Concrete Jungle

In the dead of night, Mizuki wanders the alleys of the city. She had been doing so for the better part of a week, living off of water that she purifies with her quirk. She was hungry, but getting by on scraps for now.

As harsh as the past several days have been for her, she didn't want to go home. She never wanted to return there. That place was a prison, but out here, she was free. She could go wherever she wanted!

Well... sometimes she could go wherever she wanted. It seemed her parents had filed a missing person report about her, so she has to run from the police whenever she sees them, and sometimes heroes.

Nothing she couldn't handle of course! Ever since that snake man attacked her, she had been training her quirk. Not much progress, as it only has been less than a week, but progress was being made! Unlike before when she just messed around with it for fun, she was pushing her quirk to its limits.

Right now, she was just trying to find a quiet place to sleep. The city was much louder than her house, but she would take having to listen to some noise over the same scenery every day. It was worse for her since she could still vividly remember each crack in the flooring, every indent in the walls, every bump on the ceiling. It was horrifying how much of her time was spent trying to find a different bump in the wall, or a new crack that would be sealed just as quickly.

She was brought out of her thoughts when she detected the still form of what felt like a girl in an alleyway across the street.

Unflinchingly, she walked out onto the street. Barely anyone would be driving this time of day, much less so in the part of town she found herself in. She had seen more than a few fellow homeless people. While she had a house, she didn't have a home.

Arriving at the girl, she found that she was crying. Mizuki stood there, watching. She often cried at night, much like she was, and she hated more than anything to be interrupted while she was crying, so she sat down next to the crying girl and waited patiently.

Mizuki sat with just the crying of the girl as her background sound, along with the occasional passing of a car.

"Why do my parents hate me?" The girl suddenly asked. Mizuki could feel the girl staring at her through tears.

"I can't say for sure, but I ask similar questions of my own about my parents." Mizuki thought back to her whole life. The same small area of the world, in comparison to how much she has travelled out here.

"I think it's because I am not exactly like every other kid. Or rather, I am not exactly like the kid they wanted. So they kept me locked up in our, no, their house." Mizuki felt herself tearing up at the memories, "'It's to keep you safe' they always said, but I know they were just trying to force me to act a certain way by teaching me certain things and keeping me away from other people. But I didn't want to be who they wanted me to be, so rebelled in the best way I could. Acting rude to guests, and being as loud as I could to keep them from ignoring me. It seemed to have backfired though, because then they started hating me, and pushed me even harder to be who they wanted me to be. So... I guess what I am trying to say is that... it's not your fault." Mizuki was crying just as much as the other girl was now.

She was mostly talking to herself near the end. It wasn't her fault that she didn't want to be what her parents wanted her to be, right? It was theirs for pushing her to be something she wasn't.

The other girl nodded as tears flowed from her eyes. She wasn't sobbing anymore, but the tears didn't stop from either of them.

As they both sat there, neither spoke a word. The quiet let them let out their frustrations into the void.

(-)

Mizuki roused from her sleep as she felt the sun's heat tickle her face. She wasn't sure when she fell asleep last night, but the girl asleep on her lap reminded her why she fell asleep where she was.

She tried to move out from under the girl to retreat to somewhere police couldn't find her, but doing so woke the girl up.

The girl's form was more discernible now that she wasn't curled into a ball as a somewhat thin girl with her hair in two buns. Mizuki had her own hair in a bun, so she knew how one looked. That or the girl had a quirk that made her head weird, she wasn't sure, quirks were strange.

"Good morning?" Mizuki asked for some reason.

"M-morning." The girl's tone was quiet yet cheerful but Mizuki could feel something else hidden underneath that cheer.

The girl sat up next to Mizuki and they stared at each other for a moment, neither sure what to say to the other.

"Name's Mizuki Hitsuchi. I find it aggravating to have to tell people, but I am blind. Nice to meet ya!" Mizuki stuck her hand out toward the girl.

"I'm Himiko Toga! It's very nice to meet you too!" She said cheerfully with a pleasant tone.

Toga reached her hand out toward Mizuki but Mizuki suddenly pulled her hand back, "No. That felt off." Mizuki could feel Toga's heartbeat spike as soon as she started to introduce herself. That is too weird to happen, even if she was excited, it usually doesn't spike that much.

"Really? Everyone else thinks I'm normal." Toga tilted her head.

