Chapter 03: [Growing Thirst]

The night was long the vampire, his body running high due to the finally receiving a fresh dose of blood.

How long had it been since Izuku had tasted fresh blood? Years for sure. Such abstinence was more than commendable, it was downright impossible. Yet none of that mattered now, considering that Izuku had possibly discovered a new aspect of his [Quirk].

The National Quirk Registry has yet to properly name his quirk, given its rather unique set of abilities. As such, his quirk had been put under the generic brands of a dual Vampiric/Hemomancer quirk, akin to the likes of Vlad King.

Izuku could feel the new blood awakening something primal, something that was new, yet was supposed to have always been with him. The teen could feel in his mind ever so faint traces of the other guy's memories; annoyance, fear, hope. Many emotions that made his head spin and his instincts to flare, so similar they were to his own.

Running with such a high could lead to a dangerous situation, hence the reason why Izuku had locked himself in his rented room.

He sat on the cheap mattress, trying out all his breathing exercises. All the techniques that had helped him deal with the thirst for years now failed him miserably.

Izuku never felt his body leaving the mattress and standing up. Dressing his shoes and jacket. Hell, he only came to full consciousness when he was already out of the room and running at full speed atop the many rooftops of the district.

His form was all but a blur for the average eye, flash-step aiding in his vicious search for any trace of fighting. The sky was already dark outside, which meant he had lost the count of time when he entered his room and when he left again.

One thing was certain; Izuku would find the target of his hunt.

XxxxxxX

It took him the better part of two hours before Izuku found occurring conflict.

As always, it happened in an dark alley. A man dressed in a leather, black colored combat suit and motorbike helmet was exiting the place, going for the empty backstreet. He was armed with a worrisome number of blades and if Izuku's nose was right, such blades had recently cut into flesh and drawn blood.

Izuku stalked the man for a while, following him as he quickly made his way through countless alleys and shady streets. The man entered a rather cheap looking building, Izuku opting to take a scenic approach and climbing the sidewalks with windows, his nails sinking into the concrete to allow him access to perches when none were available.

The smell of blood was an easy trail for the vampire to follow, his already excited senses going into overdrive as the smell increased, this time with a subtle difference.

Izuku could almost taste blood in the air, and he could not climb fast enough to reach his target. When he finally reached the window of the fifth floor, Izuku found himself staring at a common bathroom.

The room was bare, only filled with the essentials such as soap and shampoo, but the teen could also spot a bottle of bleach, likely an effort in trying to erase the traces of life liquid from whatever tools this person had been working on.

Another glance and the Hemomancer found the sink, the sight of it making his nose flare and pupils sharpen until Izuku gained a frightening look.

Blood.

A knife.

A nose.

The sight captured his attention long enough for a hand to suddenly appear into vision. The gloves hand broke the window glass pane much too fast, striking and grabbing at his collar like a vice. The vampire found himself choking as he was brutally pulled inside the bathroom and then tossed into the closest wall like a rag doll.

Izuku grunted in pain, but quickly got into a striking stance. There was only one tiny lamp lighting the room, but it gave him enough sight to make out the would be attacker. His nose flared and his mouth watered, the sight making Izuku both fearful and thirsty.

The man had a sharp face, black hair and eyes containing a powerful will, but those details paled in comparison to his nose, or the location where the cartilaginous mass would be. Instead, a massive gash slowly bled, making the man both easy and hard to recognize.

"A kid? I thought someone like Eraserhead had finally managed to track me down. No worries though, I'll just have you sleep while I change hideouts." The man spoke in a low grunt, slowly grabbing the knife from the sink. "Don't make this harder than it has to be, kid!" The man charged Izuku with a burst of speed the greenette had some trouble following.

The duo engaged into a dangerous fight, the man slashing at Izuku with precision and strength; all of which failed to cut at him by millimeters. The teen tried to use his nails, but found himself forced into a defensive battle as his opponent also drew a sword to aid his endeavor of cutting Izuku.

The teen disengaged from the close quarters by jumping back, his nails sinking into the flesh of his arms and quickly drawing blood. The man seemed surprised by Izuku's actions and was almost caught in the surprise attack the teen planned, the blood gauntlets missing their target as Izuku buried his covered fists into the wall behind the dangerous man.

