Chapter 14
Age: 13
There is a theory that school textbooks avoid mentioning, not because it's false, but because it challenges the neat narrative of free choice: somatic determinism.
Society sells us the idea that Quirks are tools we can choose to use or not, like a hammer or a flashlight we keep in our pocket until we decide to pull them out. An optional extension of our will. But biology doesn't work like that. A hammer doesn't alter your brain chemistry; it doesn't raise your heart rate or flood you with adrenaline. A Quirk does. A Quirk is intrinsic, a fundamental modification of the body that demands to be maintained.
Think about it with the cold logic of physics. Endeavor, the number two hero, isn't an intense, aggressive, and perpetually pissed-off guy just because he's a tactless jerk (though that helps); he is like that because his fire Quirk requires his basal body temperature to be significantly higher than a normal human's. This hypermetabolic state keeps his testosterone and adrenaline levels in a perpetual state of "fight or flight," making calmness a biologically unattainable state for him. His personality isn't a moral flaw; it's a side effect of his Quirk.
I am no exception. My sweat is nitroglycerin. To produce and stabilize that highly volatile fuel, my body needs to maintain slightly elevated blood pressure at all times—a biological pressure cooker. My adrenal glands pump neurotransmitters laced with compounds that stimulate aggression, reactivity, and hyper-focused attention. I'm not always angry because I want to be; I'm angry because my biology demands that I be ready to explode at any given moment, ready to detonate the nitroglycerin. It's a constant itch under the skin, an internal vibration that is only relieved by a controlled release of energy.
If I didn't train, if I didn't blow things up regularly on the training grounds, that internal pressure would look for other escape valves. I would probably be punching walls, demolishing furniture, or worse, yelling at my mom about the color of the curtains, releasing that chemical energy in a destructive and senseless way.
We are, on a fundamental level, slaves to our genetics. And society, with its moral simplicity, judges us for instincts we didn't choose, categorizing the result of a chemical reaction as a character flaw.
What was I thinking about...? I muttered internally, shaking my head sharply to clear the fog of academic and self-reflective thoughts. That kind of introspection doesn't fit the image of the future number one hero.
Ah, right. Walking.
I sent Izuku home early with the excuse that I needed to study for an advanced chemistry test, but the truth was I needed to blow off some steam. I needed to burn the excess energy before it burned me. The night was thick, humid, and sticky, and I was walking aimlessly down a dark alley near the train station, a forgotten area full of closed bars and flickering neon lights casting broken shadows.
That's when I heard the sob.
It wasn't a cry of sadness or physical pain. It was the dry sound of someone hyperventilating, a desperate and repetitive panting. The sound of someone actively fighting their own biology, against an uncontrollable instinct. The sound of an animal cornered by its own need, not by an external threat.
I stopped in front of the narrow gap between two old vending machines.
My common sense (what little I had left after my mental tirade) told me to keep walking. I'm not a vigilante. I don't have a license yet. It's a police problem. But my previous reflection echoed in my head, insistent: We are slaves to our genetics. Seeing someone suffer that slavery so rawly, something shifted inside me.
I approached slowly.
"Hey." My voice came out flat, emotionless, the perfect tone to sound neither like a threat nor a savior.
The figure tensed violently, shrinking even further into the corner. It was a girl, probably around my age, maybe a year older, with the thin, wired build of a frightened bird. She wore a middle school uniform I didn't recognize, and the knees of her skirt were dirty with soil and asphalt. Her pale, almost sickly blonde hair was messy and tied up in two buns that looked ready to fall apart at any moment, a testament to a recent nervous breakdown.
She lifted her head.
Her eyes. Yellow, slanted, feline eyes locked onto mine. They were bloodshot from the effort of restraint, and her pupils were fully dilated, absorbing the dim, flickering light from the streetlamp. In her right hand, she held a cheap, rusty Swiss Army knife. On her left forearm, she had a small cut, shallow but bleeding.
And she was actively licking her own blood with the tip of her tongue.
Seeing me, she quickly hid the injured arm behind her back and forced a smile. A terrifying, overly wide smile that stretched her features and didn't quite reach her frantic eyes. She looked like a scary drawing made by a child.
"Hello, hello!" Her voice was high-pitched, brittle, on the verge of hysteria. "I just... uh... I fell. Yeah. I tripped. I got a scratch. I'm so clumsy!"
She was visibly shaking, despite the warm night. She was in a cold sweat. The smell of fresh iron and anguish was so palpable you could almost chew it.
"Stop pretending," I said in a flat, bored tone, the calmness of my voice contrasting with her panic. I shoved my hands into my pockets, a calculated gesture of disinterest. The knife didn't faze me. "You're going through withdrawal."
The girl's smile faltered, trembling at the corners, and vanished for a second.
"W-what? No... I don't do drugs, that's wrong, my parents say that..." she stammered, trying to cling to her mask of normalcy.
"I'm not talking about drugs, blondie. I'm talking about iron. Hemoglobin." I took a step forward, invading her personal space with studied arrogance. I needed to break her defensive barrier, force her to be honest. "You smell like blood, but not like fear. You smell like hunger. It's the same desperation."
The girl backed up until her spine hit the vending machine with a metallic clack. The knife shook harder in her hand.
"Go away..." she whispered, her voice reduced to a thread, her "normal girl" mask shattering to pieces. The truth peeked through. "Go away or... I'll cut you. I want to see... I want to see if you're red inside... You look pretty... I want to be like you..."
It was the classic speech of a potential villain, the textbook definition of juvenile psychopathy. Any average hero would see an irrational threat that needed to be neutralized. Not me. I saw the same thing I see in the mirror during my worst moments: a defective biology screaming to be regulated, a physiological need disguised as madness.
