When a castle school is built atop of a giant turtle and hidden by magical camouflage, it's hard to imagine anything being able to top it that day. For most people, it would be an impossible feat, but for Midoriya, it was surprisingly easy.
The second the group entered the confines of Isamu Academy, Midoriya was met with amazing sights as far as the eye could see. The outside of the school was fashioned like a medieval castle, and while the inside largely kept to that, there was also a mixture of flora, modern architecture, and high-spec technology thrown about. People were all walking about talking about things like potions and eyes of newt as colorful runes and portals appeared out of midair. Inhuman creatures—even by the standards of society—were milling and slinking and slithering about as they discussed the happenings of worlds Midoriya only had a small inkling of knowledge of. He couldn't remember the last time he knew so little about something, and he was going to enjoy every second of it.
"You see that big tree over there?" Seraph asked, pointing to a large tree with glowing fruit growing from it. "It was a gift from the Kagari-Cavendishes, and it magically provides illumination for the entire castle. Over on your right is a room that magically simulates any environment for training, a generous gift from the Sakatsuki-von Einzberns. Up above your heads is a chandelier fashioned with jewels carved from the blood of the shamir, uncovered in one of Ryukyu's latest archaeological digs with help from the Saluja clan. There on your left is the arcade hall; that wasn't given to us by anyone special, I just like letting people know we have that."
"Mondo cool!" Komori said while taking pictures of everything in sight with her camera. "I can't wait to show this stuff to Mr. Holland. It'd be a lot easier if he'd just get on Flashgram, already."
"Sir, why do the students coming out of that class look so exhausted?" Yaoyorozu asked, directing everyone's attention to a group of students who slowly walked out of a room with oddly satisfied looks on their faces.
"If it's that room, they must have just finished Defense Against the Sexual Arts. It's a class designed around building up a defense against Succubi, Incubi, and other magics and magical beings that assault people with sexual energy," Seraph said.
"And they're like that because?" Midoriya asked for no reason.
"Because practice makes perfect, you know!" Midnight said. Shiozaki looked like she was going to vomit—her hair was even twisting around into a makeshift barf bag—and Midoriya couldn't blame her for that.
"I should have been a wizard!" Mineta shouted with tears in his eyes.
"Give it fifteen years and it'll happen, no problem," Jirou said.
"Kayama and I probably should have mentioned that no one actually has sex in that class or even takes off their clothes; it's all very controlled," Seraph said. "Now over here we have—" Whatever Seraph was about to say was drowned out by the sound of dozens of students running around in a panic.
"What's going on?! Is there a Villain on the premises?!" Iida asked.
"No, we have a specific alarm for intruders. There has to be some kind of internal issue."
"O-Over there!" Midoriya was quick to discover what had to be the source of the panic: what appeared to be a dragon made of stone stomping over towards a river inside the castle, looking ready to attack the girl nonchalantly floating in it.
"What the hell is that thing?!" Sero asked.
"It's a golem, and judging by the shoddy craftsmanship, it looks like this is the result of a freshman biting off more than they could chew," Midnight said. "Everyone stay back. Chaim and I will handle this."
"Oh no, it's fine," Seraph said. "If it was anyone else, then yeah, but considering who the golem is attacking, there's nothing to worry about—"
"I'll be right back!" Midoriya only listened to a fraction of what Seraph said as he dropped his bags and flew over to the golem. He might have been out of line sticking his nose in the business of another school, but he wasn't the kind of person who could just sit back and watch someone get hurt. It was for that reason that he flew at the draconian golem and destroyed it with a single punch without hesitation.
"Are you all right, miss?" he asked as he touched down on the ground.
"This is a true romance." Of all the things the girl could have said to him, that was something he never even considered to be an option.
"W-What? What do you—" Before Midoriya could finish, the girl jumped out of the river, doing so with what appeared to be a scaly tail, grabbed him tightly, and kissed him square on the lips.
Dazed and confused didn't even begin to describe the full extent of his emotions. He couldn't even bring himself to speak.