The teen tried to dodge the incoming knives thrown his way, and mostly did. Unfortunately, Izuku found himself acquainted to the man's sword handle, a resounding crack echoing in the room as Izuku's nose broke under the blow. The green haired youth recoiled in pain and was not fast enough to avoid the second blow, a sword burrying into his right shoulder with no mercy. Right after that, the blade was brutally yanked from his shoulder as a boot stomped on his abdomen and sent the hemomancer into the ground as a sprawled mess.

Izuku grunted in pain, his cracked shoulderblade already healing the damage and allowing the muscles to knit themselves back into place. He tried to stand and fight, but suddenly Izuku found his body locked in place. Differently from the purple haired teen's quirk, Izuku found his muscles to be truly in lockdown.

"It was a bad choice for you to search for me, Kid. You are lucky to go with only a shoulder injury; Only a true hero will be able to defeat me. Only Allmight will bring me down, and until the day that happens, I'll stain myself to clean this messed-up society." Izuku heard the man monologing, only being capable of that, as his body refused to move. The teen found the sensation of losing control of his body to be both frightening and annoying.

The footsteps of the man approached him and stopped right next to him. Izuku felt his hair be grasped and his head was turned to face the man until they were both looking into each other's eyes. Izuku could feel the man judging him, hoping to see fear into his green eyes.

The [True Ancestor] would not allow this villanous man to jugde him. He might not be able to move his body, but he could still feel his connection with his life liquid. [Advanced Hemomancy] was called upon, [Hunter Instincts] flaring up in response to the judging red eyes of this man. Izuku's own pupils shone and glimmered in crimson light as the duo's stare competition prolonged.

His blood responded to his call, his injuried shoulder being the exit necessary for the crimson liquid to burst from, immediately sharping into blades and attacking his assailor. The man jumped back in surprise, his blade parrying the many tendrils of blood that Izuku controled while down.

Ten different attacks, from ten different directions. Such aggression would overwhelm any B-tier hero, yet the man was capable enough to avoid any sort of injury.

After jumping to avoid the tendrils, the man decided to back off. Izuku was about to extend the range of his blood tendrils, but found his muscles to be free of their forced control. It seemed that the quirk of this villain had a time limit, considering that only 5 minutes had passed since Izuku had been paralyzed. The teen rose from the ground and once more got into a fighting stancec, ready for his round-two.

The villain rose his brows and muttered a somewhat pleased noise.

"Ohh, it seems your spirit is made of stronger stuff than those fakes out there. I'll applaud your tenacity for sure. I'll wait and see if you will be able to keep that spirit of yours and become a true hero." The man said, never dropping his guard or showing any openings that Izuku could see. He slowly backed off, but Izuku slowly followed him, keeping their distance equal to before.

"Don't hurt yourself anymore, kid. I want to see what kind of hero you'll become in the future. Show it to me then, now you need to rest and take care of that injur-..." The villain cut his speech short as he noticed that Izuku's shoulder was already healed. His smile became much too large, his tongue snaking out lick his sword, where there was still blood from when he cut Izuku earlier.

Before the teen could wonder why the man would injest blood, the same sensation of muscle lockdown happened and Izuku fell once more, this time face first into the ground of the bathroom. He heard the sound of another window opening up and then the apartment fell into complete silence.

Izuku felt somewhat hollow, being subdued so easily by a villain. He had messed up a lot this time, letting his instincts get the better of him and allowing them to run rampard had been what led to his current state of defeat, paralyzed into the bathroom of a killer for who knows how long. The vampire felt like an incompetent child. Why had Izuku thought that he could take on the man with his piss-poor combat skills?

Sure, his [Hunter Instincts] was a top-notch predator skill that could cover for a lot of his inexperience in combat, but relying so heavily into them had led into him getting a sword to his shoulder. Izuku could still feel where the blade had dung into, the cold bite of the jagged metal already been healed. He reflected into the fight, his mind easily replaying the events and pointing where and how he had messed up, and how he could have done better had he maintained his rationality and calm mind.

Yet, Izuku had given into the [Thirst] and allowed himself to rampage. How could a mere lick of fresh blood have caused much an effect on him?

Five minutes passed and his freedom of movement returned, allowing Izuku to pick himself from the cold ground. He sniffed the air in hopes of finding the villain, but his efforts were for naught. All he picked up was the smell of blood hanging from the bathroom sink, where the man had appearently done some sort of self-harm. The green haired teen couldn't help his mouth watering up, shivers of pleasure running up and down his spine as the sweet smell of blood wafted into his nose.

Izuku approached the sink and, his hands smearing the blood and approaching it to his nose for a better inspection of the blood. Sweet.

