Khan left the apartment after eating. Outside, the city kept moving. Neon signs buzzed. A train screeched somewhere. The street smelled of fried oil, rain-soaked concrete, and trash that missed collection again. This part of Musutafu never slept.
He walked with his hands in his pockets. Himiko Toga was out there. Somewhere between alley naps, stolen blood bags, and bad decisions she'd justify with a grin. Runaway phase. Pre-League. Still raw. Still hungry. He wanted her before the League got their claws in.
He crossed the street without looking. A bike horn blared. Someone yelled. Khan raised a hand in a lazy apology and kept going.
[Predator's Map] searched but nothing locked yet. Too many people. Too much noise. Fear bled everywhere in this district. You had to sort the good kind from the boring kind.
Khan cut through a narrow side street lined with vending machines and busted shutters. A cat bolted from a pile of trash. He stopped near a convenience store with a flickering sign. The clerk inside stared at his phone. On the wall near the door, a missing person flyer peeled at the corners. Teen girl. Brown hair. Ordinary face. Not Toga. He tore it down anyway and dropped it in the trash.
"Public service," he muttered.
A couple of kids laughed near the store entrance. One of them shoved the other. The night thickened the farther he walked. Less light. Somewhere close, someone argued in a language he didn't know. Somewhere else, glass shattered. Nobody reacted.
Good neighborhood for someone who didn't want to be found. Khan ducked into an alley that smelled piss. The walls wore old graffiti, layered and half-scraped.
The System hummed again.
[Scan Complete
Target Detected: Unknown Female
Status: Elevated Heart Rate
Tags: Blood Exposure / Identity Fracture / Impulse Control Failure]
Khan smiled, as he drew a knife and cut his hands, arms rubbed some to his face. He leaned against the wall and lit a cigarette. The smoke curled slowly. He waited for the shape to show itself. Footsteps. Barely there. Then a figure slipped out of the shadow near a dumpster. Girl. Eighteen years old. Thin. Hoodie too big. Hair pulled into messy buns. She held a plastic bag tight against her chest.
Blood stained the bag. There she was.
Himiko Toga paused when she saw him. Head tilted. Eyes wide, bright, curious.
Khan smiled, blood still dripping from his chin, sliding down his neck, "I know that look."
Toga's lips curled, teeth flashing through the dark. "Yeah?"
He nodded slowly, cigarette dragging smoke across the alley between them. "Yeah. That's a 'fuck the world' face. The kind you get when everything you trusted turns out to be bullshit."
Her grip on the bag tightened, as she shifted a little bit.
"Betrayed," he said. "By family. By society. All because of something you didn't ask for."
Blood dripped from his chin, hitting the concrete with a wet tick.
"They tell people you're born with a Quirk, so it's fair. Right?" Khan said with a huff, shaking his head. "Born with it. So it's fate. Can't complain. But then they have the fucking nerve to split it up anyway. Good quirks, bad quirks. Hero types. Villain types. As if the gene lottery makes you a criminal."
Toga didn't move. But her eyes gleamed harder.
"They see blood and freak," Khan said, tapping ash to the ground. "But a bastard's walking around setting off explosions like a pyrotechnic jackass and getting medals for it. Tell me what the difference is."
Toga's mouth twitched.
"You carry blood for fun?" Khan asked, nodding at the bag.
She tilted her head again. "Maybe."
Khan took another drag. "You hiding from the cops?"
She didn't answer.
"Parents?"
No answer again. But her chin dipped just slightly, and her hands curled tighter around the bloody bag.
"That bad, huh?"
She looked up. Dead-on. "I killed a boy."
Khan exhaled. "Good."
Toga blinked.
"Better than killing yourself over it," he said. "Or crying on some therapist's couch about impulse control. Fuck all that."
Toga stepped forward. One step. Still guarded. Still wild. But curious.
"You're not scared of me?" she asked.
