Chapter 7

Touya peeked to the side, confirming that Izuku was fully focused on writing in his quirk notebook as the boy watched him try to figure out the new quirk Sensei gave him. Releasing a silent sigh, he felt the weight on his shoulder leave him or at least some amount.

A week had passed since the accident with Handjob and ever since then Touya moved with Izuku to another flat to avoid contact with Hand Freak. It was still relatively close to the bar so the two of them still worked there without a need for Kurogiri's taxi service. But the biggest reason Touya all but demanded it was to isolate Izuku from Tomura. Well that and him not being sure if he could restrain himself from burning that asshole to crisp for what he did in front of his now blood brother.

The kid had nightmares ever since that day along with an appetite problems. Honestly the boy looked like he would drop on his next step from the lack of sleep and walking around half-starved. But Touya couldn't really blame Izuku for it, he was still young and had pure heart despite being a villain. Heart that he swore to protect, not that he would ever said it out loud. God damn him and his older brother syndromes.

Deciding to take Izuku's mind out of the never ending circle of nightmares, he took him to figure out the new quirk. This seemed to light a small flicker of fire in the kid's eyes and put a ghost of the smile on his lips, which put Touya at ease.

So here they were at one of the training areas Sensei had stored in some big hangar. The field was swarmed with training dummies, which he was rather thankful for. He could burn them to ash thinking that was a Handjob. At least in his imagination the bastard would be set on fire. But this wasn't a purpose of this outing.

Feeling the limit of his Cremation closing to him, Touya stopped the torrent of flames from his hands and paused. Where was he going from here? What was the trigger for that other quirk in him? For his original power he always felt the raging fire coursing just beneath his skin, begging him to unleash it. But this?

Closing his eyes, Touya recalled the sensation of how it was given to him. It felt like a chilly mist entered him, engraving itself in the very core of his being. Focusing on this, he searched in him, looking exactly for that feeling. He stood like that for a minute, getting more and more irritated for not finding anything at all. Why was this so hard?

"Um… Touya-nii?" Izuku called him timidly, breaking his rather fragile concentration. Halting the happy smile that was threatening to come onto his lips, he cracked his eye open and hummed. "I don't know if it's going to be any help to you, but I think you're trying too hard to make other quirk work."

"What do you mean by that?" he asked, not getting what the boy was telling him.

"I'm almost hundred percent sure that Sensei gave you Emitter Type quirk. One of the things that I've noticed with those types of quirks it that they tend to work by instinct. Like all the kids with those kind of power at first have accidents where their quirks just fire off even if they didn't want it." Izuku explained, clearly trying not to mumble so he could understand him.

Touya blinked at it and scratched his chin. This actually made sense. He remembered that he had issues at first with controlling his flames. Quite often it ended with his mom putting them out with her ice. And now he only thought about any control, when he wanted to do other stuff then being a flamethrower.

Taking a deep breath, he relaxed his body and emptied his mind out of everything except the wish to cool off. And so he waited and waited for anything to change. Suddenly, he felt it, that chilly mist. It was in his stomach, slowly but surely coming out from it, traveling across his body, leaving the pleasant sensation of coldness. It was just enough to get him out from his overheated state.

A loud sound of awe made by Izuku, caused him to open his eyes. Looking at his hands he saw a puffs of white smoke coming out of them. Checking around, he confirmed that this steam was going out from most of his body.

He opened his mouth to say something, but a sudden dryness hit him out of nowhere, followed by a great thirst. Taking a water bottle that he brought with them, he gulped it down, emptying it in the matter of seconds and released a satisfied sigh.

"Huh, it seems that this quirk uses the water in you to rapidly cool down your body. Dehydration is going to be quite problematic." Izuku mused out aloud, scrabbling in his notebook.

Touya looked at his hand and flexed his fingers. The boy was right, while he didn't have to worry anymore about overheating, dehydration was just as bad. He doubted that his future opponents would gave him the window to take a sip of water in the middle of the fight.

