Chapter 10: Hunt. Hunter. Prey.
What was Denki doing again?
The blond looked from side to side, trying to get his bearings. He was standing in the middle of an abandoned parking lot, the one he usually used to- Oh, was he training? He turned to the corner where he usually left his things and there they were!
He jogged closer and pulled a journal from the beaten backpack. It wasn't exactly fancy, but it had a leather cover and even a little strap to keep it closed. His grandpa gifted it to him… had it been on his birthday? Probably.
What was he doing again? Right, figuring out what he had been doing.
Opening the journal and flipping to the last page with stuff written on it, he saw the newest entry.
-16:37 - Went to the parking lot train my quirk. Noting it down in case I fry my brain again. Check the clock.
Oh yeah. Denki had an old analog clock in his pack just in case. He checked it, 16:57.
Wow, did he only last twenty minutes before frying himself? That was sad.
"Look who we have here!"
Oh for fuck sake. Denki pursed his lips and turned to see five guys his age approaching him.
The Five Go gang. The five guys were friends since elementary or something, and they have been dicks for just as long. Each of them had their names starting with Go, that's why the stupid name. Goro, Goto… Denki forgot the other three. Was that their given names or family names?
Where was he going with that anyway? Oh yeah, a bunch of wannabe thugs were about to accost him or something.
"Hey, Sparky! What are you doing here? Did you get lost on your way home or something?" The tallest one, which had iron spikes for hair and a weasel face, at least metaphorically speaking, put his arm over Denki's shoulders. It wasn't a friendly gesture, the asshole just didn't want Denki running.
"Does he even remember the way back to his house?" The one with a literal weasel face laughed. He wasn't funny.
"What's this?" The Go that had green lizard arms snatched Denki's journal.
"Give it back-!"
The fourth one, which looked like an orange mud golem, sucker-punched Denki.
The blond fell to the ground, coughing and wheezing. The five bullies laughed, as if hurting people for no reason was funny.
Lizard Go read through the stolen book, "Ha, I knew your brain was worthless, but you don't even remember what you're doing if you don't write it down?"
Denki sucker in a mouthful of air to fill back his lungs, "I'm surprised you know how to read." Mouth, what're you doing?!
"What was that?!" The golem one winded his arm back, threatening to punch Denki again.
"What, you don't know Japanese either?" Mouth, stop! If you keep talking they're gonna beat the snot out of us!
"You think you're cute?" The last member of the little gang, the guy that had everything up the neck of a snake, meaning he had to roll it over his shoulders to actually look people in the eye and not let his head dangle, pulled Denki to his feet by his gakuran's collar.
Ah, screw it. "Bitch, I'm adorable!"
Everything after that was a haze of pain as the Five Go gang beat Denki to a pulp.
Now on the hot asphalt of the parking lot, hurting all over and feeling like roadkill, Denki asked himself why.
Why? Why was he stupid? Why did his quirk make his brain go dumb and forget stuff? Why did people pick on him? Why was life so unfair?!
Denki hadn't even realized he started to punch the ground. First slowly, then he picked up speed, and then he was smashing his knuckles against the asphalt until they split.
"Dammit! Dammit, dammit, dammit! Dammit!"
"Hey!" A new voice called out.
Denki barely had the time to look up, his soft yellow eyes meeting green just for a split second. A hand landed on his shoulder, and he felt something wrong. The air shifted, and Denki felt a weird buzz on the very tip of his tongue, his ears popped, and he knew something was wrong.
And the World twisted and distorted before his very eyes.
Izuku would give it to The Enemy, if that was a planned move, it sure had a touch of ironic hilarity to it.
The group was making their way back after a successful incursion, having dealt with a tiny Anomaly that took only an hour to clear, when they passed by an empty parking lot. They passed by a group, throwing swears and jeers at a lone person on the ground deeper in the parking lot. It was fairly easy to put two and two together and guess the group was a bunch of bullies who just assaulted their latest victim.
Now imagine their surprise when the person, a boy his age, apparently had a meltdown. Izuku tried to snap him out of it before the boy, possibly a victim of actual physical assault thanks to the bruises on his face, could hurt himself even more. Now imagine his surprise when an Anomaly formed in the exact same nanosecond he touched the boy's shoulder!
If all of that wasn't enough, the contact between himself and the stranger who if he had to guess just had his Other trapped on the other layer somehow threw all of them inside the Anomaly. If Izuku were a betting man, he would say the series of absurd coincidences was a planned attack against him just from the sheer absurdity of it all.
