Chapter Text
Zelda held out her hands, forming a triangle shape between her index fingers and thumbs. Golden light shot forward, freezing the monstrous form of Calamity Ganon in place. “Link, are you sure?”
The blond-haired boy glanced back at her and nodded once, before facing Ganon once more and drawing the Master Sword from its scabbard on his back. Link dashed forward, brow furrowed in determination. Ganon roared, and a glowing golden seal formed on his underbelly. Link grunted, veering his course and sliding between Ganon’s front hooves. The hero plunged the Master Sword through the center of the seal, and Ganon screeched in pain, his Malice oozing from his massive body.
Suddenly, the light shattered, and a roar echoed throughout the area - not a pig-like squeal, but a shout of pain. A deep voice shouted, “This is not over, pesky goddess! My hatred will continue to pursue you and your kind, even if it must infect another being to do so!”
Unbidden, a memory flashed to the surface of Zelda’s mind - a demon king, determined to conquer the world with the power of Hyrule’s most sacred treasure. Several more memories flashed through her mind, each one of a similar scene - a battle with herself and Link against a Gerudo male, in slightly different appearances but consistent souls. With a force she didn’t know she had, she spoke, “Mortals will no longer cower from your evil, Demise. They have grown courageous since our first battle all those centuries ago.”
Demise roared, and the Malice exploded outwards, rushing over the nearby landscape and coating the grass. Zelda quickly clasped her hands together, and a golden dome formed over the area, containing herself and Link alongside the demonic ooze. As her skin began to burn, the back of her left hand glowed with a golden light. She raised her hands to her lips and whispered, “Goddesses, hear my prayer. Let the rest of the world live on, even if it means that I may perish.”
A hand fell on her shoulder, and she glanced up to look her champion in the eyes. Link stared at her, before nodding once, reassuring in his own silent way. She smiled, before closing her eyes, allowing the searing pain to fill her mind. If this is the end for us, I may at least take solace knowing that the kingdom will continue in peace.
MANY MILLENNIA LATER
Izuku winced in pain, but forced himself to hold his fists up in a defensive position. “I-I’m not l-letting you h-hurt them!”
The older boy glared down at him, cracking his knuckles angrily. “Back off, pipsqueak. There’s no way you can stop me from showing that loser his place.”
Izuku’s determination didn’t waver. “I c-can’t call m-myself a future h-hero if I d-didn’t step in!”
The older boy shrugged. “Your funeral.”
There was a flash of pain, and then everything went dark.
Momo hummed, licking her finger and turning the page. “Interesting. So a screen contains a multitude of lights, which can each shine one of three colors. The colors combine into many different colors which, when all put together, creates images.”
Mother poked her head into Momo’s reading room. “Darling, are you feeling alright? The nurse told me that you haven’t been out of your room very much recently.”
Momo glanced up and sent Mother a reassuring smile. “Just learning, Mother! Everything is so fascinating! I have to know!”
Mother hummed. “Well, just be sure to eat. I don’t want you wasting away because you were too busy reading, alright?”
Momo nodded, before turning back to her book.
Katsuki grunted as he stared down at the bastard covered in burns and bruises. “C’mon, you were talking hot shit just a second ago! Where’s all that confidence, huh?! Or did you really get your ass laid out by a six-year-old?!”
The unconscious teenager didn’t respond, and Katsuki grunted again, before turning on his heel and walking over to the nearby kid laying on his back by the fence. He leaned down and started quickly slapping the other boy’s cheeks. “Oi, Deku! C’mon, wake up, you idiot!”
Deku’s eyes shot open, and he bolted upright. “I won’t let you hurt them!”
Katsuki scoffed, smacking Deku upside the back of the head like the old hag would do to him. “Keep up, nerd. I beat up this dick while you were taking a nap over here.”
Deku sniffed, his eyes filling with tears. “I’m sorry, Kacchan! I promise, I tried to do something this time! But they were so much bigger and stronger than me!”