Searching in his mind he had found this new quirk. It was laying right next to his original one, the raging tornado of azure fire, but while he could feel his first power fully, the other was hiding its part.

"I don't think it's the full extent of Steamy Body." Touya said, rolling his neck around.

Izuku blinked at him and touched his chin, a storm of muttering leaving his mouth, seemingly at the speed of sound. He let the kid be, knowing that he's going to think of something that…

"I have a theory." The boy announced, finally showing some excitement and happiness.

Shaking his head, Touya smirked a little. "What did that brain of yours came up with?"

"Sensei said that the name of the quirk isn't exactly the best, right? So maybe this power revolves around water inside of you and water vapor around you?" Izuku explained, already making notes.

Humming a bit, he decided to give it a shot. Not like he had any better idea. Once again he reached toward the new quirk, this time desiring to absorb water. Waiting a few moments, Touya could feel a sudden moisture on his whole body and caught the sight of barely visible white-ish ribbons entering into him. He sensed that his temperature dropped down once again, putting him somewhere near his standard forty degree Celsius.

Extending his hand he put it on Izuku's curls and ruffled them, much to the boy's chagrin. "Knew you could figure it out." he said, smiling a bit.

Over the last month Izuku felt himself slowly returning to his usual self. He doubted that he would ever be the same as he was, but that was just how life functioned. Still though… he couldn't help, but feel angry at Tomura for what he did. His 'leader' killed that woman without a second though, reasoning that she was an obstacle that needed to be erased. The teen said it, or rather screamed at him, while choking him, before Touya-nii came with a rescue.

Touya-nii… Izuku liked the sound of it, no matter just how embarrassed he was during the first few days of referring in this way to the older boy. When he was younger, he wanted to have a sibling. There was just something appealing about having a brother or sister, who would spend time with him, geek out about Heroes with him… basically do almost everything with him.

And now he had the older brother, who would no doubt burn everyone and everything to ashes if even the hair fell from his head. He had the mixing feelings about it, but he believed that Touya-nii was a reasonable individual... At least most of the times.

But right now, he did his absolute best to hide himself from the slightly annoyed gaze he was receiving from his blood brother.

Releasing a long sigh, Touya-nii hid his face in his palm. "Let me get this straight. After about a month after that accident and still having troubles with sleeping, you want to take an offer from a guy, that basically has killing in its name." He looked up at him with deadpanned expression and slightly quirked brow. "Or did I get something wrong?"

Chuckling timidly and scratching his cheek, Izuku gave a tad awkward smile. "Yeah, I thought that maybe with this I could get over this… At least a little bit."

"While I'm overjoyed by this, I don't really approve it. You may get hurt." Touya-nii halted him with his palm. "And it's not about you being quirkless, I don't give a crap about it. This gang is a semi-yakuza, they won't hesitate even for a second to kill a child." he ended in a grave tone.

Izuku bit his lip and gazed dejected at the floor. He knew that his blood brother was right. Yet he couldn't help, but still push for it. The thought of those criminals being hardened killers terrified him, but exactly because of this he needed to do it. He had to conquer his fears if he ever wanted to be of any use to League.

Touya-nii groaned loudly and threw his head back, rising his arms in defeat. "Okay, fine. We're going to do it." The young man said in tired tone.

"Really?!" Izuku shouted out happily, smiling brightly at his brother words.

"Yes. I can't bare seeing you looking like a kicked puppy." he replied, smirking a bit.

The best older brother ever.

"I'm glad to see that you're doing better Izuku." Sensei told him, even before he crossed the curtain.

Wondering briefly how the man knew it, he sat at the chair and smiled a bit. "Thank you, Sensei. We figured out the quirk you gave to Touya-nii… SAN! I mean Touya-san." His check blushed heavily in embarrassment. How could he make such a mistake?

