafted meal, it was a comfy, home-cooked delight. At this point, it would take an industrial-sized crane to get Himiko off the girl, because she could tell from the first sip that this would be her main blood supply from now on.
“You shouldn’t have done that, ribbit.” Though the frog girl’s tone remained flat, it still carried a dangerous edge.
“Hm?” Himiko paused her sucking for a moment and creaked one eye open. But instead of seeing a cute frog girl, she was met with a swirling void of shapes and colors, like her eyes had been replaced with kaleidoscopes.
“...Wha? What’s goin’ on?” Feeling a sudden onslaught of dizziness, she lazily glanced down at her hands. Like everything else, they were stretching and morphing beyond recognition. “What they heck? Why are my fingies… wormy snakes? Why you do this…?” She pointed a wormy snake at the other girl, who had since turned pink and grown three extra heads.
“Haven’t you ever heard not to lick a toad, ribbit? You’re just lucky I decided to produce hallucinogens instead of toxins.”
“Buh… Buh you’re not a toad… You’s a froggo.”
“I inherited the hallucinogens from my uncle on my dad’s side. Anyways, that trip should only last an hour. You’ll be fine as long as you don’t do anything stupid.”
“If my knife wasn’t jelly right now, I’d fuckin’ stab ya!”
———————————————
True to her word, the drug trip had worn off in what felt like no time at all. Sadly, the only side-effect on Himiko’s end was a major case of the munchies.
If she had felt like she was losing her mind before, that was nothing compared to now. It had even gotten to the point where she considered drinking her own blood, only stopping when she remembered how bad it tasted. Whether that was a defense mechanism created by her Quirk or a reflection of her personal issues, she preferred not to think about.
Needless to say, she had become increasingly less picky about who she chose to siphon blood from; as long as they had two legs and a pulse, that was good enough for her. Heck, she was even flexible about the former requirement.
Fortunately, the spiky, red-haired teen she came across looked to be just her type. Her mouth drooled at the mere sight of him, and not just because of the scent of blood, his bulging muscles looked pretty tasty too. She had a sneaking suspicion he tasted like protein shake, but there was only one way to find out.
“GIMME A BITE!” Skipping the preamble, Himiko extended her fangs and aimed right for his impeccably toned shoulder, where she was sure the richest taste would be.
And then his skin hardened out of nowhere, and Himiko felt like she was biting into a rock.
“Aw, come on!” she bemoaned while cradling her cheek. She didn’t bother looking inside her mouth, but she’d be shocked if she didn’t walk out of here with at least one chipped tooth. “Why’d you do that? I’m starving here!”
“Sorry, but you can’t just go around biting people like that. That’s not very manly of you,” the red-haired teen said defensively.
“Sure I can. Watch!” In defiance, Himiko turned to the nearest person, who bore a striking resemblance to the hardening kid, only his hair had a much more metallic sheen. “Now give me your blood!”
———————————————
Himiko stared discontentedly at the shards of enamel in her hands. Yes, she may have jumped the gun a little, but how was she supposed to know that the other guy could turn into metal?! Seriously, if Quirks weren’t around, she wouldn’t be struggling nearly as much as she was now.
(Ignore the fact that she probably wouldn’t be drinking people’s blood in the first place if it weren’t for Quirks. That was irrelevant to her point.)
“Can I just find one person with normal blood, or sweat, or skin, or whatever?!” she shouted, hoping for her prayers to be answered. That’s when, from across the street, she spotted the round, egg-like form of the BMI Hero: Fat Gum, and a devious smile split across her face.
Pro heroes! Why didn’t she think of it sooner? She didn’t have to gamble with a person’s Quirk if she already knew what it was. And when it came to people like Fat Gum, that information could be found just by looking at the back of his trading card!
Even if they theoretically had good combat experience, that didn’t mean anything when Himiko could get the jump on them from just about anywhere, which is exactly what she did. While the overweight hero was busy signing an autograph to an excited fan, Himiko crept up from behind and attached her teeth to his other arm.
She sucked as hard as she could, ready to get a taste of his thick, cholesterol-filled blood. Yet strangely, no matter how hard she sucked, or how deeply she bit, she couldn’t seem to find even a drop of blood.
“Uh, miss?” Fat Gum eventually noticed her. It was hard not to when she was basically dangling from his arm like an adorable leech. “Is there something I can help you with?”
“Yeah! Could you tell me where your blood is? It’s bone-dry in here! Are you secretly a zombie or something?”
“No, he’s not,” the green-haired fan corrected. “His arm just has so many layers of fat that your teeth can’t penetrate it.”
