#wlcm

Nona is making Izumi translate horrible things in Hebrew, which should qualify as cruel and unusual punishment because it doesn’t even share a root language or alphabet with the two other languages she already knows.

“Why do you guys use Hebrew anyway?” Kacchan asks from over her shoulder. “Isn’t Sanskrit the common magic language?”

“It is,” Izumi confirms, fixing the corrections Nona had marked in red. Her paper looks a bit like someone had a nosebleed over it, but this is the least red she’s gotten a translation back yet, so. “But Hebrew was the first language our ancestors spoke and used for guiding magic so we’ve just… kept using it. Nona says it’s a reminder of where we came from, of the place our family was born before we’d been chased out for practicing witchcraft and ‘consorting with demons’. We settled here so long ago that our legends are Japanese rather than Persian, but we haven’t forgotten our roots.”

She stares down at her arms, which are dark, the same kind of dark her whole family is, even after centuries of living in Japan. Blood is magic, her mom had said, pressing their palms together when she was young, and magic breeds true.

“Huh,” Katsuki says, and Izumi wonders how he must feel being so removed from his own history. How light must his shoulders be, without the weight of his ancestors upon them? How lonely? “At least your talismans are in Japanese.”

She makes a rueful little half smile. “At least there’s that,” she agrees.

***

When Yagi next comes to visit, he introduces Izumi to Melissa and David—”please, Mr Shield is so formal!”—over video chat much to her excitement.

After the introductions, she wastes no time in peppering David with question after question about his inventions and scientific work regarding quirk effects. It’s not long before the one sided interrogation quickly devolves into a debate about quirk theory and analysis—something Izumi takes great pride in staying on top of and having skill with—and a semi-lecture about support equipment that Melissa joins in on every so often.

And Melissa is amazing. Not the same type of amazing her dad is, of course, but that’s like trying to compare Kacchan to All Might. They’re both her heroes, but All Might is just a bit… farther from her reach. More polished.

(Yagi, in her mind, is placed in some strange halfway point between Kacchan and All Might—which confuses her about as much as it makes perfect sense.)

Melissa is two years older than her and Kacchan, just starting out at I-Island Academy to be a support engineer, but doesn’t once act like Izumi’s a little kid. She’s nice and clever and wants to help people with her inventions, to make the world a better place for the people in it just like Izumi does. 

It takes only about twenty minutes of talking to the older girl for Izumi to decide that Melissa is one of her new favorite people.

Dinner rolls around before the natural conclusion of the conversation does, and Yagi insists that she go home to eat with her family after spending so many hours cooped up in front of the computer. She grumbles, but moves to comply.

The parting words she hears after saying goodbye and walking out the door is David telling Yagi that, “You got a real firecracker on your hands there, Toshi.”

She blushes, slightly embarrassed but it’s quickly swept aside by a great warmth in her chest when Yagi says back, unbearably fond, “She’s got spirit, that’s for sure. Wouldn’t trade her for the world.”

***

Izumi has always learned best from mimicry, from watching and analyzing how something is done so that she can repeat it herself. But besides illusions, she’s the only fox who can reliably call upon magic stronger than party tricks. 

She has the theories and as accurate a description her family can give her, but it is not the same. She cannot analyse the way the magic moves when a master uses it, cannot feel how it is meant to be shaped by better hands than her own.

Her control and precision suffer for it, and a unique type of frustration begins to build during her practical lessons.

She’s on the back porch biting back frustrated tears because she can’t even conjure a ball of light to sit in her palm without it exploding in her face when Gramps happens upon her. He’s the second oldest in the family after Nona and completely human, which means he doesn’t move or think quite like he used to, but he has good days.

Today must be one of them, because when he leans down to wipe her tears away with gentle, age roughened hands, his eyes are bright and clear. “There’s no need to cry now, sha’alabbin. What has you so frustrated?”

“I can’t-” she hiccups. “It won’t work. I can feel it but it won’t work.”

She’s not making sense. She’s too upset to make any sense. She’s supposed to be powerful, supposed to be the next Matriarch--but all she is is frustrated. She can feel all this magic crackling at the edge of her senses, but she can’t get any of it to do what she wants.