Sensei let out a hearty laugh and shook his head in obvious amusement. "Oh, don't worry, your secret is save with me. To be honest, I suspected that this would happen sooner or later." The man paused for a second and smirked at him. "So what are your thoughts about Steamy Body?" Sensei questioned in interest.

"It's very useful. Not only cooling down Touya-nii's body, but also for creating a distraction. We still haven't tested the limits of how much steam he can produce, but it'll come in due time." Izuku replied in excitement. He really wanted to see what that power was capable of.

Sensei nodded at him. "Anything else?"

Humming a little, he touched his chin and thought hard. "The name is really bad."

"It's, right?" The man said, chuckling under his breath. Suddenly his smile vanished, replaced by a thin line and his shoulders slouched a bit. "Izuku, can I ask you for something?" His voice sounded sad and somewhat pleading.

Rising his brow just a little, he inched closer, thinking what could make the man to used such… vulnerable tone. "Of course. Anything for you, Sensei."

The man moved his hand and searched for something under his covers. After a few moments, he presented Izuku with a rather old photo. "Can you describe what is on it?"

Ah right, that Echolocation type quirk allowed Sensei to recognize shapes, nothing else. "I can see you, Sensei, dressed in a suit without a tie and with the top button undone. You're in the hospital room, sitting on a bed. On this bed there's a woman in a hospital gown with lime-green straight, hair and matching eyes. Oh, she's really beautiful. She's holding a new-born child wrapped in pink blanket. Both of you are looking at the baby and smiling brightly." he tried to describe everything he could. "It this your family?"

Sensei took a picture from him and laid it on his lap. A ghost of a smile danced on his lips. "Was. My wife, Kamiyu, she changed me so much. After I lost my brother to that pesky government, I was angered and bitter. You could say that I truly was a villain, a worst man to ever live. But after meeting her… I remembered what is like to laugh, do silly things, to love. I was… still am head over heels for her." he said in soft tone. "Till this day I blame myself for her death."

Swallowing silently, Izuku played a bit with his fingers, not sure if he should press the matter further. It was obvious to him that it was a sensitive subject to Sensei and he didn't want to offend him with his curiosity. Maybe someday in the future, he would get a chance to ask about it.

Izuku walked through the docks of Kisarazu, slowly mapping the terrain in his mind. This was the place where the next job offer took place. A small time gang of petty criminals wanted to get rid of bigger one that got docks under their control and gave them, plus many more, trouble with doing business here. He assured the leader that he was okay without a money, instead he preferred to have spread League's name and have favors with them.

He was glad that he choose to come here at night. For a weird reason the protection around here was weaker during those hours, leaving him with a perfect opportunity to look around, mark off good places for traps and take a peek at the stuff in magazines.

He already knew that the whole gang gathered here two times during the month, unless there was some kind of emergency. That meant he had a little over a week to gather as much information about this place as it was possible and prepare a plan.

A noise reached his ears, making him stop. It was near him, probably around the corner and sounded weird. Like a mix of crazed giggles combined with slurping. His curiosity overpowered his flee instinct. Inching closer to the edge of container, he peek… His stomach rose to his throat.

There, on the ground, motionlessly laid a man in a pool of blood with multiple stab wounds all around his body. Next to him was a girl about his age. Her clothing was destroyed by the blood on it and in her hand he caught the sight of a small knife. She was licking off the crimson liquid from her fingers, laughing maniacally.

A million questions arose in his mind. Like who was that man? Why did that girl killed him? How did she managed to do it, when she looked so petite? Why was she drinking the blood?

His breath quickened and panic begun to overcome him. This… That was way too soon to see another dead body, even if this one was less horrible sight. While he had to overcome his fears, he wanted to do it on his terms. After a long mental preparation and such. Not this.

Steeling his nerves, he slowly inched back, trying not to… Wait, where did that girl go?

"You look nice." A whisper with a hot breath on his neck reached him from behind.

