Right, got Red Owl, then Bloodstained Hero, then a Destiny fic to work on before I roll back around to this.
-X Higami X-
"We can deal with it alone, Shougekiha," Higami said carefully into his phone, voice polite but stalwart. The older girl on the other side paused, before humming.
"And if you can't?" She asked.
"You'll be the first to know," Higami said, flicking a card around in his fingers. The thin sheet of Lunargent, silver run through the Supernal until they could act as a focus for magic, stamped with one of the minor arcana and Glyphs of High Speech, glowed. It had cost him more than he cared to admit to get enough silver to 'forge' them… but they were worth it. His magic flowed through them naturally. Acted as a focus and a weapon in one.
And after that one fight with those werewolves…
"I shouldn't let you do this," Shougekiha said, "but~ I trust you, Hi-Kun. As much as anyone in our life trusts anyone else. Stop them before they hurt anyone, please."
"Oh," Higami said, magic glowing around him, "We will."
Hanging up, Higami crashed back onto the couch in his Sanctum… though he currently wasn't alone. Though on some level he wished he was.
It wasn't that Sasayaku was bad company. Quiet, skittish, clearly uncomfortable in the abandoned subway station Shukumei Higami made his home, yes. But the boy with a face like rock, the one he had seen in his Awakening so long ago, wasn't bad company.
It was that Higami himself still wasn't used to having partners. Ever since the end of his practice with Kiha, he had been a bit of a lone wolf despite Hankyo's best efforts. It was easier that way.
People thought of Acanthus as almost careless. Like they didn't care about the lives of their cabalmates. It was a bit more complicated than that. The truth was, you got risky with people's lives because you had seen them die. Over, and over and over again. The first time, it was a tragedy. The second time, it was disgusting (because you should have been better). The third time, it was painful… and by the seventh? By the seventh, it was a farce comedy.
Sometimes, the 'risky' maneuver you had done was precog'ing and watching not doing it end with your ally's head splatter blood across the sidewalk as a brick fell 'conveniently' at the right time to kill them. Magical warfare between Acanthus often didn't look like warfare, because it was perhaps the most subtle. It was the way they were, while not impossible, few of those who entered Arcadia were capable of manipulating the Forces.
While manipulation was normally a stereotype associated with the Mastigos, rummaging around through someone's head was their staple… Higami was quite aware that Acanthus were just better at hiding it. They had probably already seen the conversation you were having.
Leaning on the leather couch he had bought through… less than honest means, if he was honest (so a few people had lost their money in supernaturally rigged card games. Like a casino, legitimate or otherwise, wouldn't have done the same?), he drummed his fingers. Awkward silence stretched, and Izuku opened up Hero Watch and flicked to the Shinjuku sub-forum. Maybe someone in there had seen the Brotherhood?
- X Koji X-
Koji watched Higami spin a card in one hand, a phone in the other. It was… it was a simple gesture. Deceptively so, considering what he had seen him do in the six months since he had joined the formerly two man cabal. Three, when the bubbly girl showed up on occasion.
Those were the worst days since he Awakened. It wasn't the girl's fault, she was, in fact, the only member of the group who was capable of using Japanese Sign Language. But when she showed up, it normally meant things were going wrong.
Or she wanted to compare notes with Higami about something she had done or watch TV or play video games. One of those. But most of the time, if Koji was there, it was the first.
Like with the werewolves. It had been… been...
..Higami who was the first to notice them, his left eye, which had misted over for a second, had snapped to attention as suddenly as the metal cards hissed over themselves. He said something in his own unique form of Accented High Speech, the language of the Pre-Fall mixing with Japanese so old it might as well have been a different language. The… older (they had been put together because they were in the same age group, but Higami sure looked older than him) man sped up suddenly, silver flashing in the moonlight as green eyes hardened to emeralds.
Five, ten, fifteen, twenty. Twenty enchanted cards flew out, nineteen into the lead wolf's chest while the last slid through the fun on the top of the back, leaving smoldering skin in its wake. It fell, writing and convulsing before it collapsed.
"Werewolves," Higami growled, his quirked grin fading to a snarl. More cards flicked out, and he stepped over the body so he could fall back-to-back with Shougekiha. An Imago, the form of a spell before it had been created, formed around her as she held out her arms. And then, a torrent of blue fire poured down her arms and out towards the nearest wolf.
- X Kyoka X-
Kyoka turned down the alley after stopping and making sure it was the right one for the third time that night. Ok, first, how the hell did Higami even find this place to begin with, second, how did he keep finding it and third, why was it so damn far away!?