Which was a mirror of Jiro's case, just turned worse because they dropped right at the heart of the Anomaly. The boy's Shadow was there on the ground, sparkling with electricity, surrounded by five other shadows tormenting him. The similarity between the shadows and the group they'd passed surely wasn't a coincidence.
Today would be one of those days, wouldn't it?
While I also am baffled at our horrendous fortune, we do have more pressing matters to attend to, do we not?
Omoikane was right, survival came first. Izuku could curse his unlucky stars after they dealt with this disaster.
Speaking of stars, Jiro was on top of things. She grabbed the fallen Shadow and the blond boy and pulled them away before the Shadows could land another blow.
Tokoyami and Izuku traded a glance and a nod, the same idea going through their minds. They stepped ahead and pulled their weapons, making a stand before the assailing Shadows.
"I know not who you ruffians were, but it matters little. You will leave now, or face our wrath!"
Tokoyami's attempt at intimidation fell flat when the five Shadows laughed. "Look, little Birdy thinks he's scary!" They spoke perfectly in synch.
The overlapped voices made Izuku flinch, what was that?!
Orpheus came to the forefront of his mind, Choirs have a greater strength with their harmony. Those Shadows stand before us as a unity to hide their weakness.
Ah, that made sense. Pack mentality? An echo chamber? Maybe even some sort of herd effect? In any case, those five were so used to strong-arming people together that their Shadows became a form of gestalt.
Yes, it was definitely one of those days.
"Tokoyami! They've become a collective anchor to the Anomaly, we'll need to take them all down to get rid of it!" Which was easier said than done, but they would have to manage.
"Then let us start at once. We have our work cut out for us as is." He took a step forward, glaring down the Shadows, "You scoundrels have had your warning. If you desire a battle, then to arms!"
"Your fancy words are really starting to piss us off! Who do you think you are, you bastard?!" The Shadows started to melt, already bubbling into their true form.
Looks like the stress of synchronizing made the group more unstable. Lovely. "I think we should step back."
"Indeed."
They leaped back just in time to avoid the tidal wave of black tar that burst forward. From the pitch, an enormous figure rose, five heads clad with gold eyeless masks while the body, with sinuous twists of the snake-like form, seemed more akin to a rotten and twisted tree, colored a dead brownish gray.
"Why did it have to be a snake?" Tokoyami's dejected sigh was followed by a slump of the shoulders. He would freely admit to having had his fill with reptiles on their last major venture.
"Hydra." Izuku corrected, gulping while his Other supplied information on their newest foe.
One of the monsters in Greek mythology. It is usually depicted as having 9 heads, but some may say that it has as many as 100. Its father is Typhon, giant of the wind, and its mother is Echidna, goddess of the snake. The Hydra has incredible regenerating power; so much so that when one of its heads is cut off, two more will sprout from the wound. It is also extremely venomous and simply inhaling its breath is enough to kill. Slaying the Hydra was listed as one of the 12 great labors of Hercules.
Izuku hoped the Shadow glaring him down wasn't a one-to-one match of the beast from myth. It had fewer heads, yes, but it was also enormous and looked tough as nails. Also, Omoikane had never given Izuku so much info on a target, which might be a sign Izuku was getting stronger, or a sign the Hydra's Legend was much stronger than what they usually faced. Maybe both.
"Ready to face hell and high water?"
"You know the answer is yes. Together, my friend!"
The Hydra roared with all its heads, and the battle started.
—
"Okay, stay with me. No conking out in the middle of the battlefield." Kyoka didn't know which of them was the unluckiest, but holy crap this was ridiculous. A sudden Anomaly dive with the big bad going at them right off the bat? It was a horrible joke, and they were the punchline.
"Wha-?"
"Wha-?"
The person and Shadow reacted the same, just with a slight delay between them. The Shadow was sparking, spasms ravaging it sporadically, and that seemed to be affecting the Real one too.
His inner voice seemed to buzz with static, thoughts getting lost like a jammed signal without fully forming. Kyoka never heard someone's mind acting like that before, but it didn't take a genius to know it wasn't good.
A quick glance at the dynamic duo showed Midoriya and Tokoyami had it handled for now, so Kyoka cracked open her backpack and started searching through it. "Hey, what's your name?" She had to keep him talking, keep him mostly there.
"U-uh, Kaminari Denki."
"U-uh, Kaminari Denki."
The two parts turned to each other.
"Huh?"
"Huh?"
