Chapter 0 - Prologue
Ｎｅｗ Ｙｏｒｋ, ＵＳ
Sirius lifted his head up in a sudden jolt. The shake of his surroundings brought his fatigued, still half asleep mind into full discharge. That was when he remembered that he had just gotten on a bus a couple moments ago, before falling asleep like a log had made him completely lose track of time.
Quite dangerous, he immediately inferred, worrying that he might have missed his stop. Sirius checked his watch; half past seven—not quite late, he supposed, which was pleasing. He forced his own body up, even if it was still a bit tired, and checked his surroundings. The dimly lit, lonely interior of the public bus greeted him and its other occupants. He quickly searched for the indicators, which he easily spotted from the orange LED lighting, and sighed in relief when he saw that he hadn't missed his stop.
The young man slouched back down onto the plastic seating, waiting yet again. His eyes wandered off into the darkness outside the vapor stained window, watching the streetlights pass by before the sight of an American suburb. His inner peace was cut quite short, however, when he felt a chill down his arms. He glanced down, towards the sleeves of his dark overcoat, and saw goosebumps standing at the edge of his wrists.
Right. He had dreamt of something. Something important, he deduced. But what was it? It couldn't have been quite mundane to have made him feel as unnerved as he was, so why was it that he could not remember?
The bus stopped with a screech the second he stopped asking. He glanced up, and saw the words "Green Avenue Rd." written boldly on the indicator. This was his stop.
The man tapped his transit pass on the reader machine next to the driver's seat and hastily got himself, along with a briefcase that he had brought with him, down onto the sidewalk outside. The bus continued on towards the rest of the night as he stayed under the open night sky, covered in the winter's chill. He pulled the hem of his overcoat front tighter towards each other, before looking around the neighborhood.
"The house on the 14th," Sirius mused to himself, "If it was one number short, this situation would be quite foreboding."
He took a short walk before finding the house in question. He paused for a moment to observe his surroundings, especially the house itself. Externally, he spotted nothing abnormal; a very modern-like, two story house with a driveway; it blended nicely into the neighborhood as far as the man could tell. However, the blinds on all the windows had been oddly covered, some rooms had been darkened but the porch light indicated a resident or residences.
The man got up onto the porch and knocked on the door, to which a middle aged lady answered.
"Yes?" She said, quite meekly.
"Hello, I am Sirius Wilsk," He answered, "I'm the… private specialist you called for."
The lady gasped, "I thought you'd be taller!"
Sirius grimaced, but enough for her to not notice. "Are you Mrs. Thornn?" He inquired, to which the lady nodded, "May I come in?"
He stepped inside as soon as the lady opened the door and was met with the sight of a quite lovely suburban sight of an interior, if not a bit dark. And as the lady closed the front door behind him, he started to notice things he didn't from the outside.
"Have you called anyone else?"
The lady shook her head, "No cops. No heroes. Like you said."
"Something smells…" Sirius pondered, "Is someone boiling water?"
"No…" Mrs. Thornn approached him, offering to take off his coat for her to hang, "That's what we called you here for…"
Sirius got a good look at the lady of the house. She had bags under her eyes, her behavior was as if she hadn't seen sleep for a couple of days. And what's more, she was dressed in minimum clothing yet still sweating like mad. How could such a thing naturally occur when it was the middle of November?
"Honey, who is it?!" Another voice shouted from the second floor up the flight of stairs.
Sirius turned my head to see what he assumed to be the man of the house. He was quite robust, taller than SIrius was, and he was wearing even minimal clothing than her wife with a tanktop and shorts. There were also glasses framing his head, and they too had odd traits on them, namely the mist forming around the rims as if they had been inside a sauna.
When the man came down, Sirius also saw him sweating as if he had just been out under the sun.
"Sirius Wilsk?" He asked. For a man his size, he seemed a little unnerved before the private specialist.
"Yes?"
