"If I didn't know any better, I would be surprised how you survived this long." Izuku said as he walked through a small magic bubble with his mother and a copy of himself in the middle. As he approached, light still only dimmed on him, so he stayed under shadow.
"You wouldn't know better, considering all that you did." Inko commented while Izuku still moved around runes on her hand. It was slow; he still didn't manage to remove the quarter.
"Well, you won't be happy about this either." He said as he neared his mother, revealing green energy running through his body.
Inko was lost in fear, trying to back away from the view of her son using dark magic. She gulped, with some remaining composure. "You're right, I'm not happy at all."
"How long until you finish the next main rune?" He asked himself. "A few more minutes."
"When you complete it, stop the process; I will do the rest of the runes." Izuku demanded before he took the crouching stance, the same one as when he was spending time with his mother. "But I can't end it now." He protested.
"I will finish it up; just listen to me." He explained, trying to look his mother in the eyes, but she paid no mind to his attempts. "Mum, it's still me." He tried but with no success.
He disappointed the three people who cared about him. He didn't have the courage to apologize to Agatha; Momo warned him multiple times but he still ignored her, and now his mother wouldn't look at him. Life was going great.
"I'm done." His own voice brought him back to the moment. "Scoot over." He ordered as he leaned forward, holding his mother's arm in his hand. She tried to move it gently away a few times, only for Izuku to tighten his grip more each time.
"I don't understand you. You earned a title as a Green Unforgiving Maiden and yet you are still scared of questionable magic." He extended his right arm over hers, a green mist started leaving his skin, falling on her arm. "This might sting a little," he warned her.
Inko remained quiet, except for a few grunts here and there. Izuku was turning his mana from dark magic into mist, but while it's healing to him, it's damaging to others. He tried to use those properties to remove the runes, which worked successfully but it also managed to hurt his mother.
The runes fell apart one by one and a rash with an inky texture began to form over her hand. By the time Izuku was done with all runes, he had spent most of his extra mana, leaving only a little for basic spells. His mother finally spoke after seeing only traces of the green energy in his body.
"My title was earned during times of war as a mercenary. I am not proud of my past, but the magic you are using is looked down upon even by hosts of devils and those who made contracts with them." Inko passed with her hand over Izuku's left arm, revealing the green snake. "And you who are born with a serpensian mark—that is the worst among the nine—you can't expect a positive reaction ever after using the dark magic before them."
"I don't look for their acceptance, just yours." He responded, pulling his left arm towards himself for the mark to disappear. "Now, can you use magic?" Izuku asked Inko before he stood up, catching his clone by the arm and enveloping both of them in blue mana. After the blue mana faded, there only stood one Izuku.
"Yes, and I am full on mana; just give me a second or two and I will teleport us away."
"You can't; there is a filtering barrier around us." He gave a hand to his mother, helping her stand. "And if we break it, we will give a signal that we are here, so we need to think of something."
"And the guy you fought up there, what was he like? Do we have a chance of tricking him?" Inko wondered.
"No."
"What about neutralizing him? Is he any strong?"
"That isn't an option; he has a healing factor with a lot of different abilities. Knocking him out or binding him isn't on the table. The best way to deal with him is to kill him."
"What abilities? Is he a mage, a sorcerer, or does he have a quirk?" Inko wondered.
"Neither." She jerked her head back, her posture leaning towards him. That was impossible, as far as she knew. Inko stopped Izuku to ask him for details. "What do you mean, neither?"
"The closest thing that guy has to magic is his enchanted body. He deafened himself so he has artificial hearing, and his body prioritizes healing over anything else so he won't be able to use other abilities while he heals himself. The abilities that stop are the power to turn inorganic matter into explosions and superhuman strength and speed."
"That sounds like multiple quirks to me." Inko exclaimed, relaxing her muscles a little.
"The thing is that they aren't. His abilities don't have limits as quirks do and they don't use mana like magic; they are like biological magic." Izuku loudly whispered, trying to comprehend what CC's powers are.
"A complex?" Inko quietly hummed to herself.
"Did you say something?"
"No."
"I say we break the barrier and ask for the help of Agatha or some Heroes." Izuku suggested.
"No, we have more advantage with the barrier. He can't ask for help as well and most of the laws you broke will go unpunished since there isn't anyone to witness to them."
"So what's the grand plan?"
"We first get rid of that guy, um..."
"CC."
"We get rid of CC, ask for some information from him, and partially break the barrier, just enough for the two of us to pass and get Momo after."
"That won't be easy; that nuthead brought friends that are trashing streets and buildings as we speak."
"One problem at the time: can you teleport us to that lunatic?" Inko asked, stretching her hand towards Izuku. "I can, but I am not sure if I am going to teleport us right next to him."
"Just do it; leave the rest to me." He listened, putting his head under hers and engulfing them with a half-blue, half-black flash. He was back on the seventh floor, this time with his mother.
"It's quiet," he noted, looking around, searching for any trace of the crimson hair or unarranged explosions.
Inko spared no moment; her hair started floating, her hand and eyes covered in green mana, preparing multiple spells, ready to be fired the moment she saw something move.
