"So... do we keep playing or-" Izuku asked timidly, tilting his head towards the table and away from Toru who was - as a side effect of leaning close enough to him to whisper into his ear - pressed quite firmly against his side. Or... softly? Both? Izuku latched on to the quandry like a drowning man at sea, forcing himself to genuinely consider the differences between the two sensations and whether or not they could be combined in order to distract himself from what he was actually feeling. Unfortunately, Toru was either very unaware of Izuku's fragile teenage heart, or simply didn't care. He couldn't really tell which was worse as she flung her arms around him in a - quite violent - hug that mutated into a sort of happy shaking motion.

"No way! I mean come on, you're a D&D character! Do you know how cool of a quirk that is!?" The invisible girl chirped, allowing a level of excitement to creep into her voice that Izuku wasn't quite sure he could identify.

Sense Motive! 5! Critical Failure!

'Thanks I guess?' Izuku thought as his face turned ever redder under Toru's excited jostling, and his ability to think straight became strained. It would seem that even using supernatural powers Izuku was simply destined never to understand women.

"B-But everyone else-" Izuku tried, appealing to the fact that the people here had come to play Dungeons & Dragons - not watch Izuku have a hormonal meltdown.

"Pfft. These guys are just as interested as I am, aren'tcha Gen?" Toru said dismissively, reluctantly separating herself from Izuku to look thoughtfully down at the table covered in dice, paper, and miniatures.

"I wouldn't say no to another demonstration." Gen answered easily, leaning forward to pluck his neon green dice set and elven archer figurine up. The other members of the Burning Eagle Adventuring Company mirrored the action, snatching up their personal items and quickly clearing the table of everything except for the screen Toru typically sat behind and all the various notes she kept for herself behind it.

"T-there's really not much to show. Um. U-unless someone gets hurt?" Izuku said nervously, keeping one eye on Toru and gently sliding away from the invisible girl to avoid further embarrassment. Izuku was, as previously noted on multiple occasions by almost anyone that knew him, not well known for his immense self esteem. Many other high school boys might have taken the momentary contact as an indication of interest, or at least allowed themselves the luxury of fantasizing such. Izuku however told himself the cold hard facts, repeating them in his head just to reinforce the point. As much as he considered Toru a friend, they didn't really know each other that well. Her reaction - when he considered that it was coming from a girl who seemed to have committed a large portion of her time to her hobby - was almost painfully self explanatory. No, Toru didn't 'like' the dopey mop haired boy. She liked his quirk.

"Pass." Toru said idly, before nodding once and rushing around the table to bundle all of her effects and books up into a neat pile on her chair, and then succinctly pushing the now clear folding table onto its side. Like watching a ghost clean up after itself, the tables legs were collapsed downward, and then the entire thing was lifted up and dragged against the far wall nearest the emergency exit.

"Um. Toru-san. What... what are you doing?" Izuku asked worriedly. He couldn't think of a lot of reasons to clear a space right after declared she was going to turn him into whatever a 'munchkin' was. If he was a betting man - which he wasn't because Izuku had always had terrible luck - he would say that the now clear area looked an awful lot like an extremely tiny arena. But that was absurd, Toru wasn't going to attack him so -

"Making space to test your quirk, duh. You never had quirk counseling or anything right? Cus you were quirkless?" The invisible girl said turning from where she had put away the large table. Izuku resisted the urge to wince when she said the word 'quirkless'. It wasn't so much that he took offence to the word itself, it was just that it featured prominently among the list of insults his childhood friend Katsuki Bakugou would lob at him on a near daily basis. Having it thrown at him out of the blue like this, in a place he considered to be safe and well... 'his' was a little jarring, even if there was no malicious intent behind it.

"Y-yeah. They just gave me a free period and told me to study." He admitted with a shrug, diverting his eyes away from the onlookers.

"A-ah. Well. Congratulations! You've got the best quirk ever! So don't- I mean- no more crying!" Toru said hurriedly, waving her arms around in a conscious display of panic. Inwardly, a traitorous part of her noted that he was just as cute when he was all teary eyed as when he was panicking over one of her pranks. But only as an observation!

'Like when you see someone else's dress and think that it's super pretty on them! It's platonic!' she quickly justified to herself, while also wondering if Izuku cried like this all the time.

"Y-yeah. Right. My quirk." Izuku said hesitantly, a sense of frailness exuding from his slight frame.

"Can you cast Prestidigitation?" Gen asked suddenly, cutting through the awkward atmosphere.

"Huh?" Izuku asked at the same time as Toru let loose with a high pitched squeal that left Izuku waiting for the damage notification from his quirk.

"Prestidigitation. The most useful useless spell you'll ever cast. In Pathfinder you activate the spell, and for an hour afterward you can basically do anything a standard sleight of hand magician could do plus a bit more. Here. Make this taste like beer." The older proprietor of the store said nonchalantly, proffering his water bottle to Izuku expectantly.

"Seriously? You find out he's got the best quirk ever and you're using it to circumvent your wife's ban on booze?" Toru said incredulously, spinning to face her boss.

"Hey look, so far all we know is that he can heal himself and say a few words that sound like he's casting Cure Light Wounds. Can you think of a better way to prove he's not just crazy other than having him cast a completely different spell?" Gen asked pointedly.

"What?! Izuku wouldn't lie like that! Besides what if he didn't learn prestidigitation. There are other zero level spells you know!" Toru said, the sleeve of her right arm jerking back and forth in an exaggerated manner to so that everyone watching could tell that she was thrusting her finger towards the older man with each exclamation she made.

"Oh come off it. Can you do it or not kid?" Gen grumped, ignoring his incensed employee.

"Um. Prestigi - no, Prastadigi - wait. Prestidigitation!" Izuku said finally, his tongue tripping over the complicated English word the first few times he attempted to say it.

You have cast 'Prestidigitation'

Duration Remaining: 1h

"So?" Gen said, shaking his half empty water bottle at Izuku.

"Do I just..." Izuku said, trailing off when he focused on the bottle of water. The second he honed his attention another window popped up above it.

Options: Water Bottle

Clean

Hover

Dirty

Flavor

Change Color

Warm

Chill

"Huh." Izuku grunted, while mentally selecting the 'Flavor' option and then focusing on beer. He had never had the stuff before, so he wasn't quite sure how it tasted, but he definitely at least knew what it was so...

You have changed the Flavor of 'Water Bottle' to Beer!

"I... think it worked?" Izuku said keeping his head down and away from the curious glances of everyone else in the room. Gen eyed him suspiciously for a second - no doubt having been expecting some kind of visual display of power - but then shrugged and tilted his water bottle backwards for a deep gulp of the clear liquid within.

The other occupants of the room looked on expectantly, waiting for the store owners verdict. Slowly he lowered his bottle of water to stare at it perplexed.

"Well the water still tastes like water but..." he said with a frown before darting his tongue out to tentatively lick the plastic rim of the water bottle itself.

"The bottle tastes like booze. It's like the most disgusting popsicle ever." He marveled after a while, pointedly shifting the - now mostly empty - bottle of water away from the grasping hands of his fellow adventurers.