"About the payment. I regret to say I don't have it right now. I need to see if you're—"
Once more, Sirius grimaced. The last thing he wanted was to have the portrayal of a pampered private service worker that demanded money above all else for him to do his work. People who needed his help would always worry about paying him when, in reality, money was never important in the first place. He never did this gig to be rich.
"It's alright," Sirius assured him, "Just show me where she is."
Mr. Thornn stared at him with skeptical eyes for a moment, before nodding and urged Sirius to follow him upstairs. Every step Sirius took up the flight, he could feel the air start to humidify more and more. Something was definitely wrong, and he feared it wasn't the case of a malfunctioning Quirk or anything alike. The man led Sirius to the last door on the end of the dark second floor hallway, and when he opened it, the specialist was immediately blasted with sudden heat.
The amount of steam and vapor that exploded out of the room caught him off guard. And only a few seconds later did Sirius realize that he was staring into a bathroom, one with an occupied bathtub at the end.
A little girl not older than 6 was submerged in it as an incredible amount of steam was intensifying around her. Sirius could see her skin reddening painfully from the heat, and the look on her face as if she was on the edge of losing consciousness. The specialist was this close to bursting out in confusion towards Mr. Thornn, before he noticed several bags around the tub labeled "ICE", as well as the uncountable amount of ice cubes floating around the little girl's body, filling the surface to its brim.
"Is she…" Sirius started.
"Yes," Mr. Thornn answered, looking at his daughter in the tub with troubled eyes, "She's been like this for a week. We thought it was just a fever at first, until she gradually got hotter and hotter and we couldn't even lift her out of the tub without burning ourselves anymore."
The specialist tried to recollect his thoughts, "And you're certain it's not Quirk puberty? Late Quirk manifestation?"
Mr. Thornn only looked at him with his eyebrows furrowed, "Yes. Like we've told you over the phone, she's Quirkless."
Sirius felt himself starting to lose his nerve. Now he knew that they were right to call him. This was certainly one of the few special cases only he could solve. A regular police force would have just taken her away, fix her in their own way. Days could pass, perhaps, if the incident was solved that way. But the Thornns didn't want that choice, and Sirius could respect that.
But he couldn't quite focus on pinpointing exactly what he should be doing first from the sheer concern he had just looking at the house owner's daughter.
"D-Dad…? Is that y-you…?" The little girl called out weakly.
"I'm here sweety!" Mr. Thornn immediately approached her, carefully putting a distance between himself and the source of heat, "Don't move around okay?"
"It hurts…"
"I know, sweety, I know," He was on the verge of crying, Sirius could tell, "We'll get you fixed soon, I promise."
Then, Sirius watched as Mr. Thornn slowly turned his attention towards the younger man. Looking for an answer, a solution, anything. To which Sirius answered back with a question:
"Do you have any oven mittens?"
Sirius sat himself down on a small, children's chair in front of the steaming tub. He discarded his business suit, and left himself with only a plain white shirt and a tie. That, and a pair of mittens that he now had in his possession.
He looked into the eyes of little Cassie Thornn, barely able to keep themselves open due to how unbelievably weak she was. Her reddened chest was rising very slowly, gradually losing its pace with every cough, every sniffle, from the unending steam that formed around her, suffocating her, as it was suffocating Sirius.
He had to finish this quickly. Lest, he'd be prolonging her suffering.
"Can you hear me, Cassie?" He spoke softly, "My name is Sirius Wilsk. I'm the one who will be helping you, tonight…"
Cassie slowly turned her head his way, "... What's happening to me…"
Softly, Sirius smiled. He didn't want to tell her anything short of the truth, "Something terrible, I'm afraid. But it's alright. It's not unfixable, as far as I'm concerned. Which is why I'm here."
With that said, Sirius averted his attention towards the oven mittens and helped himself to them. Behind him, he felt movement, to which he passed a glance at it and noticed the silhouette of Cassie's parents, watching impatiently just behind the door frame outside the bathroom.
