Getting first place on tests didn’t net me anymore tickets.
Based off the patterns I was seeing, when it came to those kind of feats or accomplishments, it was safe to assume repeating the same thing over and over in similar circumstances wasn’t something the gacha system considered something worthy of rewarding.
A finger poked my forehead.
Exams.
I’m guessing scoring the highest among my class and school would be the thing to trigger more rewards regarding my performance in school.
Beyond straight studying, there was also the physical fitness events that would be held in gym sooner or later.
Quirks weren’t allowed but if I kept working out, I’d bet money there’d be tickets for scoring high.
Didn’t they have national records for that kind of thing too?
In this super powered world, I doubt I’d be able to break them without using my quirk or some helpful trait from the system but trying couldn’t hurt.
The poking dropped to my nose.
I looked into extracurricular stuff but couldn’t find anything significant that didn’t also require time away from all my preparation.
I just didn’t have the skills to go pop into a music or art club and perform well.
Sports was too much of a commitment too.
I’d rather focus on my sure fire training than hope performing well in any of that would get me the tickets I was after.
The poking finally stopped, the one responsible moving up to mess with my hair.
“What are you doing, Toga?” I asked, raising my head from my arms with a yawn.
Scarlet’s bland tasting blood helped but after a full week of working out over at that gym with Tsu while still keeping up with my other practice with HK, the difficulty of what I was throwing myself at was hitting hard.
Doing all this crap everyday was going to be such a pain.
Literally.
“Nothing.” She said, smiling innocently as she pulled her hand away from my hair.
“You really don’t want to come with us?”
Another Saturday, another invitation to hang out with her friends.
It must be part of their routine.
“I can’t miss any days at the gym and I need to study afterwards.” I reminded her through another yawn.
“You’re nerdier than you look.”
“Should you really be talking?”
“Toga.” My homeroom teacher called as she stepped into the room.
“You best start making your way to class.
We don’t want you missing anything.”
“Yes ma’am.” With one last poke to my forehead and byes to her friends, she turned to leave, my eyes following her.
Everything I was doing was tiring but I couldn’t imagine doing what she did.
She had to be hyper aware of everyone and herself at all times to keep such a tight lid on any signs of her quirk, physical or otherwise.
All the working out, studying, and participating in class would be even more of a pain if I was concerned with keeping up any kind of appearances other than being U.A.
material.
There was something I wanted to try involving her.
With its ten day cooldown over, I had the healing of the Sun tarot card in my back pocket if the worse happened.
But if things went the right way, maybe we’d both benefit.
XOXO
“Ha!
Got it.” Toga declared as she landed from a jump, swerving a little unsteadily but quickly righting her board and catching up to me.
Sunday came around but rather than her inviting me out, I’d done the inviting.
I hadn’t planned anything interesting, the both of us skating around the park I usually headed to, careful to avoid those enjoying their time across the place.
We skated pretty far along the winding trail, tall trees surrounding us as Toga showed off basic tricks I didn’t usually bother with but taught her.
She’d taken to skating pretty quickly.
“Nice.” I said, the both of us exchanging a high five as she reached my side.
Shifting, I came to a stop beside an empty bench at a bit of level ground before the trail curved again to head further down the forested slopes.
“You mind if I ask you something?”
“I didn’t steal anything.” Toga said without missing a beat, stopping and joining me on the bench.
I raised a brow.
“Did you steal something from me?”
“No.” She said, a too innocent smile in place.
“It sounds like you did.”
“I may or may not have taken some pens from your pencil bag.” Toga admitted.
“But it’s not really stealing if I return them.”
“And when were you planning to do that?” She shrugged.
I shook my head, cracking a small smile.
Random stuff like that really did make it hard to match her to the murderer I was being cautious of.
“Your quirk is more than just some sharp teeth, right?”
“I thought you didn’t want to talk about our quirks?” She asked.
Yeah, I figured she knew I’d been dodging the question just as much as she had, neither one of us really bringing up the subject again.
“I didn’t.” The truth, or at least a bit of it was the way to go here.
“But I kind of want to test out something with my quirk.
If you don’t mind, I want your help.”
“Really?” Toga perked right back up.
“What do I got to do?”
And now to jump into the taboo subject.
“Do you know your blood type?”
“Blood type?
O positive I think.” She said seemingly thinking on it.
“I think its positive but I’m definitely an O.
Does that affect your quirk or something?”
Before I wouldn’t have been able to notice but I think my Novice Sneaking skill was coming into play here.
Stalking around required some ability to read those in the area so you knew whether or not they were on guard.
And Toga was tense.
“Yeah.
My quirk isn’t really all that heroic.” I admitted.
“It’s called Bloodboost.
When I drink blood, I get stronger.”
And she only got tenser, her eyes glued to mine.
“You…you want to drink my blood?” She questioned.
I nodded, paying close attention to her.
Her breathing had picked up, surprise and confusion spelled out across her face.
She’d never expected to be the one being asked something like that.
“Okay.” She said quietly, shifting a little towards me, a hand reaching up towards the collar of her shirt.
Was she exposing her neck to me?
“I’m not a vampire, Toga.” I pointed out.
“Just show me your hand.”
“S-Sorry.” She quickly apologized, sliding back a little before raising her arm towards me.