"Midoriya! You are a god, man!" Mineta took it upon himself to talk in his stead.
"Dude!" Kaminari shouted. Everyone else went on and on about various things at various volumes, but Midoriya barely heard any of it, for he was too busy getting a better look at the girl who stole his first kiss. The girl had bright purple hair that, in random spots, jutted out like coral, and she stared at him with an admittedly pleasant face and a mismatched set of blue and brown eyes. What looked like the top half of a pink scuba suit adorned her torso, and in place of legs was a scaly brown and white shrimp tail.
"My name's Lori Lemaris. Probably should have started with that, but I like to cut to the chase. Good quality in a girl, right?" Lori asked, smiling like the world wasn't collapsing in on itself.
"Th-Th-Th-Thank you!" Midoriya didn't know why he felt obligated to thank her for anything, nor did he know why he bowed so deeply that his skull tore into the floor, but he felt like it wouldn't do to do anything else.
"Aw, you're so polite! I love seeing that in a guy! Hold on." Lori put a hand over her tail as red light shone from it. All the water on her tail evaporated, and in an instant, her tail split into two scaly, humanoid legs—though she had flipper-like appendages instead of feet. "There, that's better." Lori stood up off the ground on her new legs, making it clear that she was at least a head taller than him.
Midoriya wondered if that made things worse, but he got his answer the second Lori embraced him and brought him against her chest.
"So much better now that I can properly do this!"
Somebody save me! Midoriya thought. Salvation never came. In the corner of his eye, all he saw was Aizawa's exasperated expression, Mineta and Kaminari unnecessarily cheering him on, Jirou and Uraraka trying to hide their own interest in what was happening, and Bakugou looking annoyed that they were all still spending time on this.
Then he saw something else: he saw Kendou's expression—or, rather, lack of expression. There wasn't a hint of emotion to be found, but that somehow added its own unique form of terror to it, like he was looking at a dark sky moments before a storm would come about. That much was clear, but he—for the life of him—couldn't figure out why he was looking at something like that.
"I want to punch this girl in the face." That was the thought that popped into Kendou's head the second the strange fish girl—Lori, she reminded herself—kissed Midoriya, and she didn't get it. Obviously, there was the fact that she was annoyed on her friend's behalf that some random girl just kissed him out of nowhere, but that felt like a minor aspect of it all, especially when it seemed like she was the only one who thought it was bad. People like Iida, Momo, and Todoroki were looking at it all with disinterest, people like Mineta, Kaminari, Sero and Komori—the last one taking too many pictures on her phone—were making their excitement and interest all too obvious, people like Ochaco, Kyoka and Tooru were trying their best to keep their excitement and interest under wraps, at least she assumed Tooru was doing that, so it was clear that no one was really upset about it. Her thoughts were clearly outside the norm, yet she couldn't stop herself from having them.
It made her sick. She was mad at them, mad at that girl, mad at Midoriya, and the lack of logic behind it made her sick.
"The hell do you think you're doing, you little shit?!" Kendou's thoughts were thrown on the back burner as Midoriya was suddenly pulled away from Lori and brought face-to-face with a slouching gray-haired boy. "You one of those punks from U.A., eh? What, you think that just because your school's a little more famous means you can just break our stuff and put the moves on our people?!"
"Deku doesn't even have moves!" Bakugou said as he stomped over to Midoriya's side. "Besides, last I checked, you were one of the first guys trying to hightail it out of here when that piece of crap showed up, so where the hell do you get off acting all high and mighty?!" It would have been nice to believe that Bakugou was defending Midoriya, but Kendou knew he was just defending U.A.
"Where the hell do you get off bringing your dumb ass over here?!" the gray-haired boy fired back.
"You're the only dumbass, dumbass!"
"Takes one to know one, dumbass!"
"This is getting out of hand; now there are two of them," Jirou said. Kendou agreed that it was getting out of hand, but not for those reasons. Whatever her reasons were, she did not know.
"Okay, Bakugou, enough of the battle of wits. Midoriya, if you and this girl are done sucking face, then get back over here," Aizawa said. Midoriya stammered out something unintelligible in response.