"Step back, please," Sirius spoke to them in a softer tone. He worried not from that point on with what they had decided to do with his warning. If something out of proportion were to happen, he could only pray that they wouldn't get caught in the middle of it.
With his nerves steeled, Sirius reached out his hand. Even protected by the thick mittens he could still feel the heat coming from the girl. Yet, the young man marched on, and finally, he was able to touch her forehead.
Sirius hissed in pain and pulled his hand back instinctively. What heat! And this was coming from a Quirkless girl… It's a wonder how she could survive being in this state for a week.
With every courage he could muster, he shot his palm out one last time and let the mittens make contact with Cassie's head. Sirius' fingers, the skin on his palm, all of them burned up within seconds. He could see the steam rising from where the mittens touched the girl, and felt the fibers starting to catch fire from his end. He couldn't waste any more time, he closed his eyes…
"Feel the heat from behind the fiber…"
"Feel the heart behind her flesh,"
"Feel the mind behind her heart,"
"Feel the soul behind her mind..."
"Call into the void, see who answers…"
"..."
"𝕎𝕙𝕠𝕠𝕠𝕠'𝕤 𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕖𝕖𝕖𝕖𝕖𝕖𝕣𝕖…."
Sirius opened his eyes, the pain in his hand still burning like he couldn't believe. He maintained his breathing, steadily trying to hold back the unbearable heat, "I should be the one asking that…"
"𝔾𝕠𝕠𝕠𝕠 𝕒𝕨𝕒𝕒𝕒𝕒𝕒𝕒𝕪𝕪𝕪𝕪….. 𝕋𝕙𝕚𝕤𝕤𝕤𝕤𝕤 𝕠𝕟𝕖𝕤𝕤𝕤𝕤𝕤𝕤𝕤𝕤 𝕞𝕚𝕟𝕖𝕖𝕖𝕖𝕖𝕖…."
Suddenly, the heat intensified. He gasped in pain, and Cassie cried under her breath as she too felt her body's heat escalate.
"Crap!" Sirius said in agony, before steeling his nerves and thoughts once more, "You're not welcomed here… This one's not yours to take!"
Silence, until…
"... ℍ𝕖𝕙𝕖𝕖𝕙𝕖𝕙𝕙𝕖𝕙𝕖𝕙….. 𝕀 𝕤𝕤𝕤𝕤𝕖𝕖𝕖𝕖 𝕪𝕠𝕦𝕦𝕦... 𝕊𝕤𝕨𝕠𝕠𝕠𝕣𝕕 𝕊𝕒𝕒𝕒𝕒𝕒𝕚𝕟𝕥…"
"... You… Guh!... You know me?"
"𝕎𝕖'𝕧𝕖𝕖𝕖𝕖 𝕤𝕖𝕖𝕖𝕖𝕖𝕟 𝕪𝕠𝕦𝕦𝕦𝕦𝕦…. 𝕎𝕖 𝕜𝕟𝕠𝕠𝕠𝕠𝕨 𝕪𝕠𝕦𝕦𝕦𝕦𝕦𝕦….. ℍ𝕖𝕙𝕖𝕙𝕖𝕙𝕖𝕙….. 𝔸𝕗𝕗𝕗𝕗𝕥𝕖𝕣 𝕀 𝕖𝕒𝕥 𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕤𝕤𝕤𝕤𝕤𝕤 𝕤𝕠𝕦𝕝𝕝𝕝𝕝….. 𝕀 𝕔𝕒𝕟'𝕥 𝕨𝕒𝕚𝕥 𝕥𝕠 𝕥𝕣𝕪 𝕪𝕠𝕦𝕣𝕤𝕤𝕤𝕤𝕤𝕤….."
It was too late for Sirius to realize when Cassie started to choke violently. He quickly pulled out his hand, the sizzling on the mittens stopped, but she didn't. She kept choking, and choking, as if something was trying to force itself out.