Katsuki huffed warmly. “Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it a dozen times. You really need to get some exercise, Deku. You can’t be a hero if you’re a fucking twig!”
Deku winced and rubbed at his neck. “I… I tried to sign up at the gym near our house. Really, I did! But the lady at the desk said they didn’t serve Quirkless people…”
Katsuki clicked his tongue in annoyance. “That fucking sucks. How’re you gonna save anyone if you can’t even get stronger? That does it, I’m getting you some exercise shit for your birthday.”
Deku started waving his hands nervously. “Ah, no, Kacchan, you don’t need to waste your allowance on me! I promise, I’ll find a way to get stronger myself, don’t waste your time with me!”
Katsuki smacked Deku again. “It’s not a waste, idiot! I can’t be saving your ass all the damn time, so you need to get stronger!”
Inko glanced up as the front door creaked open, and she gasped as Izuku and Katsuki walked in, covered in bruises. “My goodness! What happened to you two?!”
Izuku sniffed. “There was a high schooler at the park picking on Tsubasa-kun, so I tried to get him to stop, but then he started hitting me…”
Katsuki grunted. “I had to step in and kick the guy’s butt so that Deku wouldn’t die. Again. I’m half-convinced to stick by his side all the time so that he doesn’t keep trying to fight people he knows are out of his league.”
Izuku huffed. “C’mon, Kacchan, you know I can’t help it! Whenever I see someone in trouble, I have to help!”
Inko sighed, all too familiar with the antics of her son and honorary nephew. “And while that’s a very nice attitude for a hero to have, it’s a little dangerous for a six-year-old who can barely lift a gallon of milk.”
Izuku pouted. “It’s not my fault the gym in town won’t take Quirkless people!”
Inko hummed, before patting her son on the head. “Well, after I get you all cleaned up, let’s see what we can do about finding somewhere better, alright?”
Izuku’s eyes lit up, and he shot towards the bathroom, gibbering excitedly. Katsuki chuckled, before following after his honorary brother at a more reasonable pace. Inko giggled to herself at her son’s excitement, before glancing at Katsuki’s hand. It was still there - that odd marking on the back of his right hand. It had appeared out of nowhere on the blonde’s fourth birthday, at the same time his Quirk manifested. The doctors had no idea what it meant, or if it even meant anything at all. As far as they could tell, it was nothing more than an oddly-shaped birthmark that appeared far later than usual. Though, “odd” was an understatement - it wasn’t often that a birthmark was a perfect equilateral triangle with lines connecting the midpoints of the sides.
What was even more odd was that Izuku had an identical marking on the back of his own right hand.
Shiru glanced back at the door to Momo’s study. Her daughter had been much more bookish than usual as of late. While she normally would’ve been happy about that fact, Shiru was concerned that this mental change coincided with a physical one. For whatever reason, a couple of weeks ago, a strange marking appeared on the back of Momo’s right hand - an equilateral triangle with lines connecting the midpoints of the sides. Ever since, Momo had been spending more and more time reading, tearing through the mansion’s expansive library.
Shiru was concerned that, perhaps, someone had used some kind of Quirk on her daughter to fish for information. She had asked the head of security for the mansion, who had reviewed the tapes and reported that nobody out of the ordinary was present when the mark appeared. Still, there was no rational explanation that Shiru could think of, even with her own Quirk allowing her to memorize entire libraries of information.
Still, there was always the chance that she was unconsciously overlooking certain possibilities. She needed to consult someone who she was certain was without any biases whatsoever when it came to theorizing.
“I wonder if Principal Nedzu still owes me a favor…”
Nedzu hummed curiously, poring over the snapshot that the Yaoyorozu matriarch had sent him. Supposedly, this strange symbol had appeared on her daughter’s hand two weeks prior, and the girl had since been devouring any book she could find for knowledge. Shiru-san was concerned that young Momo might be under the influence of some sort of Quirk, and the woman had already exhausted her own avenues.
