Chapter Text
Years had passed since Izuku Midoriya discovered his quirk.
Gone were the days of sandbox sketches and stick-figure heroes. Now he stood in front of a familiar house in the early morning haze, wrapped in his stiff black Aldera Junior High uniform, collar too high and sleeves always a little too short. His satchel hung heavy on one shoulder, notebook peeking out the corner, scribbled full of the kind of plans that’d make a support gear designer cry.
He yawned, tugging at the hem of his jacket. The fabric scratched at his neck. His legs ached from walking too much. His stomach growled from burning too many calories the night before. He’d been testing “field scribble” activation again—writing in motion without full focus. It nearly passed out the second the pen lit up.
His fingers found the scar on his left eye—rough, raised, and entirely self-inflicted through ink and willpower years ago. He rubbed it absently.
“Dumb kid,” he muttered to himself.
He didn’t mean any kid.
He meant the version of himself who thought it was cool to be short. The one who wrote his scar before he even knew what kind of pain it’d feel like. The one who thought Author would be all glory and gadgets.
Now? Now he ate like an elephant and stayed built like a twig. He was barely five-foot-four and Katsuki had passed him in height like a rocket, as if just to spite him.
The thought made him scoff. I’d kill to be taller than him right now.
And just like clockwork—
“Oi, nerd.”
A sharp voice cut through his grumbling thoughts.
Izuku turned just as Katsuki Bakugo kicked open the front gate, slinging his bag over his shoulder. His uniform was rumpled already, shirt untucked, and his tie looked like it had lost a fight with a blender.
Katsuki didn’t stop walking. He just gave Izuku a light shove as he passed. “What the hell are you doing out here? You been standing here long enough to grow moss.”
Izuku snorted, catching his balance. “Waiting for you, obviously.”
“Then let’s go, we’re gonna be late.”
“Right, right—” Izuku jogged up beside him, brushing dust off his pants. “Morning to you too, sunshine.”
The two slipped into their usual rhythm. Bakugo stalked ahead, hands in his pockets, eyes half-lidded with boredom. Izuku trailed behind just far enough to be annoying, talking with his hands, his voice already halfway into a ramble about some quirk theory he read the night before.
“And if you add that much nitrogen to a combustion quirk, I think it’d actually create a concussive blast instead of just heat—but only if your body’s built for it—like you could totally handle it, Kacchan, ‘cause your sweat already—”
“Shut up, nerd.”
“—right, but anyone else would probably explode from the inside out—”
“Midoriya—”
“I know, I know, I’m talking too much again—”
Katsuki grunted. But he didn’t tell him to stop again.
They were only a few blocks from school when it happened.
The concrete beneath their feet trembled.
A heavy thud , then another. A weird sucking sound, like sludge being pulled through a pipe.
Izuku slowed. “Uh… did you feel—”
“Get down!!”
Katsuki’s voice exploded just as something massive slammed into the sidewalk in front of them.
The ground cracked like glass. Chunks of pavement shot up, and a shadow loomed—twisted, bloated, and grotesque.
It looked like a person who’d melted and then re-solidified wrong.
Its body was vaguely humanoid, but stretched too long and too wide. Bulbous limbs ended in jagged fingers like broken glass. Its skin pulsed with sickly green veins, and its face—if you could call it that—was smeared with a grin that looked painted on. Literally. Like someone had drawn it with a crayon and said “good enough.”
Its eyes were hollow slits, leaking black goo that hissed on contact with the pavement.
“The hell is that?!” Katsuki shouted, already moving into a defensive stance.
The thing’s voice gurgled like a clogged drain, bubbling from somewhere deep inside it.
“ H-o-s-t... i-i-i-l-e... t-a-r-g-e-t-s. ”
It moved fast.
Faster than it should’ve.
One moment it was lumbering, the next it was there, slamming a glassy hand toward them. Katsuki shoved Izuku sideways just in time, the blow grazing his arm and sending a shockwave down the block. A parked car behind them flipped like a soda can.
Izuku hit the pavement hard, ears ringing.
Villain. No, not just a villain—something worse. Something that didn’t feel right.
This wasn’t a petty thief or some escaped mutant with a rage quirk. This thing was targeting them. It had a pattern. A goal. Its movements were too precise, like it was tracking something.
Tracking them.
Izuku’s mind raced. His hand dove into his bag, yanking out his notebook and pen. His fingers trembled from the adrenaline, but the moment he touched the paper—it started.
