Inheritance of Giants

Paranoid

"I need someone to show me,

"The things in life that I can't find!

"I can't see the things that make,

"True happiness, I must be blind."

- Paranoid, Black Sabbath

~

Fear. That the emotion of the Island she and Izuku were rotting on.

Toga only knew because that was the emotion most prevalent to her. She knew fear better than the back of her hand, because at least fear didn't scar over.

She looked up at the sky and scowled, squinting, hoping to find the hole she and Izuku dropped out of so they could get to at least a semblance of safety. It had been thirty minutes since they've dropped through now, however, so her thoughts of finding it were dropping quickly.

That's when she saw someone. The first person. Their face was for some ungodly reason uncovered in this smoke, the man unbothered in said environment.

Looking over her shoulder, into the cave she had renovated for Izuku's and her own extended stay, she breathed deeply. There was Izuku, still unconscious, in a hopefully good vision.

She needed information, badly. Getting off of this island was priority number one.

Going to her back pouch, Toga grabbed a knife and slid down her elevated position towards the stranger. Down into the forest.

Somehow, the greenery was surviving in this horrible smoke. Not just surviving, but thriving. She had to cut her way through vines, and plant life, eyes focused on the man as she inhaled.

Aiming her knife at the man's hand as he went to climb the tree he was on, her eye's narrowed behind her mask before, with an exhale, her arm whipped forward, knife streaking until-

"Gah! Motherfucker! How the hell- a fucking knife?"

The man tried to move, but yowled in pain, noting that he was now stuck to the tree. Trying to grab a radio from his back pocket, he fumbled and dropped it.

"Mother of god, why now, you stupid piece of shit machinery!"

"Because I want info. I can't have you talking to others now, can I?" a voice murmured from above.

Freezing up, the man mechanically turned his head upward, seeing a small girl grabbing onto the knife, her cat-like, yellow eyes piercing straight through the glass of her mask and burning holes into the man.

"I- I- I don't know what people do here! I'm- my name is Martinez, I don't have that much affiliation with the drug ring, I swear!"

"The drug ring?" Toga asked.

"Yeah! The bossman, whoever he is, develops Trigger here! Well, not the usual kind of Trigger, that stuff is hella nasty. Like, fentanyl levels of nasty. They're- it's something about the smoke and plants here that makes the Trigger developed here better. That's all the information I know, I swear!"

"What are you gathering?" Toga asked, grabbing a bag Martinez dropped. "You don't come out here with an empty bag for nothing."

"I- the fruits, the fruits! I- I don't know what they do, they just tell me to grab them! Please, don't hurt me more, and- augh! Fuck, please, stop, stop, don't twist the knife! I swear on my life, that's everything I know! Everything else besides what I've told you are just my theories! They're all just grains of salt here! Please, believe me!"

Toga remained silent before sighing, grabbing bandages from her back pouch and pulling out the knife from Martinez's hand, making him scream.

"Shut it, you big baby, you'll blow my cover," Toga grumbled, quickly bandaging Martinez's wound before gagging his mouth with more bandages. She positioned the knife to stab into Martinez's neck, strong arming him into facing the direction of the cave and said, "Walk."