Any reasonable business would be closed by this time of night.

Any reasonable consultant would have sent their mysterious customer home by now.

Instead the ancient man, who wore a teenager as if he were a new suit, was poking around admiring the eccentricities. He hovered over a gameboard that seemed to be in a sort of chaos. "What sort of rules does this have?" the magician asked.

"oh, none really… Don't lose." Izaya said vaguely, studying something that his… Master… said was a magickal text. He was nearly tearing his hair out at the complicated herbs and motions and maths and gods. It was beginning to dawn on him that there was probably a reason so few people believed in magic now. It was too difficult, and with delayed results, and you'd never know if you'd enchanted the world or enchanted yourself. Getting people to do things for you was actually starting to sound like the easier option.

"I approve." His master commented. "And you use this to control your little battlefield?"

Izaya paused, looking up in confusion, "It's just to keep track of everything…"

"Oh. Pity" Master had picked up a piece and was holding it up to the light. "This has the makings of some powerful sympathetic magick"

"What? I just did that because…"

"Because it made it easier to focus." Master was grinning. "everything else is just fluff, that is, if you want to be a magician."

"What do I need to do?" M-Master, this is getting ridiculous."

"That said, other people's focus is useful too. Here, homework, collect pieces of a person's body. The person must be alive, have strong connections to you, and be someone you'd want to manipulate."

"You want me to chop bits off Shizu-chan?" Izaya laughed, "It's not very subtle"

"It can be anyone who fits those categories. And anything would work, blood, hair, nails." He shrugged "People aren't as careful as they used to be, it'll be easy."

"It's not just carving little dolls and sticking pins in?"

"Not when you're weak, apprentice. Don't argue."

"I am not weak!"

Master took a brush out of his bag, drew an eye on Izaya's desk. The eye came alive and slithered off the surface. Towards the suddenly terrified Izaya, jumping down his throat, the eye couldn't be felt, and could barely be seen, but when Izaya tried to speak, no sound came out.

"Weak" he said "Your abilities are making you weak, kid. You can find another way out of trouble, so you will. Magic won't come to you because you shout enough, it wants to be needed." Master was laughing, his outstretched hand still clenched. "You need to learn humility"

Izaya grabbed his phone and started typing madly. How did Celty handle this every day?

Master said "Oh, you wanted to speak, child?" and opened his fist.

Izaya felt his voice come back to him in a wave. "Why are you powerful then? How did you get to be strong if weakness is some kind of requirement?"

Master closed his hand again, trapping his student's voice again "You think I started out like this? You flatter me." He said, before walking out the door, waving over his shoulder with one hand. The other hand kept its grip on Izaya's voice.

Anri found herself wandering, muttering to herself, or rather, to her parasite. Saika had been growing restless. The deadness of emotion that Anri so carefully cultivated was starting to crack under the persistence of friends, and responsibility. Saika was sure to make her aware of it, forcing herself into the smallest crack, trying to get out.

You never let me have any fun

"I wonder why, Saika"

Why do you keep me like this?

"Like what?"

You only call me Saika, why don't you call me by my human name?

"You have a human name?"

You gave it to me? Can't you remember?

"No. I can't."

But you're a magician, you're supposed to have a handle on this.

"What?"

Use me, or let me go free? I have other masters to see to.

"How can you have other masters?"

There was a boy, about the right age to be at highschool, who had stopped dead on the sidewalk. Staring at them over his shoulder. Saika filled Anri with excitement, using all the voices she had collected, and tried to overwhelm the girl enough to gain control for a split second. "Father!" Saika yelled, with Anri's mouth.

The man grinned and held out a hand, "CHIKI" he called. Anri felt herself empty. The space in her mind that should be filled with words were silent. The space in her body that should contain the sword was just flesh. The place where there should be deadness was filled with shock.

The boy held a staff in his hand, and Anri had lost her host.

"So this is where my Mizuchi has been hiding all this time… keeping you hostage?" The boy named Father mused "That will not do. Chiki, cut down this former master of yours."

If you can't tell I was having occult angst while writing this... You might want to brace yourself cause it's a thing that happens if I let it...
Why is it so much fun to watch Izaya suffer?