"Romero, you knock it off, too. Lori, I don't know how bad your thing is, but take it down a notch, anyway," Seraph said.
"Fine," Lori said with a pout. Bakugou and Romero threw one more scowl at each other before separating entirely.
"Still, this cuts down on the tour a bit. Everyone, this is Romero Fujimi and Lori Lemaris; they're among the students who will be working with you for today's training exercise."
Great. That's just great, Kendou thought.
"Now then, this unintentional detour has eaten up a bunch of time, so…" Seraph walked over to Midnight. The two engaged in a quick rock-paper-scissors match that Midnight looked disappointed to lose. "Yes! So! Midnight will go with Eraserhead and Katana to talk with the headmaster while the rest of us get started on the exercise!"
"Great. That's just great," Midnight said. "Okay, let's get this over with. Try to have enough fun for me, everyone."
"Don't do anything stupider than this. I know we're off to a bad start, but try to bounce back from this," Aizawa said. Yamashiro just bowed her head, and with that, the three of them walked off away from the rest of the group.
"As Mr. Lavon said, I'm Lori Lemaris, Atlantean born and raised, spending time here on the surface to be a Hero. And maybe do some other things." Her last sentence was said while looking straight at Midoriya, who had already walked back to the class with an awkward kick in his step.
"My name is Tenya Iida! As class president—"
"I'm Itsuka Kendou. As class vice-president, thanks for having us here." Kendou wasn't normally one to interrupt people, especially when it was one of her friends, but she felt a strange obligation to get the first word in edgewise with Lori.
"Nice to meet you." Wearing an innocent smile on her face, Lori extended a hand for Kendou to shake. Kendou accepted, and if she ended up accidentally putting some of her enhanced strength into it, then they'd deal with that when it happened.
Much to her surprise and annoyance, Lori ended up being the one with the stronger handshake, and with seemingly no effort on her part.
"Oh, sorry, did I hurt your hand? I keep forgetting that I need to adjust my strength when I'm on the surface."
"No, no, I'm fine," Kendou said, rubbing her hand vigorously as she made the claim.
"Well, I'm gonna help clean up this mess, but Mr. Lavon will get you guys to the locker rooms so you can get changed. See you all in a few, especially you, Midoriya!" A single wink from Lori made Midoriya look ready to keel over and die.
"Lori-san, if you wouldn't mind addressing the elephant in the room, why did you, you know, to Midoriya-san?" Momo asked.
"Isn't that obvious?" Lori asked as she effortlessly lifted a large chunk of rock off the ground with one hand. "Because I love him."
Kendou still wanted to punch her, and she still hated herself for feeling that way.
"Midoriya, have I told you that you're the man today? Because you are the man, man!"
"Mineta-kun, you've said that too many times to count at this point."
"But it's true! Just when I thought you couldn't get any cooler, you start making out with a mermaid, man!"
Mineta and other people cheering Midoriya on for something like that was the last thing he wanted. All he wanted to do that day was marvel at magical sights most people went their entire lives without seeing, but with the locker room's atmosphere being filled with talk of his alleged romantic endeavors, it seemed less and less likely that that could happen.
"I-I wasn't making out with her. It was just one kiss, and she was the one who did it!"
"Semantics, man. The point is that you got a super hot chick who's into you, and that's something to celebrate!" Kaminari said.
"Then why do I just feel nauseous?" Midoriya asked.
"'Cause you're a wuss, that's why," Bakugou said.
"Like you know anything about babes, Bakugou!" Mineta said.
"I mean, there's whatever that stuff is with Alexis," Sero said.
"Say that again, soy face. I dare you!" Bakugou's tone was nearly as explosive as the hands being used to frighten Sero.
"Gentlemen, please, let's stay on topic, the topic of making sure our boy Izuku goes home a man," said Dark Shadow, dressed in a flowery shower cap and towel that appeared out of nowhere.
"Please stop that!" Midoriya said. Never before had he felt so happy about not using his enhanced hearing.
