FIC - “Kill the Ghost” Chapter 4

A/N: I’m so sorry this is late. As previously noted, I’ve been unable to focus on ANYTHING since the Ultra Age Fanbook release 😅 And then today I ended up having to attend a funeral. Next week should be back to business per usual!

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CHAPTER FOUR

Tanaka and Toshinori were in the living room when Izuku got home. After thanking and seeing Tanaka off, Izuku settled beside his dad who sat reading on the sofa.

From the threshold to the living room, Shouto announced, "My mom just texted. She insisted you feed me."

Having said his piece, he turned and retreated to Izuku's room without waiting for a response. Shouto's mom was pretty and soft-spoken, and she always smelled faintly of Autumn Bellflowers. Shouto adored her.

The only picture Izuku had of his own mom sat on a triangular shelf tucked into the corner of the living room. Within the frame, Toshinori stood with a rumpled head of blond hair, the sunlight highlighting flyaway strands like static electricity. He was broad and powerful, a far cry from the thin, frail man his illness had turned him into.

Beside him stood a young pregnant woman, little older than Izuku at the time, with Toshinori’s hand folded between her smaller ones. She had the same vivid green eyes as Izuku and dark waist-length green hair. She was smiling, her cheeks rosy, but Izuku had always felt like there was a sadness to her eyes—a faint melancholy, as if she knew what awaited her in a few months' time, when giving birth to Izuku would kill her.

"Hey Dad," Izuku began, staring down at the carpet between his feet. "Can I ask you something?"

"Anything," Toshinori said. “You know that.”

"This is going to sound weird. Do you ever... feel—" He didn't know how to describe it. It always felt a little different, the discomfort the only common factor between occurrences. "Like pain or discomfort or... an—an awareness that you can't...?"

He dragged his fingers through his curls. Now he sounded as crazy as the people he'd met today.

Toshinori had gone still. He looked up from his book, his eyebrows narrowed in concern and his mouth drawn into a serious line. Izuku waited, his heartbeat thudding in anticipation.

"Are you sick?"

Izuku sat back, surprised. "What? No!"

"I need you to be honest with me, Izuku." His voice was gentle but firm. "I know you haven't been sleeping. I can see it on your face, even if you won't admit it. You've been walking around in a daze all week, barely attentive when anyone talks to you, and you burned yourself the other night making dinner."

Izuku brushed his finger along the healed patch of skin at the curve of his wrist. He shook his head. "Dad, I'm fine."

He didn't know what he'd been expecting. As if Dad would suddenly say, 'Yeah, that feeling? It's called magic, and guess what, you have it. Surprise!'

"I'll have Mirai set up an appointment—"

"No," Izuku said firmly. "I'm fine. Honest. Don't worry. I actually slept really well last night. It was a hypothetical question, okay? Just keep reading. I'll be back in a bit."

He escaped before his dad could say anything else about making doctor's appointments.

In his room, Shouto was checking his email on Izuku's laptop. Without looking away from the screen, he said, "Stop feeling guilty."

Izuku groaned at the reminder he’d left Eri with the UA Guild. He didn't know if he even believed any of the things Katsuki and Sero had said, if UA was what Midnight claimed or the elaborate construction of a madwoman with too much time and money.

But what he'd felt that morning—and off and on for as long as he could remember—had been real. The woman with the familiar, the anima that tended to appear around him, all of that was real. He wasn’t sure if that meant he was a magus like UA believed or if he was going insane.

Was this how Toshinori felt every day? His stomach turned at the thought.

Katsuki had said something or someone triggered his magic. But did that imply it was intentional? How could anyone have known he was a magus when Izuku didn't even know?

Shouto closed the laptop and swung around on the swivel chair to face Izuku. "It's not like you could have kept her. This isn't like that time your dad wouldn't let you keep that stray puppy. I know you were traumatized, but keeping a kid isn’t healthy."

"I was not traumatized." And he hadn't cried either even though he was pretty sure being six at the time would excuse him. (He definitely cried.)

"My point is you couldn't have kept her."

"I know, I know. I didn't want to keep her," Izuku said, slumping onto his bed. "But I promised Eri I'd go back to check up on her."

"That's another thing," Shouto said. "I can't believe you named her."

"She named herself, which was a good thing because I was going to go with Goldilocks."

Shouto looked confused. "Goldilocks?"

"You know, because she snuck into the bears' house and used their stuff..." He trailed off when he realized Shouto was looking at him as if he'd been replaced by a five-year-old. Izuku decided he should stop talking.