His mouth watering even more, his earlier defeat completely forgotten, Izuku brought the crimson liquid to his mouth for a taste of the nectar. As he licked his hands clean, Izuku ignored the severaged appendage at the bottom of the sink in favor of appreciating the taste of fresh blood in his mouth. His eyes glimmered, pupils like rubies.

The vampire delighted himself in the taste, his own blood screaming in happiness as it broke down the nutrition it received. His fangs shone, reflecting the light of the room and Izuku caught a glimpse of himself on the mirror above the sink. He froze.

A monster was staring back.

The sun shone without a care, bringing its light for all.

The curtains of the room were opened without a care for the wishes of the occupant of said room, allowing the sunlight to touch the exposed arm of the person covered in blankets. The woman who entered the room stood at the door, waiting for the usual to happen.

A few seconds passed before the blankets were thrown in the air without a care, the teen under them rushing to escape the light that invaded his space without regards his wishes.

Izuku hissed at the window, staring hatefully at the light that entered his room for a few seconds. His nose picked up the scent of his mother standing by the door frame. He breathed deeply, clamping the urge to close his curtains down and slowly making his way out of his room.

"Good morning, mom." Izuku said, tiredly dragging his body out of his room and making his way to the kitchen.

"Morning, Izuku." Inko sweetly replied, following him.

The duo made their way to the kitchen; Inko sitting herself on her usual place as Izuku procceeded to his mini-fridge and grabbed three blood-packs, making his way to his place where breakfast was already served. The mother and son clapped their hands and giving the usual thanks for the meal, began eating slowly as the TV droned the usual spiel.

Inko began eating and observing her son. He had returned earlier than she expected, making his way to his room without much fuss and somewhat worrying her. His earlier than expected was 3 in the morning, so of course the mother was worried. Her Izuku was growing, Inko realized, but she was not sure what to do if he was going to make excuses to meet girls in the night. Why else would he come home at such time and so down, if not for a rejection?

As for the teen, he sank his fangs into the bloodpacks and quickly drank the contents, his brows frowning when the crimson liquid touched his tongue.

Bland. Like drinking miso-soup without any condiments put into it.

He usually would only drink one pack, two if particularly stressed. Yet, even after draining his third pack, Izuku only felt saciated. Barely enough to keep his [Thirst] into check.

He ate his food without putting much thought into it, and after being done, placed his dishes into the sink and started washing them. His ears picked the sound of his mother coming close, which she did as he put her dishes next to his and patted his shoulder to gain his attention. Izuku almost flinched; had his mother known?

"Izuku. You must present your girlfriend to you mom. I need to know what kind of girl my baby-boy is going out with!" Her jovial tone made Izuku release a sigh, a smile soon settling over his lips as his green pupils focused on hers.

"Yes, mom." He felt some blood flow to his cheeks, a light blush staining his pale features. He loved his mother! She was the archor of his life.

Izuku made his way to Dagobah beach.

School had finished a few minutes ago, the pale vampire using flash-stepping his way to the sandy junkyard that was completely littered with trash. After searching for a while, the teen found that this place became like this due to the sea bringing out some junk to the shores, after which some thought it was a good idea to use the place as a sort of dump.

The teen started comming here since two months ago, following the incident with the villanous man happened. Since the place was avoided due to the mountains of trash that covered it, it was a perfect place for him to go and empty his mind. The smell of rusty iron was somewhat akin to that of blood, making the beach a good spot for Izuku to train.

That's right, train.

The teen realized that supressing his instincts had been a great mistake. After his incident, he began searching ways to get a better control over his instincts and urges, but the internet could only give him so much. Blood quirks were usually feared, meaning that information on them was either exagerated or false, few articles being useful for the teen.

As such, Izuku went with the tried-and-true method of experimentation. Finding the littered Dagobah Beach had helped him greatly in that aspect, as the smell of rusty iron tickled his [Hunter Instincts] and allowed the teen to blow off steam. He could practice his [Advanced Hemomancy] without fear of hurting anyone and in the rare chance that he went in a rampage, he had plenty of targets to destroy until he calmed down. All in all, it also served as practive for the upcomming U.A entry exam that he planned on taking. It would not due to for him to enter a blood haze and attack the other competitors, so Izuku slowly began experimenting with all he could think off.