Kyoka snapped her fingers, making the person and Shadow turn to her, "As funny as this is, you need to get your head straight. Here, drink this." Kyoka handed them a can of iced tea each.
Again with the same movements but out of synch, Kaminari and his Shadow stared at the can for a moment before shrugging and drinking it.
Kaminari's eyes cleared and his Shadow stopped sparking. Kyoka nodded and tapped them, him, both sides of him? She tapped a shoulder per body, "Good, now stay here and keep your head down, things are about to get dicey." Without giving Kaminari a chance to say anything, she grabbed her pack, pulled her Record, and her saber from it.
Bolting to her friends, Kyoka brought Chowa to her lips. The strange instrument's lightning bolt-esque form had no impact on the melody it could produce, and through it, a Sukukaja spell covered her and raised her speed.
Changing cadence, she hit Tokoyami with a Tarukaja to raise his attack power and Izuku with a Rukukaja to improve his defenses. Just to make sure, she also struck the Hydra with a Sukunda, making it slow down.
The sequence of spells left Kyoka out of breath, but she had a job and she would do it, dammit! "You guys are good to go, rock their shit!"
"You heard the lady. Tsukuyomi!" Tokoyami's Persona bounced at the closest head with a shrill cry, sword of black flames slashing at the golden mask.
It caused some damage, but not as much as they hoped. "It has Resistance to Physical hits!"
Midoriya had already summoned a new Persona, a giant floating skull with a green snake curling over and inside it, going through an eye socket and looking metal as all get out. "Loa, Maeiga!" A mortar shot of black orbs rained down on the Hydra.
Three of the heads took some damage, one didn't even flinch at the attack, but one hissed painfully before going limp.
"Good news, that one is Weak to Curse."
Kyoka was quick on the uptake and finished for Midoriya, "Let me guess, the bad news is that each head has different affinities."
"Yes. Gods bless the Effect of soda cans because I'll need to test them one by one which will take a lot of energy." Midoriya sighed and switched Personas, going for Jack Frost next. "Tokoyami, focus on that one while I figure out the rest!"
"With pleasure!" Snapping his Record open, he summoned Tsukuyomi again and sent the Persona at the head which was only getting up.
An Eiga to the head that was weak to Curse should have sent it reeling again, so imagine their shock when it brushed off the spell and batted away the moon deity like an annoying fly.
Tokoyami grunted, tanking the hit thanks for his Physical Resistance. "How did this wench accomplish such a feat?"
Their answer came seconds later when Midoriya used Loa again, and this time a different head they had seen tanking the attack went limp.
"It can change its heads' affinities, can't it?" Jiro groaned, things just kept getting better and better, didn't they?
"It would seem so." Tokoyami also gave the giant Shadow (Shadows?) a very annoyed look, even while wrestling with one of the heads trying to bite him in half. "Sorry, my friend, but you will have to pull most of the weight in this battle."
Midoriya downed another can as if it was a shot glass, "For sure one of those days. Persona!" He blasted all the heads with Fire with Orpheus' power, only one taking significant damage from it. "This is going to take a while."
—
"Dude!"
"Hmm?"
"What do you look exactly like me?" Denki shook his look-alike, both of them hiding behind the rusted carcass of a pickup truck that hadn't been there the last time he checked as the battle raged on.
"Because I am you."
"Huh." Denki tried to figure out what that meant for a second, then promptly gave up, "Sure, yeah. Wait, if you're me, then you know what I'm thinking?"
"We're thinking we're dumb."
"Wha- I mean… Yeah, you're right." Denki slumped against the wrecked frame. He felt so stupid for getting jumped, and somehow ending up in the mess he was currently in the middle of. Or more accurately, on the side of, watching like a useless background prop. "Dammit, how did this happen?"
"That's easy." His clone started to count his points with his fingers. "First, we used the same place every time for quirk training, which was a surefire way to get got, what with how eye-catching our quirk is. Then, we antagonized a gang with no plan and no intention to fight back, really." The other guy snarled at that, his face turning into something ugly for a second before smoothing out. "And to top it all off, we threw a tantrum like a little brat. All the Emotion we were throwing around got twisted into this Anomaly, and thanks to that Awakened guy reaching out to us at that exact bloody time, here we are."
Denki blinked slowly, his eyes unfocused, "Dude, you lost me halfway through." Cooking his brain, getting jumped by five punks, and then whatever the hell was happening right now wasn't giving him time to catch his breath.
"I know. We are too dumb to understand all that."
