Chapter Text
You always thought death would be peaceful.
It’s a rational thought after all, you remembered people used to say that you’ll finally feel peace when your soul will leave your body. You will find a quiet place to spend eternity.
Yet you can’t help but feel like it’s complete bullshit as the only thing you’re hearing right now is the sound of panicked nurses all around you.
This isn’t right.
Did you somehow survive?
No, it can’t be.
Nothing feels right in this mess.
First of all, your body feels weird. You can barely move, some kind of cloth wrapped around your body. You can barely open your eyes, and everything is blurry. This doesn’t feel like your body at all. It’s too fragile, too tiny, too… baby-like.
Second of all, the nurses are talking to a supposed mother who has just given birth, saying “congratulations!” and talking about how well the birth process went.
…
It takes you a few seconds to realize you’ve been born again.
Is this what happens after you die?
You start crying.
You still remember your past life, and you want to go back. When you prayed that you would have a second chance, you didn’t mean it like this. You meant it as in “I don’t want to die”; not being reborn and having to live life all over again.
You can feel who you assume is your “mum” gently holding you as she tries to shush you by cradling you slowly, like it would be enough for you to magically stop crying.
You keep crying.
Your new “mum” and “dad” look rather worried that you just won’t shut up. You keep bawling your eyes out, screaming at the top of your lungs. They quickly take you to a doctor, both worried and confused.
As you keep wailing in the waiting room with all of your will, the door of the doctor’s office opens as the previous patient leaves. The doctor leans on the doorframe with his elbow.
“Miss Toga?” The doctor calls.
Did you hear that right?
It must be a coincidence.
And then, your parents stand up from their seats, and enter the doctor’s office.
“She’s Himiko Toga, correct?” The doctor says as he briefly points at you, not even taking off his eyes from the computer screen as he types something.
It’s only when the doctor calls that name that you stop crying.
Alright, this is definitely a long fever dream you’re having.
Yet everything feels so real. You can look, you can touch, you could probably hit yourself and you'd feel pain.
Everything here is wrong, but real.
Your parents throw you a few annoyed glances. You just made them go to the doctor for nothing in their eyes, basically burned some of their money. Fortunately they do look relieved that you stopped crying so aggressively.
This is all so utterly wrong.
Why are you in the body of Himiko Toga out of all the people existing? If you had to get Isekai’d into the world of My Hero Academia, you’d expect to be your own character, like an OC of sorts. Not a pre-existing character that has his destiny already written and plays an important role in the plot.
You don’t understand, you can’t understand.
.
You feel like you’re going crazy.
A few months have passed since you’ve been reborn, and the more time passes, the more you’re convinced this is actually the world of My Hero Academia.
Whenever your parents take you out with a stroller around the city, you see that this isn't your world.
The commercials, the news, the storefronts, the merch. It’s all about heroes and villains. You’ve seen an enormous amount of All Might posters around, it’s almost ridiculous.
You always look around, hoping to find more than just a poster of a well known character of a manga. Seeing the merch isn’t enough for you, you need to meet them. To have one last proof that everything here is actually happening.
The weirdest thing about this fever dream is definitely that you’re one of those characters.
Your parents call you Himiko, the doctors call you Himiko, your relatives call you Himiko. Everyone in this world knows you as Himiko Toga. Yet you aren’t Himiko Toga, at least not in your past life. Your name isn’t Himiko, your name is (Y/N).
It’s driving you mad, honestly. Every time you get the chance, you go in front of a mirror to look at yourself, only to confirm what you dreaded all this time again and again.
This isn’t your body.
This is the body of Himiko Toga.
The reflection on the mirror only shows a confused little girl with ash blonde hair, inward-tilting yellow eyes and thin slit-like irises. You look identical to Toga, just a very young version of her that isn’t actually her.
You make stupid faces in the mirror to see if the reflection follows you, and of course it does. You need to verify this isn’t an excruciatingly long lucid dream. Your parents giggle as they film you with their phone, thinking you’re just playing. You wish it was like that.