 Gramps eyes her consideringly, and she’s not sure what she looks like, but it can’t be good. After a moment, he nods, like he’s come to some sort of decision, and taps his cane on the ground twice.

“Alright,” he says. “Then let's try something different.”

“Huh?” Izumi blinks, eyelashes still wet from crying. He’s holding out his hand to her, something expectant and fond in his expression. She’s confused, but she puts her hand in his and watches as he guides her fingers to rest at his wrist, almost, but not quite, against his pulse. His skin is almost ghostly compared to hers.

“Don’t try and do anything yourself. Just feel what I’m doing okay?”

She nods, still confused, but she trusts him.

“Ha'er,” he casts and a light bursts, small but bright, in the center of his palm as she feels something press up against her own magic. Izumi gasps, eyes wide and flicking between the light and her fingers pressed against his wrist.

“Again,” she demands, paying more attention this time. 

Gramps doesn’t mention her lack of manners, just smiles and does as she asks.

Yes. Yes, that’s- of course! She lets go of Gramps’ wrist and cups her hands together, a wide smile on her face because she gets it. She gets it.

“Ha'er,” she casts and a light, stronger and larger than Gramps’ but still able to be held in her hands, blooms to life before her. She shrieks, laughing with joy.

She throws her arms around Gramps, careful not to squeeze too tightly, but she’s so overwhelmingly happy. She’s done impossible things like rewrite her best friend’s Name and speak with the wind, and yet conjuring a light in her palm feels like her greatest accomplishment ever.

“Thank you. Thank you so much.”

He hugs her back. “There’s no need to thank me. We are skulk.”

She nods. Breathes deeply the smell of soap and cedar, before pulling away. “How did you know to do that?”

“Call it a hunch,” he says, ruffling her hair. “You learn a great many things getting to my age. And you learn them in a great many ways.” As if to prove his point, he passes his hand over the light in her hand and leaves a dozen butterflies fluttering out from her palms in his wake.

She startles, leaning back on her heels as she watches them flit about in the air. “I - what? How did you do that?” she demands. That was not simple magic. Changing one thing to another is already not easy, but to make the inanimate living? She’d thought no one but her could do things like that under the curse.

Gramps smiles at her, bright and sharp. “There are advantages to being the only one in the family who is a Midoriya in spirit only.”

Izumi blinks. She’d never though about it before, because Gramps is skulk, is family, and blood or marriage doesn’t really have anything to do with it, but he’s a Midoriya the same way Kacchan is. He’d known Nana Naoki when they were young and been brought into the skulk even before Nana Naoki married their husband and had Auntie Umi and Uncle Hikaru and her mom.

“I’m fascinated by magic. As a young boy, I would fill entire notebooks with theories and ideas about things that could be adapted and changed or what would happen if you did this with the core component of that spell instead. But I wasn’t able to put any of it into practice. My magical core was weak, and hadn’t developed properly, so I couldn’t attempt any of my experiments without putting myself in extreme danger. But then Naoki had their Witching, and no sooner had the celebrations ended that I found them at my door, glamor gone and offering me their power as my own, if I wanted it.”

“You were a kitsune-tsukai?” Izumi asks in surprise. One who enters into a pact with fox yōkai of any kind.

Gramps nods. “I’m not strong enough to do the kind of magic you’re learning. Not by myself. But I think I can help you if you help me too.”

She’s nodding before he even finishes talking, head bobbing so fast it’s liable to fly off.

***

At dinner that night, Gramps brings up his intention to help Izumi with her practical spell work, causing most of the table to pause in surprise.

Nana Naoki, who always sits on his right, gives him a look. “You hadn’t told me you wanted to do that,” they say, which makes the table go even quieter. It’s well known in the family that Nana Naoki and Gramps tell each other everything.

They’ve been best friends for decades, the kind of best friends she and Kacchan are. She and Kacchan are a lot like them in a lot of ways actually, (which Izumi doesn’t like thinking about for too long because if she does, then the fact that Nana Naoki is only six years younger than Gramps but physically is about half his age will make her cry).