"Hey!"
The copy with glowing eyes shrugged, "It's the true dude."
"I know, but you don't need to throw it in my face like that!"
"Yes, I do." The other one jabbed a thumb over his shoulder, just as an explosion of something blue-green, bright, and tingly went out and almost blinded them both. What the hell were those three guys doing? "Those guys have their eyes open, why don't you? I'll tell ya, my dude." He put a finger right on Denki's face, making him go cross-eyed. "Because you're an idiot!"
Denki batted the hand aside, "I get it, okay! I'm dumb, you said it already!"
"That's not what I meant!" The Shadow (Denki didn't know why he thought of his copy as such, the term just popped in his head), a mirror of him, sneered like an angry animal. "You're dumb, yes, but you're an idiot because you pretend you're not!"
Something in Denki's chest twisted at that, "I'm… I don't want to be the dumb kid everybody makes fun of and then forgets about."
"Then don't. Be the dumb kid everyone has to respect even if he's dumb."
The twisting feeling intensified to the point of being painful, "And how do I do that?"
The Shadow that had been the visage of a vile beast until a moment ago opened a beaming grin that made the edges of Denki's lips quirk upward too. "You already know how." The Shadow, his Shadow, stood up and offered him something. His journal, the one his grandfather gave him, the one that had helped him keep his head straight no matter how badly he fried it, the one that was proof that someone cared about Denki.
"It will be scary but do not worry, pup. I will always be by your side."
Denki looked at this reflection of himself, at the glowing yellow orbs staring into his eyes, and he felt something click.
It made sense now.
It all made sense.
He wasn't going to be forgotten. Not now, not ever.
—
Izuku was getting light-headed. He couldn't allow that, in battle hesitation was defeat. Izuku had to focus, he had to fight!
"Dodge!" Jiro's yell made him throw himself aside on instinct, narrowly avoiding being hammered by one of the heads.
Just when he thought he was in the clear, the head opened its mouth and breathed a cloud of toxic fumes over Izuku.
Everything burned. His skin seemed about to melt off his flesh and his insides revolted. It hurt like all hell.
Izuku toughed it out like he usually did. Brandishing his guan dao, he carved a smoldering cut on the eyeless mask glaring him down.
It wasn't the one immune to Physical hits. Izuku got lucky and the head flinched, allowing him to use it as a springboard. He stomped hard on the Hydra's head and leaped up, going for another slash on a head close enough to hit.
Don't focus on the pain. Push. Keep pushing! Keep fighting! "PERSONA!" Loa materialized under his feet. Izuku used the floating skull as a surfboard and flew to the middle of the bundle of deadly and monstrous faces. The best part was that he never even surfed before.
Pain and fear mixed into a strange type of euphoria, and he struck. The weapon in his hand blurred into a blitz of movements like a video sped up. Izuku slashed and twisted and hacked and cut and attacked again and again and again.
Loa hissed and buckled, swerving and dodging retaliation by just enough space for Izuku to strike back. The heads bundled up and got in each other's way, getting tangled and knotted.
Izuku didn't know the exact amount of damage his stunt caused, and he did not care in the slightest. The important thing was…
The Hydra was Burning.
Loa jerked, throwing Izuku away from the Shadow amalgamation. He landed roughly, crashing painfully on his side and rolling some good distance before skidding to a halt, the asphalt leaving rashes against skin already abused by Poison.
"Jiro!" Izuku managed to shout as he propped himself up, struggling to catch his breath.
"I'm on it, you maniac!" She pitched a drink in his direction before going for her Record, "Benzaiten!"
Izuku crawled to the can of herbal tea while the Hydra screeched, Technical damage bypassing its elemental affinities to inflict heavy wounds.
He downed the drink just as copper started to flood his mouth. Instantly his body relaxed, a cool wave soothing the rotten fire ravaging him from the inside out.
Risking a glance showed that the Hydra was still up. Tokoyami was going at it with a vengeance now, not bothering with what he was hitting as long as it hurt the monster.
'We're losing.' The fleeting thought went through his mind like a fallen leaf fluttering on the breeze. It still hit Izuku like a ton of bricks.
No. No, he refused. He wasn't losing now! Izuku forced himself to his knees, then staggered to his feet. The boy had gone through too much to ever entertain the concept of defeat.
Once he thought he could give his all because he had nothing to lose, but now Izuku knew better. He would give his all, he would go beyond that, and he would give his Plus Ultra because Izuku had absolutely everything to lose.
And he refused.