He laughed. "I was born Quirkless," Khan said, shaking his head. "Whole life, I was a background character with a birth defect. That's what they called it, anyway. 'Nothing special,' they said. 'Just work hard.' 'Be useful some other way.' The kind of encouragement that makes you jump from a building"
Toga just stood there. Still locked on him like she hadn't decided if she was gonna kiss him or stab him with a fork.
He kept going.
"Fate, right? That's what they like to call it. What a fucking joke. They hand you garbage and call it a gift. Then they sell you a hero fantasy and beat you with it when you fall short.
"They told me I'd never be anyone. Never have a real job. Never make it into the system unless I bent over and smiled. They made a whole society that smiles while stepping on your teeth. So no. I'm not scared of you."
He smiled. "I'm relieved you exist."
Toga's mouth opened slightly.
He stepped closer, shoes crunching on glass and dirt.
"You didn't ask for that power, did you?" he asked.
She shook her head.
"Exactly." He nodded. "So why the hell would I blame you for something you didn't choose? That's what they do. That's what this whole place does. Make you bleed for things outta your control, then call it justice."
He raised his cut hand, blood trailing down his palm. Smearing over his knuckles.
"You think this scares me?"
Toga licked her lips.
"Do I get punished 'cause I eat when I'm hungry?" he said, opening his arms wide. "Do I catch blame for drinking when I'm thirsty?"
Toga didn't answer. Her eyes tracked the line of red down his throat.
"Society draws the lines," he added. "Draws 'em bold. Red and white. Good and bad. Then flips the board and blames us for falling off it. They call you sick for wanting blood," he added. "But half those heroes out there sell themselves off with bare skin and staged trauma. How's that different?"
He stepped closer. She didn't run. Didn't lunge. Just watched.
"You feel crazy?" Khan asked.
Her throat bobbed. "Sometimes."
"Good." He barked it out. "Means you're still thinking.
"You were born with bloodlust. They call that wrong. But tell me this," he leaned against the wall beside her now, bleeding arm dragging red along the bricks, "did you choose it?"
Toga didn't speak. Her jaw tightened.
"No," he said for her. "You didn't.
"I didn't choose to be Quirkless either," Khan said. "Didn't ask to be born without a damn spark in a world obsessed with light shows."
He scratched his arm.
"They treated me like a reject. Like I was less. All that hard work, all that smiling, for what? A pat on the head and a 'keep dreaming'?"
Toga's shoulders twitched.
Khan turned his head, caught her eye.
"They'll never make space for you," he said. "You scare them. Even when you try to behave. Even when you hold it in. Because people like us? We remind them the system's rigged."
She finally spoke. Raspy.
"So what now?"
"Now?" He wiped the blood off his cheek with the back of his hand. "You stop apologizing for being hungry."
Toga stared.
"You stop trying to fit into a costume they never made for you," he went on. "Let the heroes smile for cameras. Let the world chase dopamine in spandex. We're not part of that story."
She tilted her head, slower this time.
"Then what are we?" she asked.
Khan grinned. "We're the rewrite."
Her eyes opened wide.
"I've got a place," he said.
Toga's eyes snapped to him.
"Empty apartment. Ground floor. Private entrance. You want a shower, there's hot water. You want quiet, it's yours." He looked sideways at her. "You want to slit my throat while I'm asleep, at least I'll die clean."
Toga snorted.
"Why?" she asked.
"Because you're raw." He turned his head, sighed. "And the raw ones burn hotter. That's what the system fears. That's why they'll try to bury you in therapy and meds until you're too dull to notice you're in a cage."
Toga licked her lips. Not a seduction move. Just habit. Blood crusted on the edge. She hadn't wiped it off yet. Probably hadn't even noticed.
"You offering me a job or a bed?" she asked, voice a little lighter now.
Khan smirked. "Not yet. I'm offering rest. The chance to not be on the run for ten minutes."
Her fingers relaxed slightly around the bag. She looked at it. Then back at him.
"You gonna report me?"
He laughed. "Fuck the police"
She smiled. Feral. "I kill people."
"So do heroes," he shot back. "They just get funerals and endorsements after."
Toga stared then nodded.
"Okay," she said. "Let's go."
