NOPE.
"Sorry, I just got lost in thought," I said, doing my absolute best to keep the revulsion off my face.
"Are you sure? Your temperature isn't high, but it could be something else. Why don't you come inside? I can check you," he offered with a kind smile—one that wasn't reflected at all in his chakra.
"No, thank you," I replied, probably a little too brusque, but I cut off any further conversation by speed-walking away from this walking death flag.
"Izuku, what's the matter?" Naruko called as I rejoined the group. They'd done their best to follow as I'd weaved through Konoha's evening streets.
"I have to talk to my sensei. Right now." My tone was sharp. Urgent.
Worry spread across Hinata's and Naruko's faces. Sakura just looked confused. Kuro's eyes, however, flared crimson with the Sharingan—her gaze dissecting every twitch of my posture and muscle, reading the panic I couldn't hide. Her face darkened in understanding.
They didn't ask questions. They followed.
"That guy—whoever he is—he's bad news," I muttered as we turned a corner, finally leaving Konoha General behind us.
"How do you know?" Naruko asked as we moved faster, until the streets grew too crowded and we launched ourselves to the rooftops with chakra-boosted leaps—except for Sakura, who Naruko had to carry.
Fucking scrub.
Though the wing man in me was rooting for Naruko, in a weird way not that I was interested in adding sakura to my girls or anythi–and now I was just mentally rambling to keep from panicking.
"His chakra. It was wrong. Like it was rotting from the inside out."
But it wasn't Naruko who answered.
"Sensory strong enough to pierce my concealment. Interesting."
My eyes went wide. That voice.
Smoke pellets clattered across the rooftop and boom—my vision vanished in a flood of gray.
"Izuku!" three voices cried as a foot slammed into my back, launching me through the air. I tried to twist, to correct, but a second blow shattered my balance and sent me crashing to the dirt.
"Of all the ways I imagined being discovered, you never factored into them, Izuku-kun," my attacker murmured.
I groaned, lifted my face from the pavement, and took in my surroundings—a dark, narrow alleyway.
Peak stranger danger.
"Lord Hiruzen's and the Mistress's continued interest in you baffled me at first," he said, emerging from the shadows, round lenses gleaming with faint light. "But the more I watched... the more sense it made."
"How do you do it, Izuku? How are you so original... so unique? What makes you you?"
His voice was flat. Clinical. But that, too, was a mask. I could feel it—envy. Raw and bitter, woven through every strand of his chakra like acid thread.
I didn't answer with words.
I answered with fire.
Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu!
The words screamed in my mind as I envisioned the hand signs and exhaled, a basketball-sized sphere of flame roaring from my lips, hurtling toward him with brutal force.
Sarutobi-sensei's scrolls were packed with what he called "foundational" jutsu—low-level stuff by clan standards, but nothing to scoff at. Most would have called them advanced. My training with jutsu theory hadn't gotten to elemental nature transformation yet, but I'd gotten good at using nature transformation for non elemental jutsu. Combine that with my solid chakra control and I could use these techniques with power and consistency. Strong enough that Mizuki would've been ash if he took it full-on.
Which is why my blood ran cold when the man—who looked like a chunin at best—didn't move.
His hands flared with chakra so dense it was visible—and cut the fireball in half.
The fuck?
I didn't have time to gawk. He was on me in a flash, vanishing in a body flicker—but I'd already cast the same jutsu, slipping away with a shunshin of my own. Deciding to make a break for it.
I didn't make it very far.
A hand snared my throat mid-flight and hurled me back into the alley. I twisted, landing hard and raising my guard—only to take a kick to the face before I could get my hands up.
Good thing I'd cast Mage Armor mid-air. The hit still rattled me, though—my armor wasn't great against blunt trauma. But it held. Barely. Something to work on.
"That jutsu's come a long way since you used it on Mizuki," the man said, tone flat with fascination. But his chakra—his chakra—had turned ravenous. Not just envious now. Hungry. Starving for something in me.
I forced my thoughts still. Like water on a pond, calm and focused—then whipped it into a storm. Thanks to daily meditation, I didn't lose control like I had with Lord Enma. But it was close.
He noticed. I saw the slight tightening around his eyes. Felt his chakra bristle.
We stood in silence, each reading the other.
Then we moved.