“I’d only decided in the last two hours, dearheart.” He pats their hand reassuringly. “I also think it’d be wise to have her learn proper talismans under our lovely Aoi. Not just the seals we have young foxes learn.” Aoi, who’d been sitting at Izumi’s left, sits up suddenly at being mentioned. She shoots a look over at Izumi who can only shrug. Gramps didn’t say anything about talismans earlier. “Izumi has the mind for it, I believe, and it’d fix her problem with precision work.”

Nana Naoki frowns. “By doing it for her.”

Gramps tuts. “She has too much magic to ever be good at precision. Not unless she focused on it solely for the next twenty years. The talismans will cover her weaknesses, not aggravate them.”

Nana presses their lips together in something that’s not disagreement, exactly, but perhaps a stubborn refusal to be wrong. But Nona speaks before they can say anything.

“I think that’s an excellent idea, Hiromi. Aoi? Do you think you’d be able to spare the time?”

“Of course, Nona,” Aoi says, reaching over to ruffle Izumi’s hair. “I’d be honored to help.”

Izumi smiles, knocking her shoulder against Aoi. She thinks she’s gonna start liking practical lessons a lot more from now on.

***

“Okay. This is getting a bit ridiculous now,” Uncle Kyo says to the room at large when Izumi once again enters the back door covered in dirt and dried blood. Mom is crying as she fusses over her, wiping away blood from already healed wounds. She never doesn’t cry, no matter how many times Izumi comes home like this.

And, unfortunately, she does it kind of a lot. Things like this are kind of common since they are settled neatly over the largest ley lines in Japan. But she agrees that this is getting ridiculous. The amount of yōkai wandering onto their land has increased with no visible cause as to why.

Yōkai flock to them, but not in such numbers or frequency.

Aoi, who leans over mom to ruffle her hair but suddenly thinks better of it after seeing the dirt, asks, “Why are you always the one to stumble across our newest magical pest?”

“It’s not like I’m going hunting for them!” she protests.

Everyone in the room gives her a look.

Izumi huffs and pouts at everyone for the rest of the night. You put yourself in the middle of a few schoolyard arguments and suddenly you’re looking for trouble everywhere.

***

Izumi is learning magic the traditional way, studying for a whole year and a day before being presented to the Earth during her Witching.

Most of the things she is meant to be taught in that time was decided on long before. There are things she must know as a fox with such a powerful magical core, things she must know as Matriarch-to-be. Most things are planned for her to learn, but there are some things she can choose for herself.

Around the third month, she’s on a video chat with Yagi. That’s not terribly unusual, but the fact that he seems to be calling from a hospital room is.

She spends about five minutes fretting over him, pestering him with questions before someone—Recovery Girl, actually, and Izumi will definitely be freaking out over that later—takes the phone away and answers her questions quickly and efficiently.

“It’s good to know someone is worrying after this idiot,” Recovery Girl says dryly while Izumi can hear Yagi complain in the background. “He needs more people in his life.”

“Funny,” Izumi grins, “My aunts say the same thing.” She just knows that Yagi is blushing furiously now.

Recovery Girl’s lips quirk just a bit, and then she’s handing the phone back to Yagi with one final beration, quiet enough that had Izumi been human, her ears wouldn’t have picked it up.

“You better watch yourself, Toshi. That girl cares about you and I won’t be around to put you back together forever. Don’t do something stupid and leave her alone.”

There’s a lot in there to unpack, things that would make her blush, probably, but her mind gets caught up on the phrase ‘put you back together’. 

Izumi has been worried for Yagi since the moment she met him, and that’s only heightened since she learned of his injury and how far it all went. He’ll be injured the rest of his life, will keep getting more injured until he retires.

(If he retires, a traitorous part of her mind whispers. Izumi channels her inner Kacchan and tells it to shut the fuck up.)

But she could help with Yagi’s injuries, she realizes. Recovery Girl may not always be there for Yagi, but Izumi sure will.

It’ll be hard, and so much precision work that Izumi is likely to cry just thinking about it but, well. It’s Yagi. For him, she’ll learn whatever she needs to.