Wait. The water bottle? Not the water? Izuku had just assumed he had the right target when his notification had indicated the words 'water bottle'. He hadn't realized there was a distinction between the bottle and the actual substance contained within. Was everything he did going to require he be so specific?

"Told you! Bleh!" Toru said in triumph, once more saying aloud the onomotapeia for sticking ones tongue out.

"I'm convinced." Gen agreed easily with a shrug, still licking his water bottle as though it was the most normal thing in the world.

"So... should we get back to the game now?" Izuku asked hopefully.

"Probably should. Assuming you can get our rogue god over there to focus." Gen grunted, jabbing a finger towards the hovering heap of clothing that was Toru. The invisible girl didn't seem particularly interested in returning to the game however. Or listening to her fellows. Or... well anything except Izuku's quirk actually.

"Hey, hey, how does combat work? Do you have to like, take turns?" She asked, miming an over exaggerated boxing stance and swinging her fists through the air in front of her. All the while she was bouncing up and down like a child on a sugar high, completely oblivious to how strange she was acting. Even to Izuku, who hadn't known her very long at all, Toru seemed almost impossibly pleased with the situation she found herself in.

"Maybe we should... huh. I don't actually know." Izuku said, stopping halfway through his suggestion that the group break up for the evening so that their Dungeon Master could regain her composure.

"Wanna find out?" Toru asked pleasantly. Almost... too pleasantly Izuku thought. A suspicion that was borne out when he oened his mouth to refuse and was greeted by the sensation of something lightly slapping him upside the head.

You have taken 1 non lethal damage!

Surprise Round Over!

Initiative! 16!

Ah, well. He guessed he was in combat then. Was he supposed to do something now or...

4 seconds remain in your turn!

Wait what? He did have to take turns? That was insane! Each individual turn in a D&D game took roughly six seconds! How was he supposed to think about and consider his response to anything if that was his only window to act!?

2 seconds remain in your turn!

Okay, he had to calm down. He just needed to... with shocking clarity Izuku realized that while he had been panicking, everyone else in the room had remained almost completely still. It was as if time had slowed to a crawl for everyone but him. The sleeve of Toru's right arm - the one she had smacked him with - was retracting slowly and her other arm was coming up in an attempt to repeat the action.

Curious to see what he could do in this state of slowed time, Izuku raised his hand and prepared to cast a spell when -

Your turn has ended!

You have taken 1 non lethal damage!

"Owe!" He yelped, backing away and putting a hand in the air imploring Toru to stop. She wasn't hitting him very hard - only about as strongly as a mother chastising an unruly child really - but it still stung. And while his quirk told him he was being dealt 'non lethal' damage, he was still hesitant to allow his health to reach zero.

"So!?" Toru said expectantly.

"It hurt!" Izuku barked back without thinking, tears in his eyes.

"Toru." Gen said, the monosyllabic admonishment coming out with a level of cold fury that finally managed to shock the invisible girl out of her obsessive fervor.

"I- I mean- sorry Zuku!" She blurted after a second of whipping back and forth between the small boy and her boss.

"It's just, this is so cool, and I really want to know more about your quirk and that seemed like the best way to- I- I'll get the first aid kit!" She said, her words coming out rushed and apologetic before she darted off into the employees only section of the store.

"You have to forgive her. She was really excited when you started coming around you know?" Gen stated off handedly, sidling up to Izuku and placing a comforting hand on his shoulder.

"I didn't mean to yell at her. It just really hurt." Izuku said weakly, still rubbing his stinging cheek. He really hadn't meant to get Toru in trouble. Admittedly, he would have preferred to test the combat applications of his new quirk in a slightly more controlled setting, and he definitely didn't appreciate being suddenly assaulted, but he had learned something new. Plus...

"I... I'm used to it anyway..." He mumbled, not fully aware that he had spoken out loud until a loud voice shocked him out of his thoughts.

"That's not right!" Toru's commanding voice declared from where she had just emerged from the employee only area of the store. In one hand she was carrying a white rectangular box with a large red cross emblazoned on it's front, and in the other, she held a plastic bag full of ice. Both of which were being waved about over her head without much care for their contents.

"Huh?" Izuku said, confused at the sudden outburst.

"I said, that's not right! When someone hits you, you have to get mad! When someone yells at you, you have to yell back! If you just let people ignore how you feel then they'll always treat you like your invisible!" She half yelled, and half hissed at him. With quick solid steps, she darted between two other members of the party and jerked a chair out behind Izuku, then pushed him gently into it.

"A-also, you know, you shouldn't just let people bully you ok? Even me." She said a bit more nervously immediately afterward, dropping the first aid kid next to him and handing him the bag of ice to press against his stinging cheek. Izuku didn't really know what to say to that. In an abstract sense, he knew that this was the kind of thing his mother - timid as she was - would say to him if she knew about how he was often bullied at school. But his mother's anxious nature and constant guilt over his quirklessness were precisely the reasons why he couldn't tell her about it. She couldn't actually do anything to stop it, and in the end, it would only result in her feeling even worse than she already did. That was why he kept so much to himself. When he was younger he was always running back and forth trying to prove everyone wrong. Sure the doctor had said he didn't have a quirk, but back then he just knew the man was wrong. Little Izuku had put himself in one dangerous or stupid situation after the other until finally he had been forced to accept the truth. And all the while he could remember the omnipresent look of guilt his mother watched him with. He didn't want to go back to those days, and so she remained none the wiser as to his situation.

Even then... his teachers, his fellow students, not once had any of them ever actually spoken to him about the obvious problem. On multiple occasions, Bakugou had threatened him in full view of a member of the faculty only for them to do absolutely nothing about it. That was the kind of society he lived in after all - one where the potential to be a great hero was worth more than anything else. And yet here Toru was, telling him to fight back no matter what, even if it was against her.

"Actually you really helped!" Izuku blurted in a haphazard attempt to change the subject. He pressed the bag of ice against his cheek with a wince as the ice cold sensation spread across his skin, and then continued speaking at a rapid pace, quickly firing off every observation he had been able to make in the - extremely brief - moment of combat.

"After you smacked me it said something about a surprise round, a-and then it rolled initiative and said it was my turn! And then time slowed down! Everything was moving really slow! B-but it was only for six seconds!" He rattled off, even as Toru withdrew a cream from the first aid kit and shoved his hand out of the way so she could lightly apply it to him.

"So you are a D&D Character. Kind of anyway." Toru mused excitedly, though with an obvious effort put in to subdue her enthusiasm now.

"Kind of?" Izuku asked, not sure in what possible way he could be any more like a game character. He had health, and skills for christs sake!

"Yeah I mean, it kind of looks like you can move and stuff when it's not your turn still right? That'd be cheating in D&D. It almost seems like your 'turn' is just to help you think." Toru opined, lowering the hand holding the cream and pulling a large bandaid out to place on top of Izuku's cheek.

"...if I can act outside my turn you mean." Izuku pointed out, the previous moments awkwardness forgotten as he delved into the mechanics of his quirk.