I lunged, chakra surging, the ground cratering beneath my foot as I launched a heavy punch. He slid away like mist. I flowed into a kick, another strike—he dodged each with fluid ease.
It was a game. Cat and mouse. He was studying me. Watching my every move like a science experiment. No true malice. Just burning curiosity.
He had that look in his eye. The one I knew I got when something fascinated me.
He was fascinated. By me.
Is it messed up that I found that a little flattering?
...Yeah. Probably.
Wouldn't stop me from beating his ass.
I flowed into a particularly nasty combo—one even Lee struggled with.
He whiffed it. Dodging out of reach again.
I just had to get my hands on him.
XXXXXXXXX
Hinata's eyes bulged with the power of her dojutsu as her vision cut through the cloud of smoke that had covered the roof, but she had activated them too late.
She couldn't see Izuku anywhere within her range.
A blast of air clearing the roof of smoke announced the quick arrival of Dog, sadly he was too late. Izuku was missing.
"I can't find him." Hinata said, trying to keep her panic at bay but failing.
Dog's eye glowed red as he uncovered his doujutsu scanning the surroundings for signs to follow. He found none. Hinata knew he would find none. She had already begun heading toward her family's estate to enlist the assistance of her clan
It was time to put her secured status as heir to use.
XXXXXXXXX
There was fuinjutsu on the walls.
It was hard to notice while dodging hands coated in fuckingvisible chakra but it was there. The supernatural focus mastery over my mindscape afforded me, allowed me the wherewithal to analyse them as I was dodging out of the way of hands that could literally cut fire balls in half.
I tried to get my own licks in but his footwork was extraordinary. He was very well trained.
The fuinjutsu contained the basic stealth fuinjutsu that even a novice like me could figure out. Sealing away any out going sound and chakra emissions, making sure nobody heard or sensed what was going on, but that was only the surface. It was hard to parse and I'm sure I would have had an easier time if I wasn't fighting for my life but it seemed to be some kind of perception filter.
That was some high level shit.
Whoever this guy was or whoever he worked for was either extremely capable or shelling out some serious cash for my capture, or both. God please don't let it be both.
I threw another punch that cracked the air and created dust clouds, my focused fury empowering my chakra but he just kept dodging watching me through those gleaming lenses, his chakra bubbling with dark hunger.
This couldn't go on.
Okay, what were my options?
I wasn't his equal in combat, the only reason this had been taking so long was because he was dragging this out, whether for his own amusement or a myriad of other reasons I couldn't know, but I would be using that to my advantage.
I wasn't suddenly going to get more skilled mid-fight. I would love for a deus ex machina right about now but the universe didn't seem to be in a giving mood. I had a couple hail mary ideas that might get me killed but before then I would be taking a couple more shots.
Time to bust out the jutsu.
'Earth style: rock bullet.'
The jutsu came suddenly and without warning my lack of handsigns allowed me to fire the jutsu from the proverbial hip. He took the jutsu to the chest careening through the air, the alleyway echoing with the crack of shattering ribs.
I didn't wait to see if he was dead or not, Kakashi could take care of that when I found him. I made a run for it and made it about two steps before a purple blur blocked my path and I was sent flying with a kick. My own ribs creaking from the block.
I rolled with the blowback to my feet and looked up locking eyes with the mad man who watched me with eyes wide and blood shot behind cracked glasses.
"You've been growing." He said his voice low and soft as opposed to his mad eyed expression. "Good, how far can you grow, Izuku? How far can someone who is a person—who is unique—grow? Show me Izuku, show what it means to be real!" he said, his voice rising for the first time toward the end.
He lunged forward, hands glowing with his chakra and I spewed for orbs of four elements. Drowning him in a barrage of fire, earth, air and water. He dodged every one, those that he didn't cut through.
It was maddening.
He was closing in and by the madness in his eyes I might not survive him getting his hands on me. In a moment of violent desperation, I sent my chakra screaming through my body to the knot at the base of my spine not the nexus point of my soul and body but the place that seemed to spew chakra even now and I pushed it to give me more chakra as I kept filling the alley with jutsu.
My waning reserves ballooned, as my body worked double time to produce more chakra and my mouth picked up a few burns and my teeth creaked as my chakra control faltered under the deluge.
but it only slowed him down.
So I pushed even harder as more chakra flowed into my network until the pressure was too great and I heard a snap and my world became pain.