"With any luck, that'll be the last thing she says to you. Wink."
"Did you just say wink instead of actually winking?" Tokoyami asked.
"Wait, what did he mean by that?" Iida asked.
"The point is that this guy here is obviously helpless on his own, so we need to go along with the Bro Code and help him out."
"No, no, no, no, no you don't!" Midoriya said. "You really don't need to do anything, and I don't want you to do anything! This is all too much to take in, okay?!"
"That's what she said." With a single "Tskymi" from Tokoyami, Dark Shadow vanished from sight.
"Don't be like that, man. There's a super tall, hot chick who can bench press a skyscraper interested in you, so why not go for it?" Mineta asked.
"B-Because I don't want to. Can't it just be that simple?" Midoriya asked.
"No, no it can't," Kaminari said. "Wait, I get it; you're scared because this is the first time a girl's actually liked you and you don't know what to do about it! Well, here's the stuff you don't want to do—"
"What? That's not it at all."
"Right, of course, it isn't."
"It really isn't." Midoriya kept a steady face as he spoke and Kaminari began to look flabbergasted.
"Wait, what?"
"Yeah, this isn't the first time a girl's shown any interest in me, just the first time one's been so forward."
"What?!" Given the looks on their faces, even Todoroki's, that sentiment was shared by a large number of Midoriya's classmates.
"W-What?"
"Are you saying that you are popular with women?" Sero asked.
"Yeah, you're a good guy and all, but you're pretty dorky, so…" Ojiro trailed off.
"It's true! I mean, it's died down a lot since coming to U.A., but I still get a note in my shoe locker every once in a while. In junior high, it was happening too much to keep track of, honestly," Midoriya said.
"I hate you," Kaminari said.
"Midoriya, you are the man!" Mineta said with a thumbs up.
"I hate you, too."
"Bakugou, is he telling the truth?" Kirishima asked.
"Yeah, and I hated every second of it," Bakugou said. "All those bitches were too chicken to ask Deku out himself, so they'd always try and bug me into being their wingman. Fuck off with that shit! Just because I grew up with this nerd doesn't mean I give a damn about who he sticks his dick into, or in some really annoying cases, who sticks a dick in him!"
"Okay, that's enough profanity for one day, please!" Iida shouted. To Midoriya's surprise, it actually worked. Everyone finally took a hint and dropped the subject, but it didn't stop Midoriya from thinking back to his time with the various girls of Aldera Junior High. Most of them were certainly attractive and likable, but whenever they made a case for why they should go out, his "Quirk" was always at the top of the list; junior high was the time when he went out of his way to not stand out, so they had to have only cared about his powers and not about him as a person. He didn't want to date people like that; even at his lowest, he still had a semblance of self-respect.
That didn't mean that Lori was like that, though, and Midoriya didn't think she was. She was a carnivore for sure, an attractive one, he was forced to admit, but it seemed like getting together with someone who had incredible powers was the last thing on her mind. He didn't really disagree with the people saying that it should be easy to just take the plunge and get into a relationship, but he just couldn't find the desire to do so. Almost as if something was getting in the way of it all.
"So that Lori girl kind of sucks, right?" Kendou asked in the middle of everyone's changing.
"I don't know if I'd say that. She's certainly a little odd, but I don't think she's a bad person," Momo said. Kendou didn't know exactly what her face looked like in response to that, but judging by Momo's face, she did a good job of looking disgusted. "K-Kendou-san?"
"Are you kidding me? Some mismatched eyed mermaid just starts grabbing and kissing our friend out of nowhere, and we're just supposed to be okay with that? Why am I the only one upset about this?!"
"Feels more like you're just the only one who cares," Kyoka said. "It's not like we can just go back in time and stop it from happening like the Flash or that Green Lantern who dresses in blue and yellow. Besides, it didn't look like he outright hated the experience."
"He didn't look happy!" Kendou certainly wasn't happy.
"But he didn't hate it, and why would he? Did you see how tall that girl was? Not to mention how strong she is? 'Cause she's, like, really strong, and that's pretty cool."
