Oh, look. Psycho's having a meltdown and posting a new story by cutting a chapter short. Must be the second Sunday of the month.
Feel free to ask questions if you don't know much about the World of Darkness, much of the info dump got axed for next chapter
- X Izuku X-
The ever present, easy smile on Midoriya Izuku's face shrank, just a bit, as his burner phone went off with the phone call he knew was coming. He put his chopsticks down, standing up and smiling at his Mom, "Do you mind if I take this?"
"No," Inko said, shaking her head, "Who is it?"
"Kyoka, probably," Izuku said, stepping into his room and shutting the door, locking it with a click, "Shukumei Higami."
"Higami," Hankyo said, voice low as Izuku pinned the flip phone to his ear in the crook of his shoulder and pulled out a pack of worn tarot cards from his desk, splitting the Major Arcana from the Minor and began shuffling like a weaver, so little mana it didn't even count as a mote flowing through his body, "Koda found the group."
Tower in the upright position.
Well, well, well, they were starting off good today, weren't they?
"Where?" Izuku asked, drawing the next card.
Justice in the upright position.
"Apartment in Shinjuku, I'll tell you more at the base," she said, before pausing, "What're the cards saying?"
"Give me a second," Izuku finished, pulling out the last card.
Devil in the reversed position.
"Tower, Justice, Reversed Devil," Izuku said, sweeping the cards back up and shuffling the cards again before returning them to the deck, "How soon can you be there?"
"Same as ever," Hankyo said, "about an hour. We doing this tonight?"
Izuku flipped a coin, catching it and glancing down. Heads, "Yes. Tell Sasayaku to fall back to the safehouse, I'll see you then."
"See you then," Hankyo said, phone clicking off and leaving Izuku to stand in the room, breathing in.
"Mom!" He called, opening the door, "Kyoka and Koji are in Tokyo! I'm gonna go out with them tonight!"
Inko looked up, practically beaming. She had been so happy when he had made friends again, and going out was just part of that, "Ok, just don't be home too late!"
He wouldn't if he could avoid it. Giving Inko a brief hug, he stepped out of the house and rushed away. About two blocks away, he ducked into an alleyway and applied a bit of Time magic to himself after making sure nobody was around, since he'd prefer not to risk the burst of Paradox, thank you very much. Facial hair sprouted out of his clean shaven face into a full beard, his hair grew long and lost its curls like his mom's. And with that, for the moment at least, Midoriya Izuku had passed into shadows.
It was Shukumei Higami who stepped out of the alley, silently dancing a two headed American quarter on his fingers. Followers of the Lie had been found, and that meant he reckoned it was time for a reckoning.
Higami might not like it, but there would be blood and death before the night was up. They may not be Seers, but the Promethean Brotherhood weren't much better in the eyes of this Libertine, even if it was only a few Hunters. Magic, while meant for everyone, shouldn't be stolen from an Awakened. It was one step away from walking the Left Handed Path.
- X Kyoka X-
Jiro Kyoka, "Houko Hankyo" in the magical world, closed her eyes and listened to the music as the bullet train exited the station and took her towards Mustafu. Not the music of her phone, that was just there so people didn't look at her strangely, but the music of the world.
That was where she was distinctly different from many of her peers that walked the Watchtower of the Golden Key. She wasn't particularly religious, even after staring out into what could have only been called Heaven and watched the Forces rock it. She didn't consider what she had found God there, not in the traditional sense.
For her, it was the music. The roar of fire and the crash of thunder, the hiss of solar wind and the rumbling of the earth. In so many ways the Sleepers around her couldn't even begin to comprehend, the world was so many different instruments merged together.
Not that it was their fault. Even if they were Awake, she wasn't sure they would be able to open their mind to it. That was what the Watchtowers were for, so the person going through the Awakening could see the Truth in a way that they understood it. She had tried to explain Aether to Higami once, and he had just given her a blank eyed look. Maybe it was because Arcadia was so thoroughly divorced from Forces.
But either way, from someone who had always been two steps ahead of anyone who wasn't another Acanthus, and tended to get serious if things weren't looking good in their future… that look, that inability to comprehend most of what Kyoka had seen when she had danced in the Watchtower, it had made her want to drop the topic on the spot.
And when she had asked him…
"What did I see?" He had laughed, dancing a coin in increasingly elaborate ways, "I think it's easier to say what I didn't see in Arcadia, Houko. All of it will be true and none of it won't be. Isn't that the great thing?
Pushing on the Sympathetic Bond between the two, Kyoka waited a second.
What's up? Higami asked.
Everything alright?
Should be fine, he said, You want to give me the information no-?
Last time I did that we had to bail your sorry ass outta a fight, Kyoka immediately shot at him, cracking a small smile at the nervous 'laugh' that came a second later.
I knew you were gonna-
Doesn't mean I'm not giving you the chance to again, Hi.
Fine, fine, Higami huffed, I'm gonna go play some-
And don't do anything that wastes Mana, she ordered.
Like contacting me over kilometers? he asked, I could probably find them-
I can hear you, she deadpanned.
Joking, joking, and by the music, Kyoka couldn't tell if he was being serious or not. Not about finding the Prometheans before she got there, she didn't doubt he could if he put his mind to it (only hadn't, because the case had started near her home), but if he wouldn't do it if he had the chance. Higami was significantly more outwardly serious than many of his peers, but he still had the streak of diving in head first without a fear that made up those who saw Arcadia.
Just… go play some cards, she said in exasperation. Might as well give him that much, so he didn't do something worse, Or go bug the Nakatomi-En so they know why we're doing something in their territory.
