AN: Written for the BNHA Fantasy Bigbang 2019, full collection available on AO3

I. Ignite

"Evacuate the building! NOW!"

"MOVE!"

"Close all windows and leave everything behind!"

Push. Shove. The blaring sound of the emergency alarm. Everything came together in the chaos playing off right before her eyes.

Momo's hands gripped the sides of her lab coat tightly as she took a deep breath.

In. Out.

"Chief!" Somebody called out to her, taking hold of one of her arms and pulling her along with the strength of ten men. "We have to abandon our research! It's gonna blow up!"

"Maybe I can still counterspell it…!" Her words fell on deaf ears as she was pushed to the ground by the sheer force of gravity, a pulse of magic crackling through the room in a blinding flash.

"There's no time! It's almost complete! Damnit!" Her colleague's hand gripped her sleeve tighter, trying to get her back on her feet. "We need to GET OUT RIGHT NOW!"

She couldn't leave yet. Not when…! "I'll be right there, I'll just make sure everybody's out!"

"Chief!"

She ignored him, rushing back into the dancing flames.

This couldn't end like this.

She wouldn't let it.

"Hey, Todoroki, you listening to me?"

Shouto shifted his phone, clamping it between his ear and his shoulder. "Yeah, yeah, I hear you. I'm looking for my car keys, I'll be at the incident site as soon as I find them."

He lifted a pillow on his couch, checking if they had ended up somewhere under them. Negative, it seemed. Where else could they be?

"You might want to hurry up then, Bakugou just left HQ, and he's not in a good mood." The voice on the other end replied dismayingly. "I heard him slam his office door all the way from the reception area."

"When is he ever not in a bad mood?" Shouto stepped into his kitchen, wondering, if, by some weird chance, his car keys had ended up in here. He began opening all drawers and cupboards, all while a low hum of thought came from the other end of the line.

"Point taken." Ashido conceded with an audible sigh. "...are you still looking for your keys?"

"Yeah, I swear they should be around here somewh- Ah, wait, I found them." Sure enough, they were sitting in his fridge, next to yesterday's dinner leftovers. How did they get there? He shook his head, it wasn't important right now.

"I'll be there right away, see you later." He hung up and stuffed his phone back into his pocket, followed by his prodigal car keys and his wallet. Right now, there were only two things he had to take care of:

1) his explosive partner who was at the crime scene in a worse mood then usual

2) the high-level magic spell that destroyed half an office building in the city centre

It already sounded like a major pain to deal with, but this was what he was paid to do.

"Todoroki, Special Investigator for the Bureau." He introduced himself, loudly, to overcome the pounding of the sudden onslaught of rain that had decided to come along to make his day even worse than it already was.

The police officer squinted at Shouto's badge, finally letting him into the cordoned-off area after a good amount of scrutiny. "Your loudmouth colleague is already upstairs." The officer nodded towards the building behind him, a scowl coming over his features. "You better hurry."

Deciding it to be better to not answer, Shouto moved along with a sigh. It seemed that the rain was getting everybody's mood down. Speaking of the rain, Shouto could feel his clothes becoming more and more soaked with every second he spent in it. He had deemed the distance between his car and the office building short enough to leave behind his umbrella, but reality was out to prove him wrong.

Shielding his eyes, he looked up at the remains of the tall building looming over him. The entire interior was dark, faint lights of emergency lanterns glimmering here and there, but it was a sad sight compared to the bright facades of the neighbouring buildings.

Not to mention the fact that it was missing it's upmost ten floors.

Shouto sighed once more, entering the building accompanied by the pitter-patter of his dripping wet jacket.

It was pretty amazing that the office was even still standing to the extent it was, and for an explosion spell the damage was oddly… contained. Especially regarding the ceiling, which only sported a handful of leaks. It was the uppermost floor that was still standing, and in-between the thin streams of rain and chaotic furniture was the one and only...

"Took ya' long enough, bastard."

Considering the circumstances, Bakugou's greeting was rather friendly. His investigative partner was leaning into a damaged office chair, feet perched on the burnt remains of a desk.

"Hi."

"As talkative as ever, I see. It's about time you finally got your ass over here, we don't have much time left, y'know?" Bakugou removed his feet from the desk with enough noise to let the entire district know of his movements, but something about his words caught Shouto's attention.

"Time left? You're kidding, right?" He grimaced. Timed spells were tricky to deal with, but… "I mean, they would have told us if it were a timed spell…"

"Hah, I wish. Fucking idiots on the first team to arrive are as blind as goddamn bats. We only found out it was timed after I arrived here." Hands stuffed into his pockets, Bakugou kicked over a nearby trash can. It's contents had been reduced to ashes already, but its metallic clang still rang through the room. "I hate days like these."