The World slowed down. It didn't stop, not like all the times before, but every second seemed to stretch into ten.
"You're quite stubborn." The voice from the void, familiar and peaceful, brushed against Izuku's mind like a drizzle.
'Arisato-san?'
"Minato is fine, remember? You have my respect." In any other situation, Izuku would have blushed at the compliment. Now though, he only had one thing in mind. And Minato knew that. "Stop holding yourself back."
'What?'
"You can dig deeper. You know that, it's already there, you already proved it once." The Messiah's voice became fainter and fainter, but his final words still reached Izuku, crystal clear and full of conviction, "You are not afraid of death."
A piece of the puzzle snapped into place just as the flow of time resumed its eternal march.
Izuku was not afraid of death. That did not mean he embraced it. No. He would face it head-on with everything he had and a smile on his face!
That meant he would face it, would fight it with everything he had. Izuku would never back down when confronted with death.
From his Record, a familiar handle popped out. His fingers found the smooth metal and pulled the Evoker in a blink.
Jiro cried out his name. Tokoyami stopped his assault. The Hydra itself faltered for a moment.
The cold barrel touched his scalp, and Izuku's smile was so wide his cheeks hurt. With Record in one hand and Evoker in the other, he dug deeper and found the power that lay within himself.
"Persona." He pulled the trigger.
Broken glass and ripping paper. Crystal shards and burning pages. From within the infinite possibilities of the Wild Card, they came.
Omoikane and Orpheus, side by side, glowed brightly with a blue-green radiance. Izuku thrust his hand holding his Record up, a finger pointed straight to the heavens, "Kodoku."
The name of the spell, the Fusion Spell, rippled through the Anomaly. Orpheus picked at the strings of his harp, not for the typical harmonic melodies but to produce a sound that evoked ancient Japanese music theory. Sounds that brought forth fallen cherry blossoms that fell over the slowly performing Omoikane. The wisdom god moved as if in a kabuki play, with exaggerated movements and shouts as if he battled an invisible demon. The strings and shouts picked up, growing in crescendo until reaching the apex.
Orpheus ripped at the strings just as Omoikane bellowed and stomped. A shout that seemed to come from the very soul tore out from them. The scene was drowned by a blue-green flash that consumed everything.
When it faded, the Hydra was down, all its heads sprawled and its body twisted over itself.
Izuku's smile threatened to split his face open, "They're down! Now, let's go all out!" He picked up his weapon and ran at the Shadow, previous fatigue forgotten.
"We'll be having words after this, you psycho!"
"Indeed we will. Never scare us like that again!"
Even while berating him, Jiro and Tokoyami followed in step. Together, they performed an All-Out Attack that went straight through the Hydra's defenses and cut deep into the monster.
When it ended, the trio of young heroes landed side by side, weapons and Records ready. It was good they did because the Hydra rose to resume the fight.
"Can't this thing stay down?!"
"We will lose if something does not change."
Izuku shook his head vehemently at that, "No."
"No?"
"No! We won't. We won't lose here! Get ready, we will fight, get up, and keep pushing until we win!" That was what he always did, and as Izuku proved time and time again, it always worked. Come what may, he would keep fighting with all he had.
Jiro huffed, "Can't believe I got motivated by that."
"Words coming from the heart always strike true." Tokoyami readied his blade, a smirk tugging at his beak. "So let us fight. Fight until victory is ours!"
The Hydra's heads screeched, the compounded sound making the very earth vibrate. Even then, the trio remained resolute. Failure was not an option for any of them, so the only thing left was…
"Win." Another voice broke through the standoff.
At the corners of the twisted version of the parking lot, atop the scrap he had been hiding behind, was the source of all that.
Denki was standing tall, eyes clear, nothing of the cowering teen from before could be seen in him now. Instead, only a sharp focus remained. "You five punks think you can win by ganging up on other's, don'tcha? Well, news flash, that won't work anymore, not on me!"
"And why does the stupid Sparky say that? Are you so dumb you don't know how weak you are?!" The combination of voices hit him like a gale, but he did not falter. That caused the Hydra to subtly draw into itself.
"Yes, I am dumb, but that's part of my charm!" Denki grinned, his hold on the journal in his hand tightening. "I'm pure of heart and dumb of ass! I may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but the five of you won't ever be half of me! You know why?"
Sparks started to fly, and then arcs of electricity leaped over his form, growing in size and brightness at each passing second. Denki gave himself one second to enjoy how right it felt, then went for the kill.