Nedzu loved a challenge.
First and foremost - the result of a Quirk? Most likely not - after a quick perusal of the Quirk registry database, not one seemed to match the described effect on the six-year-old girl. The next most likely event was brainwashing, but he quickly ruled that out as well. The symbol didn’t belong to any cult that Nedzu was aware of, and most instances of brainwashing with these effects usually targeted specific information. Not the near-infinite range of topics young Momo was taking in on a regular basis. Well, if not that, then what about…?
After fifteen minutes and several cups of tea, Nedzu was forced to accept the truth - he had no solutions that fit the bill perfectly.
Suddenly, the mammal sat upright in his office chair. “Unless…”
He quickly hit a button on his desk that locked down his office, before tapping away at his keyboard and accessing his private files. A few clicks of the mouse brought him to a folder on the many ancient ruins spaced around Japan. These ruins all dated from around the same time period, and yet seemingly belonged to a myriad of cultures, based on the carvings lining the outer walls. Most surprising was how intact they were, and the fact that neither technology nor Quirks had managed to pierce through to the inner corridors.
Nedzu brought up an image of the closest ruin, located in the forest outside the residential district of Musutafu. His excitement grew as he scanned the photograph of the front doors, noticing that it seemed to feature the same symbol as the one on young Momo’s hand. A triangle divided into four equal pieces. Though, the symbol on the ruins’ doors also sat above an odd shape that seemed to depict some kind of bird that didn’t match any known modern species.
“How interesting.”
All for One hummed to himself as he approached the massive stone doors, his hands in his pockets. “How interesting. Normally, I’d avoid the Tottori Sand Dunes like the plague, but this ruin is quite the curiosity.”
He placed one hand on the doors, and there was a flash of golden light, sending him stumbling back several paces. All for One stared down at it, as though it had betrayed him in some manner. Garaki glanced back at the centuries-old supervillain, worry etched into his face. “Master, are you alright?”
“...This is no ordinary ruin. My collection of durability Quirks should be able to keep me rooted in place, even under the greatest impacts. Something is unnatural about this place, able to circumvent the power of hundreds of Quirks.”
Garaki frowned. “What do you suggest we do, sir?”
All for One huffed. “Leave it. For now. This will warrant further study, but as things stand, I must make preparations for the eighth holder.”
Garaki bowed his head. “As you wish, sir.”
As the two vanished through a cloud of black sludge, a mysterious figure rose out of the sand by the doors, surrounded by ethereal turquoise flames. “How interesting. A mortal man, imbued with the same evil as the Calamity. We may have reason to be wary.”
NINE YEARS LATER
The bell rang, signaling the end of classes for the day. The teacher closed his textbook and walked out the door, and the class started packing up in preparation to go home. As usual, Katsuki was the first to be fully packed and the first out the door. Izuku grabbed his Quirk analysis notebook, labeled #13, and opened it to the section on his math teacher. He reached for his pen, but Yubi suddenly yanked the notebook off of Izuku’s desk. The green-haired boy sighed, before turning in his seat to stare up at his classmate. “Please give me back my notebook, Yubi.”
The other student chuckled darkly, gripping the book with both hands. “What, this? What’s even the point, Deku? You’re never gonna do anything, so why keep pretending that you’re worth a damn?”
Izuku sighed again, having already had this conversation several times before. “Just give me my notebook, Yubi. I’m not doing anything that’s hurting you, so you don’t need to interrupt my hobby.”
Yubi smirked and stepped forward as if preparing to hand the notebook back, before suddenly ripping it in half along the spine. “Oops! Sorry about that!”
Izuku stared at the other boy with completely dead eyes. “You and I both know that you don’t mean that. Have you had your fun by destroying my things? Can I go now?”