"For once, I agree. Rare occasions aside, have you found the source yet?" Shouto glanced around, cracking his knuckles absentmindedly. He had been under the assumption that the spell had concluded with the explosion, but if that wasn't the case, then the entire area was a hazard.

"I tried tracing it down, but I keep getting multiple responses." Bakugou pointed towards three desks and a closed door further at the back. "Four, to be exact. I haven't touched any of them yet, that's your job."

"Thanks." Shouto muttered under his breath, not feeling the least bit grateful. It was so typical of Bakugou to pull something like this.

"You have fun locating that spell, I'll go talk to the researchers in the meantime."

"Researchers?"

"Yeah, apparently the floors that got blown away were part of some kinda research institute. There are a few pretty crafty mages amongst the group, so we kept the uninjured ones around for questioning." His partner explained gruffly. "Don't blow yourself up while I'm gone, Half-n-half." With the screech of his wet boots spinning on the floor, Bakugou left the office area.

Shouto could only roll his eyes, but there were more important things to do than to overthink Bakugou's unique approach to human interactions. First of all…

"Hey, are there any pixies around?" He turned to the officer guarding the door. "I saw some lanterns on the lower floors, so I was hoping one of them could lend me a hand."

"I'll see if any of them can spare a few minutes." The officer nodded and headed towards the staircase, passing the message on to one of the ravens stationed there.

Until then, Shouto decided to turn his attention back to the one thing that had caught his attention earlier.

The closed door in the back opened with a creak, the charred wood dragging across the floor unpleasantly. At first glance, there was nothing of interest in the room, just some storage boxes and and old books. A crate of empty potion bottles was nestled into the corner, the glass already having collected a thick layer of dust.

The entire room seemed to be untouched by the fire.

"Mr. Todoroki, the pixie you asked for."

"I have a name, you know." The pixie huffed, her ear-grating voice doing her entire kind justice. "And I'll have you know I'm expecting a bonus in my salary for working with one of his kind."

Pixies hated fire mages like him for… some kind of convoluted reason. Nobody really knew, but whatever it was, it was a huge pain to deal with.

"I'm trying to find the source of a timed spell… can I ask for your much-needed assistance in this matter?"

"Hah, that's because you hot-headed idiots don't know the delicacies of magic. Let me show you how it's done!"

With prides bigger than their tiny bodies, the only real way to get a pixie to cooperate was to boost its ego. He had learned that the hard way.

But true to her word, the pixie buzzed across the room, sniffing around for the "foul" scent of fire magic. She paused around the spots Bakugou had pointed out, frowning occasionally, before hovering over a desk in the west of the room. "It's here."

Shouto examined the area she was pointing too. feeling a low hum of magic underneath the desk. He reached into his jacket pocket, searching until he found the small glass vial he was looking for.

"Eurgh, at least let me leave before you spill that stuff all over the place. It clogs my nose up so badly." The pixie gagged, eyeing the potion with intense distaste.

"Alright, thank you for helping me."

"Whatever, I'm out of here."

In some kind of weird way, dealing with Bakugou was easier than dealing with them. But back to the matter at hand, he emptied the vial over the designated spot, watching as the symbols of a magic circle began to light up underneath him.

"Bingo." He muttered to himself.

"Hey, I saw a prissy pixie on the way in, did you find anything?" Bakugou's familiar voice asked from behind him.

"Yeah, have a look." Shouto traced his fingers across the magic circle, taking note of every circuit that made up the pattern. "Fire, level 10." He concluded. "There aren't many mages in general who can set up spells of this level."

"In fact, there's only one who comes into question." Bakugou crossed his arms, lips pulling into a grimace. "And let me tell you, that woman is definitely hiding something. Unfortunately, I can't get her to talk without any leads."

"Hmm... I'll try talking to her after I neutralise this and finish investigating the area."

"Miss Yaoyorozu, I have some questions for you."

No response. The woman kept her eyes trained on the table surface, damp black hair framing her face in stark contrast to her lab coat.

Shouto cleared his throat, deciding to press on. "It seems that you are the only mage present that would have had a high enough magic level to cause a fire spell of that size. Do you have anything to say to that?"

"...spell." It was a faint whisper, but he was sure she had said something.

"Could you repeat that?"

"It wasn't a fire spell… Even I could tell as much…" Her voice sounded dry and raspy, but the conviction it held was almost eerie.