"We could probably test it by-" Toru replied easily as she too fell into speculation over how the mechanics of her favourite game would translate to real life.

"Ehem." Gen faux coughed from beside the two who had, in a manner of speaking, largely fallen into their own little world.

"Eh?" Izuku and Toru yelped as their attention was dragged back to the rest of the room, forcing them to acknowledge the fact that there were, in fact, other people present.

"Haaah. Look, I'll let it go today okay? But lets not do this again next week alright?" Gen said sternly, his grandfatherly appearance and bearing firmly ruined by his continued licking of his water bottle.

"S-sorry." Izuku said demurely, shrinking back into himself in shame.

"A..hahah... don't worry about it Zuku. It was my fault anyway." Toru said just a tad too loudly, embarrassment obvious in her tone.

"I just got a bit carried away is all you see." She continued, slapping him on the back as she stood up next to him with the first aid kit in hand. They stood in awkward silence for a second neither of them really sure what to say but both of them wanting to say something.

"Hey." Came Gen's voice once more, exasperation for the teenage drama he was being forced to sit through writ large across his face. He proffered his water bottle to Izuku, wiggling it slightly to draw the green haired boys attention.

"Can you make this cold?" He said once he was sure he was actually being listened too.

"Y-yes!" Izuku stuttered. Izuku stuttered alot actually now that he thought about it. Was that normal? Shouldn't his 18 Charisma do something about that? It definitely hadn't made him more attractive but he had to assume it did something.

"I'll just... clean up." Toru said, immediately deflating at the missed opportunity to continue speaking with Izuku.

Izuku couldn't help but frown at the slightly depressed tone in her voice as she spoke. It wasn't something he would have taken notice of under normal circumstances. After all, he was a social pariah for the most part. Picking up on the nuance in other peoples speech wasn't even on his list of skills let alone near the top of said list.

Sense Motive! 17!

Except for the fact that, it very specifically was on his list of skills. A list that he could call up and look at on a whim now that he had his Quirk. He had to wonder at that. He definitely had a quirk. But if he assumed that it had become active because he had come into contact with Dungeons & Dragons then... what? Were there other people with quirks that just didn't present themselves because the requirements to activate them were hilariously specific? If you're quirk was the ability to survive in Lava, then how would you be able to tell without first performing an action that - without prior knowledge - would appear suicidal?

Ah. He was overthinking things again. Okay so... Toru wanted to keep talking about his quirk. He could solve that. He just... he just had to talk to her about maybe meeting sometime outside the store. By themselves. In a... private... setting. Like a date. B-but absolutely not a date becausethatwouldimply-

Izuku could feel his eye beginning to twitch again as the stress of his every quickening thoughts made itself known. Toru was his friend. His friend wanted to talk about his quirk. That was... pretty normal right? Since everyone had a quirk and all. So he just had to drum up the courage to talk to her.

"Come on, when Mount Lady was fighting in town yesterday she didn't worry about accidentally hurting anybody. She knew she was going to save the day!" Izuku muttered rapidly to himself as he lifted a hand and rapidly ran through the list of options for Prestidigation to chill Gen's water bottle.

You have used Inspire Courage! By telling the story of a great hero you have inspired yourself and those around you!

+1 to Saves against Charm & Fear effects! +1 to Attack and Damage rolls!

Duration: One Round! Continue the story to extend the duration!

The list of notifications flickered across his vision as fast as all the others had, far too fast for a normal human to have even been able to perceive them. Still, Izuku seemed to gain an intuitive understanding of their meaning as he saw them, completely negating his need to actually read them. He wondered idly why that intuitive understanding couldn't apply to his quirk as a whole but quickly chose not to get to far into that particular thought. As it was his quirk already came with a literal rulebook, there was no use complaining about it when that was more than most other people got.

Accompanied by those notifications thought, was a sudden surge of well... courage. Izuku suddenly didn't find the idea of asking Toru to hang out and talk sometime nearly as daunting as he had a few seconds ago. This thought caused him to blink though. How long was a Round? He knew a single characters turn was about six seconds, and he knew a round was over when every character had taken a turn...

Didn't that mean that a round had no set length? How was he supposed to judge that? One more thing to test later he supposed.

All of that shot across his mind in the single moment it took him to turn towards Toru and say;

"Hey Toru if you want we could -hrk!"

Izuku wished he could have completed the sentence. Four seconds ago it seemed like it was the easiest thing in the world. Until about half way through the statement - when the effects of his ability had run out and suddenly he had remembered he was talking to a pretty girl about spending time together. Hence the strangled choking noise.

Toru, who had turned fully towards Izuku at his words, felt her shoulders slump slightly at his sudden silence. She should have known better. Yeah the shop was her domain, and yeah she let her mask slip more here than anywhere else, but that was no excuse for assaulting the boy. She had spent years preparing to be a Hero. She took Judo lessons (because throws and locks were hard to evade when you couldn't see your opponent), she excercised and most importantly of all she sparred. As a Dungeon Master she knew better than most what it took to be a Hero - that being, alot of combat mostly. So the second Izuku had claimed that he too was considering UA well... she had just skipped ahead a bit is all. It hadn't occurred to her how woefully unprepared the shorter boy might be. To Toru, highschool was going to be much like an extremely long dungeon. One hundred floors at least. The only reason she didn't carry a million tools and gadgets on her was the fact that bags of holding weren't real.

Still, even though she told herself all of that, she still felt almost painfully embarassed by the whole thing. Of course Izuku wouldn't want to talk to her after this. She had literally smacked him upside the head!

Unaware of the inner turmoil he had incited in his invisible friend, Izuku took a deep breath. And then another, and another, until - much to the amusement of the rest of the group - he began to speak.

"W-when Allmight saves people, he always has a smile on his face! Because as a Hero - no, as the Symbol of Peace, he wants everyone he saves to know that everything is going to be okay! So that's why-" Izuku said, his inflection transitioning from pained and almost embarassed to smooth and confident with each passing word. With his last few words he had managed to look directly at the spot he judged Torus face to be, and paused to plaster a terrible imitation of Allmights own smile on his face.

"Do you want to hang out together this summer Toru? I still don't know what a munchkin is so..." he said with all the calm confidence he could muster. Toru - who had been watching Izuku in utter confusion until that point, felt a wide smile break out over her own face as relief filled her.

It would have been a fairly cute moment to the watching adults except for several factors.

One, Izuku looked like a lunatic. His smile, while clearly an attempt to copy Allmight, was too wide and toothy, and made him look like a scared animal barring its teeth.

Two, Toru, who was obviously invisible, had no real way of getting her expression or feelings across to the people around her in any way that could be considered subtle. As a result, she had developed into a women who had absurdly exaggerated body language to compensate. This was something she did largely unconsciously, and without willingly clamping down on the impulse, had very little control over. This left the flustered girl flapping her arms through the air at a rapid pace that made her look almost as though she were trying to fly with them.

Toru was the first to notice the slight guffawing coming from everybody else in the room, snapping her out of her stupor. She took one look at the awkwardly smiling Izuku, and then back to the Burning Eagles before her voice came out, bubbly and pleased as ever.