Khan didn't celebrate when Toga agreed. He just turned, walked, and made sure his bleeding slowed before they hit the street.
She followed.
No leash. Not yet.
He didn't take her his home. That would have been stupid, and he wasn't one. Khan still needed his daytime face. Paper trail clean enough to pass a bored audit. A place he could walk away from if things went loud. Quirks were dangerous and police weren't stupid.
So he cut east instead of south, through streets that smelled poorer. Fewer cameras that actually worked. The kind of blocks where buildings leaned into each other, fire escapes sagging under rust.
Toga followed without asking where they were going. Her eyes bounced from sign to shadow to passing face, always moving, always curious. The plastic bag bumped her thigh with every step. The blood inside shifted and sloshed.
The apartment sat above a shuttered laundromat with busted windows and a sign that flickered even though the place had been dead for years. The door buzzed when Khan hit the code. He had paid extra for that. People trusted doors that made noise.
Inside, the hallway smelled stale. Old detergent. Mold someone tried to paint over. The lights worked if you gave them a second.
Second floor. End unit. No neighbors on one side. Stairs instead of an elevator. Cameras at the bottom that hadn't been updated since last decade.
He unlocked the door and stepped aside.
"Welcome to the exciting life of plausible deniability," he said.
Toga leaned in first, peering past him. Plain apartment. Clean enough. Bare walls. Mattress on the floor. Small table. Two chairs that didn't match. Kitchen with appliances that looked tired but obedient.
She stepped inside.
He locked the door behind them. Deadbolt. Chain left hanging.
"You said shower," she said.
"Bathroom's there. Water runs hot if you don't crank it."
She nodded, then froze. Turned halfway back to him. "You're not gonna tie me up."
"That depends," he said. "You planning to stab me?"
She grinned. "Not right now."
"Then we're good."
She vanished into the bathroom. The door shut. Water kicked on a minute later.
Khan dropped into one of the chairs and sighed.
The System pinged.
[Fucked-Up Karma
Safehouse Established
Proxy Ownership Confirmed
Influence Sink Active
+Environmental Control
+Anonymity Buffer]
He rolled his shoulders. The money for this place had come two weeks after he woke up in this world. Back when he was still learning which lines to cross for profit and which ones blew back in your face.
There had been an injured hero bleeding out behind a collapsed storefront. Old Khan would have rushed in. Held pressure. Played helper.
New Khan watched the hero choke on his own blood and made a choice. Just a hand pressed down until the thrashing stopped.
The System paid clean.
Enough to buy this apartment under a proxy that existed on paper and nowhere else.
Normal people called that murder.
The System called it capital.
The shower shut off.
Toga came out wrapped in a towel she found under the sink. Hair dripping. Eyes brighter. Cleaner.
She padded over and dropped onto the mattress, legs crossed, towel barely hanging on. She didn't look at him. Just stared at the wall.
They sat in silence for a bit.
"You hungry?" he asked.
She shrugged. "Always."
He stood and grabbed a box of noodles from the cupboard. Threw it in a pot.
"You can stay as much as you need," he said. "No strings. No rules beyond don't burn the place down."
She lay back on the mattress and stared at the ceiling. "Heroes are gonna look for me."
"Heroes look for everyone until the cameras stop."
"You gonna sell me out?"
He turned, leaning against the counter. "If I wanted that, I wouldn't have brought you here."
She smiled.
[Predator's Map
Target: Himiko Toga
Status: Stabilizing
Tags: Trust Seeded / Attachment Possible / Volatility High]
He ignored it.
They ate in quiet. She slurped noodles straight from the pot. He drank from a bottle.
After, she curled up on the mattress and passed out fast. Khan stayed awake longer. Sat in the chair. Watched the door. Listened to the city. His day identity would be needed in the morning. Staff meetings. Polite nods. Fake concern about exam results. Paperwork that smelled worse than blood.
UA would spin Midoriya's failure as tragedy. The boy would vanish into rehab and pity. Uraraka would limp into the term with a debt she didn't understand yet. Dependency took time. That was fine. Time paid interest.