"Oh, so that's what you're into, then?" Tooru asked.
"I mean, it's not the only thing—"
"I might not be tall, but I actually have pretty good abs underneath all this refracted light, you know!" Kendou could tell from Tooru's tone of voice that she was pouting. As Kyoka tried to dig herself out of the apparent hole she had dug herself into, Kendou was forced to muse over the unfortunately good point she brought up about her being the only one who cared. It wasn't as if she didn't get why that was; Momo wasn't interested in romance, Ochaco was too awkward around that stuff to get a word in, and the rest of the girls weren't close enough to Midoriya to justify getting upset. There were a good number of reasons for why the other girls weren't upset, but it was a struggle to figure out why she was upset.
In the midst of all of that, Mina's smiling face entered her field of vision out of nowhere.
"What are you doing?" Kendou asked.
"You know what? I hate her, too," Mina said.
"Why?"
"For all of the absolutely great reasons you hate her, of course!"
"I don't know what you're thinking, but I'm just assuming you're wrong on principle."
"Of course you do." Mina kept smiling, but that didn't help Kendou understand her any better. "Hey, I'm on your side, and shame on the rest of you for not doing the same!"
"But we don't have a real reason to hate Lori-chan," Tsuyu said.
"What does that matter? As women, is it not our sacred duty to unite with one sister in her irrational hatred of another?"
"All in favor of ignoring Mina for the rest of the day, raise your hand," Kendou said. Every one of her classmates raised a hand, and she enlarged her own hand to further emphasize the point.
"Ha ha ha, screw you guys, too," Mina said, walking away from Kendou in a huff.
"Look, I know that I was the one who started this, but can we just drop it, already? Please?" Kendou asked. "We're about to fight a bunch of magic users; that'll probably be more fun than this."
"My thoughts, exactly! The people here are obviously less amazing than I am, but our special breed provides a special form of entertainment, either way! Now let's all work together to make sure my specialness stands out the most!" Komori said, posing dramatically at the end of each sentence. The girl had a knack for showmanship; Kendou had to give her that.
"Komori-san, I admire your enthusiasm, but please don't make poses like that while… while you're naked," Shiozaki said, her hair doing its best to cover her eyes.
"Yeah, pretty sure you're giving Uraraka a heart attack."
"I'm fine!" shouted an Ochaco who was incredibly red in the face. "I'm okay, just peachy keen! Anyone else hot? It's like a sauna in here, right? Right? I'm okay."
Kendou wished that that was a bigger distraction than it actually was. It helped a little, but it didn't completely stop her from feeling upset about everything, nor did it give her a good reason for why she felt that way at all.
It wasn't as if Kayama completely hated the time she spent at Isamu, because she didn't. She learned a lot about magic, she made a couple of good friends, even if she refused to talk to one of them, and she walked out of there the confident woman she was today. The lead up to all of that, of course, was terrible. It took forever for her to figure out what fields of magic she was actually good at, one of her good friends—a good friend she may or may not have had feelings for—was out of touch for reasons she didn't enjoy, and she was only able to step out with confidence after three years of being a nervous wreck and completely unsure of herself; the days where she just locked herself in the bathroom because she did something mildly embarrassing were too many to count.
As such, All Might doing just that was giving her a small amount of PTSD, even if the circumstances were different.
"You can come out now, it's just us," Aizawa said.
"Oh, thank goodness." With that note of relief, All Might stepped out of the bathroom and greeted the three of them.
"Sorry it took us longer to get you than we said. We got delayed by something… odd," Kayama said.
"I thought Mr. Aizawa said we were delayed by something stupid," Yamashiro said.
"It doesn't really matter. Let's just hurry up with this." The Jormungandr skin wand wrapped around Kayama's left arm unfurled itself into a straightened form as she took it into her right. She spoke an enchantment in a language only she was aware of, making the wand glow a faint purple as she pointed it at All Might. After a few seconds, she stopped talking and the wand stopped glowing as it wrapped around her arm, once more. "Okay, you should be okay now."