Shouto leaned his arms onto the table, hoping that the additional centimetres might make her both more talkative and easier to understand. "What makes you so sure?"

"What makes you so sure it was a fire spell?" Her rebuttal had been unexpected, but, in his opinion at least, rather pointless.

"We found a timed spell at the scene, and I know my magic circles well enough to not mix up basic elements. It's not too much to assume the initial spell was also a fire one."

"But it's still an assumption."

Seriously, this woman… who did she think she was, some kind of teacher lecturing children? "Look, we investigate the scene and draw conclusions from what we find there. We found evidence that at least one fire spell had been used, and that's a fact. If you have any more smartassery to add, you can spare me and answer my questions instead."

"Maybe you should specify your questions a bit more." She clicked her tongue impatiently. "Yes, I'm the highest ranked mage that was present during the incident, but that's not indicative of anything. I'm also telling you that the damage was not caused by a fire spell." Her retort came with a hint of simmering venom, and while he couldn't see much of her face, the sour curl of her lips was giving away her disposition towards him well enough.

"Miss Yaoyorozu, you're the only one that could have initiated a level 10 spell, be it fire or not, so I'm afraid I don't follow your line of logic." Shouto tried to move the interrogation along with a shaky smile. He knew that getting her to talk would be tough, considering that even Bakugou couldn't get her spill anything, but this was... something else.

"For somebody from the Bureau, you're awfully naive. There are enough ways to-" She cut off her sentence midway, much to his surprise. "Forget it."

"Hey, you can't go around saying things like that and then tack on 'forget it' at the end of it. If it's something important, tell me." Even if he did have a good idea of what she way trying to say. He just chose to leave that assumption away from his initial approach.

"What difference would it make? You've already decided that I'm responsible for the damage, haven't you?" She replied, her tone holding a sense of defensive finality.

Shouto sighed, glancing back at the open file in front of him. Their main lead was the magic circle, and leaving magic-enhancing potions out of the equation, she was the only one who could have done it. But she didn't look like a mad arsonist. He's met many criminals over all the time he spent working here, and she just didn't fit the bill. Yes, she was hiding something, and yes, she was awfully suspicious. Arson with malicious intent, however? No.

"It's not looking good for you, but nothing's set in stone yet. That's why you and I are here, trying to talk."

Nothing.

"Hey, between you and me, I have a hard time believing you would do something like this without a good reason." He lowered his voice, keeping it barely audible enough to reach the other side of the table. "So work with me here."

She finally lifted her head, meeting his gaze head-on for the first time. The moment didn't last long, however, as she averted her eyes in the next second. "... You're still investigating our offices, right?"

It wasn't the answer to any of his questions, but right now he was willing to take anything he could get. "Yeah, what of it?"

Miss Yaoyorozu fiddled with a strand of hair, scrunching her brows in deep thought. "In the third drawer under my desk… you'll find a box. If you want to understand the truth behind this situation, I recommend looking at its contents."

She crossed her arms, marking the end of her testimony. "You will be forced to make a choice - and the choice you end up making will prove whether my judgement was right or wrong. That's all."

Shouto didn't move from his spot, not even after the guard led the woman back to her cell. What did she mean by that? What choice? A small seed if hesitation began to bloom in his mind, wondering whether he really wanted to know the answer to that.

"This one?" Bakugou raised a brow at the door. "It was locked when we first got here, so I assumed it had nothing to do with the case, but if you're getting your fucking panties in a twist over it, I ain't stopping you."

"Is it so hard to keep your comments to yourself?" Shouto sighed inwardly. "Just help me break it down."

"Nah, don't feel like it. If it really turns out to have nothing to do with the case, I don't want to get into trouble over something like trespassing." And with that, before Shouto could even finish rolling his eyes, Bakugou had turned around and left.

"Thanks for the help. Not." He shifted his attention back to the door. He couldn't sense anything from behind it, so the theory that this was a trap was starting to dwindle. However, a mage of Miss Yaoyorozu's capacities was sure to have some tricks up her sleeve. He touched the handle, looking for any spell mechanisms, but after finding none, he figured that the only thing keeping him from opening it was really just the lock.

Shouldn't a lead scientist's office have more security than that…?

Whatever the reason may be, it was not his priority right now. Breaking the lock itself wasn't too hard, and even after that there were no surprise booby traps. Odd.

He entered the office, taking in it's surprisingly untouched state. It had seemingly been spared from the damage wrecked outside, paperwork and decor all neatly lined up on the central desk.