Jumping to the side on instinct, he barely dodged a strike from a stained knife. How did she got there without him noticing? How did she knew that he was here? And why was she panting like a wild animal? Questions for later, now to get out of this oppressive situation. Taking a better look at the girl, he saw her ash-blonde hair with droplets of blood in them sticking in every direction. Her golden eyes with a slits were zeroed on him, having a dangerous glint in them. On her cheeks was a deep, pink blush and thanks to her giant grin, he saw that her canines were slightly longer and more pointed than rest. She was rather pretty… if not for all that blood on her face and… everywhere actually.

The girl lunged at him, giggling to herself, and swiped with her weapon at his neck. Quickly sidestepping, he just got a nick on his cheek. Seeing as it was do or die, he kicked at her, only to see her bend at the incredible angle. Once more the blade came near him, this time making him shield himself with his arms. He felt a cut on his forearm and saw that the girl was about to make another one. Not wanting to end up like that unfortunate man, he jumped back, creating a distance between them.

"Hey! You're no fun. I want to see just how much more beautiful you're going to look, covered in blood." she called at him, pouting a bit.

What? He absolutely got lost there. Was this girl insane? Most likely a clearly inane question, but he had to ask. Analyzing his situation, Izuku came to a decision that he had no way out. The girl was quick and would catch him. He couldn't use his phone to contact Kurogiri to take him out from here without risking to be stabbed. And his chances to fight back were about fifty-fifty.

Remembering his battle training, he waited for her to attack him again. He wasn't in position to lead the combat, so he needed to be smart about it. When the girl jumped at him again, clearly aiming at his head, he sidestepped and grabbed her wrist. Twisting it, he made her release a weapon and hiss in pain. Putting his free hand on her back, he pushed her forward, while pulling her arm behind her. The girl lost her balance and Izuku pinned her to the ground, putting his knee between her shoulder blades.

She squirmed under him, trying to overpower him, but his hold was firm. Okay, now that he had her in his grasp, he could…

A pained yell, made him release his hold and jump back in distress. The girl curled herself tightly and whimpered loudly. What was going on? She looked like she was greatly hurt, but he doubted it was from his actions.

"Need… blood." He heard her groan out almost silently.

Izuku blinked at this. He knew that some quirks demanded from a user to have a specific diet to allow them to function normally. For example Kurogiri, while having semi-active quirk, had to consume a humongous amount of calories every day, otherwise he's power would literally starve him to death. Because of that the man ate mostly a fatty food, that would be unhealthy for a normal person in those quantities. He also cataloged some more quirks that required the person to eat or drink specified meals and liquids.

But blood? He had never encountered this. It seemed so odd to him that he had hard time believing in this. Yet here he was, witnessing this poor girl suffering from her quirk.

Sighing to himself, Izuku rolled up a sleeve from his hoodie. Crouching next to the girl, he presented her with his arm that she cut earlier. The gash wasn't deep, but it was rather long and still bleed quite a lot.

"Here."

The girl opened her tightly shut eyelids and glanced at him with unfocused eyes. When she spotted his limb, she stretched out her next with a great amount of effort and started sipping his blood. After a few moments some of her strength returned to her, seeing as she rose a bit. Then… she latched onto his arm and begun drinking greedily.

Not really knowing what to do, he put his hand on her head and petted her. To his great surprise, the girl purred at his ministrations. After what seemed to be a whole minute, she stopped, backing a little bit and releasing an overly satisfied sigh.

"Thanks." she whispered, smiling genially at him.

Before he had a chance to answer, the girl all but fell on him, a soft snores escaping her lips.

Izuku blinked. Then one more time. What the hell had just happened?

A/N:

Hey everyone!

As I said earlier, I'm giving you another chapter of CTW. It took me a bit longer to do, because I had to take care of some college stuff. And good news! I'm going to study Japanese! I'm so excited about it.

Anyway, here it is. Enjoy it and leave your thoughts as you always do. Till next update!