"I am judging you," Shouto said. "Just thought you should know."

Izuku's lips quirked. "Like that's news."

He had an hour before Sasaki got home, which was plenty of time to prepare dinner. With Shouto's help, they set the table just as Sasaki walked in.

"Welcome home," Izuku said. He was met with the same cool nod he'd come to expect. "How was your day?"

"Fine," Sasaki said, loosening the tie around his collar.

He didn't look much like Toshinori. He was lean and wiry, with dark hair streaked with blond. Both brothers had pale, piercing eyes, though, and were unreasonably tall. That gene must have skipped Izuku.

When he spotted Toshinori reading on the sofa, his stern expression softened. Toshinori’s good days always put him in a lighter mood.

"Dinner's ready," Izuku said and fetched his dad. He marked the page in the book for him and hoped with all his heart Toshinori would remember tomorrow to pick it up again. Thankfully, after asking once more about Izuku's health, his dad conceded and left it alone.

"You getting enough hours at the bookstore?" Sasaki asked Izuku once they were seated around the table. "Didn't you say they cut your hours? Find another job now that it's summer. I don't like the idea of a kid your age slacking off all day. Tanaka-san can keep Toshinori company."

"I'll start looking tomorrow." He wouldn't, but it was what Sasaki wanted to hear.

The first memory Izuku had of his uncle was a fishing trip with Toshinori when he was five. Even then, Sasaki had been inexplicably hostile, and it had never changed.

Izuku remained silent through dinner, listening instead to Toshinori’s questions about his brother's day. He didn't mind being excluded from the family conversation and only felt awkward because of the way Shouto kept squirming in his chair.

"Your uncle is a jerk," Shouto said when they were back in his room.

Izuku shucked off his t-shirt, throwing it into the laundry bin. "You know that's how he is."

"I vote we ship him to Antarctica and trade him for a penguin."

Izuku snorted. "I hear they're trainable."

"We could name him George and feed him your fish."

"Think Dad would notice?"

"Maybe, but only because the penguin would have better manners." After a pause, Shouto dropped the joke and said, "He never even thanks you for making dinner."

The probability of his uncle thanking him for anything was about as likely as a zombie apocalypse. Izuku wouldn't know what to do with the thanks anyway. He'd reject it out of suspicion, and then his uncle would return to his senses, retract any offers of gratitude, and the world would be spared a gruesome death by man-eating undead.

"He doesn't need to thank me. He lets us live here, doesn't he? Besides, I do it for my dad."

He remembered a time when he had sought his uncle's approval, when they had first moved here and he had wanted so badly for his uncle—the closest thing to another parent he knew—to acknowledge him. But that time had passed, and Izuku had learned to keep his head down and do what was necessary for his dad.

He made a token effort to straighten up by wadding all the clothes Eri had tossed out of his closet and shoving them back inside. Then he tried to slide the door shut, but gave up when it got stuck on his hamper.

Shouto's phone beeped. He looked at the screen and muttered something under his breath. "It's my mom. Gotta go. Call me when you get up." He paused on his way out. "Unless it's six in the morning."

Izuku saw him off and then checked on Toshinori before heading for bed. He looked forward to being able to sleep again (although he would miss Akita, sheep number one hundred and seventy-two).

Left alone to his thoughts, he replayed the day in his head.

"Magic." He tested the word on his tongue, rolled it around his mouth, and then let it sit.

Magi and anima—these things fit into his life like a square block fit into a triangular slot. Hope alone had become difficult enough to live by. What happened when he added magic to the mix?

'That release of power, all at once, doesn't just happen at random.'

Izuku didn't know if what Katsuki said was true, but he did wonder if his insomnia had anything to do with it.

All that restless energy inside him... what if it had found an outlet after all?

+++

A clock hung high on the wall at the back of the store, visible above the bookshelves. The face was set in a wooden frame carved into the likeness of a seraph, six wings extending out like the rays of a sun. Izuku checked the time and finished browsing through their stock of books on the supernatural. He'd found no less than a dozen interpretations of demons and countless myths about witches and warlocks, but little to no mention of magi.

He shelved a few more books, helped a customer find Artemis Fowl, and checked the time again to confirm the end of his shift. Katsuki had told him to stay home, but he really needed whatever hours the bookstore could give him.

