Chapter Text
Ever since she had died and been resurrected by one Izuku Midoriya, Himiko had lived her life in a haze. Her thoughts had always seemed slightly disjointed and erratic. Most of those thoughts centered around her master.
That was, until she was ten.
-~-
Towards the end of the first month since her rebirth, Izuku's father had broke a deal with Nezu, principal of UA high. This deal led to them training with the rat himself as well as a hero that she hadn't recognized, but Izuku clearly loved.
It wasn't really a surprise that she didn't know them though, considering she never cared much about heroes and, even if she did, the man was an undergrounder and wouldn't be recognized by many hardcore fans anyway.
It was a Saturday. Under normal circumstances, she and Izuku would be training today, but they had good reason to skip it, alongside permission to do so.
It was Himiko's birthday after all.
When Inko had originally asked her, she had been hesitant to share her date of birth since it would make it easier for her identity to be discovered if they chose to. That hesitation was immediately erased by force when Izuku looked over, interested. The constant brainwashing responded to the unconscious desire of it's master to make her talk.
That led to the current celebration with Izuku and her sitting around their dinner table, both said table and the room at large covered in birthday themed decorations. A large balloon ten served to entertain Himiko as she waited for Inko to bring in food. She wasn't particularly excited for it since food was tasteless to her ever since she came back.
Her excitement swelled when she noticed the wine glasses brought in beside the cake. Her love of blood had not been affected by the alterations that made food and drink useless to her, so it was probably to be expected.
Each glass would look the same to a normal person, but her senses were better trained for this than a normal human, so she could tell each glass belonged to a different person. She could recognize the by now familiar smells of Izuku and Inko, but the remaining three were a mystery.
Over the next two hours, the vampire received a couple gifts from Inko in the form of clothes and a cute photo of her and Izuku together. Then, she had brought out gifts from Aizawa and Nezu. The two couldn't make it with their own responsibilities, but they still left a little something.
Aizawa had gifted her a cute black bodysuit. It seemed like it would be great for underground work, much like his own. Her favorite part was the special containers for gathered blood and the slot to place Nezu's gift on it's arm.
Nezu had gifted her what appeared to be a lightweight gauntlet. It had come with instructions, so she tried aiming it at a wall as she pressed a button on it. Immediately, a syringe shot out with a cord attached to it, sticking into the wall. After pressing another button on the gauntlet, it reeled itself back into the gauntlet. Nezu had also been responsible for the three myself glasses, containing blood from Aizawa, as well as two of his employees, Ectoplasm and Midnight.
She was going to love these gifts when she got to use them on some living targets.
-~-
After the celebration ended, her and Izuku went to their joint room. She had realized that Izuku seemed nervous about something, that something becoming apparent when he took a small, fancy looking box out of the closet.
She gave him a manic grin as she cradled the box with a gentleness that didn't match her facial expression. It would be rude to say so aloud, but she cared way more about Izuku then the others, likely because of the brainwashing, so she was excited for this a lot.
"In training, you seem to love these. I figured that everyone else wouldn't approve of it, so I needed to keep it hidden."
It was a knife, although calling it a knife was a disservice to it. It was like calling a banquet a light snack. Her normal knives, at least the ones that hadn't been confiscated because of her age, were very poor quality. They were all purchased for only a couple thousand yen at most, and weren't even that sharp.
This knife looked to be worth at least a hundred thousand yen, and was clearly custom made. She had no clue how Izuku had even got his hands on it (it was Hisashi, he wasn't the most responsible father), but she was certainly grateful.
She ran her thumb over the ridiculously sharp red line that ran up the edge of the blade. It cut into her flesh and added a little extra red to the blade before the wound healed. The handle was a deep black and seemed to be made of some expensive wood that she didn't recognize. Attached to it was a almost blindingly white blade, only broken up by the bright red line that ran up the edge of it.
To a normal person, they may have thought it nothing more than a cool knife and been done with it. To Himiko, she couldn't help but glomp the boy as she smiled widely.
"I, um, take it you like it? I had planned another gift but I don't know if it'll be possible, so I got this so that you are guaranteed to get something."
"Thank you, Izu! I love it!" Now she just had to make sure that Inko didn't see it. She wouldn't permanently confiscate something so precious to her, but she could certainly limit her access. It was probably the responsible decision, but that was hardly a concern to her. She eventually released him after thinking about the rest of what he said. "What was the other gift?"
Well, you know how we talked about the brainwashing aspect of my quirk, and I said that I would do everything I can to release it?" She gave a nod. "I think I've figured it out. I don't know how hard it will be, or if I'll make any progress at all, but I think I know what to do."
After a brief explanation, they held hands as Izuku seemed to meditate. He has explained that since his quirk was part of him, he should be able to try to force it to bend to his whim as long as he had skin contact with her. Apparently, he had already tried it once. He described it as playing tug of war with his quirk. By expelling a lot of effort, he could tug the brainwashing away just a little bit, and slowly chip away at it over time.
The only issue was how tiring it was. By the time he had dispelled maybe 5% of the brainwashing, he had passed out from exhaustion.
It was going to be slow, but for the first time in the year since she became undead, the haze lifted slightly.