'Okay, the line, 'everyone else thinks I'm normal' is so suspicious I am unsure how to voice it.' Mizuki thought.

"What do ya mean, 'thinks your normal?'" Mizuki decided to ask outright.

"Uh oh." Toga realised her slip-up and only made the situation worse for herself with her exclamation.

"Okay weird girl, tell me what's up." Mizuki grabbed Toga by her shoulders to prevent her from running.

"But... my parents don't like it when I'm weird." Toga said, innocently enough.

"Well your parents aren't here, are they, just like mine aren't." Mizuki smirked with her ingenious reasoning.

Toga took a second to take in the information before nodding her head as a smile spread across her face. All the way across.

"What does your blood look like?" Toga suddenly asked.

"Can't say I know, but I've heard it's red, whatever that's like." Mizuki giggled.

"Don't you think I'm weird?" Toga asked a follow-up question.

"Well if I thought you were normal then you'd be super boring. Better to be weird than boring in my opinion, and let me tell ya, every person at my old school was such a stick in the mud." Mizuki scowled as she remembered all the strung-up jackass teachers.

'Especially Iida. The guy wouldn't let me do anything on my own.'

"Can I taste some of your blood?"

Mizuki cackled in response. It seemed like Toga was getting more unhinged every second.

"Fancy yourself a vampire? Sure, just don't take too much, I haven't eaten much in the past couple days, so I don't want to pass out from blood loss."

Without hesitation, Toga jumped at Mizuki and bit directly into her shoulder.

"WAH!" She screamed in surprise and pain. Turns out, having your shoulder bit into isn't exactly the most pleasant experience.

Having made the wound, Toga just sat and stared at her shoulder a moment.

"Well? You gonna do anything with it?" Mizuki played off her pain.

"So pretty." Toga mumbled.

"Thanks! I don't know how I am supposed to take that being said about my blood, but I ain't exactly a blood beauty expert." The pain was still there, but the initial sting faded.

Toga licked up all the blood off of her shoulder and then sucked on the wound.

'This feels weirdly lewd.' Mizuki shuddered.

"Hey, I said not too much! Unless you want to feed me actual food, no more blood for you!" Mizuki pulled the little leech off of her.

"But... It's so good!" Toga charged forward again only to have head held back by Mizuki's palm.

"No. Bad girl." Mizuki berated Toga like a dog.

"So... so you don't like me?" Toga whimpered.

"No you idiot, I just don't have enough energy in my body for you to take so much blood!" Mizuki tried to explain, but it was clear that Toga wasn't getting it.

"Look, when I get actual food in my stomach, you can have some more blood." Mizuki said in exasperation.

"Really? Does... does that mean I can be your friend?" She asked. Toga hadn't felt like she made any actual friends because they hadn't made friends with her, but rather, the front that she put on.

"I'm pretty sure we're already blood sisters considering you just sucked my blood you little vampire." Mizuki almost said leech, but she didn't want to insult her first friend.

"So does that mean...?" Toga started with an expectant look.

"Yes we're friends."

Toga didn't respond and only nodded, clearly not realising that if she was completely blind that she wouldn't have seen that.

"I see you eyeing my wound. No more blood." Mizuki grabbed some water pooled on the side of the road, next to the curb. She quickly purified it by pulling out all the dirt and rock in the water.

She placed the puddle of water over her wound, and with a light glow, watched as it slowly healed over.

"Woah, is that you're quirk?" Toga asked as she watched with a small frown. How tough it was to see her beloved blood leave.

"Part of it. I don't control water all that much, but I found out I could use it to heal small wounds recently." Mizuki focused, trying to make sure the water didn't just drop from lack of concentration, "Speaking of quirks, what's yours?"

Toga opened her mouth to speak, but quickly closed it and looked away, fidgeting with her fingers behind her back.

"Toga, you already sucked the blood out of me, you can't do a lot to surprise me unless you're a serial killer." Mizuki deadpanned.

'Maybe if she was left alone for a while longer it may have happened.' Mizuki shuddered at the thought.

"Right! My quirk lets me transform into those whose blood I drink." She said with an elated tone.

'Well, at least she doesn't hate her quirk.' Mizuki nodded her head, "Ah, I see, so you have a taste for blood because your quirk makes you ingest it. Hardly a good quirk if you're apprehensive about using it."

"Mhm, so can I have some more?" Toga tried to use this opportunity, but of course, Mizuki wasn't dumb enough for that.