After his shift, he found Shouto in the corner, sitting sideways in an upholstered chair, legs thrown over one wooden arm and an open book in his lap. He wasn't reading though; he was rapid-fire texting.

"What's up?" Izuku asked.

"Remember that girl my dad introduced me to last month?"

He tried not to laugh at the memory. "The one who tried to undo your pants in his kitchen?"

Izuku had been washing his hands at the sink at the time. While Shouto had shown surprising restraint by politely fighting to keep his pants on, the girl had said, loud enough for Izuku to overhear, that Shouto's friend was invited. At that, Shouto had abandoned diplomacy and shoved her off him.

"He’s trying to set me up again. With the girl's brother."

Izuku tried to work his mind around that. "He knows he’s not getting any grandchildren out of that, right?"

"It’s his idea of ‘trying,’” Shouto said, sounding unimpressed. His dad had notoriously freaked out when Shouto came out. It was just one of many reasons why Rei had divorced him. “But I would prefer he not think about my love life ever."

"Maybe he thinks you need help."

Shouto's glare said Izuku had no room to judge, and Izuku wisely shut up. While he’d gotten a grand total of two Valentine’s confessions in high school, he’d never had a girlfriend. Or a boyfriend. He’d never minded being the plain-looking guy, especially when standing next to Shouto.

Unbidden, the memory of piercing red eyes and a mocking mouth flashed through his mind, and he felt suddenly flushed. Katsuki was beautiful, with a face and body meant to grace the covers of magazines and billboards. He was the sort of boy who ordinarily wouldn’t even look Izuku’s way.

Izuku had never felt more plain and unremarkable. He mentally scoffed. Magi and anima and magic, and here he was, feeling sorry for himself because he wasn’t attractive. Pathetic, Izuku.

"I think he’s trying to work his way up to an Omiai someday," Shouto was saying.

"You're eighteen,” Izuku said, quickly picking up the threads of their conversation. “He’s not trying to arrange your marriage."

"Yet."

Izuku thought about Shouto's dad. "Yet," he agreed.

"I'm telling him to stop texting me."

Shouto was not the smoothest of teenage boys. Izuku thought Shouto might be asexual, considering he’d never expressed an interest in anyone.

"My shift is over. Come on," Izuku said, and headed for the exit. He waved to the girl who worked the cash register most afternoons. She beamed and waved back, cheeks pink.

"Has she asked you out yet?" Shouto asked as they left the bookstore.

"No. I told you, she's friendly with everyone."

"I've seen her around you. I doubt she touches everyone that much."

"She's got a boyfriend."

"Maybe she wants a new one."

"Forget it."

She was cute, but he couldn't even remember her first name and they'd been working together for months. He thought about Katsuki instead—his long fingers around the handle of his dagger, his body heat beside him on the train, the dip of skin between his collarbones.

They’d gone a few blocks down, no real destination in mind, when they rounded the corner and collided with someone on the pavement.

"Oof! Sorry about that." Izuku steadied himself, and then stepped back and looked up at the stranger.

The man wore a gray suit and a dingy yellow fedora. He looked familiar, but Izuku couldn't place him.

The stranger eyed him from beneath the brim of his hat. He sniffed the air.

Izuku stiffened, awareness like cold water spilled between his ribs.

"Hello," the man said in an American accent, "little magus."

Izuku shuffled back. "Who are you?"

“Just a man on a tight schedule. Shall we?” He held out his hand.

Izuku eyed it, even as the stranger’s magic sank icy pinpricks through Izuku's skin.

Izuku looked at Shouto. No words needed to be said as they both turned on their heels and ran.

The man shouted at their backs, but Izuku didn't need to look to confirm the man was chasing them. They wove through heavy foot traffic, dodging tables outside cafés and restaurants, taking the corner toward Dabi Dojo, owned by Shouto’s eldest brother and where Shouto was currently crashing.

They ducked into an alley beside a convenience store, panting for breath. Izuku braced his hands against the brick wall and peered around the corner.

"Is he following?" Shouto asked.

"I don't know. I think he was a seeker," said Izuku, and knew it had to be true.

Shouto paced down the alley and back, his expression grim. "You believe them then? What those people said yesterday?"

"Did you see what just happened? He sniffed me and called me a magus. What is with people sniffing me!?"

He startled as a figure rounded the corner of the alley—the man in the fedora. Izuku stumbled back, jerking Shouto with him.

Right, he thought. Seeker. He could track magic. Or something. Izuku didn't know how it worked.