"Sure 'Zuku lets exchange numbers! As for you four." She added, turning her entire body to make sure they knew where she was looking.

"Rocks fall, everybody dies." She said evily, reminding them that - while poking fun at her now and again was fine - she was in fact, for the very limited time that they were playing D&D, their god.

The Burning Eagles, including Gen, who had until that point had been prevaricating between being amused that their young Dungeon Master was having such a hard time with someone else her age, and being annoyed that they had largely wasted their friday night on this, each blanched. They turned towards each other with obvious distress on their faces, silently conferring in the way only a long term group of friends can.

And then they simultaneously threw Gen both forward and under the bus.

"Sorry Hagakure-chan, we were just following his lead!"

"Blame the elf perv!"

"Please dont kill us!"

Despite being uncomfortably aware of the sound of his own heart beat as he withdrew his old cellphone, Izuku couldn't help buy stifle a laugh at the groups antics. For a brief second he felt as though he were meeting the Burning Eagles for the first time all over again, and he was glad for it.

Toru and Izuku quickly exchanged numbers before separating, neither of them quote sure how to feel at the moment. Still, thinking on it, he had learned more about his quirk, played (some) D&D, cast his first spell, and gotten closer to Toru.

Today had been a good day.

-ooo-

Izuku knew he shouldn't have tempted fate. He was, if nothing else, exceptionally unlucky at the best of times. He was practically fate's whipping boy at this point.

True, he should have seen this coming given then giant bolded text hanging under the Journal portion of his character sheet. And true, she had said she would see him tommorow, which was technically now today.

But as he stepped out of the hobby shop, and directly into the open arms of the blond girl from the night before - who had pivoted into position to ensnare him before he even registered her presence - he couldn't help but feel this could have been avoided.

"I found you~" she cooed at dreamily as she pressed herself firmly into his chest. She tilted her head upward to look curiously into his face with her too wide smile and hummed at him expectantly.

Izuku had to force himself not to let the cold dread her sweet words caused him deep in the pit of his stomache.

"H-hey." Izuku hesitantly, his eyes darting towards the schoolbag slung lazily over the girls right shoulder. The one he was fairly certain contained a murder weapon. Or... a potential murder weapon? He guessed most police reports would just call it a weapon and leave it at that but -

"Hi! So, where are we going!?" The girl asked excitedly, tightening her grip on him enough that her nails began to dig painfully into his back.

"Hu-hmmm." Izuku blurted, his confused 'huh' morphing into a contemplative sound the second his mind caught up fully with the details of his current situation. He had technically tricked her yesterday by offering to go on a date with her but... Not only had he forgotten his own ruse, he had never bothered to figure out what to do if forced to follow through on it.

'Okay. I can do this. Im a... a Bard now! I just have to pretend I'm playing a game!' He thought, and a sense of calm purpose fell over him.

"Th-theres not much open at this hour so..." Izuku said, pausing to think through his next words carefully. Or at least he tried to until he noticed the sudden look of disappointment and - dare he say - possibly even mild disgust cross her face.

"Dinner! Lets go have dinner!" He hurriedly said, watching her expression warily for the moment she decided to reach for her knife. He was sure she would do it to. She had been ready to kill him for basically nothing before. How violent would she get if she thought he was tricking her? He actually didn't want to think about it for too long, because he might start shaking if he did that. He half expected his half assed, poorly thought out suggestion to be the trigger for his own demise but instead his mystery girl's face took on a slightly surprised expression for a moment before exploding into that too wide, too happy smile of hers all over again.

"Really!? Oh my god there's this place I've always wanted to go!" She tittered at him, bouncing from foot to foot like an athlete before a run and stepping away from him.

"Uh..." Izuku said unintelligibly. He almost couldn't understand what was going on anymore. Why was she confused by his suggestion for a moment there? He'd never been on a date before but was going out to eat not a thing couples did in real life? He'd seen enough fictional dates to get the gist of things, and he thought he could pretty faithfully translate the more realistic parts to this encounter but if he was completely off base then-

"You're funny when you mutter like that." The girl said, suddenly appearing entirely too close to him again then distancing herself as if it had never happened.

"You get this look right? Like someone just stabbed you and you don't know what to do about it. It's great." She continued gleefully, turning and skipping a distance up the road before turning to smile at him menacingly over one shoulder. Or... he thought it was menacingly. He really wished he could understand what the hell this girl was thinking so that he could-

Sense Motive! 14!

Okay well. There was that. On the one hand, his quirk was telling him that she was genuinely happy to be doing something with him. On the other, it also hadn't said 'Success' at the end of the roll - which meant it could just be screwing with him. It hadn't occurred to him that it was possible until he had played the game that night, but it was entirely within a Dungeon Masters power to tell you false information in order to trick you into thinking you had succeeded at a roll - when you had really failed.

"Coming or what?" The girl said, her tone sliding slightly closer to uncertain and away from 'disturbingly happy'. The smile was still there though, which was scary as all hell, so rather than disappoint her he rushed up to her side, stretching an arm out tentatively like he'd seen in that one drama his mom loved to watch. Granted, that drama took place a long time ago, and the main character wore a top hat still but... romance was romance right?

The pair walked through the late evening together for a time in awkward silence. Izuku would have liked to judge what the girl next to him was thinking from her facial expression, but honestly, he couldn't yet tell the difference between 'happy', 'satisfied', and 'about to stab you' quite yet with this girl. They all looked the same to him. What's worse, she had a perpetual flush to her face, like she had just finished running a marathon. He struggled to remember if that was consistent with the last time they had encountered one another but drew a blank. He had been much more focused on the knife than he had on her at the time.

With shocking clarity Izuku realized that even though he was 'with' this girl, he didn't know the first thing about her. He didn't know what school her uniform was from because there was no discernible emblem on the thing. He didn't how old she was because he had automatically assumed she was the same age as him. Heck, he didn't even know her name which was kind of the entire point of playing along with her instead of just running screaming into the night like he would have preferred. The officer had said he could do more about her if he could actually identify her after all.

"Izuku!" He blurted, immediately deciding that he hated himself.

"Eh?" The girl said, shifting slightly away from him in surprise as he called out.

"My name I mean. It's Izuku." He said hesitantly, only realizing a few seconds after the fact that he should have used a fake name. Then again, he doubted this girl could find out much about him just from his given name. It wasn't that unique.

"Oh! Uh. I mean. T-toga." She said, the smile on her face becoming slightly less prominent at the words. She darted a glance to Izuku as though unsure of how he would respond to the name before turning forward again to hide her expression from him.

"N-nice to meet you. I mean! We met! Yesterday! But I mean-" Izuku said, realizing how stupid it sounded a few seconds later and then eventually giving up on trying to salvage the statement. Instead he changed tracks completely in an attempt to gather more information on the girl in front of him.

"W-what's your quirk?" Izuku said weakly, resisting the urge to allow his face to fall into his hands so he could weep at his own ineptitude. He felt simultaneously really dumb and exceptionally terrible at this. Wasn't he supposed to get some quirk based assistance on this social interaction thing? It seemed like everything else his quirk did just worked automatically, but his conversation based skills and abilities seemed bizarrely hard to trigger when he actually wanted them to.

