The problem with being a ghost

Izuku decided to spend the rest of the day roaming the city. He looked at all the other people, then looked at his feet and sighed. He missed being alive. He missed walking the way everyone else did. He missed being with everyone else. And he really missed his mom's katsudon. Being a ghost had its perks, like how he had been able to visit some people and help them through rough times. He had stopped around four suicides that month, which was more than he had ever expected to do well, ever. A few schoolkids were walking down the street, catching his attention and bringing him out of his thoughts. He stopped in his tracks. One of the kids was the boy he had talked out of jumping soon after he'd died.

He smiled, wondering how the boy was doing. Izuku decided to follow the group. The boy was walking with a girl about his age. She was petite, and her school outfit was a bit big for her. She smiled, a chilling sight, as Izuku realized she possessed vampire-like canine teeth on her top and bottom jaws. Her blonde hair was pulled into two little buns at the top of her head and her eyes had slitted pupils like a cat. She would have been cute if Izuku wasn't so irrationally scared of her. The feeling was weird, like hearing boss music in a video game but not seeing the enemy. She was staring at the boy so weirdly, so obsessively. It was creepy, but the boy walking next to her didn't seem to notice. Izuku narrowed his eyes. Something was up.

"So, have you heard any ghost stories?" the girl asked with a chuckle.

"Toga, stop," the boy complained. "You know how much I hate those creepy legends."

"C'mon, you've got to have heard at least one," Toga said, skipping a little bit.

"Well, there was this one weird thing that happened to me some months ago," the boy said, starting to trail off.

"Oooh, tell me, tell me!"

"I was on the roof. I was in a really bad place at the time and was considering killing myself."

"Oh no!"

"I was on a roof, about to jump off, when I was spooked by someone yelling and started to fall by accident. Some kid with green hair caught me and pulled me to safety. He talked to me and helped me to start on the path to dealing with everything. When we finished talking, he was gone."

"Woah, really?"

"Yeah, and I always thought something was weird about that kid. He came out of seemingly nowhere, and I didn't see him coming anywhere near the door to the roof."

"Maybe he was a ghost," Toga said spookily. "I've heard stories of a helpful ghost floating around. Some say he helps people with little things like the story of the time he had scared off a boy following a woman home. Others say he talks people out of suicide or comforts them in times of grief."

"Is that so?"

"Yeah, people say he just shows up out of nowhere in places where he shouldn't be able to go and talks to them if they need help. They call him the Dead Hero!"

"That's a little morbid," the boy grimaced awkwardly.

"There are so many cool stories about him!" Toga squealed. "But he's a relatively new ghost from what I hear."

This sounded strangely familiar, Izuku noted silently. Either they were talking about him, or someone else died around the same time he did and started helping people too. Was he a ghost story? Still, whatever he thought of or how much he tried to shake the feeling, he knew something was up with that girl.

The next day, he spotted the two of them walking to school and decided to follow them. He studied the pair as they hurried along. Something wasn't right and Izuku had no idea what it was. However, whatever was up with this Toga girl was by all means a problem. He scurried after them as they sped up, thoroughly glad he could move faster than he could have in life. Being a ghost had its benefits, as much as he missed being alive. The two of them vanished into the school and Izuku passed through the walls. The school was big and open, much bigger than any school Izuku had ever gone to. He looked around in awe at the sheer size of the school before remembering why he was there and scrambling to follow the duo again.

Toga invited the boy to talk with her in an adjacent hallway. Suddenly, Izuku felt very bad about this. The two of them had begun talking, Toga staring at him oddly and grinning so manically that Izuku's heart would have probably stopped upon seeing it, that is, if it was still beating in the first place. Before he could even think or consider the weirdness of this situation, he noticed the glint of something reflecting off of metal. Izuku looked closer, a shock running through him as he realized what the blonde was holding.

"Watch out!" he shouted, momentarily forgetting that he was dead and also invisible. He then looked closer and realized that the girl was not holding a knife like he had thought, but rather a metal straw that looked a little scuffed-up at the end. The boy didn't look out for danger, obviously, but he did look around.

"Did you hear something?" the boy asked.

"Hear what?" Toga asked, the little bits of obsessive desperation leaking into her voice.

"Ugh, I should have stayed home today," the boy sighed, rubbing his temples. "I knew I stayed up too late."

"Maybe," Toga smiled. "But, then we wouldn't get to hang out today."

"Yeah, that's true." Izuku felt rather silly. The situation seemed stable, and it seemed he may have followed the two of them all the way here for nothing, something that made him feel especially awkward as he remembered that he had nowhere else to go during the day, and it wasn't like some horribly terrible thing was going on with the people he had been watching over the day before. Ochako was fine, she could defend herself, the purple-haired boy had a tenacity that seemed all-too familiar, and Kacchan was well, Kacchan. They were fine. Besides, U.A had similar security to Tartarus Prison, and they were going to be doing a training exercise that day.

"I really like you, y'know that, Yuki?"

Yuki looked at her quizzically with a little bit of concern, probably from Toga's tone of voice and how odd she sounded. "I uh, I asked you to not call me by my first name, Toga."

"Oh, but it's only fitting," she smiled, twirling the metal straw around between her fingers.