Calming my own hesitation, quickened heartbeat ignored, I took a light hold of her forearm, bringing closer.
Pricking her fair skin with a tooth was easy enough, her blood wetting my tongue.
Sweet.
It wasn’t like mine, the warm liquid a pure sweetness that outclassed the most unhealthy of candy, sugar nothing more than a cheap imitation.
The aftertaste was just as sweet, leaving behind a lingering trace of it that made me want more.
The power boost on the other hand was subtle.
I barely felt any stronger at all, but something was definitely happening.
Pressing a hand to my one of the bandages along my arm, I didn’t feel any trace of the cut or bruises that should’ve been beneath it.
Heightened healing?
It completely outclassed what Scarlet’s did for me.
“So, you know my quirk.” I said, still refocused on Toga who was rooted in her seat, barely blinking at all.
“What’s yours?”
“I-I…I don’t know.” Ripping her eyes from me, Toga stared down at the bench.
“But-” She stopped but I didn’t say anything, choosing to wait.
Her eyes kept flicking up, never reaching my face but settling at my neck.
“But I think it’s like yours.”
That was a little unexpected.
I figured her parents and however they went about forcing Toga to hide and suppress her quirk would involve questionable measures but her not even knowing what her quirk did yet?
Did they never take her to get checked like all children were in this day and age?
Even if they wouldn’t figure out everything it wasn’t just standard practice but pretty much legally required to have a quirk identified and documented.
What kind of hoops were they going through that not even Toga herself knew what her quirk was?
“Well, you let me drink your blood.” Rather than pointing out that obvious fact, I held out the side of my hand to her mouth.
“If you need blood, you can-” I winced a little, Toga’s teeth biting down hard.
“-drink mine.” I muttered, watching her.
Her blood might not have given much of a strength boost but pushing her off would be easy enough.
And…I honestly wasn’t sure I needed to.
She drunk, drunk, and drunk but I didn’t feel the least bit lightheaded.
Type O blood would be something I needed to find a way to keep on me in the future. Find the original chapter at g.com.
I’m pretty sure the boosted healing it was giving me was completely out doing Toga’s ability to draw blood from me.
But I couldn’t just let her continue at that like some kind of animal.
“Toga.” I said.
The call went ignored.
I placed a hand on her shoulder and started pushing her back.
The sucking got hard, more of my blood drawn out quicker but she didn’t stop me from pushing her away.
Her yellow eyes were glazed over.
Her face was red.
Blood, staining her teeth, was around her lips.
She looked far more like the killer I’d been on guard for.
That wasn’t it though.
Her hair had darkened, matching my jet black locks not that she seemed to notice at all.
“Are you alright?”
My question startled her out of her daze, her eyes focusing on me, flicking to my bloody hand, then down to some of the excess blood that’d stained the bench.
Hand shooting up to her mouth, she wiped at her mouth, hand shaking as she stared at the blood staining it.
“I-I’m sorry.” She forced out, trying to back away.
He kept my grip firm on her shoulder.
No way I could just let her run off after that.
“For what?”
“I-I-I-” Her wide watery eyes dropped down to my bleeding hand.
“I want more of your blood.” Her voice cracked halfway through the admission.
“It’s wrong and disgusting, I know it is.
I shouldn’t- I shouldn’t-”
“Your blood tasted good.” I said, interrupting her.
So far, the blood of others tasted good to the point of it actually be preferable to other things.
A thought and perspective that was probably only unique to those with mutations that involved blood or their taste buds in some way.
“Its weird, yeah, but its not like I asked for my quirk to work this way.
I’ve just got to learn to accept it for what it is no matter how other people see it.”
“Besides, I did just drink some of your blood.
You didn’t think that was wrong or disgusting?”
Toga shook her head.
“I-Its not the same.
You did it for your quirk.
I just- I just want to drink your blood.”
“Then why aren’t you?” My bloodied hand was still in front of her and my grip on her shoulder wasn’t particularly tight anymore.
Nothing was stopping her from getting at more of my blood.
Nothing but herself.
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Then you’re just a little different.
That’s just how people are, quirks or not.” Hard to treat her like a psychopath after hearing that, the tears that were threatening to fall clear as day in her broken up voice.
“I guess we’re both the right kind of different to help each other though.”
It wouldn’t really solve her issues.
Parents that forced her to hide her quirk.
Putting on some measure of act for everyone around her.
That repressed desire for blood itself, not quite strong enough to get her to attack me, but powerful enough to influence her.
But having some kind of outlet for all that had to help in some way.
And, with the healing her blood provided, I gained something out of this too.
“How about it, Toga?” I asked, her watery eyes rising to meet mine.
“Want to trade blood?”
XOXO
(A/N: Since we’re not going the psychotic break route, besides her view on herself being self-depreciating, Toga’s quirk is also going to develop a bit differently too.
With someone who really can’t view her desire for blood as all that bad since he has a taste for it himself she should steadily stop that and become more comfortable with herself.
Around him at least.
As for her quirk?
Well, we’ll get there when we get there.
Just in case anyone didn’t see my comment on it, while I’m well aware the show gives us a lot of character’s blood types as trivia, unless they fought Stain and got affected by his quirk, I’m not adhering to it since its not relevant to the show’s plot.