"Because I am Thou…" Denki raised his hand holding the journal for the last moment of its existence. All the power he was outputting flowed straight through it, "And Thou art I!" A lightning bolt fell straight from the heavens, cleaving through the toxic green skies and hitting Denki's fist.
When the blinding flash died down, clenched between his fingers was a Record. The old journal was now a pelt-covered book, the pages turned into animal skin held by leather straps, and scratched on each page were the notes of a lifetime and a Legend.
The Record burst open as if something tore itself from inside it. In a cloud of flaming pages, Denki's Other Self came forward.
"To this land, we descend to hunt. The sinful our prey, divine punishment our fangs!" The Persona growled out, for in sight of what he was there was no word more accurate. Denki's Persona was a wolf the size of a van and with a pelt like a cloud, painted with yellow and black lightning bolt-shaped marks, around the neck rested a prayer bead collar of a deep red. The yellow eyes of the Persona were laser-focused on the Shadow while the mouth bore sharp fangs to the monster. The long fluffy tail spiked up as if charged with static and the ivory claws left trails of electric sparks where they touched. "Our mission is clear. No longer will we pretend to bear virtues we do not possess, now we embrace our true nature!"
"Couldn't have said it better myself, buddy." Denki chuckled, then laughed. His heart never beat so loud, so fast, so alive, as that very moment.
Screw pretending, he would do his worst! "Let's do this, Raiju!" In a deft movement, he flipped over and landed on his Persona's, Raiju's, back and mounted the giant wolf. "Let's show those assholes what a lightning demon looks like!"
Raiju howled, lighting up like a thundercloud, and bolted, crossing the distance in a blink and smashing against the Hydra.
The Shadow sparked, Paralyzed by the Electric attack and convulsing erratically.
Easy prey. Denki, who had jumped ship at the last second, slapped his Record, now tied to his waist by a leather strap. From it, a pair of weapons came flying to his hands.
They looked like revolvers at first glance, but they had a core difference, instead of your typical revolver, they were Gauss hand cannons. Denki had no idea how the whole electromagnetic thing worked to propel projectiles, his grandpa could turn him into a gun nut but not in a physics guy to understand that crap, but he knew he could use his quirk and Persona power over electricity to turn an already dangerous weapon into something even more fierce. How? He also had no clue, but Denki was done trying to pretend he understood things he didn't, what mattered was that guns went pew pew, and Shadow went dead.
He spun the guns on his fingers and pointed them at the Hydra. Before shooting, Denki gushed out about the design of his new babies.
The silver magnums had golden engravings of lighting and wolves, the pipe of the gun open in its top and sides leaving a clear view of the lightning arcs that run through the bridge they formed while Denki pumped them full of juice.
"Ah, I love my life." Denki started blasting, laughing like a maniac as metal slugs were accelerated at Mach yes and opened holes in the Hydra. If his grandpa could see him now, he would be soooooo jealous Denki had his own guns.
"Does everybody have a gun now?!" Jiro Kyoka/Benzaiten/Star yelled over the staccato of bullets against scales.
"It would seem so." The Magician/Tsukuyomi/Dark Shadow/Tokoyami Fumikage sighed tiredly as if he had just lost a bit of faith in mankind.
"Raiju. A beast made of lightning with cries of thunder said to rage during thunderstorms…" The Fool/Midoriya Izuku/Omoikane/Orpheus/Loa/Oni/Jack Frost/Wild Card/Hero started muttering about Denki's Other Self so fast the blond couldn't hope to keep up. So he didn't, he just finished unloading everything he had on the Shadow and then backed out.
Denki hopped some five meters back and landed beside the muttering singularity of concepts and possibilities in human form. "So nice that you know about my buddy, but can we fight now and talk later?" He really needed a minute after all that to sit down and digest how his worldview fundamentally changed forever. Maybe five. Ten, if he felt like screaming.
Midoriya snapped out of it and nodded, "Yes. That thing is-"
"A Shadow, and able to switch affinities around, I gotcha. I can call which is which, can you make a plan on the fly?" Denki knew the answer. He knew all the answers, but his job wasn't doing anything with them.
It was handing them to the guy whose mind was like a bottomless ocean churning with things no one else would comprehend. Denki was the scout, the tracking hound, the hunter.
Midoriya was the general who had a damn plan, "We need to hit them one after the other, quick enough for them to not recover but not so fast we catch them mid-shift. What are all their Weaknesses?:
"Curse. Wind. Fire. Electric. Gun."