"Huh?" Toga moved quickly, swinging the metal straw at Yuki's neck like it was the lid of a cup of bubble tea. Izuku, hardly thinking at this point, dove at Toga, intending to interrupt the attack. He hoped the fluke he had sometimes when he could touch somebody would finally come into clutch. The kid he had saved only months earlier was going to be hurt and he wouldn't be able to stop it, and he couldn't risk not having the chance to protect him.

To his surprise, he plowed into Toga, knocking her to the ground, even being the scrawny middle school sized kid he was. Yuki stared at him in abject horror, probably still in shock about having been inches away from being turned into a human juice box. Izuku had barely processed being able to touch things again when he finally put two and two together and realized he was being seen. Toga hissed like an angry cat and threw Izuku off of her, sending the boy flying a few feet in the air, where he floated a few feet above the floor.

"Yuki!" Izuku shouted, turning to the boy. "Get out of here!" Yuki, however, was frozen in place.

"I've been fantasizing about this for weeks," Toga said snarled. "I've been holding back from this for weeks, and as soon as it's within reach, someone interrupts." Her voice was strained, like she was trying to keep from yelling. "How can some kid who barely looks big enough to be in middle school stop me like that?!" Toga lunged at Izuku, swinging her straw at him. Izuku squeaked, gliding out of the way. The straw hit him, but not quite, Toga's hand passing through Izuku's leg. She stared at him in confusion and continued to stab the straw at him, which was about as effective as trying to corral a litter of kittens, or sort salt from sugar.

Toga was furious, and rightfully so. She tripped over her own feet and hit the floor. Izuku awkwardly floated next to her. "Why are you doing this?"

"Who are you?" Toga asked.

Izuku hesitated, then spoke. "My name is Izuku Midoriya," he said, "And I've been dead for almost a year."

Toga snorted. "So you're a ghost. You can't bleed. That's a shame—you would have looked adorable bleeding out on the floor."

Izuku thought for a moment. "Toga, do you happen to have a blood-based quirk?"

"I do. And I only know because of something that got me grounded some time back."

"Go on," he urged gently.

"When I was a little kid and it was around the time my quirk would manifest I suddenly became absolutely fascinated with blood. I would find a bloodied-up little bird or cat and stare at it for hours, or sink my teeth in it and drink all I could." Yuki looked disgusted, but Toga looked quite pleased with herself. "It was a pretty little bird, all spattered with blood. Mom and Dad were disgusted—it got to the point that they wouldn't even let me out of the house. So I kept seeking out the blood in secret. One day I found blood packets that had fallen from an ambulance, and it was wonderful. I was hooked, but my parents still didn't know. I found I could turn into people if I had their blood, and it was the most incredible feeling—you couldn't even begin to imagine!" Toga looked a bit strange, with her obsessive smile and odd tone of voice, but Izuku let her continue. "Pity nobody else agreed."

Izuku resisted the urge to shudder. "And you were going to drink his blood?"

"Obviously." The girl had a sick grin, and Izuku would have feared for his life if he had one. He cleared his head of any more death jokes and focused on the task at hand. He thought for a moment, and remembered how he had talked to a kid with serious side effects to his quirk that made it harder for the young student to function in normal society. Izuku looked at the fantasizing girl and put two and two together.

"I take it that your quirk makes you obsess over blood so you can use it," he mused. Toga remained silent for a moment or two.

"Is that it?" she hissed. "Is that all you think it is?"

"It's a theory," Izuku stammered. "But I think I can help you. I put far too much study into stuff like this awhile back and found that there's quirk disability accommodation centers and things like that floating around all over Japan. They're not publicly talked about that often, but they get facilities to help you maintain your quirk and the safety of others while taking care of yourself."

"What?" Yuki finally piped up. "What are you talking about?"

"Like, for example. I heard of this one man who had a poison gas quirk, but he had to release the gas at certain intervals or else he would get really sick. So, they gave him a room where he could release the gas. They would vent it out of the room, bottle it up, and dispose of it." Izuku had started rambling, and he knew he would have to stop soon. "We can get you some help, if you'd only let me."

Toga looked at him skeptically. "My parents wouldn't let me. And besides, I don't want to be treated like a crazy person."

"I can convince them," Izuku protested.

"And what makes you think they'll listen to some strange, skinny boy?"

"Trust me," Izuku said gently. "And please, just take care of yourself for a little longer. Maybe take a day or two off of school. Let me talk with your parents."

Toga looked at him with a sharp stare that startled him more than one of Bakugo's shouts. She was scary in a way that wasn't outwardly obvious. "You can try. But there's no way they will do anything about it," she hissed, her pointy teeth barely being revealed as she talked about her family as bitterly as she did. Izuku felt bad for her, suddenly grateful that he had his mother with him and such a good relationship with her while she was alive. A sick feeling sat in his stomach, reminding him that in the depths of his horrible, depressive state, he had chosen to die and only regretted it. He wondered how his mom felt. He shook his head to clear it. Now wasn't the time to feel upset about regrets.

"I'll make sure your parents will get you the help you deserve."

"How?"

"I have my ways."

Yuki was already long gone by now. Izuku would have to talk to him later. Truthfully, he had no idea how he was going to help Toga. But he couldn't just stand there and do nothing. Before he knew it, he had faded away from Toga's sight, and he was alone again. He sighed and decided to check on Katsuki and Uraraka. Their homeroom was about to start right about then. With a turn, he left the school, and headed to U.A.