Yubi tossed the halves of the book out the window, before stepping closer and leaning down so that his face was filling Izuku’s vision. “Listen, you Quirkless freak. You’re never gonna be a hero, so do Bakugou a favor and don’t apply to UA, yeah? The place doesn’t need a Deku like you dragging it down. Matter of fact, why don’t you do us all a favor and go take a swan dive off a building? Who knows, maybe you’ll get lucky and get a Quirk in your next life.”
The student and his buddies started laughing raucously, before all filing out of the classroom in short order. Izuku watched them all go, only letting his facade drop once he was alone. He slammed a fist into his desk, his eyebrows pinched. “Damn it! Why do I force myself to just sit there and take it like a weakling?!”
He zipped up his bag and made his way out of the room, quickly exiting the building and walking around to the koi pond in the back, the two halves of his notebook floating in the dirty water. He pulled them out, noting with anger that the ink was beginning to run. “Shit. I’m gonna have to transfer the notes to a new book. If he’d just ripped it in half, I could’ve taped it back together, but no, the jerk just had to throw it in the koi pond.”
Sighing, Izuku stuck the notebook halves in his bag and started walking home, taking the detour from his normal route that he knew would take him by a convenience store. As he walked into the underpass, he was already debating what color of notebook to get this time. He was so lost in his thoughts, he didn’t notice the manhole cover shifting until it was too late. He was swept up in a wave of dark green slime, which surrounded him and lifted him off the ground. Two green-tinted eyes stared down at him from the top of the sludge, and a mouth with offset teeth formed. “Man, you’re a real life-saver, kid! A medium-sized body, perfect for hiding from that guy!”
Izuku’s eyes widened in fear, and he opened his mouth to scream, but the sludge suddenly started pouring in, cutting off his breath. Shit! What do I do, what do I do?!
The villain chuckled, “Hey, stop squirming, kid! Just let it happen, your brain’s gonna shut off from lack of oxygen in just 45 seconds! Gotta say, you’re my hero right now.”
Izuku’s eyes widened even further. No! I can’t let this happen! I promised Katsuki that I’d join him at the beach for practice today! Suddenly, a detail flashed into his mind. Wait a sec. His body is fluid sludge, but his eyes are still solid! And if I remember correctly…
He quickly removed his right hand from the sludge by his mouth and stuck it into his pocket, grabbing his pen. He swung up and backwards, and the sludge guy screeched as the point jabbed into his right eye. “GAH! Why, you little-”
The sludge started pouring in even faster, and Izuku cursed internally. Shit! I was sure that would help! It only made him angrier! Black spots started appearing in his vision, and his breathing became labored. Damn, I can’t die here! Not now! I can’t die… without becoming a hero!
Suddenly, a brilliant golden light shone from the back of his right hand. The sludge villain hissed in pain, and the slime was forcibly ejected from Izuku’s mouth. Izuku fell to the ground, coughing and panting heavily. The manhole cover shot up, and a large figure jumped out from the sewers. “MY APOLOGIES, YOUNG MAN! THE SEWER SYSTEM WAS MUCH HARDER TO NAVIGATE THAN I THOUGHT! BUT DO NOT FEAR! FOR I AM HERE!”
The sludge guy cursed under his breath and shifted towards the end of the underpass. “Damn it! I can’t get caught now!”
The sludge shot forward, but the massive figure cocked its right fist. “TEXAS SMASH!”
The slime was blown away, save for a small clump surrounding the eyes. It writhed around on the ground, and the figure strode forward quickly, ripping the eyes apart and stuffing each one into an empty soda bottle. As Izuku coughed out what felt like the last of the sludge, a massive hand entered his vision. “ARE YOU ALRIGHT THERE, YOUNG MAN?”
Izuku glanced up, and he gasped. “A-A-All Might?!”