Then, Sirius watched as Cassie's mouth started to glow a red hue, her eyes following suit a second later. Her parents were rushing in, not seeing what was happening.
"CASSIE?!"
"WHAT'S HAPPENING?!"
He had to stop them.
"GET DOWN!"
Without thinking, Sirius shielded both parents and pulled them onto the floor. Behind him came a shrill scream, and, as if causing it, a pillar of flame exploded past, just barely missing him but managed to singe the back of his clothes. He felt the world around him shake. The walls were crumbling, something kept breaking, and then it ended with a loud bang at the other end of the hallway.
The heat subsided. For a moment Sirius felt like he was being roasted in an oven, ready for Christmas dinner. But as he looked up, assessing the state of his mortality, he suddenly felt the winter's chill seeping into the house. The heat was fading as quickly as he had sensed it, and his gaze fell upon a large hole on the wall.
From there, he saw the night sky, the crescent moon, and the falling snow highlighted by a streetlight somewhere. But there was something else; a red glowing hue, from something burning, followed by the growling of something large.
The thing possessing Cassie had shown itself, finally. Sirius sighed in relief, and lifted himself up.
"Where's Cassie…?"
When he heard the voice of the mother near him, he placed a glance at Mrs. Thornn, and averted it once more towards the bathroom. The little girl was gone.
"Oh no..." Sirius' face grimaced, and he didn't spend much more time picking up his briefcase from the bathroom floor and dashed towards the direction of the flames, "DON'T GO ANYWHERE. I WON'T BE LONG."
As he said that, he approached the large puncture. The walls were sizzling, and the wallpaper was melted as if exposed to extreme heat. His eyes followed to where the explosion led, and saw himself staring at it.
He looked down, distancing himself and the ground, before he leapt off of the edge and onto the soft grass.
There, in the backyard of the Thornn residence, he stared straight into his opponent. At almost 12 feet tall, a skeletal looking humanoid twisted and bent its impossible shape while burning in pure red flames. 6 arms and a tail swung madly from left to right, as if it was in the middle of stretching itself. The heat was strong enough to warm Sirius' face, making him feel like he was staring at a large bonfire. The only difference is that this one will willingly kill him.
"ℂ𝕔𝕔𝕔𝕠𝕠𝕠𝕝𝕕𝕕𝕕𝕕𝕕…"
The skeleton growled.
"𝕊𝕠𝕠𝕠𝕠𝕠 𝕔𝕔𝕔𝕔𝕠𝕠𝕠𝕝𝕕𝕕𝕕𝕕𝕕…."
"CASSIE?!" Sirius shouted, mentally hoping.
The skeleton just turned its head towards him. And he heard it giggle.
"Crap…"
The glowing orbs it had instead of eyes stared into Sirius' own, and he felt his bones freeze upon the ground. The fire that engulfed its head was like a lion's mane, and he could see it slowly opening its oversized mouth like a hungry beast.
"You know me," Sirious shouted once more, voice shaking a bit, "How do you know me?"
The skeleton's gaze tilted.
"ℍ𝕖𝕙𝕖𝕙𝕖𝕙𝕖𝕙𝕖𝕙𝕙𝕙…" It laughed, "𝕀𝕚𝕚𝕚𝕚𝕚𝕚'𝕧𝕖 𝕓𝕖𝕖𝕟 𝕚𝕟 𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕤𝕤𝕤𝕤𝕤𝕤 𝕨𝕠𝕠𝕣𝕝𝕝𝕝𝕕 𝕝𝕠𝕟𝕘𝕖𝕣𝕣𝕣 𝕥𝕙𝕒𝕟 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕥𝕙𝕙𝕙𝕙𝕙𝕙𝕚𝕚𝕚𝕟𝕜….."
It crept closer towards Sirius with its large bony hands. Shaking, as if chilled by the winter's air.