"No, dummy. Let's go find some food." Mizuki walked into the alley. People were starting to wake up around this time, and she would rather nobody see two middle school girls in some alleyway at the crack of dawn.

The two wandered the alleyways in silence, Toga lightly skipping behind her as she happily mumbled a song aptly named 'New Best Friend' over and over again. Of course, the only lyrics to this impromptu song were 'new best friend' in varying pitches.

"Hey, Toga." Mizuki stopped.

"Hm?" Toga's head tilted.

"I think... I want to be a hero. And not because I like fighting, but... I don't think anyone else should have to put up with what we have, you know? People have been insensitive for a long time, and I... I just want to give a chance to those who have been shunned for their quirks. And I don't just mean the ones that give you superpowers, I mean the little bits and pieces that make up a person. Like I have been looked down on for being blind, and you have had people be unsettled because of your quirk and who you are. I'm sure it's not just us either, so I want to change it. Everything." Mizuki stared off toward the sky, a place she'd never seen.

"Sure! Why not? I bet heroes have a lot of good tasting blood." Toga's body shook with excitement at the idea.

"Pfft. Of course you'd focus on that part, dumbass." Mizuki giggled, "Alright, let's find some food, I'm dying!"

"Ooh, let me show you a good place for food." Toga suddenly suggested before running ahead.

"It better not be a blood bank!" Mizuki called out as she ran behind her.

It was clear as they ran that Toga was in a much better physical condition than herself.

'Goddamn pampering.' Mizuki huffed. Her parents didn't let her work out, so the best she had were her interpretive dances that she did when using her quirk.

"W-wait, Toga. Haaaaaaa." Mizuki took a heavy breath out, unintentionally breathing out cold air.

"Hm? What's up?" She seemed completely ignorant to the fact that she was tired.

"Remember what I said about being locked up in my house?"

"Kinda?"

"Well, whatever, I was locked up in my house for most of my life, so my physical strength isn't great." Mizuki huffed.

"Oh. Do you want me to carry you?" Toga offered.

"No. I can walk by myself." She said sternly. She didn't need help from anybody, even her first friend.

"Hey, how'd you get so strong?" Mizuki finally caught her breath.

"Hm? I do sports at school, because that's normal, right?"

"You're asking the wrong person. They didn't let me do sports at school because I'm blind."

"Why?"

"Because they think I'm a fragile little weak blind person. Well, I showed them!" Mizuki said ominously. She didn't do anything that violent, she just soaked every sports teacher in water. That plan didn't work too well with the swim teacher, since they had just gotten out of the pool, but it was still revenge!

"Hey, since you're strong, do you want to be a hero with me?" Mizuki didn't know why she was asking her this, they had just met less than a few hours ago after all.

"Sure! Maybe I can see what a dead hero looks like."

"Ya, just make sure it isn't me or you." Mizuki waved off what Toga said as a cruel joke.

Mizuki continued following Toga to the back of a building. She couldn't quite tell what was inside, but it seemed to hold a lot of cuts of meat.

"What's this place?" Mizuki asked while Toga knocked on the back door.

"It's the place where I get all my food. I just get all the leftovers from the day. He's all bloody from all the meat he cuts, and it's just the best." Toga's voice sounded ecstatic.

"Uh huh, so you get your food from a butcher's shop." Or at least that's what Mizuki gleaned from what she gathered.

Toga nodded absentmindedly as Mizuki felt footsteps approach the door.

The door opened to a man with a friendly build, strong, but subdued, "Ah, Toga, you're here quite early, I haven't even opened the shop yet." The man smiled.

"Mm. I made a friend, and she hasn't eaten in a while. Can you help us out, please?" Toga's demeanour returned to that of before. She was cheerful and polite, but Mizuki felt very put off by this version of Toga.

"Make it good. I have quite the refined palette you know." Mizuki said lightly, making sure that the butcher knew she was kidding around.

"Ahaha, sure thing kid." He smiled before returning inside the store.

Mizuki briefly grimaced at being called a kid before shrugging it off.

She received the food and bit into it immediately and wandered off into the maze of alleyways with Toga.

"If we're gonna be heroes, we need to be strong." Mizuki said with food falling out of her mouth with every word.

"Do you want to train together? I can even help you with your quirk!" Mizuki offered.

"So I get to have lots of your blood?"

"Almost as much as you want!" Mizuki wasn't risking being sucked dry.

'I can't wait to be a hero.'