"Mom," Izuku mustered out, shocked by the green, cloudy mana around them. "Stay behind me." Inko said this with multiple quieter voices in different octaves repeating after her.
"What is this?"
"You wanted to know how I earned the title of the Unforgiving Green Maiden. Be still and watch." She uttered, forming a green shield around Izuku, restricting his movement and blocking most of the magic. Somehow, this felt like he was grounded.
"Mom, what are you doing?" Izuku said, banging on the green walls of the small Inko's barrier.
"Looking out for my kid." She said before she spread her arms as wide as she could. With little hand motion and no words, she released a green shock wave that disintegrated anything it touched. She leveled everything above her, making the seventh floor a new rooftop.
"What, how?" He was left with more questions by the passing minute. Multiple people told him that the only thing that his mother was weaker than he was raw power, but after witnessing that woman destroy three whole floors, it hit him how much he underestimated her.
"Where is he?" Again, multiple voices talked to him from Inko's body.
"If you free me from here, maybe I could help."
"And be open target."
"I fought with him and survived." He responded loudly with pride in his voice. Well, it was supposed to sound like that but the barrier made it sound like muffled through thick wall.
"He beat you to the point where you had to use dark magic."
"Still survived." In the worst moment for him, two mana-filled jars teleported to him, causing loud silence.
"What are you planning to do?"
"Search for his soul rather than magic, and since I was close to him before, I can easily recognize him."
"I can do that as well. You know, we are the only ones in the building." The green glow in Inko's eyes dulled; any trace of pupils disappeared.
"He's gone." Inko whispered before her hair was loosely hanging, and all the mana faded away after it changed colour to the usual blue.
With little sense of safety, Inko decided to undo the barrier around Izuku, letting the two mana jars break and the blue energy surrounding his palms.
"Why the sudden change of heart?" Izuku boldly questioned his mother.
"Rest up; we are going to get rid of the barrier and call Agatha and the others." Izuku listened to her with no second thought, throwing himself to the ground, laying down, and spreading his limbs wide. He was exhausted. With a flick of his arm and a few Latin and Manahi words, he uncapped the rest of the jars, letting the mana that didn't come to him wander on the floors below.
He honestly lost count of the jars; he knew he made seven but how many teleported to him? That's a number he didn't have time to count.
With some space and time to rest, his guard dropped, and feeling safe, he decided to ask some questions. "Why is your magic green? And I still don't get your "scary" nickname."
"First out of seventeen true fragments, and it's a war name I got during the Fifth Hidden War."
"Weren't you pregnant with Enomomto and Naoko during that war?" Izuku stumbled over his words, gathering the air to speak. "And what the hell are true fragments?"
"Well, I fought while being pregnant, and I was born as a magical being called a maiden." Inko was calm; she got used to explaining her origins to most of her dead friends, and similar shocked responses like the one her son was giving right now weren't anything new. "And for the true fragments, that's something Agatha is supposed to teach once you finish all levels of magic."
"All right...." Izuku didn't know what to ask next; he had more than a few questions but almost all of them weren't appropriate for the moment. "Then what's next? We break the barrier and call for reinforcement; do we face any laws or punishments?"
"Probably not as much since we are castaways, but that's too far ahead in the future; let's focus on this damn thing." Inko said, reaching with her hand towards the edge of the magical border.
"Can we disrupt the mana and just break it systematically rather than look for rune arrays that are probably outside?"
"It's dense, a little too dense. We don't have enough mana to make an opening like that, and we still have to count Momo as well." Inko raised her left hand, observing the small amounts of mana produced by her left fingers. It wasn't near as copious as it was supposed to be, but she could still use her hand.
"Can we make our own rune array, maybe even the rune trail?" Izuku rose a little so he could sit on the floor rather than lay on it. "I can't make one but maybe you could?"
"It takes-"
"I know it takes time but that is the only thing we have right now. We could try it, right?"
"Yes, but it takes too much time; a rune trail is just five rune arrays merged together with other arrays as modifiers instead of branches like usual."
"I can roughly create fifteen runes per minute." Izuku shouted, all excited, hoping he would finally see something he had tried to achieve for years with no success.
"That isn't helping a lot; it is only gonna save us an hour, nothing more."
"Still, it is worth a try; you could flash some memories with magic and I can just replicate them while you place them in the correct order."
"That's only a base, Izuku; there are still some details to add."
"So what?" Izuku positioned himself to the left of Inko, ready to get the instructions via other's memories.
"I am sorry for your hand." He apologized after feeling that light touch on his head disappear and appear again, her body shifting sides from left to right. She switched hands and he knew why because he was the reason.
"No need to apologize; I told you to do so." Inko spoke as she placed her hand on the back of Izuku's head a few inches above his neck. Green mana jumped from her hand and circled around Izuku's head, stopping before his eyes and forming a laurel wreath pattern.
His vision flashed before him; for a second, he thought someone had put a green light inside his eyes. It didn't calm down for some time until everything went black. Only five thin lines dragged themselves from the right to the left,each carrying a different set of runes on itself.
"So, can we begin?" Izuku asked while drawing in the air.
"Sure."