"What do you want?" Izuku asked, although he had a good idea.

"Why do they always have to run?" He tsked. "My knees aren't what they used to be."

"I'm not going anywhere with you.” Izuku pulled out his phone from his back pocket. “Leave us alone, and I won’t call the police on you.”

"Come now, little magus. We both know that ordinary law enforcement means nothing to magi."

"Who are you?" Shouto demanded.

The man’s eyes narrowed into hard slits. “Don’t you know it’s rude to butt into conversations that have nothing to do with you?”

“Did UA send you?”’ Izuku asked, grabbing Shouto’s wrist to keep him back.

“Ha! UA?!” He let out a harsh, barking laugh that held no humor. “You think I work for that guild of sanctimonious do-gooders? Now that’s just insulting.”

With a sneer, the man abruptly jerked his head from side to side. The veins in his temple rose beneath the skin, thick and purple. Black lines unfurled across his cheeks in tendrils.

Izuku felt it a moment before it happened. His body tensed, magic seizing his limbs. The air erupted around them as if a tornado had blown into the cramped alley. It swept Shouto off his feet and slammed him into the wall.

Izuku held his ground, miraculously. Within his jeans pocket, the amulet Katsuki had given him grew scorchingly hot. The tiny pouch seared like a brand where it rested against his thigh.

Shouto lay on his side against the alley wall, arm covering his face, his shirt riding up his ribs as the wind flayed him. The air warped, even gravity bent to the man's will.

Shit. Shit! He looked from Shouto, pinned to the ground by the force of the gale, to the man strolling closer, a spring in his step.

He lifted his hand and prayed that UA was right—that he really was a magus with powers. Any power. Come on, come on.

Nothing happened. Delight lit up the man's face.

Do something!

Black tendrils shot from Izuku’s hand, snaring the seeker by his neck. The seeker jerked violently. His eyes bulged, and the black lines faded from his face.

Panicked, Izuku tried to wrench his hand back, hoping it would unravel the tendrils, but all that did was tighten them around the seeker’s throat. The air gradually stilled, Izuku clawing desperately at his palms, his knuckles, uncertain where the tendrils were even coming from.

The seeker began to shake, tremors spreading into his shoulders and chest until he stumbled to his knees. His hands scrabbled uselessly at his neck

Then his eyes rolled back and he slumped forward. His face hit the ground with a crack.

+++

"Did you kill him?" Shouto asked, wincing. He was slow to rise, favoring his leg.

“I don’t think so.” Izuku eyed the man lying prone on dirty concrete. Relief flooded through him when his back rose and fell, clearly still breathing.

He raised his trembling hands, bewildered and not a little terrified. Those black tendrils had disappeared the moment the magus fainted, but it was almost as if Izuku could still feel them there, wriggling beneath his skin.

“You okay?”

He looked up to find Shouto regarding him, a worried wrinkle between his brows. Izuku dropped his hands with a huff. “I should be asking you that.”

"I'm fine. We should probably get out of here though.”

Another few blocks up the sidewalk was Shouto's apartment, which he shared with his brother Touya. It sat above Touya’s dojo, which exclusively took on the disillusioned children of affluent families as students. It was a weirdly niche but successful business.

Shouto waved Izuku in and watched the end of the street with wary eyes before hurrying after him.

A single room comprised the majority of the first-floor dojo, the space dominated by large tatami mats in the center. They cut across the room to a door at the back. Beyond it, a flight of stairs took them up to the apartment.

"Where's your amulet?" Izuku asked as soon as they were in Shouto's room.

The room had just enough space for a single-sized bed and a desk that doubled as a bookshelf. Shouto reached back with one hand and yanked off his shirt. The skin across his shoulder blades was swollen and scraped, a bruise already spreading across his spine.

"Please tell me you didn’t throw it away," Izuku said.

Shouto tossed his shirt into the closet and grabbed another, clearly agitated. “I didn’t throw it away. But you can’t tell me you didn’t think it was anything other than a useless good luck charm.”

Shouto was right, but he’d slipped the amulet in his pocket this morning on the off chance Katsuki was right. And also maybe because Katsuki was the one who’d given it to him. Possibly.

He nodded to Shouto’s back. “We should get some ice on that."

"No, we can't waste time sitting around here." He pulled on the clean shirt with a grimace. "That seeker can track you, right? We have to go somewhere safe."

"Safe," Izuku repeated. "You mean Kousaten?"