Ok, so those questions were rhetoric. He had found it through his very much preternatural ability to understand Mustafu like the back of his hand. The same was true for the second question. And the third was a combination of letting him be in relative isolation when he felt like being an anti-social bastard and that it was built over one of the two Hallows, places where Supernal energy had been trapped in the Fallen World, in Mustafu.
The other, unsurprisingly given Hallows tendency to gravitate towards high places and the fact that even Sleepers got a 'good feeling' about locations with one that they couldn't place, was under UA itself. So pretty much on lockdown by Sleepers, and therefore a damn waste of potential.
Familiar spells, powered by the Hallow she was approaching, passed over Kyoka. Time, Fate and even Space and Matter. Ready to begin a series of 'unfortunate accidents' at the first sign of hostility. The Imago of a Praxis, one of her signature spells, formed around her. The spells stopped, and then let her pass with little more than a light hum. Then her phone went off. Kyoka glanced at it, before raising it to her ear, "Hey, Kiha."
"Kyo-Chan~!" The older mage said, before her voice dropped, uncharacteristically serious, "I need the location of that Brotherhood base you're gonna be fighting."
"Why?" Kyoka asked.
"Just wanna be around if anything goes wrong," Shougekiha said with a hum, "You know?"
"Yeah," Kyoka said, "I'll text you the address."
"Thanks!" She cheered, then hung up. Kyoka shot the address to her through text, and then finished the trek to a door and down the staircase into the Sanctum.
It had been a couple of months since she had last been here, which meant that Higami had remodeled again. New couches, a bigger and better TV with several consoles hooked up to it, a workbench full of wrenches in one corner and a kitchenette made up the main room. Off to the sides, a changing room, bedroom and the room of the Sanctum where Higami actually did his studying of Magic and 'watched tape' sat. Larger than it should have been, but a bit of Space magic tied to a Hallow wasn't the difficult thing in the world.
Speaking of the Acanthus, he was sitting on the couch, flicking a tarot card between his fingers. The green and black riverboat gambling suit he wore slightly messily, with the standout example being that the red tie being scrunched up.
"I'm here," she said.
"Yep," Higami said, gesturing for her and Sasayaku to take some seats, "You want to explain what we're dealing with to Sasa, or should I?"
"You do it," Kyoka said, stepping behind a curtain to change, "I need to do an equipment check."
"Alright," Higami drawled.
- X Higami X-
"Sit down," Higami nodded to Sasayaku, who did so. Izuku stopped flipping the card and then, with an equally careless gesture, used a slight of hand to return it to one of the wrist mounted holster for each half of the major Arcana. Higami sighed, "Do you know the Promethean Brotherhood?"
No, Sasayaku signed, just slow enough for Higami to pick up on. Why did Kiha give him a mute kid? She knew he couldn't use JSL, he knew she knew.
...Also, why was he calling Sasayaku a kid? They were the same age, heck, he might be older than Izuku was. But… uhg…
He really, really didn't want to be doing this.
"The Brotherhood," Higami breathed in, chewing the inside of his cheek and thinking how to start. Finally he picked the option that seemed easiest, even if it was only tangentially related, "It doesn't have anything to do with the Prometheans you might meet one day. Those people are what happens when a Sleeper tries to play Alchemist and bring back the dead. These… aren't. They're Sleepers, Sleepwalkers a lot of the time, and they're technically Hunters."
Higami fell silent, eyes trailing, "We don't know how they came around. But they've got a spell, and no, we don't know how they can use it… I'm honestly surprised we're the first to get to them, they're not well liked. It rips the Magic from you, Yaku. They kill you and take your magic. And if you're lucky, that's all they'll do. There's horror stories of them eating people, or torturing them for hours. We don't know if the Spell gets stronger that way or… point is, we're going after them tonight. We're gonna catch them and clear them out. If we don't do it a Vampire will, or a Werewolf, or an actual Promethean, or any of the other Supernaturals that live in this world. And they won't do it quickly, so let's go and give a swift death to evil."
Listen to him, he sounded like a humorless thug. A week from now he'd be at the UA Entrance Exam and now he was plotting the death of men and women.
Just pretend they were Seers to the Throne. That'd make it easier until he was there, and then he'd see what they'd done, and it'd be easier to justify.