***

Katsuki finds her in the willow clearing, the one where rikud mavet takes place. It’s where she does most of her practical spellwork, practicing the same motions and words over and over and over until she gets it right.

She says something about the magic being more settled here, but Katsuki can actually See the magic of the clearing and it looks far from fucking settled. But what the hell does he know? Magic’s Izumi’s specialty, not his.

She turns around the moment he steps into the clearing, probably been tracking his progress since he stepped into the woods, the fucking weirdo.

“Hi, Kacchan!”

He grunts as a greeting, standing close enough that she can bump her shoulder against his leg. “What’s this?”

Laid out all around her in the grass are books. Which is, in general, not all that strange. Izumi’s normally surrounded by books—they both are really, what with the curse research and keeping up with classes, and when Izumi isn’t busy with the other two, she’s buried in spellbooks.

The strange part is that she has them in the clearing. The clearing is for practical magic, not theoretical.

She must be ansty, he thinks. Or frustrated.

Izumi sighs, and leans more heavily against his leg. He thinks about moving and letting her overbalance just to watch her sputter, but she starts talking before he can decide. “Anatomy books. Nana Naoki is forcing me to memorize diagrams before they allow me anywhere near healing magics. They say it’s important to build strong foundations.”

Katsuki blinks. “Healing? That’s what you picked?”

“Yeah. I’m picking up talisman work pretty quickly according to Gramps, and now that my practical work is almost completely caught up to where it needs to be, Nona said I’m free to learn whatever I’d like. Of course, this is complicated and realistically impossible to learn in nine months, so I’ll still be learning under Nana Naoki until we leave for UA. and probably a while after that.”

“No, wait- back up. You blow about as much shit up as I do and you want to learn healing magic? I’m no expert, but ain’t that the opposite effect one generally goes for?”

Izumi scowls up at him and pinches his calf in warning. “I’m getting better,” she sniffs. “And I won’t be doing practicals for a while anyway. Nana is having me learn warding to help with control and it’s kind of helping, mostly. I understand better how much magic goes into something and how it stitches together, but I still have trouble stopping it all from rushing out.”

Katsuki hums at that for lack of anything to say. Izumi though, has never lacked for words and continues in his silence. He settles down on the grass next to her, chin propped in his hand and listens as she lectures on magical theory and the odder pieces of human anatomy.

***

Izumi is working on talismans like Aoi’s been showing her while Kacchan checks over her maths homework, her chem equations stacked neatly at his side to be done next. “Incoming,” she warns about three seconds before Aoi slams her door open with a loud bang.

Kacchan still jumps despite the warning and Izumi flinches at the loudness.

“We’re going to the beach,” she says without preamble, darting in to grab Kacchan’s ankle and yank him off the bed like she plans to just drag him the whole way there. Kacchan, of course, starts kicking and trying to dislodge her immediately so Izumi is forced to wait patiently for the two to stop swearing at each other long enough that she can get a word in edgewise.

“Why?” she asks quickly the moment she can. She was going to point out that they were busy with work, but she thinks Kacchan already made that point abundantly clear.

“You two have had your heads in this book or that one for the last two months. You guys need a break. Pretend to be kids for once!”

And, well, she might have a point. Mom’s been fussing over her for at least a week. Between school, magic lessons, (the curse breaking she doesn’t quite know about), aikido, gymnastics, and volunteering around town, she’s worried that Izumi might be working too hard.

This will probably ease her mind a bit. And besides, Izumi actually likes the beach, so. Why not?

***

They spend a whole forty minutes building sandcastles and laughing and chasing Kacchan into the water before Aoi’s plan backfires.

It’s not anyone’s fault really, but they get too close to that one part of the beach that’s become a dumping ground. It’s where Kacchan took her that day he yelled her back into being a Hero. She’d had more important things on her mind at the time, and admittedly still does, but she decides, right there on the sand, that she’s going to clean it up.

There’s something… important about accomplishing this, though she doesn’t know what that is.

She turns to Kacchan to tell him about it, but he’s already glaring at her. “I’m not helping you with this.”

“Okay,” she says, already rearranging their schedules in her head. (They both know he’s going to help her, at least a little bit, but Izumi will let him pretend, as she often does.)