Indeed, there was the Number One Hero in all his glory, wearing casual clothing and holding a plastic grocery bag. “INDEED! I HAPPENED TO BE OUT ON A GROCERY RUN WHEN THIS VILLAIN STARTED CAUSING TROUBLE! BUT ENOUGH ABOUT ME! ARE YOU FEELING ALRIGHT?”
Izuku turned away and coughed again, smacking his fist against his chest a couple times. “Yeah, I… I think I’m alright. Most of the sludge got out of my lungs when you blew him away. You… you got him, right?”
“OF COURSE, YOUNG MAN! REST ASSURED, THIS CRIMINAL HAS BEEN SAFELY CONTAINED!”
As Izuku got to his feet, he suddenly remembered who he was talking to and quickly rifled around in his bag. “Hang on a sec! Before you go, could you sign something for me? I’m a huge fan of yours!”
He pulled out the tattered second half of Analysis Notebook #13 and held it out to the hero, who chuckled deeply. “WHY, OF COURSE! A HERO ALWAYS HAS TIME FOR HIS FANS!” All Might flipped through the notebook, stopping on the entry about Mount Lady. “HMM. A FAN OF ALL HEROES, I SEE. THIS ART IS QUITE GOOD, I MUST SAY! NOW, I’M ASHAMED TO ASK SOMETHING OF YOU, BUT DO YOU HAVE A PEN ON HAND?”
Izuku blinked, before glancing down at the pen still clutched in his right hand. It was still covered in residual slime, and Izuku held back a gag. “Uh, give me a second. I don’t think you’ll want to use this one.” He rifled around in his bag again, before pulling out one of his spare pens and holding it out to the man. “Here!”
All Might took the pen and quickly scrawled out a signature on the page, before handing both items back to Izuku. “THERE YOU GO, YOUNG MAN! NOW, BEFORE I TAKE OFF, ARE YOU CERTAIN THAT YOU’LL BE ALRIGHT? YOUR RIGHT HAND LOOKS… PECULIAR.”
Izuku glanced at his hand, eyes widening when he saw that the back of it was shining with a golden light. He quickly stuffed it in his pocket and lied, “Um, it’s, uh, related to my Quirk! Honestly, I feel fine! You don’t need to worry about me!”
All Might frowned for a couple awkward seconds, before grinning again. “WELL, IF THAT’S THE CASE, THEN I MUST BE OFF! THESE BOTTLES WILL ONLY CONTAIN THIS VILLAIN FOR SO LONG, AND I MUST BE HANDING HIM OFF TO THE POLICE!”
With that, the hero leaped away, a gust of wind blowing away the residual clumps of slime lining the underpass. Izuku stared at the sky, before pulling his hand out of his pocket and staring at the glowing symbol on the back of it. For years, he’d had that strange marking there, but this was the first time it had really done anything aside from existing. As he stared, the glow dimmed. Now, the lines of the marking were glowing a soft gold, and the triangle in the bottom right was also glowing. The top and bottom right triangles had a softer, less opaque glow, and the one in the middle was as blank as before.
“...What is this?”
Katsuki grunted, taking a sip from the can of soda that he’d grabbed from a nearby vending machine. “Where the hell is Deku? He promised to be here by now.”
Fingers scoffed from behind him. “Betcha he ran home like the damn coward he is.”
Katsuki glared back at the other boy. “Deku’s a lot of things, but he isn’t one to break promises.”
Fingers raised his hands in surrender and backed off. “Whoa, geez, alright, chill. So he’s running late, big whoop. We can probably do shit without the loser, anyways.”
Katsuki grunted, crushing the can in his grip and scorching it with an explosion. “If you wanna go off and do shit, fine. But I’m gonna wait for Deku.” He tossed the remains of the soda can into a nearby bin, because while he might’ve been an asshole, he wasn’t a fucking litterer, dammit.
Fingers suddenly glanced up and frowned. “Hey, what’s that?”