"𝕎𝕖𝕖𝕖𝕖𝕖'𝕧𝕖 𝕤𝕖𝕖𝕖𝕖𝕖𝕖𝕖𝕟 𝕪𝕠𝕦𝕦𝕦𝕦𝕦," It hissed, "𝕎𝕖𝕖𝕖𝕖𝕖𝕖𝕖 𝕜𝕟𝕠𝕠𝕠𝕠𝕨 𝕪𝕠𝕦𝕦𝕦𝕦𝕦𝕦….."
Sirius gulped, letting his nerves return to him before leaping into action.
"Then, let my face be the last you'll see," Sirius taunted, trying his best to hide his perturbed form, "This ends here. No one else has to suffer,"
The creature laughed once more, "𝔸𝕒𝕒𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕙𝕠𝕠𝕨𝕨𝕨𝕨 𝕨𝕚𝕝𝕝𝕝𝕝𝕝𝕝 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕕𝕠𝕠𝕠𝕠 𝕥𝕙𝕒𝕒𝕒𝕥…."
"You said you knew me," The grip on the young man's briefcase tightened. Fake confidence burning, "You tell me…"
Suddenly, the skeleton jumped towards Sirius, its giant flaming hand reached out to grab the man's head but he dodged too quickly for it to catch. The skeleton crashed into the house once more, breaking the back patio with the sheer force of its size. Sirius imagined himself in that spot and felt his own body shiver. He couldn't lose focus in this fight, yet to focus upon it proved to be harder to do, as the specialist's head was filled with thoughts of how he had failed to save the life of one little girl.
His thumb twitched, perhaps angrily, seeking at every inch of his briefcase's handle, until he felt a small protrusion underneath and clicked. The briefcase unclasped and opened up like a butterfly's wing, to which it discarded each side of its leather body and left Sirius with only its handle, and the mechanism hidden inside.
The mechanism whirred and clicked, every piece elongated itself, until what he was holding was akin to a sword. Broad was its blade, Sirius lifted it above his shoulder. The weight felt light, as it should be.
"I'm sorry Cassie. I'll end your suffering now!"
He rushed forward. The muscles all over his body were screaming in fear, but he had to move. He had to kill it.
Something in his head clicked, as if an instinctive warning bell rang. Then, just before the skeleton's giant flaming hand could strike him from the side, Sirius rolled, just in time for it to miss.
Sirius heard the creature hiss in frustration. It lunged all of its limbs at him, but Sirius kept his distance, running around in circles, predicting its movements, and tried his best to not die. He felt singes and burns from every near-miss, his breath was hitched against his throat; he was running out of stamina. Sirius' body could feel my fear seeping into his bones, making him slow. He had to find an opening.
Then, came his chance. Its tail was next to strike him. I quickly dodged its fiery tip, and watched as it buried itself in the ground, burning the grass around it.
He lifted his sword up, one of the only things in this world that could kill monsters like this, and swung down. One less limb to worry about was all SIrius could manage, but it was better than nothing.
THUD!
"Eh?"
The sword didn't cut through.
Before he could even manage to start thinking, the tail jolted out of the ground and smacked Sirius across the chest. He had his sword up as a guard, but even then he couldn't quite counter the strength of the skeleton's attack.
Sirius felt himself flying through the air for a second, heart stopping completely in his chest, before crashing into the wooden fence that separated the neighborhood. His head was ringing, he must have hit himself there first. Then, came the burning, aching sensation on his arms and torso where the skeleton's tail had hit him. Everything was hurting now, and he started to very much regret every decision he had ever made leading up to this moment.
Sirius heard growling laughing from afar, though he couldn't tell from where as his head was still ringing.
"Fuck… What happened?" He thought to himself, forcing his head to start assessing his situation despite the pain, "Can't be… that thing's still partly human?!"
Impossible! For a complete minute he had thought that Cassie's body had been consumed, but perhaps that wasn't the case…. He didn't have time to wonder upon the details when his heart sank at a sudden thought; he couldn't kill this creature.