It is, in Izumi’s opinion, a pretty good day.

***

If Katsuki ever has to deal with a púca ever again, he’s going to break something - hopefully the púca’s creepy little neck.

Because this? This is bullshit.

The thing’s been chasing after them for an hour, spouting nonsense riddles and making that stupid, snickiering noise when Katsuki yells swears at it.

Katsuki was well on his way to being pissed, while Izu was lingering somewhere around frustrated and annoyed. Which was strange, considering she doesn't normally get worked up unless there’s a yōkai in town putting people in danger on purpose. Púcaí may be tricksters, but they aren’t malevolent as far as Katsuki knows.

But hell, maybe she’s just as annoyed as he is by the fucker. Even her patience had to have limits.

She’s sitting on a log now, half-resigned to the whole thing, while Katsuki paced behind her like a caged lion, snapping his teeth and growling at the air around him. They can’t actually go anywhere. The supernatural fog surrounding them makes sure of that, walking them in circles until they end up right where they started.

Katsuki felt like a rat in a maze and it was pissing him off.

Which is why, the moment the púca steps out of the fog, Katsuki launches himself at it before it can even open its mouth. It poofs into a cloud of smoke before he can wrings its shitty neck, reappearing next to Izumi on the log.

“Naughty, naughty,” the púca tuts, lips stretching wide and unnatural across it’s vaguely rabbit-like face as it wags a finger at him. “Bad behavior earns no treats.”

“I’m not a fucking dog,” he growls, hands pop-pop-popping to the beat of his anger.

The púca ignores him of course, acting like he’s not even there. “Traps are tricksy things. Tricksy things for tricksy foxes.”

“Could you get to the point?” Izumi snaps, glaring out the corner of her eye. “You’re not making sense.”

“Foxes make bad pets. Too wild. Foxes do not belong in cages.”

Katsuki scoffs. “You’re the one trapping us, fuckface. Just let us out if it upsets you so damn much.”

The púca tilts its head a full ninety degrees to regard him with it’s golden eyes, bright and unnatural against the bed of its black fur. “Peafowl have too many eyes to act so blind,” it tuts disappointingly.

“Fuck you,” he spits.

“Proud, testy creatures are peafowl,” the little rat-shit tells him, sounding almost amused.  “Peafowl do not play well with others.”

“Me and Kacchan get along fine,” Izumi defends before he can say anything. “Stop provoking him.”

The púca narrows its many eyes at her, then him, before swiping its unnaturally long forelimbs over its face and ears a few times, much like Katsuki’s seen real rabbits do. “A cage of gold is still a cage, no matter how pretty it gleams,” it seems to settle on saying. “Foxes do not belong in cages.”

Izumi blows out a loud breath, moving her bangs with the force of it. “If you’re talking about the curse, we already know. We’re working on it.”

“Foxes are clever. Foxes are quick. Foxes are not prey.”

“We know,” Izumi snaps, and she’s starting to sound angry now. Angry and frustrated and probably only a few minutes from crying as the emotions in her chest overflow. If this púca makes her cry, Katsuki’s going to turn it to ash.

“So what changes a fox into that which is not a fox at all?”

“What?” Izu startles at the question. “You can’t stop being a Fox.”

The púca hums neutrally. “Were born of foxes, were raised by foxes, but were not foxes themselves. Never foxes themselves.” The púca pauses, thinking, then nods slowly. “Not foxes. But should have been.”

“Should’ve - hang on. Are you saying the curse isn’t killing us but just… turning us human? Is that even possible?” She turns to look at him, but Katsuki just makes a face at her and shrugs. Fuck if he knows.

“Blood is magic,” the púca says heavily. “Magic breeds true.”

He watches as Izumi’s face goes pinched with confusion, brows furrowed and lips turned down. “Magic breeds true,” she repeats. “Magic breeds… the curse is taking our magic? So much that it’s killing us? How? Where’s it going? What’s the curse doing to it? It can’t just be released back into the-”

“Better question,” Katsuki interrupts her train of thought before she gets too far. “Why take the magic in the first place? They’re Hunters. Wouldn’t they have just tried to kill you?”