Shouto didn't look happy about it, but he nodded. "We don't have anywhere else to go. I know you won't want your dad in that kind of danger."

Katsuki had implied the same, but Izuku hadn't understood then what he was up against. Not that he understood it any better now than he had last night, but a close encounter certainly put it into perspective.

"All right," he said. "Don’t forget the amulet."

Scowling, Shouto rifled noisily through the contents of his desk drawer. When he found it, he gave the embroidered silk a cursory, distrustful look before shoving the small pouch into his jeans pocket.

On the train, Izuku couldn't help watching every person who entered their train car, every person whose gaze flicked toward them or sat down in their vicinity. He understood now why Sero had been on edge yesterday while on the train. There was nowhere to run.

From there, Shouto guided them past stores and steady foot traffic until they spotted the restaurant across the street with its familiar heavy doors.

"Can we just walk in?" Izuku wondered out loud.

"They don’t take reservations.”

"I just mean—" He paused when he spotted a familiar head of dark hair coming down the pavement.

When Sero saw them, his gait broke for a moment, eyebrows raising in surprise.

"Wasn’t expecting to see you two again so soon," Sero said, smiling easily. Strapped to his back, over the jacket of his guild uniform, was a long bat bag. "Wasn't expecting to see you again so soon."

"Something happened," Izuku said without preamble.

Sero stood up straighter. "What is it?"

"We were attacked by another seeker."

At this, Sero frowned, and his dark eyes flitted past them, alert and searching. "Tell me everything.”

"He cornered us in an alley, but we escaped," Izuku said, lowering his voice and stepping in closer, mindful of others walking around them. "I did something to him, different from what I did to you yesterday. I..." He paused, realizing how pathetic he must sound, asking Sero for the help he had declined yesterday. But Izuku had always been good at swallowing his pride. "I need your help."

Thankfully, all Sero did was nod, as if their help was a given. And maybe it was.

"How long ago was this?"

"Thirty minutes maybe? We came straight here."

Sero shook his head. "I doubt he'll still be there. Come on then."

They followed him in through the heavy doors. The air was cool, the lighting low but comfortable like Izuku remembered. Once again, all the employees and many of the patrons paused to bow respectfully as Sero passed. Izuku wondered what kind of influence this AU Guild had. Midnight had said they maintained order in the city, but what did that mean practically speaking?

They passed through the foyer where the woman and her familiar had been yesterday. Today, it was empty save for an employee wiping down the bar in the corner. He bowed to Sero.

"You said seekers only have defensive magic," Izuku said.

"It's the price to pay for being able to track magi."

"But the seeker who found me. He threw Shouto against a wall without even touching him."

Beside him, Shouto muttered something rude.

Sero was silent for a moment. Izuku wished he could see his face. Then, Sero abruptly paused and turned.

"First, you should have been carrying the amulet I gave you," he said to Shouto.

Voice flat, Shouto said, "It clashed with my shorts."

"Second, are you sure he was a magus?"

"What else would he be?"

Sero shrugged one shoulder. “Magi and anima aren’t the only things out there that respond to magic. Did he have a familiar with him?"

"No, he—" Izuku remembered the odd way his face had changed. "There were black marks on his face."

Sero ran his tongue along a lip ring he hadn’t been wearing the day before. "If he really was a seeker, then I'd guess he had a familiar elsewhere. There are a number of ways a magus can wield his familiar to enhance his powers or lend him new ones."

"I see," Izuku said, although he wasn't sure if he did. "Do you think he had anything to do with me crea—er—calling Eri?"

"If you took care of him that easily, then I doubt it. Someone else is pulling the strings."

"Are you taking us to Midnight again?" Shouto asked.

A smile tugged at Sero's mouth. "No. She’s out of town for a meeting."

They stopped in front of a door, identical to the other half dozen stretching down the corridor. In place of distinguishing room numbers, the UA crest was adorned the center of each door. Ornate but incomprehensible markings bordered the dark wood.

"What's this?" Izuku asked.

"Your room.”

Izuku blinked. "I… I never said I wanted to stay here."

"No, but it's your only option now, isn't it? At least until Iida returns. He's our Keeper of Records. He'll know where to look for a sieve. That is why you came back to us, isn't it?"

Izuku hadn't planned for this to be an extended stay. He’d kind of been hoping a sieve might be easy to locate. "You can't just Google that?"

Sero gave a short laugh, which Izuku supposed was answer enough.

TBC

A/N: I miss Kacchan.