Work Text:
The knife slips between her ribs, and the quietest of gasps leaves Himiko’s mouth. Her opponent, expecting her to dodge, falters — Himiko doesn’t.
Not even bothering to touch the pain pain but the scent of copper on the air, pretty blood painting her uniform in delicious red spot on her side, she lunges forward with her own knives. There’s no point in sucking up this man’s blood to save for later. Instead, Himiko stabs. His chest. His heart. His head. Knife sinking in over and over, splashing pretty blood all over herself and the man, who gurgles and cries and then stops making noises altogether.
He’s dead.
If this were Before, Before the League Before everything Before Things Changed, this is when Himiko would drink. This man is a disgusting man, and Himiko has the papers in her pockets to prove this, but she would have drunk him down nonetheless. She still could. His blood is a pretty shade, splattered all over the both of them.
It’s not Before, though, so Himiko doesn’t. There’s no reason for her to drink from someone like this. Instead, she pulls out her sheaf of papers, letting them cascade nicely around his body, some soaking in the blood but still legible. Anyone who finds this can’t ignore his crimes, the terrible things he’s done to people that make even her blood curl. People like this shouldn’t have power.
Stain would approve, she thinks. Ochako would approve of this man being taken down, she also thinks, but not of the killing.
Ochako…
She hurts. The knife is still nestled between her ribs, and Himiko finally looks at it and draws it out slowly. Oh. That is… a lot of blood. Beautiful, beautiful blood, but too much coming out of her body far too fast.
Himiko blinks slowly, blurrily, and tries to think. The League… of course the League would help her. Jin will be so mad at her for going off alone like this and getting so hurt. But the League is quite a distance away, and she doesn’t know if she can make it there.
Ochako, though… Ochako is close. Himiko had found where she lives, of course. Circled around the apartment complex, peeked inside to see her parents. It’s a good place to live. Not anything crazy like the Todorokis – Dabi will bitch about that so easily, it’s such a fun topic to get him started on – but the kind of coziness that Himiko… well. It would have been nice to have!
UA is on break right now. Himiko knows this. She keeps track. Ochako will be home.
That’s the direction she drags herself in.
It’s dark. Himiko can’t see how much of a trail of blood she’s leaving behind her, and makes a promise to herself that in the morning, she’ll come back through and wipe it all up, before anyone can trace it back to Ochako. Nobody should find that body until morning, anyway. It’s not a busy place.
She watches the building for a moment, dripping beautiful beautiful blood, before she heads inside and goes for the elevator. All the way to the tenth floor – Ochako lives on the eleventh. From there, it’s a simple matter to take a little leap over the edge to scale someone’s balcony so she can knock on Ochako's window.
Well. If she weren’t injured, it would be simple. She’s more and more aware of the pain increasing now, of the heat rippling through her, how her side feels like it’s on fire and yet also numbing at the same time, and oh. That’s bad, isn’t it?
That’s why she’s here.
She climbs onto Ochako’s balcony – not really a balcony at all, fully enclosed and just a place to hang laundry, but Himiko pries open a window to let herself in – and knocks on the glass door. Even her knuckles leave bloody marks. It’s nice. She’s marking Ochako’s place.
It takes a few minutes or maybe no time at all, because Himiko is starting to feel increasingly dizzy and like time means nothing, when the curtain is pulled aside to reveal a wide-eyed Ochako. She’s beautiful. Like this, and always, but this is a new side of Ochako that Himiko has never gotten to see before.
Her hair is fuzzy and frazzled, sticking up all over the place, wearing an oversized t-shirt and boxer shorts, and mittens on her hands. (Oh, so she doesn’t make herself float off in her sleep? Himiko thinks that’s unfairly cute.)
“Himiko-chan!” Ochako hisses, pulling open the slider door quickly. “What are you doing here!? Is that your blood!?”
Himiko takes a woozy step forward and ends up tipping forward right into the hero’s arms. Because that’s what she is, isn’t she? Even when Himiko is like this, she catches her. Himiko knows Stain would like this one. “A lot of it,” Himiko admits, giggling a little, and Ochako yanks her inside.
She’s set down gently on the floor and the light that Ochako turns on is blinding and Himiko can’t help but cover her eyes and moan a little. “Ochako, no…” She’s wonderful and lovely, though, so she drops the edge of a blanket over Himiko’s eyes and she can relax.
Ochako, however, sounds the exact opposite of relaxed. Her fingertips touch Himiko in various places, light and searching, seemingly afraid to touch too hard. Her voice is strained and serious. “Himiko-chan, where are you hurt? What happened?”