So far he had great profit from his endeavors here, considering that he managed to mostly tame his more aggressive tendencies. However, his [Thirst] had increased as to compensate for his continuous use of [Daywaker], [Advanced Hemomancy] and [Hunter Instincts]. His control over his blood also increased, allowing him to make his blood seep through his skin pores and surpasing the need to open wounds to have access to his blood. It was slower to do, but also less agravating to on the eyes of anyone else.

And the final touch, his most recent abilities. Izuku was aware that biting people to suck their blood was wrong and would garner him much distrust should he do much thing in front of other people, but he could not ignore the benefits of drinking fresh blood.

Packaged blood was tasting blander and blander by as the days passed; it also lacked the active quirk factor present in fresh blood. Izuku didn't know when it happened or how, but his best guess was that after his ingestion of fresh blood.

He developed some extra abilities after he tasted fresh blood. It seemed to have some sort of restriction, considering that he had not developed something like his mother's quirk of [Attraction of Small Objects] as a child, or maybe his quirk was not mature enough at that point. Whatever the case, Izuku guessed that depending on the quirk, if he ingested the blood of the person, he could duplicate the effects. It was much less potent than the original, but it could be done.

Izuku found that out in school. He mostly forgot the details of the encounter, but he remembered it had to deal with Bakugou's lackeys. The blond bomber had left Izuku alone these days, but the sickly sweet smell of nitroglycerin had become stronger (a sign that Katsuki was also training to participate in the upcomming exams). Yet, the lackeys who clung to the ash-blond saw fit to "deepen" their friendship with the blonde and in their heads that somehow meant bothering the resident vampire of Aldera Junior.

Due to that, the [Long fingers] lanky quirk user and [Wings] fatty quirk user had choosen to bother Izuku when he stayed late to write some details in his quirk notebook. Before they even got the chance to bother him, his green pupils shone in crimson light as Izuku decided to test if he could really reproduce the effects of other people's quirks. The result?

Two new abilities that Izuku decided to calll [Mesmerize] and [Coagulation]. Both were useful in their ways, but were inferior copies of the original abilities of the people he had obtained them from.

[Mesmerize] was obtained after Izuku drank from the purple haired teen's blood, and was a form of hypnotism. It was tricky to use, considering that Izuku needed to maintain full-focus eye contact with his target and it was still hard for him to truly control others. At best he could give simple instructions and those needed to be something that the target believed was their own idea. It was a hard to use ability, but Izuku could make it due with it.

[Coagulation] was easier to use. If he could let some of his blood enter someone's bloodstream, Izuku could make his blood paralyze someone for a short period of time. Quite useful for fights, although Izuku needed to have people ingest his blood for it to work.

He wondered if he could get new abilities by drinking more blood from different sources, but such ocasions would surely be hard to come by. It was not like he could go around asking people if he could drink their blood. That would be weird.

Izuku continued training, thoughts running in his mind as he slashed at the piles of scrap with his blood gauntlets, sending metal bits flying and breaking parts of bigger machines. The noise of it covered the sound of the person that approached him, the smell being covered due to the grease and oil that was stuck on the skin of the person. The vampire was caught by surprise when someone touched his shoulder, making him spin around, counterattack ready as his gauntlet covered hands aimed to strike at whoever managed to get this close without his notice.

His sharp fingers barely managed to stop before the girl in front of him, pink dreadlocks flying due to the air pressure created by his suddenly stopped motion.

"HEY there! I noticed that you were breaking these things apart and I wondered if you couldn't help me out with those other ones over there? How about it, huh?" Izuku found himself being requested a favor by a girl. Whatever in hell was a girl doing in this dump was anyone's guess, but her get-up seemed to point the possibility of her being a mechanic.

The goggles atop her head and the tool-belt strapped around her waist were dead giveways to that.

"One question though! Are these gauntlets metal? Or maybe they are your quirk? They are quite resilient, but don't seem to be made of metal, so maybe they are some sort of ney alloy? Or carbon-based? Tell me about them! Oh, about my request, could you do it? It won't take much of your time, promise! I would dismantle them, but some of the screws rusted and the only way to get the inner machinery is to break them open!" The girl kept talking over Izuku, not allowing the vampire any chance to give an answer to any of her question. She truly machine-gunned him down with words, getting close to his personnal space and grinning as he seemed to bounce in place, her sight-shaped pupils running all over his blood gauntlets.

Izuku felt overwhelmed.

"Oh, I almost forgot. Coversations start only when you introduce yourself, right?! Well, my name is Mei, Hatsume Mei! Now, could you break that washing machine over there!"

Izuku felt truly overwhelmed.