Chapter Five
Doma sat in his father's arms, his rainbow-colored eyes fixed on the door leading into the doctor's office. This was the physician who diagnosed the presence of a Quirk and recorded a rough description of it for submission to the appropriate authorities. The boy waited with a faint suggestion of interest—he was about to learn what Quirk his sister had received.
When the door swung open, a small girl came bursting through it, racing toward her father with joyful shouts. He caught his daughter with an awkward smile, and she immediately began to hug him. She pulled her beloved little brother into the embrace as well.
"Papa, my Quirk is really useful!" He nodded with happiness on his lips, then cast a questioning look at his wife, whose mood was not particularly joyful.
Doma smiled at his sister too, as any normal little brother should. He even found her hugs, in some small measure, genuinely pleasant. Even so, from the corner of his diamond eyes he was watching the subdued mother, who turned to her husband and said:
"Kaiyoshi, we need to talk." She spoke with quiet seriousness, her amber eyes flickering briefly to Himiko.
Taking the hint, the man nodded, then turned to his children a moment later.
"Himiko, sit here with your little brother for a few minutes. Your mother and I need to talk." The girl bobbed her head cheerfully in reply, oblivious to the rather heavy atmosphere. Doma, for his part, was paying close attention and had already begun preparing to eavesdrop.
Unfortunately, he had to abandon that plan—his parents had moved quite far away and were speaking in lowered voices. And so the former leader of the Paradise Faith cult turned his attention to his sister instead, who was in very high spirits. The girl had already begun to boast about her newly acquired Quirk:
"Doma-chan, I can transform into other people!"
"Wah?" He raised an eyebrow in question and produced another sweet sound.
"I can transform into people whose blood I drink!" She announced it with great importance.
"Wah-wah…" The boy's rainbow eyes seemed to light up as he responded with surprised and animated enthusiasm.
And not all of it was performance—the child was genuinely, if mildly, shocked. It wasn't every day one encountered an ability so similar to a Blood Demon Art. The only difference was that Himiko consumed someone else's blood rather than her own.
*Quite amusing!* The boy grinned, revealing a pair of lower incisors that had only recently come in and some rather prominent fangs on both sides of his mouth. His overall physical development was progressing noticeably faster than it would in any ordinary child.
"You're so cute…!" She looked ready to squeal with delight but restrained herself, then replied with conviction. "I'm sure you'll have an amazing Quirk too!"
Doma produced another stream of childlike sounds, prompting his elder sister to hug him tighter and tighter.
***
The atmosphere in the Toga household had grown somewhat darker after that visit to the doctor. As it turned out, neither parent was especially pleased with their daughter's Quirk. The disagreeable doctor, who had offered his own blood to Himiko during the examination out of personal curiosity, had undoubtedly played his part in that.
Doma had certainly noticed the thickening tension between his parents and his elder sister. The former demon found himself receiving more attention, while the girl received less. As the initial euphoria faded, she began to sense that something was wrong—though she was not yet old enough to identify the problem with any precision.
For the former Second Upper Moon, everything was perfectly clear. Even without any knowledge of how this society regarded such Quirks, he could have told you exactly where the issue lay. This was a society that did not welcome abilities requiring one to cause someone else pain. Blood was considered something intimate, and drinking it was seen as a kind of perversion.
This was not entirely untrue, and Doma could understand the sentiment—it was natural. He himself had felt revulsion at the sight of blood before his transformation into a demon. Though what had unsettled him was not the sight of the red liquid itself, but its eternal companion—the wretched smell.
Little Himiko was clearly distressed by this neglect, and she made efforts to recapture her parents' attention. They did not refuse her outright, but moments of expressed affection had grown far less frequent. The girl felt a childlike jealousy toward her little brother, seeing plainly that their parents fussed over him more.
All her irritation dissolved the moment the boy graced his slightly pale lips with his most beautiful, most endearing smile. In those moments she would rush to squeeze him. The obvious seed of discord was the unmistakable pull toward blood that the girl experienced. When someone in the house cut themselves on something sharp, Himiko's cheeks would flush with excitement as she watched, and her eyes would ignite with longing.
The climax of the whole affair was an incident in the park. While walking with their son and daughter, the parents looked over to find the girl drinking blood from a still-living sparrow. She looked as though she were ready to devour it alive. From the circumstantial evidence, one could say with reasonable confidence that the bird had injured itself on its own. This did not particularly matter to Doma's parents, who hurried to scold their daughter sharply.
In any case, the boy with the extraordinary eyes did not share his parents' feelings on the matter at all. It merely amused him. And his elder sister had grown a little more appealing to him because of it—this added a certain something to her character.
Those who were mad had their own standards.