"Let's hope so," All Might said. All Might took a breath and deactivated his Quirk, returning his body to its natural skinny form. Yamashiro pulled a fashionable compact out of her pocket and held it up to All Might. Everyone looked at the reflection and only saw his muscular form captured in it. "Wow! It really worked!"
"Well color me surprised," Aizawa said.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Kayama asked. Aizawa gave no response as he walked down the hall, All Might and Yamashiro following after him. "Hey, I'm the one who went to school here, so I'm leading the way!" No one said anything as Kayama jumped to the front of the group.
"So if someone other than us looks at me, they'll really only see me look the way I do in public?" All Might asked.
"Exactly. It's your standard glamour charm, but it's effective, nonetheless."
"I just wish you had cast it before we left U.A."
"That wouldn't have worked, actually. U.A. isn't close to any major Ley lines, so a glamour charm cast there would have worn off by the time you got here. Here at Isamu, we're right in the middle of one of Japan's biggest Ley lines, meaning I have access to enough prana to create one that will last well into the night."
"That long? Magic sure is something. Maybe I should have learned a spell or two when I was in school."
"It doesn't really work that way, but I appreciate the sentiment." At that moment, the four of them arrived at the office of the Headmistress, closed off from the world by a five-meter tall steel door painted blood red.
Just the mere sight of it was enough to send a chill down her spine.
"The other reason I had to wait until we got here to cast the glamour charm is that this was the only way to make it strong enough to prevent her from seeing through it."
"Yes, it probably would be bad if a woman like her learned my secret." All Might shook a little as he spoke. It appeared that he already had a run-in with the Headmistress before they found him. It probably went far better than he thought, however.
"We wouldn't have to worry about her telling anyone, but her being in the know on anything is a death sentence. Have her know a single secret about you and she'll tease you and lord it over you until the end of time with the combined ferocity of a thousand toddlers. It's honestly a miracle that only a handful of people go bald after dealing with her teaching for three years."
"Your hair managed to grow back fine, so I don't know what you're complaining about."
"I didn't go bald, don't go spreading lies like…" Kayama stopped herself when she realized that no one in the group had said those words, and then she jumped back in shock when she saw who she was actually talking to.
"I just love that that's how you react to seeing me again after so long, Kayama-chan," Watahashi said.
"I-I'm sorry! You just surprised me, and if I knew you were here, then—"
"No no, I wasn't being sarcastic. Honestly, I'm glad that I can still instill a little fear inside you; makes me feel like I'm doing something right with my life."
"Of course it does." Her personality hadn't changed at all in the past thirteen years, and when she thought about it, neither had her physical appearance. Her long mane of black and white hair still had the same shine as when she first saw it; her face still possessed a youthful and graceful complexion even as it contorted into a condescending smile; her chest was still large enough to stretch the kimono that exposed an unnecessary amount of cleavage to its limits. Everything about her was the same as when Kayama was a teenager, and probably well before that.
It was almost as if Yoshimado Watahashi had completely forgotten how to age.
"It's good to see you again, it truly is. Same for you, Aizawa-chan, and All Might, glad to see that you've managed to work through your constipation. By the way, Kayama-chan, I brought you a little souvenir from Hell." Watahashi pulled out a throbbing, plastic Chinese takeout bag from seemingly nowhere and handed it to Kayama. "Also by the way, nice to meet you, samurai woman I've never met before. What's your story?"
As Yamashiro struggled to string together an introduction, Kayama, against all rationality, opened up the bag to see what Watahashi had brought her. Unsurprisingly, the bag contained some sort of disgusting, hairless, flesh-colored imp that snarled at her before reaching at her with tiny arms. Doing what she could to keep the screaming to a minimum, she threw it to the ground and stomped on it repeatedly until it started crawling away from her in fear.
"Oh My Goodness! What on Earth is that thing?!" All Might asked.
"An Un-Man. I had to fight a bunch of them in Hell, and since they didn't all die, I thought it'd be a waste to not go home without at least one," Watahashi said.
"Why did you think I'd want that?!" Kayama shouted.