"You ready?" Higami asked towards the changing room. Hankyo stepped out, a leather motorcycle jacket zipped up and a black scarf around her neck, her jacks tucked into it, and fishnet stockings under a black skirt and tucked into combat boots.
"Yeah," Hankyo said, before turning towards Sasayaku, "You don't have to come in with us, Higami and I will do the dirty work. Just keep an eye out for us, ok?"
Yes, Sasayaku signed, and Hankyo offered him a smile over her scarf before pulling it up over her mouth.
- X Hankyo X-
Hankyo frowned into her scarf as they made their way through the streets of Shinjuku. Higami walked even with her, while Sasayaku trailed behind them. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Higami play with his bunched up tie and, for a moment, she let a smile crack across her face despite the grim situation they were approaching, "Why do you wear that if you can't get it right?"
"I'll figure it out eventually," Higami grumbled good naturedly, grinning at her. She snorted, smiling back over her scarf.
"It's been years, Hi," She teased, "if you're gonna do that, you better get on it. What're you seeing?"
"I…" the grin flickered off Higami's face for a second, his left eye staring into nothingness as he pulled his hat low, "They must have stolen power from a mage with some skill in time magic or something. I'm being blocked out. We enter the building, and then… everything becomes hazy."
Hankyo reached up, touching where her balisong machines were hidden in her jacket. That wasn't good, that wasn't good at all. Higami had taken to glancing forward so often that trying to block him out was… bad… "Should we suspect a fight?"
"We should anyways," Higami pointed out, "but we'll probably know more once we reach the place. How far are we?"
"Couple of streets," she said, and Higami nodded towards Sasayaku.
"Go find a place to wait, this shouldn't take long."
Are you sure? Sasayaku signed.
"Yeah," Higami said, continuing forwards, "And if things get loud… well, better for you to be further away."
Hankyo followed him, side eyeing Higami, "What's wrong?"
"I'm about ready to call in Kiha and have her blow the building up," he said, voice low, "for a member of the Brotherhood to be able to block me, they would have had to have killed a powerful mage. I-"
Higami's words died as they stepped towards the building, their Mage Sight activated. Or, well, in Hankyo's case it was more like her Mage Synesthesia. There was something… not right about this, a bloody red-howl, "Weapons out?"
Higami reached into an alleyway, a conveniently placed chain rattling as he gripped it. Hankyo took that as a yes, pulling out her machetes and opening them. Higami began weaving mind magic around them, and they made their way towards the nexus of the discordant-stain-noise-color. Nobody stepped in their way as they reached it, and Hankyo shared one last look with Higami before he pushed open the door slightly and glanced in.
His face became serious, and he dropped the chain shrugging off his coat and handing it to her, "Do me a favor, Kyo. Go make sure there's no cameras."
Hankyo glanced around the yellowing walls of the rundown apartment, "Hi, they don't-"
"Please," he said, meeting her eyes with both of his as he looked perturbed, and Hankyo suddenly realized he was asking her not because he didn't want her to see whatever he saw, but because he was legitimately hoping there would be some.
"Ok," Hankyo said, stepping away as he slid into the room.
- X Higami X-
Shukumei Higami had been a Mage for the better part of the decade. In that time, he had fought with Werewolves, argued with Vampires, been shot at by Hunters, fist fought a Sin Eater over a game of chance and nearly any other variation of those words you cared to use. He had, in layman's terms, 'seen some shit'.
But he was still distinctly nonplussed by the splattering of blood across the walls. Mouths hung open like their owners hadn't expected it, and knives, guns and assorted other weapons lay near their body. It shouldn't have surprised him, he had warned Sasayaku himself that the Brotherhood was a group with more enemies than they had friends, but…
This still didn't seem right. Why leave the guns? They could be sold for a small fortune on the streets, with the Yakuza nearly out of the picture. And leaving evidence like this wasn't something most Supernaturals would go for. Even in the world of Quirks, a gang of eight men and women butchered like this wasn't going to go unnoticed. Maybe among Sleepers, but among the Sleepwalkers, or the Awakened?
Higami reached for his pocket, only to stop as he realized he had handed his coat, and the gloves he kept in them to keep his fingerprints off potential evidence, to Hankyo. Breathing in, he reached down and picked up the gun from the puddle of partially congealed blood. Whoever had done this had done it recently. The blood had cooled, but wasn't fully hardened yet, nor had rot begun to set in.
Quietly, Izuku wondered what it meant that he could tell that this easily. He pushed it aside, focusing on the gun. A revolver in… .357? Strange, Hunters normally used heavier rounds. The .454 Casull he had once paid good money to have a member of the Hototogisu to remove had been evidence of that.