“No, she’s right. I’m just a really big zombie,” Fat Gum claimed, but the cheeky grin on his face said otherwise.
“UGH! Whatever!” Her hangriness taking over, Himiko got right to the point and tried to extract his blood the old-fashioned way. It was a shame she didn’t realize that being fat also made him impervious to knives until it was too late.
“Uh, miss? You know stabbing people is illegal, right?”
Himiko tossed her knife to the side, throwing up her hands in defeat. “That’s it. I’m outta here.” To her, no amount of blood was worth this much effort. She’d have a much easier time preying on some other pro hero with a much less intrusive Quirk.
———————————————
Not many people heard of the Erasure Hero: Eraserhead, and that was the point. As an underground hero, the less villains knew about him and his Quirk, the better.
But for someone who’d spent so much time lurking around the seedy criminal underbelly of Japan, Himiko had heard all that she needed to know about him, and she was confident that getting her Quirk erased wouldn’t affect her ability to suck his blood.
What she hadn’t heard about was how unique his blood tasted, which was a surprise for her, because it was easily the most notable thing about him.
Not in a good way, that is…
“BLEH! This tastes like ash!” The blood dribbled out of her mouth, possibly the worst thing she had ever tasted. “How do you even get your blood to taste like this? What the hell did you eat today?!”
“Coffee.” His incredibly brief response told Himiko all she needed to know; no matter how starved she was, she would sooner die than taste even a lick of this man’s blood.
———————————————
From her spot in the shadows, Himiko licked her lips while watching the heroine saunter down the street. How could she not? Even ignoring her blood, there was a reason Midnight ended up on the cover of so many adult magazines, and that reason became incredibly obvious just by looking at what she had on - or rather, what she didn’t have on.
Despite the important bits being covered up, Midnight somehow managed to appear more than just naked in Himiko’s eyes. Her entire self, both inside and out, was laid bare for all to witness, which made her the ideal target for a girl looking to dig her teeth into some skin.
And dig she did. As usual, she managed to sneak up on the hero without arousing suspicion. She was just about to breach the heroine’s last layer of fat before a pink fog clouded her vision.
An hour later, she awoke on the rough, metallic bench of a dusty holding cell.
Another hour later, she managed to carve a hole in the wall with her fangs and escape without anyone noticing.
———————————————
This was the end for Himiko. After countless failed attempts to satiate her cravings, she had finally reached the end of her rope. Her energy reserves had run dry, and she was left lying face-up on the floor of a random alleyway, forced to watch day turn to night as the minutes ticked by.
Had she paid attention during literature class, she might’ve been able to discern something poetic about the setting sun before her. She hardly paid attention during any of her classes, though. Most of her headspace was devoted to her desire for blood, which she was currently lacking at the moment, so she wasn’t really thinking about anything.
“Guess I’ll die,” she eventually settled on, somehow finding the strength to noncommittally shrug her shoulders. Call it depressing as hell, but she’d rather die free than live as a caged bird for the rest of her life.
She was just about to shut her eyes and accept her fate when a figure came into view, leaning over to block her perfect view of the orange sky. “Are you okay?” asked the figure, whom Himiko recognized as Kamui Woods.
“No, I haven’t had blood in days, and I’m probably gonna die from malnutrition,” she very flatly stated, not seeing the use in sugarcoating it. “Now can you move? I was in the middle of something.”
“Oh…” was the hero’s response. “Do you want some of mine?” He held his arm to her, which looked to be completely made of wood.
Himiko wrinkled her nose at the sight. “Nice try, but I bet your blood probably tastes like tree sap or wood flakes or something.” With the kind of day she had, that wouldn’t surprise her in the slightest.
“No it’s not. Watch!” He casually snapped his finger like a twig, letting his oddly-colored blood drip down into Himiko’s open mouth.
The moment the taste landed on her tongue, she was back on her feet, feeling all the energy return to her and then some. It was as if she had been blessed by the gods… if ‘the gods’ in question was a tree man dressed in spandex. “This - This tastes like…”
“Syrup?” the hero chuckled. “Not many people know this, but I’m actually half Canadian, eh!”
“I NEED MORE!” Himiko immediately went for the throat, but was caught by Kamui at the last second.
“Hold on there. If you’re gonna have some of my blood, don’t you think it would taste better on some pancakes?”
Drool flooded from Himiko’s mouth as her pupils dilated, her eyes becoming nothing more than a pair of black voids. “I love you, tree man. Never leave me.”
“I’m sure that can be arranged.” Kamui carried her off to the nearest store that sold pancake mix, all while grinning from under his mask.