It’s weird seeing them happy and calm and acting so loving towoards you. From Toga’s perspective when her backstory is shown in the anime, they were awful. But it seems as though they’re completely normal parents, just enjoying taking care of their daughter. Probably because you haven’t gotten your quirk.
You turn around to look at them, and give them a small smile. They smile at you too, taking a photo of you as they almost cry tears of joy from how cute you are.
Will they start frowning with disgust when your smile will have fangs?
Maybe you’ll suffer the same abuse the real Toga had to go through. You think it’s unlikely. You aren’t Toga, you don’t wish to drink blood. You only wish to change things and see those anime characters for yourself. You wonder just how much the plotline will change. Will you end up as a villain too? You don’t want that. You don’t even want to be in this body.
Now that you think about it, you can do what you want. You can completely change what was supposed to be the life of Himiko Toga, become something else entirely, even a hero.
Diverting the original plot.
It both thrills you and scares you. On one hand, you feel obligated to change as much as possible. On the other hand, you feel like you’ll create a plot hole that might stab you in the back when you least expect it.
You have nothing to do except to wait.
.
.
.
You’ve reached 4 years old.
You’ve been trapped in Toga’s body for four years at this point.
Life has been very, very boring. Not bad, just boring. You can’t do much anyway, you’re still very young and talking to toddlers feels completely wrong, so you don’t have any friends nor do you plan on making any soon.
Your parents are ok. They are a little Quirkist, that you’ve noticed. They don’t seem to enjoy the company of any mutant quirk users, that’s one thing you could clearly tell by looking around and listening to their conversations. You'll have to change those belifs one day or another.
Right now, there are more pressing matters.
You’re four years old. You know all too well what this age means: you’ll soon develop your quirk.
You’re honestly scared. You fear that Toga’s quirk might drive you to insanity like it did for the real, original Toga. You don’t know if you’ll feel the need to drink blood, nor do you know if you’ll be able to control yourself.
What if you end up becoming like the real Toga? You don’t think you’d be able to stab people so mercilessly, you just can't imagine yourself fighting the heroes or being inside the LOV.
Another thing that worries you is your parents.
They surely won’t treat you as nicely as they do now after your quirk manifests. Although, you’re determined to make them change their minds about your quirk. You want to prove them wrong, that your quirk isn’t a villain quirk nor do you need to hide your quirk. That of course depends on how well you’ll be able to handle what you call your supposed bloodthirst.
If memory doesn’t fail you, what your parents don’t like isn’t the quirk itself, but what you need to do to activate it. The need to drink blood to activate this quirk sounds of course creepy and disgusting to most, but it’s only a natural part of your body.
So it shouldn’t be so repressed like it was during the real Toga’s childhood. We all know how that turned out to be.
You don’t plan on following the character’s steps: You want to be a hero. You want to meet all the other characters so badly it’s like you crave to see them. You have no doubts they exist, somewhere, and you’re set on finding them, one by one.
Who knows, maybe you’ll get into UA. It’s unlikely you’re going to pass, considering your quirk isn’t made to take down robots. That’s why you plan on training hard, and by hard I mean to the point of exhaustion.
It will take great determination, you half expect to give up at some point. But you’re sure you’re going to try for UA’s hero course, that’s a guarantee.
For now you just patiently wait for time to flow.
.
It’s late morning when your parents, worried that you haven’t manifested your quirk yet, take you to a quirk doctor.
The doctor only tells them what you already knew: That you have a quirk. It’s just taking time to manifest, that’s all there is to it. They don’t seem very relieved.
Deep down you know that’s not true. It’s likely you already have Transform, it’s just that you never really had a chance to drink someone’s blood. It’s not something that happens easily after all.
That same day, in the afternoon, they take you to the mall to shop with them.
It seems as though they’re trying to cheer you up. They probably think your mood is down since your quirk isn’t manifesting in any way, and take you to buy toys. Needless to say, when you show even the tiniest bit of interest towards the hero figures (who can resist an All Might figurine?) they instantly buy it for you. You’re not complaining.
It’s when evening comes that things get complicated.