Wait. Did... did he actually have to know what to say when he was trying to convince someone of something? Did his skill just assist him when he actually put the effort in... and not activate at all when it was impossible to do anything but fail?! That was useless to him! He wouldn't know what to say to a Genie if it asked him for a magical wish! How was he supposed to-

"Oh look were here!" The girl squealed, completely ignoring his question to take him by the hand and lead him through the front doors of... a McDonalds?

"This is it?" Izuku asked without thinking, before quickly checking to see if he had offended Toga by speaking.

"I-it's open late! A-and all the girls I know come here with their boyfriends after uh, you know..." The blonde said, swiftly leading him up to the counter to order. Izuku stared at her with his mouth half open, his face going from a slight blush of embarrassment to a fluorescent red that could have lit the entire restaurant if the lights had been off.

"Two meals!" Toga said with a determined voice that faltered when the attendant at the cash register just stared at her.

"...Which ones?" The pimple faced teen behind the register said blandly, pointing a finger towards the giant menu that hung above his head. Izuku watched on worriedly as Toga's hand twitched slightly towards her bag then stopped when she caught him in her peripheral vision. Time stood frozen for a second, and Izuku realized that he should probably do something before this McDonalds employee got themselves McStabbed in the Face.

"Number Three's please!" Izuku blurted, not sure what that particular menu item was off the top of his head but certain that the menu must at least go up that high. With utmost care he slid forward to wrap Toga's knife hand in his own, a gesture that would have been romantic if it hadn't primarily been to stop the girl from reaching her bag easily.

"D-don't worry about it okay?" Izuku stuttered at her, sliding his backpack off of his shoulder and fumbling one handed through it for his wallet. He wasn't about to let the girls hand go now after all.

Bluff! 26! Success!

"Uhuh." The girl said dumbly, her gaze falling to lock on to his hand where it was intertwined with hers. Then her smile returned once more in full force, so completely at odds with what a smile was supposed to represent that even the clerk flinched slightly as he saw it.

"S-so. Your quirk?" Izuku said again as they waited in the almost completely empty restaurant. The second the words left his mouth her expression stiffened. Her smile remained by her eyes narrowed into slits, and she leaned forward to gaze at his left hand with an almost serpentine coldness. For a second he wasn't sure exactly what it was she was doing, until he remembered that not more than a few hours ago there had been a fairly sizeable cut on that hand. A cut that he'd gotten convincing this crazy girl not to kill him in the first place. Izuku felt his entire body go still as she slowly looked up at him, her catlike eyes glinting in the dim lighting. There was a... pressure there. An almost palpable malice that emanated from her, like there was a much larger scarier creature hiding somewhere behind her.

And then she clicked her tongue and leaned away, no longer scrutinizing him.

"You better not leave." She said somberly. It was the most serious, sort of sane sounding thing he'd heard from her yet, and it filled him with a cold dread. Because it showed that not only was she completely out of her mind, she was smart and completely out of her mind. Or at least... rational enough not to let her insanity be detrimental to her personal health and survival.

'Thank you The Gamer. Seriously. Thank you so much. I swear I'll never complain about failing rolls ever again!' Izuku thought feverishly, realizing - not for the first time - that he probably would be dead right now if he hadn't had his quirk to support him yesterday night in that alley. He didn't know it yet, but he had just undergone one of his first baptisms as a tabletop gamer - that being, praying to his dice.

"W-Why would I l-leave? he said, barely restraining the violent shake that threatened to turn his sentence completely unintelligible. Instead of answering him Toga merely pried her hand from his own grip, silently taking her tray of food as it appeared at the counter and then proceeding further in to the restaurant.

"T-Toga-san?" Izuku called after her somewhat alarmed. He was perfectly aware that women, teenage women specifically, were known for their fickleness. But that didn't change the fact that every errant change in tone or posture from this girl made him feel like his life was in danger. Feeling a bead of sweat dribble down the small of his back, Izuku quickly willed his status screen into view as he grabbed his own tray of food and followed after her.

He was back down to Eight out of Ten hit points. He had One first level spell available - which could either be Cure Light Wounds or Disguise Self, and Prestidigitation was still active. He'd only played a single session of D&D so far but he thought that was an okay way to start a fight. In a pinch he could always slip into a crowd and cast Disguise Self. He just had to make sure that he didn't end up wasting his last spell on healing.

"Are- I mean- Is everything okay?" Izuku said, with a slight wince. He would love if his 18 Charisma could kick in and help him get a coherent sentence in. Unless that's not what Charisma did. He knew Charisma was a measure of a characters personal magnetism among other things, but that concept was so vague... A Sorcerer's Charisma and a Bard's Charisma were bound to express themselves differently so... actually hadn't he been stuttering way more since getting his quirk? Did... was his stutter somehow a likeable character trait? Was his quirk exaggerating it?

"I'm fine." Toga said flatly, her canine like teeth crunching down brutally on a french fry as she watched him pensively. Well. As pensively as someone who's perpetually smiling can seem anyway.

"Y-you don't sound fine?" Izuku offered. He wasn't actually sure why he cared to be honest. Well, except that if she got mad she might stab him. Actually what was he thinking, that was an amazing reason to care! Toga continued to stare at him pensively for a few more seconds before the manic light returned to her eyes, which widened disturbingly.

"Hey, hey~ gimme your hand 'kay?" She said suddenly, sticking her own hand out expectantly.

"O...kay?" Izuku said hesitantly, sticking his hand out slowly while mentally priming himself to use his Fascinate ability. He hadn't had the opportunity to try it yet but in theory it should work just like Inspire Courage. All he had to do was start telling a story and everyone listening to him should sort of... freeze. Then he could just keep talking until he was out of earshot, cast Disguise Self, and run like hell.

The girls hand shot out like a bullet, clamping down on his own wrist with a bone shattering grip left Izuku waiting for the notification that combat had begun. When it didn't, and she didn't immediately do anything else besides examine his hand he began to relax slightly - until she started to rummage around in her bag.

"You know, you know~ I stabbed the guy I liked yesterday you know? Not you~ I mean I totally like you too! Aaaaand I stabbed you. But not you." She said jovially, withdrawing her knife from her bag, which she hid from view by keeping close to her body.

"Wha-" Izuku said confused and scared out of his mind. Then like lightning the knife whipped forward, carving an identical line across his recently healed hand.

You have taken 4 Slashing Damage!

"Hrk!" Izuku grunted, realizing that the girl in front of him had done half of his current health in damage all at once. Blood seeped from his hand in a slow oozing motion, directly onto the open hamburger directly beneath it. He tried to jerk his hand away, irrationally more worried about ruining her food than literally dying but found himself unable to break her iron grip no matter how much strength he put into the effort. When enough of his blood had fallen onto the meat patty that it looked like just another condiment she let go of him, quickly putting the top bun back onto her burger and swishing it around slightly to mix his blood in with the mustard and ketchup already present on it.