Midoriya opened a wry smirk. Denki could read in his face both "Are you kidding me?" and "Fate is a bitch."
On that, they agreed wholeheartedly.
"Perfect. Get ready everyone, we were putting that Shadow down and then making sure it stays down!"
The other two finally caught up with the various sudden turns of events. Tokoyami was shocked, which was understandable, seeing that the Persona-user population just grew again, but nodded and settled his beak in a tense line.
Jiro wasn't that professional. "What the hell?! The guy just pulls a Persona out of nowhere and you're not gonna say anything? And what about that thing you did where you used two Personas?! Why don't you use it again?"
"In order. He has Awakened to his Other Self like us, as you saw. That was him calling forth his newly acquired Persona. That was a Fusion Spell. Last but not least, it's charging now, I can't just use those as much as I like." Midoriya answered everything before the Hydra finished recovering from Denki's barrage, which was actually pretty awesome. "Now, stop talking and move!"
Midoriya bolted, the others doing the same a second later.
"When I yell the element, you say which head is Weak to it."
"Leave it to me, Boss Man!"
The Hydra went for a dive, trying to crush them with its body. Midoriya was quick on the uptake and used Oni to hold the Shadow back for a moment.
"Wind!"
"Far left one!"
Jiro threw herself aside, Record already sending out pages, "I'm on it!" Benzaiten materialized with a swirl and sent out a gale blade that carved a deep gash on the targeted head.
The Hydra flinched, opening the chance for Oni to throw it back. "Curse!"
"Middle one!"
"No more failed acts, Tsukuyomi!" The moon deity spiked a javelin of twisting dark almost through the head, making it sag too.
Now with enough space, Midoriya already called forth Orpheus, "Fire!"
"First to the right!"
The Master of Strings set the golden mask aflame. The Shadow already had too much of its focus compromised, just a little more.
They could win. They would win!
"Electric and Gun. You have both, so go for it!"
Denki grinned. That's why he should leave the brainy part to brainy people, he would have completely missed how the last two were easy pickings.
"Persona!" Raiju lit up and sent a shower of lighting at the far right head, leaving it crispy and down.
He kissed Wolfsbane's chamber, "Now to wrap it all up." Denki aimed at the last head struggling to keep the body up, the cross-hair dead center. "Lights out!" He pulled the trigger.
The Hydra screeched, pain and anger transformed into noise. The colossal monster fell again, completely exposed.
"It's our chance, one last push!"
The four teens moved as one, the green, black, and purple blurs now followed by a yellow one. They danced all over the Shadow with violence, ultimately skidding to a halt each in a cardinal direction.
Denki holstered his revolvers, "And that's that."
The Hydra burst into a shower of tar, leaving behind five beaten Shadows. The group watched them warily, trying to catch their breaths while keeping their guard up. The last thing they needed was to lose when they thought they won.
Being the least tired, Denki was the first to recover and march to the beaten group. "Look here, punks, I'm gonna make it pretty clear." He crouched next to the snake head Go and pointed the end of his barrel to the middle of the Shadow's eyes. "You five will clean your act and never bother anyone ever again, got that? Or else I'll show you I bite just as much as I bark!" Denki's grin was all teeth and no mercy. Raiju approved in his mind.
"S-sorry! We-"
Denki shoved Wolfsbane in the guy's face, making him shut up. "I don't wanna hear your half-assed apologies, I wanna see action! Get your shit together or get fucked, got it? Good, then scram!" That was enough to make the Shadow return to his Real Self, the others not far behind.
The trio watching him gave Denki a minute to calm down, which he appreciated. Giving someone a dressing down like that was a lot. "Ya know, that was a lot less satisfying than I thought it would be." He chuckled deprecatingly, but then perked back up, "Ah, so is life, am I right? Let's get out of here before this place crumbles, which is gonna happen… now." Just as the word left his mouth, the ground shook.
"Dammit. Hey, you better not get any funny ideas! We're having a talk outside." Jiro all but threatened him, but Denki took it in stride.
They left the Anomaly behind, returning to Reality just as suddenly as they left it.
It was basically another world now, at least to Denki. The taste on the tip of his tongue, the static of a planet in motion, brought to him a hunger he didn't know he had.
"Yo, Boss Man! There's this beef place three blocks down, wanna go there?"
—
Izuku had to ask himself if every new member would get their celebratory feast after Awakening. It was a nice tradition if nothing else. Kaminari seemed to approve, if his third plate was any indication.