Himiko could listen to her voice all day, but she does and doesn’t like Ochako sounding so worried for her (it’s nice to know she cares, she really cares, but Himiko has had enough of people worrying over her, because they always worry in the wrong ways), so she reaches over to touch her bad side. “Knife… Got a knife here. But my blood’s so pretty, isn’t it, Ochako?”
“Yes, yes, it’s lovely,” says Ochako, sounding distracted. Fingers start to undo her blood-soaked cardigan, and Himiko has to giggle again. She reaches up weakly to pull the blanket up just enough so that she can peek at Ochako.
“First time in your room and… you’re undressing me…? You understand my maiden’s heart, Ochako…” She loves to say her name. Loves the way it curls off her tired tongue.
Ochako doesn’t answer, doesn’t even seem flustered, and Himiko wonders if it’s really that bad. She’s been… more distracted, lately. The League is changing things, is shifting, and Himiko wonders at it. She’s no hero, but is she a villain? There are people far worse than her. People like the man she killed tonight.
There’s a sharp pain as something touches her wound, and Himiko sucks in quick air before biting down on her lip, already bloody but now worsening. In the time she was drifting, dazed and stringing her thoughts together slowly, Ochako got open her cardigan and pulled up her shirt to reveal the wound, now dabbing gently at it with a cloth of some kind. Washcloth.
Himiko blinks at her. The world seems… fuzzy. Blurred at the edges, the only clear thing Ochako. Blood stains her clothes, now, Himiko’s beautiful blood making Ochako somehow an even more lovely sight, and there’s an expression of deep concentration on her face as she dabs at Himiko’s wound. “...Ochako…?”
Brown eyes flicker up to meet hers briefly, before she refocuses on her task. “I need to see it,” she says, every touch sending sparks of pain through her that are welcome, coming from Ochako. “But… I think you’ll need stitches, Himiko-chan.”
Huh. Himiko’s never had stitches, not that she can remember. Dabi would probably be good at them. Or maybe not? Because he uses staples… No, no, Jin would be the best at stitches. Jin’s done them before. “Jin,” she murmurs.
Ochako pauses to frown at her. “Jin?” Before Himiko can string together words, her expression clears. “Twice. Is he nearby?” No. Himiko manages the tiniest shake of her head, and Ochako’s face falls a little. “I suppose that would be too much to ask…” She bites her lip. It would be nice if that split her lip – Himiko things about sitting up and leaning in, kissing the blood from her lips and then pressing her down to glut herself on the one person who would offer up herself so freely.
But Ochako is normal, and she doesn’t bite through her lip, teeth just pressing on it oh-so-gently, and Himiko can’t even sit up to begin with.
“I don’t have anesthesic…” Ochako mumbles, frowning down at Himiko, and it takes way too long for that to register. For Himiko to realize what that means.
“Ochako… are you going… to stitch me up…?” Do stitches stay in forever? If she looks at Jin and Dabi, it seems like they do. The idea of having Ochako’s stitching being what holds Himiko together, that Ochako would be embedded in her skin for her whole life… Ohhhh, everything is worth it. Everything.
Even if she dies like this, bleeding out on Ochako’s floor, she’ll have made her mark here. Impressed herself on this hero’s soul.
“I learned how,” says Ochako. There’s a determined set to her face. “For you and for Deku. I learned how.” Himiko can’t help but giggle. Why are Ochako’s two favorite people so likely to be hurt…? At least, she hopes she’s one of Ochako’s two favorite people… There’s Tsuyu, but she’s good at not getting hurt, but Himiko does still like her…
Ochako asks her a question, but Himiko can’t hear her. It’s like a low-grade buzzing, her words fading into nothing against her ears. Her lips are moving, but there’s nothing that Himiko can comprehend. Himiko just watches her lips and tries to lift her hand to touch and only manages to twitch her hand a little bit before it flops back down.
She tries to murmur her name, “Ochako,” but she doesn’t know if she manages it. Everything’s getting kind of dark and blurry. Maybe the blanket’s fallen back over her eyes…? At least the light’s not bothering her anymore…
There’s pain in her side, more than before. It continues for sometime, and then Himiko can’t feel anything anymore.
When she wakes, her senses flood back in, one by one. Smell, first. The rich scent of coppery blood is no longer there – no, there’s a little bit, hidden underneath a pretty lavender-y smell that Himiko associates with Ochako, but it’s mostly gone. It’s a bit sad, because it’s Himiko’s favorite scent in the whole world, but she has the vague feeling that it’s good to not have it be so overpowering.