"Your Quirk. What does it do?" I asked, completely ignoring the stabbing threat and the babbling of violent desire.
"GO AWAY!" she screamed, awkwardly brandishing the knife in the air, her movements uncoordinated.
I didn't even blink. I kept my hands in my pockets, refusing to give her the satisfaction of seeing fear.
"Transformation, right?" I deduced out loud, using the tone of a teacher explaining a basic concept. "You probably need to ingest DNA to activate it. Blood is the easiest and fastest vector to get it."
She froze. The scream died in her throat, and the knife hung suspended in the air. She was panting.
"How...?"
"It's basic biology," I sighed, as if explaining why the sky is blue to an idiot. "Your body doesn't produce the enzyme or protein needed for your metabolism to trigger the transformation, so you look for it from external sources to fill that deficit. Society labels you a monster, your parents tell you to suppress it and 'be normal,' and your brain is burning out because you're fighting a biological survival instinct stronger than your willpower. You confuse a physiological need with love, obsession, or the desire to 'be like them,' but it's just mismanaged hunger."
I stepped closer to her. We were barely a foot apart. I could smell the iron of the blood on her breath.
"You're not crazy," I said, lowering my voice to a deep whisper and staring straight into those chaotic eyes. "You're malnourished."
The girl blinked. An agonizing realization crossed her face. A single, heavy, dirty tear rolled down her cheek.
"Mal... nourished?"
"Yes. And suppressing the hunger only means that when you finally eat, you'll lose control, binge, and kill someone in the process. It's a survival mechanism." I pulled my right hand out of my pocket. With a quick, precise movement, I bit the pad of my thumb hard enough to break the tough skin. A drop of dark red blood welled up. I held out my hand. "Drink."
She looked at my finger like it was the answer to all the universe's questions, a revelation. Her pupils rhythmically contracted and dilated, fighting between instinct and socialization.
"C-can I?" she asked with a trembling voice, as if expecting it to be a trap or a punishment.
"Just hurry up, blondie"
She lunged. She didn't bite me, showing a shred of control. She grabbed my hand with hers, which was freezing despite the warm night, and licked the drop of blood with an almost religious reverence. Her tongue, rough like a cat's, slid over the wound.
I waited, counting the seconds in silence. One, two, three... Time stood still.
The trembling in her hands stopped abruptly. Her breathing normalized, becoming deep and steady. The fog of madness and desperation in her eyes cleared, revealing sharp intelligence and, for the first time, genuine curiosity.
She let go of my hand, looking at me in awe, savoring the residue of my blood.
"It tastes... it tastes like sparks. And spicy caramel," she whispered, her voice clear. Then, a deep blush spread across her cheeks. "It's delicious! You're delicious!" The comment was weird, but it wasn't terrifying anymore; it was data.
"That's nitroglycerin in my bloodstream," I corrected dryly, wiping my finger on my pants. This wasn't the time for compliments. "Now, listen carefully. Your brain confuses the need for blood with 'love' or 'admiration' because both signals are processed in the limbic system, the primal part of the brain that handles instinct and emotion. You are not a psychopath. You're just on a special diet that no one bothered to explain to you or regulate."
She stared at me, mouth agape. For the first time in her life, no one had told her to "be normal" or "suppress it." Someone had validated her existence with facts and logic.
"Who... who are you?" she asked, with a deference she hadn't had before.
"Bakugo Katsuki. Future number one hero."
She smiled. This time, it was a genuine smile. A bit crooked, showing off unusual little fangs, but sincere and full of relief.
"I'm Toga. Himiko Toga."
"Right, Toga," I said, turning around and starting to walk again. "Get up. You can't keep licking your wounds in an alley like an animal."
"Where are you going?" she asked, taking a quick step toward me, clinging to my presence like a life preserver in rough seas.
"I'm going to buy raw meat. Liver, probably. It has a high concentration of iron and hemoglobin." I side-eyed her skeptically. "And you're coming with me. We're going to calculate how much you need to consume safely on a daily basis so you don't have to attack people on the street and ruin your future."
Toga's eyes sparkled with renewed intensity. It wasn't just gratitude. It was instant, absolute devotion. She had found the only person who understood her on a fundamental level.
"Yes! Yes, Katsuki-kun!"
She stepped up next to me and, with an alarming naturalness for a complete stranger, linked her arm through mine.
"You're my best friend now!" she exclaimed, resting her head on my shoulder with disarming trust.
I tensed. My solitary, distrustful instinct screamed to push her away, to not let her touch me. But my logic silenced it with a click.
"Don't get too excited, vampire.And don't call me that."
"Hehe! Whatever you say, Katsuki-kun!"
As we walked toward the nearest convenience store, with Toga clinging to my arm and humming an unsettlingly cheerful tune, I thought about the implications. I had just adopted a future S-rank villain that I would probably never get rid of. Izuku, my paranoid friend, was going to have a panic attack when I introduced her ("Kacchan, grab a knife so we can defend ourselves!" "It's for slicing ham, Deku, calm down").
But feeling the trembling in Toga's arm completely vanish and her breathing grow calm beside me, I knew that, despite everything, it was the right decision. The system would have institutionalized her or pushed her into villainy for being exactly what her biology dictated she be. I was going to stabilize her, give her the user manual no one had handed her.
Because if anyone understands what it's like to have a body that demands violence, it's me. And if I'm going to be the future number one hero, I'm going to rewrite science and morality to accommodate the "monsters." Starting with this one.
Author's note: Well, hi, I've been having really bad luck lately.
On Friday I got sick, first with the flu and then with a work-related stress overload (don't work sick, it's not worth it).
Saturday without power all damn day, and I won't lie, I was already feeling better, so I went out with friends to chill.
This chapter was made with pure caffeine, tell me what you think.