"So…" It was already hard enough to bridge the topic without having Jiro and Tokoyami glaring at them, but Izuku guessed he had it coming. To be fair, putting a gun to his head and pulling the trigger was not a very… Let's say, polite thing to do without previously explaining you would be fine afterward. "Uh…"
Kaminari finished wolfing down his beef, pun not intended, "I know, I know. I'm in."
"What?"
He put a hand up in a 'wait' gesture while downing a cup of water, "I know. Like, I know, know. I know everything. But not really, but I kinda do. I know you're the guy. I know the world is a lot worse off than people think. I know things are bad." Kaminari spoke fast, but he had an intensity and focus behind it that left every word clear. "I know, I know. I can feel it, smell it, taste it. Shit is serious, but there are a million Anomalies out there, and there's four of us. What do we do, Boss Man?"
Would Kaminari truly be calling him that? Priorities first. "Yes, there are. It may seem impossible, or that what we can do doesn't matter. Honestly? Sometimes it feels like it doesn't. But that is not true."
"I know, you guys helped a bunch of people, you helped me. But knowing stuff and knowing what to do with what you know are two different things, dude." Kaminari huffed and rubbed his face rashly. He was tired from his Awakening, that was clear.
Jiro stage-whispered to Tokoyami, "Are you following?"
"Barely."
"Not just me then."
Izuku shot his friends a look. Turning back to Kaminari, he put it simply, "Let me help you with that. You have two options at this moment, you are free to choose the one you want and no one will question or resent you, but your answer will change your life forever." Green eyes drilled into yellow, pinning the soul behind them in place with a deadly seriousness. "You can walk away now. We will not go after you, will not chase you, Kaminari. You will be free from the other side and everything about it."
Something thunderous lurked behind the yellow at the thought, the mere notion of turning a blind eye.
"The other option, is you join us, and you fight. You will fight with everything you have, and then some, because that is what we will do. We will save everyone we can reach." Green eyes shone brighter with a fire no living thing could survive without. The Bond of concentrated Determination in his chest hummed beside his heart. "You stay, Kaminari, and you will try to do the impossible in the vain hope of creating a miracle. Tell me, what is your answer?"
A smirk. A full, smug, sharp, and exhilarating smirk was his answer. "Fuck that noise, dude. I'm done with pretending, if it's stupid trying to do something impossible, then I'm stupid, brave, and happy." Kaminari extended his fist, offering it to Izuku along with an honest admission, "You point where and I go, leave the fun part to me and I'll leave the smarty part to you, how does that sound?"
Izuku gave his own smile and bumped fists with his new teammate, "Great. You can count on me."
The World stopped, properly this time around. In a hole-in-the-wall restaurant, fist to fist with someone he only met, Izuku forged another connection he would forever treasure.
You have acquired a new Oath.
With it Awakening the Devil Persona.
You have changed the Fate of a Life, turning Chains into Bonds that will become Power to attain Freedom.
It was, most definitely, one of those days. Those days that made Izuku deeply glad he held on as much as he had.
"Welcome aboard, Kaminari."
"Happy to be here, oh Captain, my Captain!"
That startled a laugh out of Izuku, who made the others break into their own fits. It was truly a wonder how they went for so long without meeting each other, being all peas in a pod as they were. Silly teenagers, chosen warriors, and more than all that, good friends to have for whatever life wished to throw at them.
Denki's smirk turned into a genuine smile. He found it, found a place to belong. He knew he did.
Dooooone!
Yes, Fusion Spells!
Yes, Denki joins the gang!
Yes, I made a reference to Hodoku! Why? Because Alex Roe is a great artist and you should check his music, and because I have a hot take to leave here.
Dark Souls 2 is a good game! No, you can't change my mind. Does it have questionable design choices? Yes, but what doesn't?
Tangents aside, I played Persona 3 Reload and reworked the Showtime-esque thing I had planned for a more Theurgy-like thing because it just works better in my opinion.
Either way, this is it. This is the chapter, hope you enjoyed it.
Also, thanks to Jurodan, Silverbits, and Annaliese for helping with all the edits to ensure quality!
If you want to support me somehow, go to the infamous site that starts with P and search for Bola8. It's purely a tip jar, but it has helped me a lot, thanks to these wonderful people:
Guipa_, SilverZero90, CBN, Veonix, Godeater23, and kennine.
My most heartfelt thanks to you all!
Also, join the discord and join us in the madness! (Remember to delete the spaces!)
discord . gg / stAGY4V