Katsuki glanced up, humming as he noticed what looked like two soda bottles falling out of the sky. As they fell, he made out what looked like green sludge inside of them. “Ugh, gross. Who the hell carries around swamp water in two-liter bottles?” The bottles hit the ground, and the lids popped off, clearly not having been screwed on tight. The sludge oozed out, before suddenly surging across the ground unnaturally. Katsuki’s eyes narrowed, and he backed up a couple paces, curling his fingers into claws. “The fuck is this?”
The slime surged upwards, and Katsuki made out two greenish eyes above a mouth of mismatched teeth. “Curse that hero. But he made the mistake of thinking he had me contained.” The eyes swiveled down to stare at Katsuki, and the fucker grinned. “Hey, you’re not a bad-looking skinsuit, kid! Certainly better than that other one I ran into. Man, I wish I could pay him back for stabbing my eye with that pen.”
Katsuki popped an explosion in his right hand as a warning. “Don’t try me, sewer-breath.”
The guy’s eyes widened. “Hey, that’s a pretty nifty Quirk you got there! Perfect for keeping the cops off my tail! C’mere!”
Toshinori grunted as he landed behind the police station. “HUH. THAT LANDING WAS HARDER THAN USUAL. I’M GETTING WEAKER, AREN’T I? WELL, GOOD THING I WAS ABLE TO CATCH THIS GUY QUICKLY…”
He patted at his pocket, only to pause when he didn’t feel the bottle that he’d used to contain one of the villain’s eyes. He patted at his other pocket, realizing that it was also empty. He glanced around his feet, his panic growing. “WAIT, WHERE’D HE GO?!”
Suddenly, an explosion echoed from the other side of town, followed by several sirens going off. Toshinori glanced in that direction, before sighing, his body deflating in a puff of steam. “Guess I’d better go check that out…”
Izuku hummed to himself as he walked down the street, transcribing his analyses into the new notebook he’d purchased at the convenience store. “Could’ve done without that sludge villain trying to possess me or whatever, but I guess I just can’t have a peaceful day.” The sound of an explosion caught his attention, and he glanced up to see a crowd forming nearby. “What’s that? Another villain fight?”
He ran over to the crowd, noticing that Backdraft was holding the crowd back with a stream of water. Death Arms, Slugger, Airjet, and Kamui Woods were all standing nearby, seemingly doing nothing. As Izuku got closer, one of the bystanders shouted, “Aren’t you gonna do anything?!”
Kamui Woods responded, “We can’t get close because he’s firing off those blasts! None of our Quirks are suited to this, we’ve gotta wait for a hero with a better Quirk to arrive!”
Blasts? Izuku cautiously pushed through the crowd, eventually getting to the front. He stared across the devastated area and gasped, recognizing the sludge villain that had attacked him earlier. He got free? But All Might said he was contained! Wait a minute, if he could make explosions, why didn’t he do that when he was trying to possess me?
The sludge thrashed around, and another explosion tore through the area. The force of the blast pushed back the slime a bit, and Izuku’s heart leapt into his throat as he recognized the head of blond hair currently writhing around in the sludge. “Katsuki!”
Without thinking, he jumped over Backdraft’s barrier and shot forward, ignoring the cries of the heroes behind him. As he approached, the sludge villain turned and cackled. “Man, what are the odds?! Here I am, thinking about how I’d like to get back at you for what you did earlier, and then you show up to get in my way again! Well, too bad for you, but this kid’s got a great Quirk! How about you have a taste of it?!”
The sludge forced Katsuki’s hand up at Izuku, and he immediately ducked to the side, just as an explosion tore through the air where he’d been standing. Izuku kept running forward, several thoughts running through his head at the same time. Backdraft is forced to put out the fires every time Katsuki’s Quirk goes off, which keeps him from attacking the villain directly. Kamui would get burned by the explosions, Airjet’s bursts would get counteracted, Death Arms only knows close combat, and Slugger - well, Slugger’s never been all that great. The main problem here is Katsuki. He’s trying to force the sludge off of him with explosions, but they’re hurting more than they’re helping. If anyone’s gonna do anything, Katsuki needs to get free.