Katsuki scowls as he thinks about the hidden reliquary and all the ‘trophies’ the Takanashis had crammed inside. Izu frowns, sad and angry all at once, and he knows she’s thinking the same thing. “You’re right. That doesn’t seem like something they’d do at all.”

“Curses are tricksy things,” the púca says, then, far more pointedly, “Hunters are not tricksy things.”

Katsuki stares down at the púca for a long moment, Izumi just as silent, before he suddenly bursts out laughing.

“Kacchan!” Izumi admonishes, probably because she doesn't think he should be laughing, but - fuck. This is hilarious in that kind of way that if he doesn’t laugh, he’s going to slam his head into a tree as hard as fucking possible.

The Takanashis fucked up the curse they tried to place on the Midoriyas? Are you shitting him?

Some fucking hunter legacy they were. No wonder they’re all six feet under ground.

Izumi sighs, hands scraping through her hair roughly. Her hair sticks up oddly in their wake. “Okay. Okay. You told us all this stuff, but what are we supposed to do now? How do we break the curse?”

The púca hums neutrally, eyes twinkling.

“Come on,” Izumi whines. “You’re supposed to help people! Help us!”

Katsuki gives her a look. “It’s been trying to help us?”

Izumi pauses, then shakes her hand in a so-so gesture with a grimace. “Púcaí are wise. But they’re also unreasonable tricksters who make people work for the advice they give.”

He pinches the bridge of his nose, and thinks, briefly, of just blowing up the damn rat so he can be done with it all. “Work for - fucking fine. It told us how the curse works, which probably means the way to break it is somewhere in it’s mess of ass-backwards riddles.”

Izumi nods. “Yeah, okay. Let me just… so the curse steals our magic. In the beginning that meant it… killed us from the lack of magic, and now it means that it’s harder to call upon magic at all--which is probably just the curse deteriorating naturally, which isn’t uncommon. The Takanashis likely believed that ripping out our magic would kill us, which it did, but that magic has to go somewhere. It can’t just be left out in the aether, we’d either just reabsorb it or it would wreak havoc on the natural order. So, if the Takanashis are smart-”

“Which we already know they weren’t,” Katsuki interrupts.

“If they were smart,” she repeats pointedly. “They’d have an anchor for the spell that’s holding all our magic in it. But since onyx is the only thing I can think of that doesn’t have any discovered upper limit for holding magic--which I doubt they used, it would have to be a perfect sphere and the Takanashis were no experts in material manipulation--whatever they used is probably growing too full after absorbing three… maybe four generations of magic?”

Katsuki narrows his eyes. “Wait. Are you saying that the skulk’s magic is just… out there somewhere?”

“It’s probably somewhere within the barrier actually,” she ponders absentmindedly. “It’d have to be in order to be an anchor. And I also don’t think the magic it took could cross the barrier if it was since the magic is us and we can't cross. Well, actually hold on - can I manipulate things outside the barrier? We never tested-”

He slaps a hand over her mouth. “Izumi, shut the fuck up. Focus. All the magic that the Takanashis took from the skulk is somewhere nearby. We can find it, and when we do, we can take it back. Your family could have their magic back.”

Izumi’s eyes widen as the púca snickers, showing off it’s rows and rows of needlepoint teeth. “Clever peafowl.”

She pulls his hand off her mouth, holding his wrist in her two hands. “Do you think that’d take care of the barrier too?”

His lips twist as he thinks about it. They’ve been assuming the barrier was a part of how the curse functions up until now, like a plastic bag slowly suffocating you. But if the curse is stealing their magic in order to hurt them, then the barrier might be something extra placed over the whole thing just to keep the Midoriyas close to what’s hurting them.

He doesn’t say any of that though, because it doesn't actually answer the questions and he’s sure Izumi already figured that out anyway. So, instead he says, “It fucking better. If I have to do more work after going through all this shit to break a generational curse, I’ll explodo-kill your face, you got that?”

Because Izumi is an insane person, she smiles at that and gives his wrist a squeeze before letting it go. “Of course, Kacchan.”