"ℂ𝕔𝕔𝕠𝕠𝕠𝕠𝕠𝕠𝕝𝕝𝕕𝕕𝕕𝕕…." The skeleton wailed, "𝕊𝕠𝕠𝕠𝕠𝕠….. 𝕔𝕔𝕔𝕠𝕠𝕠𝕠𝕠𝕠𝕝𝕝𝕕𝕕𝕕𝕕…."
Sirius lifted his head, he felt warm blood trickling down the right side of his face. His gaze was staring straight into the skeleton's eyes, for a split second he thought he would die right there, without him even knowing. Then, he saw its body twisting like a snake, waiting for his next move.
… Waiting…
It didn't want to kill him. It wanted to consume him just as it had tried Cassie Thornn's.
So what was taking it so long?
As Sirius' mind began to ponder madly, he lifted his body up with his sword as support, grunting as he did.
"I can do this…" Sirius said to himself, "I can do this."
He lifted his sword in its direction once more. His legs were shaking, but Sirius didn't care. If the victim was still in there somewhere, he couldn't afford to be hesitant.
"COME ON!"
"ℝℝℝℝ𝔸𝔸𝔸𝔸𝔸𝔸ℝℝℝ𝔾ℍℍℍℍℍ!"
Despite that, Sirius failed to perfectly anticipate the swiftness of his opponent when the creature's hand just barely missed his face yet again. If not for his perfectly timed parry, he would've had his first and last ever viewing of his own headless body.
He didn't dare to stay and think of the what-ifs lest he wanted himself dead. He quickly rolled away from the skeleton's line of sight and positioned himself just beside its left leg.
CLANG!
The blade failed to cut, as he had expected. Even worse, some of the metal started to chip away. But he noticed something else, then: it seemed that the fire wasn't something special, the swing of his sword breezed some of the flames; external forces worked.
Interesting. The Singularity perhaps only was an evolution of a certain ability to create flames—and to an extent the cruel parasitic power to feed on people upon people by jumping from one to the other—not necessarily the flames itself. But how had it not consumed Cassie completely was another question. The fact that Sirius' specially designed sword couldn't pierce its flesh was proof enough. The distortion of form, caused by this supernatural entity, must be painful for the victim to bear. Sirius couldn't imagine what Cassie might be experiencing right now.
The skeleton tried to kick the specialist, but Sirius blocked it before it hit his torso. The young man felt his arms shake as it tried to suppress the force of the skeleton's power, and he had to jump back in response just so his elbow wouldn't snap in half. He looked down for a second, and saw his own sword bending sideways from the hit. This wake-up call hit him in the head like a pile of bricks. His chances of winning this fight were definitely not great.
Then, the second the skeleton went for him again, he started to come up with a new plan. Sirius couldn't touch the thing as it currently was, he needed to pull it into a place where he could put all of its fires out.
Suddenly, Sirius felt a light tug under his feet; just his luck, he found himself staring at a thick, garden hose just lying around hidden on the ground. He heard the skeleton cry as it lunged at him once more. Without hesitation, Sirius twisted his wrist, and aimed the swing of his almost bended blade towards the ground. The creature hissed as its face was suddenly blasted with a pressured stream of cold water from the cut in the garden hose.
"ℂ𝕆𝕆𝕆𝕆𝕆𝕆𝕃𝕃𝕃𝕃𝕃𝔻𝔻𝔻𝔻!" It shrieked in pain. Its 3 pairs of arms trying to wipe away it's face desperately.
Sirius almost felt relieved, but he knew that it wasn't enough. He needed a bigger source of water.
"Over here!" Sirius screamed, positioning himself directly in front of to the gap in the fences, "I SAID OVER HERE SKULLFACE!"
"𝕌ℝℝℝ𝔸𝔸𝔸𝔸𝔸𝔸ℝ𝔾𝔾𝔾ℍℍℍ!"
"SHIT!"
What Sirius tried to tell himself from then on was just running and dodging the attacks, as much as he could, as long as he could.