Katsuki forced his head up and to the side, and his eyes widened. “Deku! The fuck are you doing here?! Get out, you can’t beat this guy!”
Izuku’s eyes narrowed, and the symbol on the back of his right hand glowed brighter. “I’m not leaving without you!”
He jumped forward, pulling out the sludge-covered pen from earlier. He landed on Katsuki’s head and stabbed the pen into the villain’s non-bleeding eye. The sludge villain screeched and reared back, unintentionally retracting some of the sludge covering Katsuki’s chest. Izuku hopped back and landed on the ground, digging his hands into the slime and grabbing Katsuki’s arms. The blonde’s right hand shone with a golden light, and he was forcibly ejected from the slime as electricity coursed through it. Immediately, Backdraft shot away from the crowd, trapping the villain’s eyes in a ball of water. The crowd started cheering, and Death Arms walked up, clapping Izuku on the shoulder. “Not bad, kid. In the future, though, try leaving things to the professionals, alright?”
Izuku glared at the hero and shrugged his hand off. “If the professionals would do their damn jobs, then I wouldn’t need to do anything. Clearly, none of you were going to do anything, and somebody had to step in. My suggestion would be to give yourself some kind of ranged attack.”
Death Arms blustered, “We were waiting-”
Izuku interrupted, “You couldn’t wait. The villain was forcing himself into the hostage’s mouth and suffocating them. The guy attacked me before, so I can say with complete certainty that Katsuki only had a minute to live when he was first attacked. If I hadn’t acted, he would be dead and the villain would’ve been able to puppet his corpse without any issues. Waiting was not an option. Do better.”
He stormed off, dragging Katsuki by the arm. Once they were away from the heroes and the flashing cameras, Izuku gently patted Katsuki’s cheek a couple times. “Hey. Kat. You with me?”
Katsuki’s eyes fluttered open, before shooting wide as his cheeks bulged. Izuku quickly stepped to the side just before Katsuki started coughing up chunks of slime. Izuku gently patted his friend’s back as he emptied his lungs. “Ugh. God, that… that was fucking awful. The dude reeked of sewer sludge.”
Izuku grunted. “Considering he crawled out of a manhole when I first saw him, I’m not surprised.”
Katsuki glanced back at Izuku. “He… attacked you earlier?”
Izuku nodded. “In the underpass on the way to the convenience store. All Might showed up and blasted him with a Texas Smash. Supposedly, he ‘contained’ the guy in a couple of soda bottles.”
Katsuki scoffed. “Apparently not. The bottles holding the fucker fell into the alley where I was waiting for you. Guess now I know why you were late, huh?”
Izuku hummed. “Guess so.”
Katsuki glanced at Izuku’s right hand, where the symbol was shining brightly. “The fuck is that?”
Izuku grunted. “You know that marking I used to have on my right hand? The one identical to yours? When I got attacked and was about to pass out from oxygen deprivation, it flashed and forced the guy off of me.” He pointed at Katsuki’s right hand, which was also glowing. “The same thing happened to you when I was trying to pull you out.”
Katsuki looked at the back of his right hand, before glancing back at Izuku’s marking. “There’s a difference. On yours, the bottom-right triangle is glowing the brightest. On mine, it’s the top one.”
Izuku frowned and peered at his friend’s hand. Sure enough, the topmost triangle in Katsuki’s mark had the most opaque glow. “On both of ours, the bottom-left one is dimmer, and the center one is entirely clear. Makes me wonder if there’s a third person somewhere with the same marking that’d have the bottom-left one.”
Momo sneezed, wiping at her nose before returning to her book. “Strange. I don’t think anyone’s gotten sick in the house recently enough for me to contract anything.” She scratched at the back of her right hand. “And what is this itch that won’t go away?”