"Ah~" The girl sighed ecstatically, now definitely blushing furiously as she smiled dopily at the irreversibly ruined burger. Then, much to Izuku's growing horror, she bit deeply into the burger, moaning loudly the entire time. She chewed once, then twice, and then swallowed before kicking her feet excitedly beneath the table and glancing at him like she had forgotten he was even there for a second.

"That's my quirk. It makes me love blood. Its beautiful, and delicious and exciting and arousing and just- it's everything! Everything!" She gasped at him, taking another happy bite of her burger.

"But you're going to run away now right?" She said with an almost bored, resigned tone to her voice. Izuku was kind of getting whiplash from her. She was bouncing back and forth between manic and perfectly normal faster than he could keep up. Not that he'd be able to keep up all that well with a normal girl either. He was kind of a chump that way.

"I-" Izuku paused, realizing that he was halfway out of his seat and aimed towards the doorway.

"S-sorry." He said slowly, sliding back into his seat. Toga merely lifted an eyebrow at him. Her knife, he noticed, lay haphazardly on the table next to her, like she didn't care who saw it anymore.

"Really! I'm sorry!" Izuku repeated himself, seating himself more firmly.

"So... you uhm. W..weren't going to kill me?" Izuku asked slowly, trying to get everything straight in his head. He could... kind of... see how... no wait. She had still pulled a knife on him in an alley. That was definitely criminal behavior.

"I was thinking about it~ I mean, you're cute but you'd look waaaaay cuter all cut up." She said, her face turning dreamy for a second before snapping back to an almost normal facial expression. Izuku flinched away from her again, no longer bothering to clamp down on the impulse.

"Is it... I mean do you have to have blood? L-like is your quirk 'Vampire' or something?" Izuku asked, his curiosity overpowering his self preservation instincts.

"Nah. I just need it you know? I thought I didn't but then I confessed to this guy and my heart was beating so fast and he was so warm and-" She cut off suddenly, apparently realizing that she had begun to babble.

"So it's like an addiction?" Izuku stated, now on much more familiar ground. Women? Nope. Not in a million years. Quirks? Yes. Absolutely. He could have this conversation any day of the week. As someone who - until recently - didn't have a quirk, he considered every quirk cool. He'd even done a page in one of his Hero development Journal's on the kid who's power was having a foot long neck at will. Now that was a useless power.

Toga stared at him blankly for a few seconds, taking another few bites of her burger that sent her into ecstatic shaking each time.

"Yeah! You know everyone tastes different!? I didn't! I've only had like, two people now but oooooh my goooooood." She groaned, seeming to have found a sort of middle ground between her completely over the top persona and her plain highschool girl one.

"Huh. Um. Toga-San? Could you uh. Not stab me again? For a few days at least?" Izuku said slowly. He... well he wouldn't say he trusted Toga because there was clearly something very wrong with her. But if her quirk was what made her act that way then... he could sort of get it? Hound Dog, the Hound Hero was well... he was a dog person. He sniffed fire hydrants. He barked at passing emergency services vehicles. He was a good hero but there was definitely a point when his quirk seemed to almost overtake his personality. And Hound Dog's quirk was... well it was pretty benign all things considered.

"What? But your delish!" She complained immediately, waving her burger infront of him pointedly. Temporarily unsure of what to say to that for a second Izuku just sort of stared at Toga until his brain kicked in and reminded him that he could die.

"My uh... my quirk gives me kind of a health bar? Like in a video game. If you do too much damage to me I'll die - even if you only cut my hands." Izuku explained, quietly muttering 'Cure Light Wounds' under his breath and then wiping his finger along the open wound.

You have cast 'Cure Light Wounds'

You have used a first level spell slot! Slots Remaining: None

You have recovered 5 hit points!

The text was quickly accompanied by the warm glow of the wound on his hand closing, leaving Izuku at a comfortable Nine out of Ten hit points. It occurred to him that while right now he was... well he was about as, if not significantly less difficult to kill as a normal person, once he got some levels under his belt he would be pretty durable. Well, provided getting stabbed in the heart didn't completely invalidate his quirk and therefore kill him anyway.

"But you can heal!" Toga whined again, her hand twitching towards her knife the second the blood seeping from his wound vanished in a puff.

"I can only do that once or twice a day!" Izuku retorted, leaning away from the girl as she stretched forward to trying and grab his hand once more. They stared at each other awkwardly for a few seconds before the both of them broke out laughing. Suddenly Izuku felt significantly less in danger just from being around this girl. Oh he absolutely made sure to keep her knife in view at all times, but she seemed much more well, human to him than she had yesterday. When he had come that night he had been hard pressed to remember Toga as anything except an extremely menacing and dangerous presence. He hadn't noticed the little things that denoted her as just another teenager, like the rings around her eyes or the sunken look to her cheeks. Actually...

"When's the last time you slept?" Izuku asked suddenly, squinting at her with sudden suspicion.

"Uh... what day is it?" Toga answered absent mindedly.

"Friday?" Izuku said then glanced around the restaurant in search of a clock.

"Probably closer to Saturday now though." He admitted easily, glad he had already arranged with his mother not to be home until the morning - when he was expecting his aborted first D&D session to finish.

"Then two days ago." She answered simply, flicking away a french fry and looking away from him.

"Toga-san!" Izuku admonished immediately, unknowingly mimicking his mother on those nights that she caught him up late watching Hero videos.

"Well I can't go home! I just told you I stabbed a guy!" She retorted instantly. Honestly, with the exception of her occasional - very distracting - moans she seemed almost normal now that she'd had some of his blood.

"Just explain it to the police! Did he die!?" Izuku shot back.

"I don't... think so?" She answered hesitantly. Still not looking at him.

"You don't know." Izuku accused - no, stated.

"I don't- it's just- he cut his finger and it smelled so good." She crooned, blinking and then shaking her head slightly to prevent herself from devolving back into the hour long diatribe on the joys of her substance of choice.

"Then we have to see if he's okay! And then tell the police!" Izuku said pointedly.

"Pft. So what? I can go to jail? Besides if I go back I'll just starve until I do something bad again." She said with only a tinge of sadness to her voice. Izuku knew that tone. It was the one he had used whenever someone asked him about his dreams once he found out he didn't, and would never have, a quirk. The words might change, but that tone never did, because it was a tone of voice you used when you had resigned yourself to your fate. And Toga, for whatever reason, seemed resigned to... what exactly?

"So what you're just going to wander the streets and attack random people?" Izuku asked, trying to better understand what her plan apparently was.

"W-what! It works for Stain! A-and he's totally a Hero! He kills bad guys!" She said petulantly.

"He's a murderer and his last three victims were Heroes!" Izuku replied, his annoyance at the whole situation temporarily overcoming his usual meekness. Honestly, what was he even doing here. He could safely leave this girl right now, and he was fairly certain she wouldn't come looking for him. He could see now that even she wasn't insane enough to have believed he genuinely wanted to go on a date with her. She wouldn't have hesitated to explain part of her quirk to him if she did. No, Toga had just wanted someone to accept her for who she was, even if she had to lie to herself to get it.