"Third drawer, huh?" The desk had three drawers under it, two thin ones, and a third, larger one at the bottom.

This was it, his last chance to bail. It might be a trap made up from non-magic components, after all. But then… then he remembered the look in Miss Yaoyorozu's eyes. During the mere seconds she had looked at him, there was something his intuition had told him.

It was probably the same reason why he had followed through on her words until now.

Because… those eyes… were not the eyes of a liar.

Shouto opened the drawer, choosing to trust his intuition over common sense. Choosing to trust the words of a suspicious woman over the words of his partner.

And there was no trap. No explosion. Nothing. Just… an oval sphere, wrapped tightly in multiple layers of some kind of fabric.

".:."

This was the choice she had mentioned? Carefully, he picked up the sphere, noting it considerable weight in his hands. What the hell was it?

Shouto started peeling away the fabric at the top, until he could feel a rough pattern underneath the remaining layers. And then he sensed it.

The overflowing magic potential leaking through the slits of fabric. The sheer, pure magic it was emitting. Sucking in a deep breath, he hurried to cover it back up before anybody else caught wind of it, ignoring the drops of sweat forming on his forehead. This was bad. Really bad.

He held his breath, listening to his environments. Had Bakugou caught wind of that magic? Shouto waited for Bakugou's heavy footsteps to echo from the hallway, but thankfully, they never came.

Gnawing over his options, he tried to decide what to do from here on. He could put the object back into the desk and pretend he never saw it. That would probably be the smarter option, all things considered. But…

He knew what this thing was now. It was an egg. The egg of a living being. A living being that had an immense amount of magical energy.

He didn't have to be a genius to know what this meant, especially during these times of dwindling magic resources. Against all better judgement, he picked up an empty cardboard box from near the wall and placed the egg inside. After making sure the magic dampening cloth was in place, he covered the egg with random documents from Miss Yaoyorozu's desk, and with a deep breath, he carried it out.

"So, find anything, Mr. Trespasser?" Bakugou's words came out as a mix of smugness and a growl. How he managed to do that, however, would remain a mystery.

"Some research documents that might be of interest." Shouto kept his voice even, nodding towards the box in his arms. "I'll have a closer look at them at home, they might tell us a bit more about the spells used here."

"Heh, have fun. You can forget about me helping you with that."

And for once, just this once, Shouto was grateful for Bakugou's uncooperative disposition.

He set the box down on his coffee table, clearing out the entire area around it. As if the magic could infect his furniture.

Now he was both officially a thief and breaking protocol. Great.

The phone started ringing, jolting him out of his thoughts. A quick glance at the clock told him that it was way past Ashido's working hours, making her an unlikely suspect.

With a deep sigh, he walked over to the ringing piece of plastic and glanced at the number displayed. He didn't recognize it, though.

"Probably a wrong number." He concluded, letting it ring without picking up. The thing in his living room was more important right now.

The box was still sitting there, just as he left it. A part of him half expected it to not be. Warily, he began removing the piles of reports and notes he had hastily dumped on the object of interest, piling them up neatly on the side if only to procrastinate looking at the egg even further.

Unfortunately, all his efforts to avoid the unavoidable were in vain, even with all the excuses his brain began conjuring at these late night hours. What if the magic released attracted too much attention? What if this was the real trap and he was about to blow himself up? What if his initial judgement had been completely off and it wasn't an egg, but actually a highly advanced magic generator that would spell doom for all those that stood too close to it, cursing them for the rest of their lives? Or, worst of all, what if he was forced to openly admit that Bakugou had been right all along? There were so many unanswered questions.

He took a deep breath, clearing all his doubts and speculations. He was a grown man, an adult by all legal terms, even if he didn't feel like one at times. Moreso, he was a Special Investigator for the Magic Bureau. One small, measly egg from an unknown magical creature should have been on his daily routine, not leave him this… wary.

Still, he set up a magic dampening barrier first - admittedly, they were not his forte, but they were part of the job requirements - then proceeded to slowly unwrap the egg. The amount of cloth seemingly increased since the first time he had done this, taking longer than he thought it would, but soon enough the intense wash of magic began leaking from between the fabric once more.

With a leap of faith, Shouto removed the cloth completely, hoping the barrier could it at least long enough for him to examine it. In retrospect, it was incredibly stupid to do this in his living room.

And yet, the sight of the egg's textured surface was enough to drown out those thoughts. He could feel it, the beast's heartbeat, reverberating in sync with the waves of magic.

A living heart. Being used as a tool. For greedy humans afraid of a future without magic.

...it deserved better.