Chapter 105. Himiko Toga
By the third day Kota stopped openly punching Deku for trying to talk to him. He had warmed up to Deku a lot actually, but what surprised me was him warming up to me as well. ‘I guess I can understand his pain better than most.’ I was training my electricity again under Aizawa’s watchful gaze. I had a few ideas as to why he felt the need to watch me, but I never asked. What I didn’t notice at the time was that Kota was also watching from the tree’s. My training was starting to bore me, so I thought about other moves I could try to remove lots of electricity at once.
‘I have to think of the capacitor idea that made my ‘EMP’ work, and now that I think about it almost the same idea of my evolution. I don’t really like the idea of being like Denki, but I’m running out of ideas.’ I kept doing the ‘EMP’ blasts to reduce my electricity, but I was finally done with that so I tried to do something else. I just let my electricity go above the 100% mark to about 110% and use ‘2nd Gear’ to keep it at that level. Seeing my change of training gained Aizawa’s attention, I liked this training better though so I didn’t care if this was against what Aizawa had in mind, just as long as it worked.
I did that for the full day of training until it was at night. We were eating when it was revealed that we would be doing a ‘Test of courage’. Hearing this made me remember that this was the day. I remembered all of the things I got in my duffel bag for this. After all of our stuff was cleaned I was antsy. I grabbed my duffel bag and kept it on me, gardening no small amount of looks. One of the ‘Pussy Cat’ girls came up to me. “Meow, We aren’t going camping! You can put that stuff back silly! Meow!” I laughed inwardly at the way she was acting.
I gave my business smile to her and responded. “Oh I know, but I think it would be good training to have to carry some weight while walking. I’ve only been training my quirk, and my body is getting restless.” She looked at me for a second before nodding and letting me go. We were then picked into groups, most groups were the same, except I was in group 5 with Asui, while Uraraka was in group 8 with Deku. I smiled at that little help from the universe. ‘If I remember correctly, then this was the group that met with Toga, that gives me an early chance of talking her down. Plus Uraraka and Deku together.’
“Hey Asui, I don’t think we’ve ever formally introduced ourselves.” She nodded and shook my outstretched hand. “No, we haven’t Kaminari. You’ve always been so preoccupied by the other girls in our class.” This made me redden up at the bluntness of her statement. “You really like to shoot straight, huh?” I said while chuckling. She tilted her head and nodded.
“Yes, I have always been that way. It is good to finally talk to you, I want to see why all the other girls in our class like you so much.” I coughed at her bluntness again. She tilted her head back while putting her finger up to her mouth to think. “I think our time is almost up in 5 minutes, we should get to the entrance.” I nodded, but I had an idea first. “Hang on, I'll be right back.” I left her and ran to where Kota was. He looked at me with his resting scowl. I smiled at him, and he turned away. “Kota, do you mind going to my room and find my water bottle? I don’t have it on me, if you do find it can you just place it by the exit?” He just stared at me for a second then nodded and walked to the dorms.
I sighed in relief at his agreement. ‘Good, now Deku won’t have to deal with that ‘Muscle killer’ alone. I went back to Asui just as it was our turn to go into the woods. As we were walking in the woods Asui and I were talking. “So anything on your mind Asui?” She just kept walking forward looking around. “Well, I think you can call me by my first name. I want to be friends, and I see that is what you do when you are close enough.” I looked at her and remembered. ‘Right she was the type to just have people use her first name.’ “Ok umm… Tsuyu. Anything else on your mind.” I said as I was pulling out my water bottle to drink.
She looked at me for a second. “I thought you went over to Kota to find your water bottle?” I looked at her weirdly. ‘She heard that? Do frogs have better hearing?’ I shook it off quickly while putting it back. “Yea I did, but I just found it in here… Guess I’ll have to make it up to him.” I said as I was fiddling with the bottle in my bag. I was also maneuvering the gas mask in my bag to grab easier. Tsuyu just stared at me with what I was doing. “Why do you have all of those things? Do you think the teachers will be putting us through more tests on ‘test of courage’?” I looked at her and smiled. ‘That was a believable lie that I can use, thanks for that.’