And that was just sad. Not to mention, Izuku had no idea what kind of a path she would tread if he left her alone now. Clearly not a good one though.

"H-how long does it take for you to go... you know..." Izuku twirled his finger at his temple in the universally understood sign for crazy.

"A while? I went through all of middle school without a problem... mostly." She said, tilting her head at him. A small part of Izuku's mind noted that if she was already out of middle school then she was probably older than him by at least a year. Which was weird because she was so... childish.

"Th-then you can have my blood! Sometimes!" Izuku said, shrinking into his seat when Toga stood suddenly to stare down at him with that overbearing smile of hers.

"Really?" She said.

"O-only if you go back home! And to school!" Izuku added.

Diplomacy! 21! Success!

Toga hovered over him for a few more seconds before retreating to her own seat to finish her food. Silence reigned between the two of them for a few more seconds before she spoke suddenly.

"Fine. Once a day!" She said decisively.

"Once a month!" Izuku retorted. The entire offer was predicated on being able to use Cure Light Wounds to mostly negate any damage dealt to him. If he had to waste a spell every day to that effect he would be severely hampering himself.

"Every two days!" Toga replied shrewdly, eyeing his now healed hand.

"Once a week! I don't like being stabbed you know!" Izuku said, crossing his arms and huffing to get his point across.

"Fine! But only 'cus your cute when your cranky! If they put me in jail you have to visit okay?!" She said, lifting her knife and pointing it at him for emphasis before sliding it back into her schoolbag.

"They aren't- you know their are whole legal defenses for this right? If anything you're parents could get child neglect charges for not helping you!" Izuku said with a shrug. Their had been a lot of weird quirks over the years. Needing blood for whatever reason wasn't so rare as to have never occurred, nor was the law so draconian as to immediately punish someone who lost it because of their quirk. Well. Provided that guy wasn't dead. But Izuku... definitely wasn't going to mention that - mostly because a small part of him didn't want to think that he had just spent a good long while actually enjoying the company of a murderer.

"Huh." Was her only response.

They spent the rest of that night together, Toga because she had nowhere to sleep anyway, and Izuku because he didn't really have anywhere important to be. Also, he didn't really want to have to try and find his way home in the middle of the night. He was perfectly content in this McDonalds with the maybe-a-murderer he already knew. He had no wish to go make anymore new 'friends'. Toga became his third phone contact that night, which was simultaneously very said and quite pleasant. Her contact information went directly under Toru, who herself was directly under his Mother.

It was, much to Izuku's detriment, and completely without his knowledge, that he had managed to completely take for granted a single part of his analysis of the situation.

To Izuku, who had figured that everything with Toga - who's family name turned out to be Himiko - could start from square one now that they had gotten past the whole 'nearly killing him' thing, it never occurred to him to actually bring up the topic of his supposed offer to date.

To one Himiko Toga, she had spent an entire night with a nice boy who didn't mind how weird she was, had asked her on a date, and even offered to let her have some of his blood now and then. She wouldn't call it 'love' just so, because she knew what love felt like. She felt it every time she saw that drippy red substance she craved so much. But if forced to put a name to Izuku, she would almost definitely call him her Boyfriend.

-ooo-

Your Journal Has Been Updated!

'Find More Information On the Extremely Creepy Girl' has changed, to 'Help Toga Get Her Life Back!'

Requirements: Make Sure Toga doesn't go to jail!
Rewards: ?

Congratulations! You have successfully completed 'Find More Information On The Extremely Creepy Girl!' and been awarded 400 Experience! There is 300 more experience required to reach your next level!

You have currently engaged in a long rest! You will awaken in-

Izuku blinked his eyes open, once more having slept exactly eight hours from the minute he got home that morning. He stared at his ceiling, almost missing normal sleep. His quirk's method of resetting each night was efficient he had to admit, but it wasn't very relaxing. There was no slow drift into oblivion, no relaxed stretching in bed. The second his head hit the pillow he was out. Then he spent a moment checking his notifications, and then he was awake again.

"At least I healed..." he grumbled as he got out of bed, thankful for the single point of healing that had brought him back to full health if nothing else. It was annoying but he guessed that - in theory anyway - he could recover from near death in just under ten days provided he wasn't too banged up.

He spent a moment sitting up on his bed thinking.

On the one hand, the quest changing meant he had done something right by helping Toga a bit. He had gotten experience for it and everything. But on the other hand, the wording of it strongly suggested she might end up in jail if he didn't do anything. But what could he possibly do to stop someone from going to jail?

He continued to think on that well into the late afternoon, which he spent reviewing material he would need for his third and final trimester in middle school. He would definitely need to ace his classes if he wanted to score a spot in UA. He doubted he would be able to make it purely on the strength of his practical showing. He'd heard those were always quite violent, and while he was confident he would grow in time, right now his actual ability to hurt things was pretty minuscule.

He kind of wished his quirk could just be fire hands or something. That would be way easier than The Gamer was to manage. As it was, being a Bard made his Quirk mostly seem like it made him good at lying to, and tricking people which... well that was kind of villainous sounding actually. Huh.

His depressing thoughts had just started to slide towards accepting defeat and applying to the support course by itself when a beep from his cellphone told him he had a new message from someone. His Mother was in the living room - and also couldn't really figure out how to send text messages - which meant that it was either Toru or Toga calling on him.

Swiping the device off of his table, Izuku flipped it open to find a message from Toru.

"Hey, lets go train, I'm super bored. Heart, Smiley Face, Clapping Hands emoji." Izuku read aloud wryly.

"Sure... where... do... you... want... to... meet." Izuku mumbled as he typed. It was somewhat tedious since he had an old flip phone and had to type by pressing the numbers in the correct sequence, but it wasn't an insurmountable challenge, even if it was an issue that hadn't existed when Izuku had completely lacked friends. Toru, who was apparently much, much, better at using her cellphone than Izuku was replied almost instantly to his own slowly type message. Izuku stared at the name she had given him in complete confusion. He felt like he should recognize it, but at the same time...

"Dagobah Beach?" Izuku said in confusion, staring at the ceiling of his room.

Thirty minutes later and at least one wrong turn later, Izuku found himself staring at what was possibly the most horrendous thing he had ever witnessed - which was saying alot considering he had nearly been kidnapped by sentient sewage a few weeks ago. He had - if he was being honest with himself - sort of expected to find well... a beach here. Yes part of that had been the idle part of his teenage mind imagining Toru in a swimsuit, but really it was called Dagobah Beach. He didn't think he was shooting all that high with his expectations. However, instead of the sea spreading out before him, the sand dunes below him were almost completely obscured by mountains and mountains of scrap. When he bothered to look more closely, he could even see whole cars sticking out of some of the wreckage.

"Uh... Toru?!" Izuku called out, no sure how he was going to find the invisible girl in this mess.

"Hey-o~" Toru called from behind him, covering his eyes with her hands which, being invisible, didn't... actually do much.