He supposed it made sense, if you couldn't afford silver bullets, logic dictated you went for the biggest round available (not that it would help against a werewolf or vampire).
Back on topic, Higami frowned. Not a single round had been fired.
"Hi?" Higami's eyes snapped to Hankyo, whose eyes raked over the room as she hung his door on the door handle, "Nothing."
"Dang," Higami muttered, trying to hide the bitterness from his voice as he rolled up his sleeves and pulled out both halves of his deck, spreading them around him, and carefully avoiding all the puddles of blood, "Gonna have to go backwards, I guess. Keep an eye out? I don't want to get jumped."
Hankyo nodded, pulling up her scarf and clutching her knives. Higami shot a nervous grin at her before the cards began to flip over. Despite of the fact that they had been split in two and both halves thoroughly shuffled, they were in perfect order.
World, Judgment, Sun, Moon, Star, Tower, Devil, Temperance, Death, Hanged Man, Justice, Wheel of Fortune, Hermit, Strength, Chariot, Lovers, Hierophant, Emperor, Empress, High Priestess, Magician, Fool. The arcana flowed in reverse around him, and before his eyes the room did too, slowly at first, but quicker until he slammed a hand down. The cards glowed, and Higami stepped out of the circle, a ghost in time. Not really here, even as he watched the men and women mill around, one man, the one he had picked up the gun of, seated on the threadbare couch as another dug a far too sharp fingernail out of his gut.
Well, they could have done that a little more safely, not that it mattered. Consider things would go wrong any second no-
"Fucking Wizard," he spat as the nail was finally removed, glancing towards one of the other Hunters, "hurry up!"
"Don't order me around," the red haired woman hissed, glowering at him but stepping forwards nonetheless. The twisted, corrupted Imago flared and it took every nerve in Higami's body to not attempt to throttle the woman. It wouldn't have done anything, but it confirmed they had killed a mage recently
Behind them, the door clicked, and everyone stopped. Then the door flew open and the closest Hunter to it was lifted off his feet by an invisible Force and dashed against the wall half a foot from Higami. He tensed, Imagos flickering into existence. One, two, three, four… Five.
Hell, five mages had done this? They should have known to be more careful. What were they-?
Space warped, Time slowed, Forces crashed and Matter flowed. Higami locked up as the Gross magic roared into existence and then massacred the Hunters in seconds, the one Higami had taken the gun from being flensed by wind. No subtlety. What, why weren't they afraid of the Aby-
And then one of the Mages stepped in, his his head covered by the hood of his sweat shirt as he staring down the survivor, the one who had stolen the power, the corrupted Imago flared around them, claws forming from their fingers and-
Blood exploded outwards, splattering across the walls. The woman fell backwards, nearly in two as the mage lowered their hand with a disgusted look at it. Then, for a second his grey eyes flickered to where Higami stood… and that's when everything went wrong.
It was like someone had shoved something into his chest. It wasn't cold, but it wasn't hot either. It wasn't sharp but it wasn't dull. Those all implied it was something. Unreality waged with the Supernal and Izuku had just enough time to realize what, who, had killed the Hunters before he was forced to make a painful decision.
Banishers. Timori. The Fearful. Those whose Awakening had gone wrong, who feared magic instead of loved it.
The Abyss tore at the control of his magic and Izuku was forced to make a tactical decision. Keep it in, or let it out? With Kyoka there, it wasn't even a question.
Izuku slammed back into his body, feeling his chest burn like he was having a heart attack, and he very well might be as the out of control magic tore at him. But then again, it might have been even worse. It might have been the magic actively tearing his cardiovascular system apart.
"Call," he rasped out, falling into Kyoka's arms as he struggled to reach his coat and his phone, "Call, Ne-"
"Right," Kyoka said softly, picking him up alongside his cards and grabbing his coat, "just relax, I'll call Sasayaku and then her."
-X ? X-
It took her about ten minutes to land on the rooftop they were sitting on, rushing towards them as Sasayaku poured magic into Izuku. His head was turned on it's side, like they were afraid he was going to choke on his own vomit. Slowly, her hands closed into fists and her cheerfulness faded entirely.
"What happened?" 'Shougekiha', Walker of the Sixth Watchtower, Hado Nejire demanded quietly.
"We have Banishers in Tokyo," Izuku responded, throat sounding worn out.