I nodded at her. “Yes, after all the things the school pulls to train us, I want to be prepared if this is survival training or something.” She nodded while looking back into the woods. I was looking around too, trying to see if I could see any sleeping or poisonous gas. I then felt a chill… My 6th sense was going off. I looked around and saw upward smoke. ‘It’s happening.’ “Tsuyu, lets run back to where we came from, something must’ve gone wrong!” She looked at me in shock and we started to bolt. Until I got another chill, and stopped a knife coming for my side. I looked at the hand and saw her.
I saw Toga holding a knife at me in the process of trying to stab me. “Hi! I’m Toga! You are Kaminari and Asui right!?” She said all of this while backing away from us after I let her arm go. Tsuyu was angry at this development, but she was still calm.
I never took my eyes off of Toga while talking to Tsuyu. “Tsuyu, go back to the entrance. I can deal with Toga.” She looked at me for a second, but after seeing the expression on my face knew that this was not emotions but cold calculation. She nodded and hopped away. “Don’t make me regret this later. I don’t want to be the one the girls hate!” I laughed a little. “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.” Toga kept smiling at me while giggling. “Big strong man stays for the girl to escape? I wonder if you back up that claim.” I laughed a bit at her which seemed to confuse her. “No I’m not here to fight you, I’m here to talk you out of this.”
She seemed stunned for a second, before laughing at me. “Oh now I see! You want to play the hero that can even rescue villains! Go ahead, try and save me!” She said all of this while laughing at me. I just smiled and said something that made her freeze. “You won’t be able to live relaxed following Shigaraki.” She stopped laughing, and her smile froze as she stared at me. I just smiled at her frozen expression. ‘In order to talk her down, I need to show her how her thinking is wrong. To do that I need to tip my hand.’
She was silent as I spoke. “I know what you want. You want to live true to yourself, and love the way you feel.” Hearing this her smile faltered even more. “You have fetishes of becoming one with the person you love, and drinking their blood. You also have a quirk that allows you a reason to do both.” Hearing this really started to put her on edge. Her smile was long gone, and a frown was appearing in its place. I still continued on. “Toga, you are going in the wrong direction to live true to your desires.” She scowled at me. “Yea… Then what is the right path? This seems to be the best way for me to live the way I want after society has broken down, and nobody can stop me.”
I laughed at her answer, she didn’t seem to appreciate it and tried to stab me again. I quickly moved out of the way and pushed her back to make her stagger. She looked back at me, her scowl lessening. “That would take decades for that to happen. Plus you have no way of knowing that any other country would just take over, and you would just be right back at square one. Toga, you don’t need everyone to accept you. You just need the person you’re in love with to accept you. You keep up with these guys and you’ll be living your life on the run for decades at least.”
Her scowl was dimming and she was gaining another of her signature smiles. She was still scowling though, and she let out another problem. “I already will be, I like slashing boys I like. I like boys who are covered in scars, and are battle hardened. I want them to be like that so I make them that way. Then they are gone, and I have to fall in love with another one.” I looked at her for a second in confusion. “I don’t know if that is love.”
She started to scowl harder. “You’re just like all the rest! Saying I need to change, and that the way I love is wrong! Well I get to decide that!!” She started to slash at me again. I talked while dodging. “No! I think that is just you wanting sexual gratification. The way you do that is what turns you on, but I don’t think you were really in love with those boys.” She stopped trying to skewer me, but her scowl didn’t decrease. I thought for a second. “I think if the guy is already your type then it might be more than just attraction, but making him that way would be you just wanting to get off.” Her scowl loosened more, and she ushered me to go on.
“Ok, then what should I do? You seem to have all of the answers. Then tell me what I should do!?” She started to scream in anger of not having a direction. I smiled softly. ‘She is just a teenage girl trying to figure out what love is. After having been warped by her parents to act a way she just wasn’t, it finally bursted out by her joining these guys. She needs real guidance, and I hope I can suffice for that. Mom, please guide me.’ Seeing my smile of comfort shocked Toga that I could be smiling like that to someone like her.