~Toga's POV~

Disgusting. That's what my parents had called me. Since then, I'd been doing everything I could to ignore my feelings, to try and be normal. I didn't want my family to think I was disgusting. I just wanted to be accepted by someone, anyone. Anytime anyone got a glimpse into how I truly felt, it was the same thing, I was disgusting, weird, abnormal.

Last year in gym class, one of my classmates got hit in the face with a volleyball, they got a bad nosebleed. I'd gotten lost in some kind of trance, mesmerized. I didn't act on it, though I wanted very much to, but the rest of my classmates saw me staring and many of them called me weird and began to keep their distance. I tried everything I could to overcome it, to be normal. I was cursed, no matter how hard I tried, I could never seem to be normal enough.

"You're new right?" A voice sounded from behind me, pulling me from my darkening thoughts. I looked up and my breath hitched in my throat as I saw a pair of mesmerizing blood red eyes, they belonged to the new transfer student, Iris, who was sitting across from me at the lunch table. I glanced over my shoulder to find three girls, the leader of whom was a grade above us, her lackeys were in our grade. They all looked right through me, to Iris.

Iris threw me a curious look, picking up on the fact they were ignoring me, "...yeah..."

"You should sit with us." The leader offered her a pretty smile. "It's important to sit with the right people on your first day. Continue sitting with freaks and you may get the wrong label."

I clenched my fists in my lap. If only I had done a better job acting normal, if only I hadn't stared so openly at that boy's bloody nose with who knows what kind of expression on my face. My lower lip trembled, why was it so hard to just be normal?

"I'm pretty sure I'm where I belong." Iris said dismissively, not even casting the popular girl a second look as she returned her attention to her cell phone.

"Listen, you're new here, you don't know how weird this girl i-." The leader began.

Iris' blood red eyes flicked upward, her expression shifting to annoyance, "let me stop you right there, because like you said I'm new here. You know nothing about me. Do you know why I transferred here?" There was a dark threatening edge to her voice.

"N-no?" The popular girl began to grow wary.

"You see, some kids at my old school just wouldn't leave me alone after I'd told them I had no interest in sitting with them, they just wouldn't drop it, so I sent them all to the hospital." Iris said in a calm, even voice. Her lips pulled into a twisted smile and her eyes glinted with a hostility that made my heart flutter in my chest, "so, how about you three run along?"

"Freak." The leader gasped before the three of them scrambled away from us.

I stared blankly at Iris. Had she just stood up for me? "...you didn't have to do that..."

She shrugged. "I find most people annoying. Don't read too much into it." Her blood red gaze returned to the phone in her hands.

"Are you not going to eat lunch?" I asked curiously.

She shrugged again. Perhaps she didn't have any money for lunch and it didn't appear like she'd packed anything. I shoved my tray forward a little more aggressively than I had meant to. It slid across the table and would have most likely fallen off and coated her with food had she not reacted with impressive reflexes and stopped it with her index finger. Her blood red eyes tore away from her phone screen and flicked in my direction.

"S-sorry." I stammered, as I was pulled into her mesmerizing gaze. Her eyes were like two pools of saccharine blood. "Want to share mine?"

Her lips quirked slightly into a small ghost of a smile, "sure." She took a single rice ball from my tray before carefully sliding it back to me. "Thanks Himiko."

I felt weirdly giddy. No one ever called me by my first name. "Y-you're welcome." I grinned.

Throughout the rest of lunch, no one else bothered us or joined our table. I could see our classmates all whispering to one another and glancing our way. No doubt the popular girls had already begun to spread terrible rumors about Iris. If she noticed she didn't seem to care in the slightest as she nibbled at the single rice ball and texted on her phone. I offered her more food but she politely declined.

Once I finished eating, she glanced up, "do you like slasher films?" She asked out of the blue.

"Huh?"

"You know like Halloween, Friday the 13th, the classics?" She asked.

"Oh...um I don't know... I 'm not allowed to watch them." I replied softly. My parents were worried it would make my 'problem' worse. I wasn't allowed to watch anything violent or gory.

"Oh. That's too bad, seems like something you'd like." She said nonchalantly before tucking her phone into her pocket. "Shall we?" She stretched to her feet and turned to go, her long flowing snow white hair fanning out around her as she spun gracefully.

"Right. Let's go." I turned in my tray and led the way to our lockers, which were conveniently located next to one another. "You have AP English next, it's right next to my AP Bio class-." I began but got cut off as the boy who's locker was on the opposite side of Iris' opened his locker loudly, obviously trying to get Iris' attention.

Her eyes narrowed in annoyance and she turned to him with a bored expression. She didn't say a word, waiting for him to get to the point.

"H-Hey." He seemed unnerved by her cool demeanor, "you're related to Vlad King right?" He asked.

Iris seemed to visibly shiver in irritation at this and she grit her teeth tightly, "...yes..."

"Could I get his autograp-AH! Hey! What are you-?!" The boy began but Iris roughly shoved him into his locker and slammed the door shut with a loud 'BANG'. "HEY! WHAT THE HELL?!"

"You were saying?" Iris turned to me.

I looked from her to the locker the boy was now banging on in awe.

"Himiko?" Iris waved a hand in front of my face.

"R-right. This way." I turned and led the way. The boy's frantic cries behind us made me feel strangely happy. "Why'd you do that?" I asked her curiously.

"He was rude." Iris shrugged.

As we walked, I glanced over at Iris. She was so unapologetically herself. She didn't seem to care in the slightest what anyone else thought of her. It seemed so freeing. "Did you really send your classmates from your old school to the hospital?" I asked curiously. Was there blood?

"Yes."

"But not because they wouldn't leave you alone?" I pondered.

She turned to me, those blood red eyes pulling me in once more, "pretty astute. No, not because of that. They were abusing a stray dog...I told them to stop...they didn't listen." She shrugged.

"Did you stab them?" I asked, intrigued, remembering our topic of conversation earlier when we'd just made introductions.

Iris thought for a moment, "hm. I suppose I did stab them with their own blood."

Blood. I felt a bubble of excitement beginning to brew within me at the thought. Her quirk had to deal with blood. My heart began to pound in my chest as I thought of Iris drenched head to toe in blood with those blood red eyes staring back at me unapologetically.

"Himiko?" Her soft voice shook me from the mental imagery and I realized in embarrassment that I'd stopped walking and was currently staring at her, my hand reaching up toward her face. I quickly pulled my hand back.

"See you after class." I said hurriedly before ducking into my AP Bio room.