"Water… water… why wasn't there one stupid pool in this neighborhood?! Isn't this supposed to be a middle-class neighborhood?!" As these thoughts kept whirling in Sirius' mind, he kept doing his best to distract the skeleton, its attacks missing just a hair away behind him. So many fences were broken and so many lawns were invaded. He was SO going to get sued.
Then, just as Sirius was about to lose hope, feeling the burning in his chest and the heaviness in both his legs wearing him down, one more jump into a stranger's property met him—finally—with the sight of an exceptionally large pool.
Sirius heard the skeleton scream again. The ground shook as if its entire weight was just lifted off of the ground by incredible force. This was it!
"ℍℝℝℝ𝔸𝔸𝔸𝔸𝔸𝔸ℝℝ𝔾𝔾ℍℍ!"
A burning shadow leapt past the young man. It missed his position, as he had hoped, landing in… not the pool. Just near it.
"Oh, are you k—"
"𝔻𝕀𝔼𝔼𝔼𝔼𝔼!"
"AAAAHHH!"
He couldn't describe what it was. A split second feeling of desperation, mixed with a shock of epiphany, perhaps. Whatever it was, it made Sirius leap forward without thinking. He didn't even realize he already had his arms wrapped around the creature's torso, its flames enveloping him completely in the process.
They were off the ground, both of their weight and momentum had pushed them backwards. Then, the heat got to Sirius. The unbearable sting sizzled his skin and flesh, until a blanket of viscous, ice cold material enveloped his very being, to which everything, even his senses, haywired.
Sirius instinctively held his breath. Water pressure was forcing itself into his nostrils. An indescribable feeling shrouded his nerves. From agonizing heat, to bone-chilling cold, one or the other, interchanging. Shivers went down every inch of his body. And there was that weight pulling him down, thrashing beneath him, but Sirius refused to let go, not until he was sure that it was weakened.
The water around him echoed a gargling, pained howl. By then he braced himself to touch wherever he could touch on the skeleton's body, and did what he did best.
"Feel the heart behind it's flesh,"
"Feel the mind behind it's heart,"
"Feel the soul behind it's mind..."
"Call into the void, see who answers…"
"..."
"Help me…"
"Is that you, Cassie…?"
"Cold… It hurts… It hurts…"
"I'll get you out of there Cassie, just you wa—"
"ℕℕℕ𝕆𝕆𝕆!"
Sirius whiplashed back into the real world, almost choking on the water around him. He found himself almost running out of air. His body begged to surface, but he couldn't let it. He couldn't risk this thing having the chance to strengthen itself if it somehow got itself out of the water. Sirius touched once more on the thrashing skeleton, and closed his eyes.
He heard its voice.
"𝕃𝕝𝕝𝕝𝕖𝕖𝕥𝕥𝕥…. 𝔾𝕠𝕠𝕠𝕠!"
"I can't do that. You've taken too many lives. You almost took this one. I can feel your hunger. Your hatred. It's time for you to go."
"𝕐𝕠𝕦𝕦𝕦… 𝕜𝕟𝕠𝕨𝕨𝕨 𝕟𝕠𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕘𝕘𝕘𝕘𝕘… 𝕠𝕗 ℍ𝕌ℕ𝔾𝔼𝔼𝔼𝔼ℝℝℝ!"
"I do."
"..."
"I have spent years sharing a world with your kind. The pain, the fear, and the desperation never changes. Let go."
"...ℕ𝕠𝕠𝕠𝕠…"
"You said you knew me. But you don't know me. You don't even know yourself."
"ℕ𝕠𝕠𝕠𝕠!"
"I'm the only one who understands. I'm the only one who can free you from this world. I can send you to a better place. A place where you belong."
"ℕ𝕆𝕆𝕆𝕆𝕆!"
"Let go. It'll be more painful if you hold on. Let go."
"ℝℝℝ𝔸𝔸𝔸𝔸ℝ𝔾𝔾𝔾ℍℍℍ!"