You’re quietly admiring your All Might’s figurine, sitting on the sofa as your mum cooks dinner in the kitchen, not too far from you.
You hear a pained hiss coming from her, and you raise your eyes to look at what’s going on. She was cutting the vegetables when she accidentally cut herself. She quickly went to the bathroom, searching inside the cabinet for a plaster.
You can’t help but stand up from the sofa, walking quietly to where your mum left the knife, a tiny bit of blood in it. Guess this is your only chance, is it?
You use the chair to reach the table (the body of 4 year olds are so small) and stare at the drop of blood with an intense gaze. You slowly reach out your tiny hand, touching the blood drop with your fingers.
You take a deep breath as you put your finger in your mouth. The blood tastes good, you have to admit. It’s a metallic taste yet sweet like sugar.
You then get off of the chair, your small feet hitting the ground. You close your eyes, concentrating on the fact that you wanted to transform into your mum. It must look like a child pouting heavily from outside, but who cares. You just want your quirk to show up already so you can be sure once and for all that this is the body of Himiko Toga.
A strange slimy sensation hits your body as you feel yourself get taller, your body and clothes changing. It feels weird, almost as weird as the time you were born and wasn’t used to this new body yet.
You stare down at your hands. Well, your mother’s hands, to be more precise. You open and close them, looking at your temporary body with awe. When you look up, you’re met with your mother staring at you with wide eyes, speechless.
“Mum?” You call out. The poor woman must have no idea of what’s going on, and it’s clearly showing in her facial expression.
“Himiko, baby? Is that you?” She calls out, confused and worried.
“Mum, it’s me. I think I got my quirk.” You say.
You mum looks incredibly relieved as she goes to hug you, crying tears of joy, only for your transformation to end and return back to your child Toga body.
She stares at you, startled by you transforming back, only to giggle softly afterwards.
And you’re naked.
Wonderful.
.
After your mum gave you new clothes and you put them on (yes, as soon as you could, you learned to put your clothes on by yourself), she called dad to tell him about your quirk.
They hugged you, all happy that you got your quirk, praising it and saying it’s a really nice transformation quirk. They even tell you that you could be a hero with it. It’s only when mum asks how you activated your quirk that you get anxious.
You have no idea how to tell them. They’ll definitely judge you, there’s no way to avoid that.
Your new life will change for the worst.
You grab every ounce of courage you have as you word it as delicately as possible.
“Mum, When you cut yourself with the knife, i saw some red liquid on the knife…” You say, trying to act as innocently as possible. It’s true that you’re actually way older and know perfectly what you were doing, but for everyone else you’re still 4 years old. It’s more convenient to keep it that way.
“... And I was curious about what it was, so I put it in my mouth, and then I transformed.” You end up muttering under your breath. Your parents stare at you for a few seconds, almost confused.
They take it… surprisingly well, compared to canon. They do look a little disgusted, but they say that it’s fine, they comfort you even if you don't need it. They instantly try to support you, just… not in the best way there is.
“Is my quirk not good?” You say, faking sniffles.
“No baby, of course not. It’s just… It’s just a little weird. But don’t worry, as long as you don’t drink blood it’s completely fine. Try not to use it, ok?” Your mum whispers as she pats your head.
Yeah, not the best of answers. Quirkism is showing here.
But it’s still fine, in the end. They don’t seem to hate you like they did in canon, and they’re somewhat trying to give you their support.
They still love you, even with that quirk. It might be because, well, you didn’t seem particularly enthusiastic about drinking your mum’s blood to transform. You weren’t smiling like Toga did when she killed the bird, you were staring at them with a mildly surprised face.
Now that you think about it, you haven’t felt any bloodlust at all. The blood tasted good and you can’t deny that, but you don’t crave it. You don’t feel the need to drink it.
That changes a whole lot of stuff.
It means that you have a shot at a normal life like the real Himiko wanted. It means your parents won’t try to hide your quirk, they won’t send you to a doctor to try “curing” you. It means your parents might actually treat you normally, like a child is supposed to be treated.
At least you hope.