"I didn't really think you would, but that's beside the point, the point being that I just felt like doing it." The entire sentence was spoken as a flock of shikigami flew out of her sleeve and tightened themselves around the Un-Man until the life was completely squeezed out of it. It was always like this with her; doing random stuff to annoy the people then sweeping it under the rug as if there was no reason to get upset over it. If that was really the case, then she wouldn't have been anywhere near as stressed out during her time at Isamu as she actually was.
"Hey, if we're all done with whatever this is—"
"A busy woman never stops being busy!" Watahashi said, cutting Aizawa off. "Still, let's step into my office, shall we?" Watahashi kicked open the door and they all filed in, the deceased Un-Man being dragged in by Watahashi's shikigami like a dog on a leash. The inside of Watahashi's office was dyed the same shade of red as the door, the windows were draped with waterfalls that came from nowhere, a bookshelf in the corner of the room seemed to only contain a few worn-out copies of The Three Musketeers that looked old enough to have been printed when Alexandre Dumas was still alive, and in lieu of chairs, there were floating pillows that everyone except Kayama and Watahashi struggled to climb onto.
"Now that we're all here and situated with one another, let me see what we're working with." All Might reached into his suit and pulled out the plastic bag containing Shigaraki's ofuda. Before anything could be said on the subject, Watahashi grabbed the bag and emptied the contents into her hands. "Just as I thought, this thing is half-baked. How disappointing."
"What do you mean, Sensei?" Kayama asked.
"At its core, onmyodo isn't any stronger or weaker than the forms of magic normally taught at my school, but it's still not something just anyone can learn. Onmyodo is a magic routed into the spiritual composition of Japan, and as such, it will only work for people who form a spiritual bond with the land itself. Becoming an onmyoji requires an intense dedication to all aspects of nature within the confines of the country, but just one look at this thing tells me that the man who made it doesn't care about that at all."
"From the little we know about Shigaraki, that doesn't sound too far off base," Aizawa said as he struggled to stay on top of his floating pillow. When the words left his lips, Watahashi suddenly turned towards Aizawa with a set of eyes so wide they nearly made him completely lose balance. An odd expression to make in response to a simple sentence, Kayama mused.
"Still, there is a sliver of talent and ingenuity within the composition of this ofuda. From the little bit of knowledge his teacher was able to make get through, perhaps? Constant modernization and decades of magic being exposed to the general public have already done a lot to kill this art, so it's surprising to see anyone treat it with any real amount of care. I'm one of those people, obviously, but I can count all the others I've met on one hand. This is interesting. Quite interesting, indeed."
Watahashi then proceeded to shove the ofuda into her mouth and suck on it like a popsicle, her face contorted into an expression of pure bliss.
"Is she supposed to be doing that?" Yamashiro asked.
"I—I don't know what this is," Kayama said. "Sensei?"
"Hm? Oh, sorry." Watahashi spat the ofuda out and put it down on her desk. "Something about it caught my attention in a peculiar way, and I wanted to see if I was justified in feeling that way."
"And were you?"
"Ah, now that's a question for the ages." The smile on Watahashi's face made it clear that she wasn't going to say anymore, though if Kayama was being honest, she didn't think additional words would have made it any easier to understand her. As that realization hit her, Watahashi snapped her fingers and the shikigami removed themselves from the Un-Man before flying over to her desk and dogpiling on the ofuda with glowing forms. "You said that you wanted to use this to try and track down the people who gave you all such a throttling, yes? Let's see what little ol' me can do about that."
There it was again. That smile she always flashed before getting started on some sort of nonsensical nonsense that everyone around her would be forcibly dragged into.
Kayama just hoped the kids were in for an easier time than them.
This chapter is ending nowhere close to where I wanted it to, at best it's only half of what I wanted to put out, but it just ended up being a major chore to write for some reason, and I didn't want this to be another year where the year ends without me putting out any new content, so here we are. The second half will hopefully be out soon, and hopefully I'll also be able to get back to some things I've been putting off and put out some new stuff I've been wanting to get to. Hopefully.
See you all next year.