The conspicuous silence told Kyoka that Higami had completely spaced that maybe, maybe telling the local Consilium that three out-of-city mages would be getting up to their necks in shit was a good idea. Which meant every type of supernatural being in Tokyo, plus some other Hunter cells, would have been looking at the area. And Tokyo, as the biggest city in the world… well, it was easier to say what type didn't live there, using Quirks to live from day to day without anyone expecting anything.
Vampire, Werewolf, Sin-Eater, Changeling and Beast all hid within the beating heart of Japan. And something about the city made them more sensitive to the manipulation of the Supernal then they were in other places.
But perhaps it wasn't surprising it hadn't crossed Higami's mind. He was ultimately an Urbanite, a member of the Watchers of the City (a group that had broken off of the House of Ariadne after a philosophical dispute about the nature of the threads they both revered). To him, Mustafu and Tokyo were his territory. He could navigate them like a map had been seared into his mind, finding hidden places as easily as a regular person could find a landmark. Whether they be the once abandoned location they used for their Sanctum, or seedy gambling houses to swindle out of their money.
And in Mustafu, there wasn't really anyone to contest the claim that he ruled. Not when it came to Awakened, at least. Despite UA's placement, few Mages cared about Heroic enough to turn their eyes towards it, either obsessed with the lost Atlantis or fighting against the Seers. And those that did were normally Seers of the Throne, plunging them immediately into conflict with the Libertine. And the other supernatural, if they existed there, didn't care to contest his control of the city in the Nameless War. Meanwhile most Hunters were smart enough to recognize poking the sleeping dragon in his lair was a bad idea when he wasn't hurting anyone who didn't deserve it.
But Tokyo wasn't the same. And he had to be reminded of that sometimes.
Izuku refused to show the pain from the burns, keeping a steady smile on his face as he wandered towards home. Kacchan really needed to learn how to control the power of his Quirk. It had been two years, and he wasn't any better at controlling it during their games. And the burns stung.
Stepping forwards, Izuku felt something crawl up his right side, while heat did the same to the left… and in front of him, brambles formed. Somewhere, pressed down by the weight of what he would later come to call a lucid dream, something told him this was wrong. That he shouldn't be seeing this, that this wasn't how the world worked…
The last gasp of the Lie trying to stop him. But it wouldn't work, it couldn't work.
Izuku stepped forward towards the brambles...
Izuku turned towards the Shadows and Death.
Izuku turned towards the Flames and Punishment.
… and as the first thistles tore into him, leaving a pain that wasn't a pain, the potential behind him was torn to pieces, yet remained as an echo of an echo. In the timeless place Izuku had entered, where everything was true, something had become undeniably untrue...
But at the same time, they were so true that they continued to exist. In defiance of Fate, in defiance of the Abyss, the paths Izuku could have walked but didn't still existed without a doubt. It should have been a paradox, but in this land of pure Truth it wasn't. Izuku would never walk through the fires of Pandemonium and face the torture of his demons to reach the Watchtower of the Iron Gauntlet. He would never wander the infinite graveyard that was Stygia and find the Watchtower of the Lead Coin. But there would always be a forgotten echo of what could have been.
Each time a thistle caught him, before his eyes something that could have been, could be, appeared in front of him. Him floating objects around him as a young boy, or breathing fire, or bolts of fire floating around him. Each time they tore away, true yet untrue in a way different from the previous ones. He was Quirkless, but there were times where he could have not been in this spiraling path he was on.
An image of him older, moving objects on a beach with a blonde haired man watching him. Another of him practicing with a white scarf as a black haired man stood behind him. One looking at him with unashamed pride, the other hiding it behind his own scarf.
His father coming home, sharing a hug with his mother and then him. His father abandoning them. His father a villain, his father a hero.
In the distance, thunder rumbled and lightning hit the ground visible from a strange hole in the brambles with such force that it shook the ones Izuku was walking through. More potentials flashed through his mind as it sent more thorns into his body.
A brown haired girl with rosey cheeks, a black hard one smiling, a blonde with glasses, a pink skinned one with horns, a boy with two toned hair.
Marriages, children, divorces. A hurricane of feeling around Izuku as he pushed forward, not even sure where he was going anymore and not really caring. These were real, but they weren't real. Who would want to be friends with a Quirkless Deku? Let alone marry them?
The next cuts showed more. Kacchan apologizing, a red haired boy slapping Izuku on the back, a blond haired boy crackling with electricity.
A boy with features like a rock quietly giving hand signs towards Izuku.
He was almost there now, wherever there was. He could feel it in his bones, in his soul.
Another bramble. Here, he was with a different group. A man with chapped lips, another with burn scars across his body and skin grafts stapled to his face, a girl with blonde hair draped across him, a man of black mist. A picture of Kacchan sat front and center on the board.
Finally, Izuku stepped out of the brambles, realizing that at some point, he had begun to go higher and higher until he was at the top of a massive tower under the moon. In the distance, uncontrollable storms raged in the clear sky. The ground writhed like a living thing. Kingdom rose and fell and rose again in seconds, knights and dragons killed and ate each other. Men on stags rode across the sky hunting other men running across shattering planes only to vanish into nothingness without any warning just before the charge hit home.
It was beautiful.
Casting his eyes around the tower, Izuku noticed a burning stone firepit in the center. Flames that were green, and blue, and orange, and gold cast the names scratched into it in light. Other people who had been here, who had seen this beautiful place.
It wasn't an Individuality, but somehow that made it more beautiful. Everyone should be allowed to see it.
Reaching down and cracking off a thorn, Izuku leaned down to find a free place to add his name. One stood out, free and front and center.
Midoriya Izuku
Izuku stepped back, sitting on the tower and watching the twisting and turning of Fates in front of him. Of Time slaying kings and destroying mountains. Learning with each bit.
The Truth had been revealed to him, and never again would he believe the Lie.
- X AN X-
Thoughts, questions, Opinions? Good? Bad? Meh?