Moments passed. His head had blanked completely, almost unconscious. He had even forgotten where he had been. Then the squirming between his hands stopped, the weight stopped, and the heat subsided, though his mind still hadn't completely returned. But when it did, Sirius surfaced.
He choked out water, gagged out every substance in his trachea until there was none left but the following pain. Under him was something rigid and cold, his deduction could only think of the marble floorings surrounding the pool, then his hand nudged something soft beside him. Sirius glanced aside, his wet bangs almost covering his eyes, all he could see was a hazy figure of a little girl lying motionless on the ground.
The winter chill suddenly seeped in. His clothes were wet, and in some places he could feel stinging burn wounds too. None of it was helping him cope one bit. Well… knowing the fact that he had pulled the Singularity out of Cassie by himself was helping a bit.
There was rustling in the grass, he looked up and saw two taller figures rushing over to the little girl beside him. Sirius sighed in relief, hearing the joyful cries of parents seeing their daughter back to normal. His strength had almost washed away completely, but even so Sirius found himself standing once again.
"Where's my sword…" Sirius thought to myself, dizzily looking around the area in a trance, but he noticed something else other than what he was looking for.
There were people around him, or at least most of them were trying to keep a distance from beyond the neighborhood's fence. He couldn't see their faces, but he could hear their murmurs. Sirius even noticed a house nearby, probably the owner of the pool he just jumped into, and in one of the windows he saw an entire family looking down at their lawn, and at him.
In that moment, Sirius' eyes fell upon the Thornn couple again, to which they gazed back in solemn.
Still dizzy, and without thinking, he spoke out.
"I-I take online transfer…"
"The enemy outside has become insignificant, so much that the enemy within grows ever stronger."
–Unknown.
A few decades ago, a scientist from Japan proposed the Quirk Singularity Theory. A hypothetical point of time in which humanity's genetic super factor will become too powerful to be controlled. The initial notion was the possible birth of a generation of nigh-invincible Quirk users who'd bring about the destruction of the world. For the most part, it wasn't wrong.
The All for One Incident, The Plague War; those were just the beginning, a peek at what Quirks would become in the following years.
Before long, some people began to change. Their Quirks, their abilities, were too concentrated until—at one change at a time—they became sentient. Some called it evolution, others preferred the term possession. Whatever it is, the tools we value so much to fit into current society turned us into monsters. This phenomenon is called Singularity. It describes those that became more or less what the Quirk Singularity Theory referred to; humans who became distortions of themselves, even gaining new individualities as a transcendent being, both above flesh and soul; a Living Quirk.
They feed upon the world of those who haven't turned like them, like predators of man, and we, who cannot harm these beings due to our own mortality, could only tuck our tail and run, hoping we would not turn out the same.
We have no hope to predict who will turn, and who won't. We could only anticipate the ones that do. People became afraid of themselves, of each other, and of society.
But there are those who are born with the abilities to touch, to connect with these transcendents, as if these Living Quirks had a soul of their own. And, in some cases, destroy them completely.
That was when the term Specialists were created; people with Quirks capable of harming Singularities. Unlike heroes, we were taught to hunt, not save. We became monsters of our own, in our own right. And little by little, humanity pushed back against the Living Quirks.
Our names weren't sung in billboards, our deaths weren't immortalized in flags. We fight, we march, and we die in the dark, so you could live in the light.
Morning y'all. First things first, this story was originally submitted on a friend's account, thinking I'd leave it as a small oneshot for an idea I had. Then I decided to expand upon that idea, and seeing how the format of an SYOC would fit this story, I thought to myself... hey, why not?
Anyways, so you might notice the similar character(s) that also show up in Buixy's Purpose of a Hero, but this and that are different universes, no correlation at all in their respective continuations (save for a few things, but I'll reveal that later...)
If you are interested in submitting, the OC form is on my bio, along with some general info about the world, and rules for submitting (very important).
Thanks for reading!