"Um. Toru? What... I mean, what exactly are we doing here...?" Izuku asked curiously. He had mostly just packed his D&D books and some beach things. A Towel. Some swim trunks. He wasn't sure exactly how useful those things were going to be if there wasn't even a beach to visit.

"Training duh. You know using your Quirk in public is illegal right? Well no one can see you if you're down there! There are lots of these clear spots I used to use as a secret base growing up!" Toru replied chipperly, skipping past him and finally giving him a full view of her. Izuku hadn't exactly been expecting her to show up already in a swimsuit or anything, but the baggy pants, steel toed boots and thick overalls she was wearing looked more like she was trying to pad herself against an attack dog than appropriate beach wear.

Which would make sense if she was expecting to get hit.

Because this was training.

And not a date.

Reddening the longer he contemplated that thought - not that he had thought of this as a date at all of course! - Izuku quickly moved to follow her, descending slowly into the metal maze at the bottom of the nearby stairwell.

"So I was wondering, maybe you're not stuck as a Bard. Like, maybe if you wrote a different character sheet you'd absorb that to. So I brought a bunch!" Toru said, calling to him from where she was leading him further and further across the scrapyard that was once a beach. That was... actually that was a really good idea. Why hadn't he thought of that? He supposed his life had been very briefly in danger... again... that could be somewhat distracting.

"That's great Toru!" Izuku honestly praised. He was pretty sure that if he didn't have Toru to talk to then he would be completely lost with regards to his quirk. Yeah he had read most of the rulebooks, but that didn't mean he had developed anything even vaguely approaching mastery of the game. Heck, he still found himself checking basic rules every now and then because he had forgotten them.

"Mhm!" Toru hummed before stopping dead in the center of a small clear portion of beach with a broken truck on one end and a damage couch on the other. The couch was missing one of its seats, and the rusty springs pushing up against the remaining two cushions looked significantly less than comfortable, but evidently neither of those things bothered Toru over much, because she unslung the suspiciously heavy looking duffel bag she had been carrying over one shoulder with alarming ease and dumped it onto the sand. Then she dropped down onto the couch like she owned the thing.

"Okay! First things first!" She said with zeal as Izuku dropped his own bag next to hers and - noting how close he would be to Toru if he also sat on the couch - chose to fall onto his haunches in the sand. He watched curiously as she dug around in her bag for a few seconds before withdrawing a character sheet that looked as if it had been bent and crumpled by whatever else the girl was carrying in the duffel. She coughed slightly in embarrassment as she drew it fully into view, smoothing out the character sheet and holding it out to Izuku.

"Okay so... you just grab it and it burns up right?" She said hopefully, shaking the crumpled papers at him until he stretched a hand out to take them.

"I mean, that's what happened the first time." He said, and jerked backwards in shock when the second his hand touched the page it began to crumble and burn up, vanishing in a puff of cinder and ash. For a second nothing happened. Izuku quirked his head to the side in thought, then opened his character sheet to see if there was any difference. There wasn't of course. Nothing had change whatsoever. He was just about to open his mouth to ask if Toru had another character sheet he could try when he heard the bubbly girl speak up herself.

"Izuku Midoriya has invited you to join his Party?" She said curiously, lifting one thickly clad arm up to poke at something hovering in the air directly in front of her. Izuku's eyes practically bugged out of his head as she spoke, and he whipped around to stare dumbfounded at her as her hand slapped loudly against the 'yes' button he was sure she could see and that he himself couldn't.

"Toru I don't know if-" He started, not sure if it was particularly safe to let his quirk completely wash over someone else. What if it made them have to listen to his diplomacy rolls? He himself was basically entirely beholden to the rules of D&D, so wouldn't letting someone else join his party do the same to them?

"I'm a druid." Toru said blandly before her voice raised an octave and a pitch.

"I'm a druid! I'm a druid! I'm a druid, I'm a druid, I'm a druid!" She screeched, her voice becoming more and more ecstatic the more she repeated herself. Izuku had to resist the urge to shiver as she did so. Towards the end of that torrent of words Toru had almost started to sound like Toga when she was talking about blood. Almost.

"So... you have a-" Izuku said, about to ask if she too had a bunch of hovering notification windows now permanently attached to her thoughts. Right up until his quirk decided his day hadn't been weird enough and decided to throw him a curve ball.

The area you are in has become a Quick Dungeon!

Your party has entered: The Goblin Scraptropolis!

"...huh?" Izuku asked in complete and utter confusion at what he was seeing. Confusion that was quickly supplanted by terror, when a three foot tall green creature who's total body mass was probably at least 50% sharp toothy maw ambled dumbly out of the nearest scrap heap. It was a hole that a normal human couldn't possibly have fit through, but to a creature this small would have functioned perfectly as a tunnel. Izuku and the creature stared at eachother for a solid moment before the creature slowly lifted it's right arm, within which was held a broken hunk of metal from somewhere that had clearly be sharpened to a dagger like pointedness.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!" The creature screamed as it began to run at him.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!" Izuku screamed as he startled back from the thing.

"...Aaaaah?" Toru said, roughly two seconds after she stepped forward to violently bludgeon the things head in with a wooden baseball bat from bag, over and over again, until it stopped moving.

Which was just a tad too much for Izuku.

So, not for the first time, and probably not for the last time in his life; He fainted.

-ooo-

Wow. I mean I was having trouble with this and then at the halfway point I just sort of got the engine revving. That might be because I got warmed up, or it might be because that was about the time I started drinking enough coffee to melt my stomach lining completely out of existence.

So, some things. Relative to the cannon, I admit I made a mistake. The time between when Izuku starts training and when he goes for the entrance exam at UA is indeed ten months. This is because Japan works on a trimester system - so they can finish two thirds of a school year and then still have another third plus summer break left over before high school starts in order for this time period to make sense. Thats the only way I can reason through it, because I can't fathom letting middle school kids just straight up not go to school for ten months to prepare for a test that most of them will fail would fly in super strict japan.

Another thing is, after some browsing I decided to firmly place this Toga slightly closer to the beginning of her descent into bug fuck insanity, as in, not quite so off the deep end yet as to be iredeemable. This places her basically a few days after she completely messes up that guy she likes at school to drink his blood, but before she started mauling random people to do the same. I'm taking creative liberties with the overall laws in BnH because I've done some police academy and can't fathom a society like theirs not having some leeway for people just born unlucky. Like Gunheads head is literally a gun. Are you going to arrest him at 9 years old because his head is a god damn gun? I doubt it.

I sort of struggled with the idea of including the Gamers space warped dungeon shtick to this fic since it doesn't really line up with Izuku, but then I realized that he's not really getting the full D&D experience if I don't find some way to force him into an actual dungeon now and then. So now instead of cleaning up scrap you can all enjoy the next chapter of Izuku getting traumatized by the first job of any true murder hobo. Goblin cleanup. If it seems like Toru is mostly unphased here remember that for this version of her, this is basically living the dream. Plus, unlike Izuku, she's actually been training to beat people up for a living for a while now. This isn't that out of left field for her.

Anyway, that's all I got. Have a good one and as always,

Thanks for Reading.