The next is taste. There’s blood in her mouth, she can feel that, but it’s only her blood and only a little. Her mouth is dry, too, and she reallyyyyy needs some water. Then, touch. She’s lying on something soft. On a bed, she thinks, or some kind of cushion… Her fingers twitch, catching on sheets, and no. A bed. She also hurts, an ache that runs up her entire side, but Himiko is used to pain and it doesn’t mean she really makes any noises.
Because the only noise she hears is the steady sound of breathing, and that’s what makes Himiko finally open her eyes. The ceiling swims and she has to shut her eyes again and then reopen them to make everything focus. Once it does, she sits up very, very carefully, bracing herself on the bed with one hand.
She’s in Ochako’s bed, wearing Ochako’s clothes. A cute t-shirt with a smiley face and starry blue shorts that Himiko immediately knows she is never, ever getting rid of. She’s completely clean, no sign of blood on her. Leaning up against the bed, her head pooled on her arms as she leans on it, is a fast-asleep Ochako. She’s wearing different clothes – oh, yeah, Himiko got hers all beautiful and bloody, didn’t she? – and seems fine.
Himiko can’t help it. She reaches out very carefully, wincing at the way the movement tugs at her side, and brushes fingers across Ochako’s forehead. She doesn’t twitch, and Himiko lets her fingers rest there for a moment, enjoying the warmth. That Ochako would fall asleep here, would fall asleep in Himiko’s presence even if Ochako surely must know everything she’s done…
It’s not anything that Himiko will apologize for. But she knows it doesn’t make people trust her, and yet Ochako rests here without fear.
The next thing to investigate is her side. Himiko pulls her hand back so she can lift up her shirt and see the clumsy, careful stitches where the knife had slid in. It looks like… actual stitching, like on a piece of clothing, like on Jin’s face. She’ll have the others check it out, but even if it’s the worst stitching in the world and needs to be replaced, Himiko feels warm. Ochako learned how to do this for her. Ochako did this to her.
Her fingers brush over the stitches, ignoring the pain, and she smiles a little. Even if stitches do have to come out – she really doesn’t know – there had better be a scar there, a mark of Ochako forevermore.
It seems like this will be the best thing. How could it be better? Ochako took her in and fixed her up, fell asleep beside her with all the trust that that entails. Wiped her down and changed her – not that it’s anything Ochako hasn’t seen, but still!!! – and put her to sleep in her own bed. Ochako did all that. There’s nothing more that Himiko could ask for.
She gets carefully to her feet, feeling… dizzy. Wobbly. The sky is still dark outside, when she goes to peek, but there’s a little bit of light that means the sun will rise soon. She needs to head out there and clean up the trail of blood she’s left and then leave before she’s discovered. The league will be worried. It’ll be nice to go back and let Jin cry all over her.
Her clothes are in a plastic bag over by the door to the bedroom, the source of the faint scent of blood. They’re still stained a pretty crimson, but Himiko can get the blood out – she has before, and she can do it again. It’s more fun that way, to go out in beautifully clean clothes and get them thoroughly stained. Her Blood Sucker sits beside it, looking completely whole and untampered with (Ochako…! Oh, she loves Ochako…) and she picks it up to put it in the bag except. Except.
Two of her vials are full.
Himiko stares at them. She didn’t fill up when she was fighting that man… it’s not his. He’s the only person she fought yesterday, and she had gone out with all of her vials empty, the full ones tucked away back at the headquarters for later.
And yet, two of them are full.
She pads over to Ochako and this time, she doesn’t focus on her face – while her hair covers some of her arms, it doesn’t entirely. On one arm, there’s a bandage. Himiko… Himiko may have been kind of delirious before, but she doesn’t remember that being there. Ochako did… Ochako did this…?
Himiko sits down on the bed heavily and just looks at the hero. Ochako is a hero – Himiko knows this. Himiko knows this so well. She is a hero even Stain would approve of, if she’s like this.
But Ochako wouldn’t approve of the fact that Himiko killed a man tonight, and that sits heavily in her stomach. Himiko thinks nothing of taking a life, and she wants Ochako to accept her as she is. Does that mean accepting the way that she sheds blood, how she’s willing to take a life? Or does that mean accepting Himiko’s desires and cravings, giving her blood in this way?
She doesn’t know. She doesn’t know.
Himiko stares at Ochako’s sleeping face for a while, before she pulls on her Blood Sucker. It sits on her weird over this T-shirt, but it’s okay. She hunts down for her shoes, putting them on carefully – it hurts, tugs at her side, but she doesn’t want to leave them here – and then she looks at Ochako one last time.
Maybe… just for a little, she won’t kill. See how it feels, see how Ochako feels. Is that enough? She doesn’t know. She’s not sure, but… she’ll try.
“Thanks, Ochako,” Himiko says, and she climbs off the balcony into the night.