Whipcord. Tripwire. Smoke cover. Spike trap.
Scribble. Scribble. Focus.
Katsuki was already fighting, ducking under a swipe and blasting the creature with a burst of fire that made its skin bubble—but not burn.
“What the hell is this thing made of?!” he growled.
Izuku finished a line of ink and shouted, “MOVE, KACCHAN!”
A coiled whip of shadowy ribbon burst from the notebook and snapped at the villain’s legs. It tangled briefly, giving Katsuki just enough time to leap back as a spike trap rose under the monster’s feet.
The creature shrieked—but then its body liquefied , oozing through the spikes and reforming again, like slime forced into a new shape.
Izuku’s pen hovered over the page. His breath hitched.
“I think it’s... artificial.”
Katsuki glanced over, still throwing mini explosions. “What?!”
“I don’t think it’s human! ” Izuku shouted. “Or if it was—it’s not anymore.”
The monster lunged again, arms splitting into dozens of black tendrils, each one sparking faintly with some kind of corrupted energy. One wrapped around Izuku’s leg before he could dodge.
It yanked him up like a ragdoll.
He dropped the notebook.
Upside down, heart hammering, he saw it—etched faintly on the creature’s chest.
A symbol.
A tiny, almost invisible tattoo, burned into the skin beneath its leaking goop.
A spiral inside a triangle.
He didn’t know what it meant.
But it felt important.
The creature’s grip tightened.
Then—
KRAKBOOM!
An explosion ripped the thing's arm apart. Katsuki came charging in, face furious, palms sparking like fireworks. He snatched Izuku mid-fall and threw him back toward the sidewalk.
“Get your head in the game, nerd!!”
Izuku hit the ground, rolled, and scrambled for his notebook.
Hands shaking, he flipped to a new page.
But before he was able to write.
The thing screeched — wet, guttural, and wrong.
Its form slammed down into the pavement behind them, splattering like oil, then dragging itself back together. Too many limbs, too many joints bending the wrong way, and a painted-on grin that didn’t move. It didn’t need to. The sick joy of chasing them said everything.
Izuku ran.
Katsuki ran.
They didn’t get far.
Because in the span of a blink — just as Izuku turned a corner, heart hammering in his chest, Katsuki grabbing at his sleeve — it appeared . Not ran , not jumped , not teleported . It was just there , like it had been waiting.
Like it followed him .
Izuku barely managed to throw himself back, skidding and hitting the pavement hard as the creature lashed out with a tendril of flesh. It missed him by inches.
“What the hell!?” Katsuki shouted. “How—?!”
The creature didn’t care about answers. It lunged.
Boom!
An explosion from Katsuki sent it staggering back, part of its chest vaporized — but it didn’t scream. It didn’t bleed. It just melted, hissed, and reformed like nothing had happened.
A faint glow burned from its center — a spiral trapped inside a triangle. Etched into flesh, not drawn. Not natural.
Izuku stared at it, and for a second… something pulled at the back of his mind.
Like it knew him.
Then—
CRACK—!
A wooden tendril speared into the ground in front of the creature, splitting pavement.
“STAND DOWN!” Kamui Woods shouted from above, voice sharp and commanding. More tendrils flew out from him, wrapping around burning lampposts and loose wires. Smoke was building from the blast Katsuki had made, and nearby, a fire had caught from an overturned food cart.
“Civilians present,” Backdraft yelled from the side, jets of water shooting from his arms and dousing the flames. “Secure the perimeter! Evac ongoing!”
Death Arms crashed down with a stomp, rubble flying. “Move, kids! Get to safety—!”
Izuku tried.
He really did.
But when he took another step back — just one more foot away from that spiral-eyed thing — the world tilted .
Like gravity bent the wrong direction. Like space folded around him.
And suddenly, it was there again , inches from his face, its painted smile wide and hollow.
Izuku screamed .
Katsuki didn’t hesitate — he tackled Izuku back, then blasted the thing in the face. This time, the creature reeled back harder, its features warping and distorting like a broken puppet.
“What the hell is it!?” Katsuki snapped, standing over Izuku protectively. “Why the hell does it keep coming after you?!”
Izuku couldn’t answer. His heart was too loud. His vision was too blurry.
All he could do was look at the spiral in the triangle.
And wonder why it felt like it had always been part of him.
Like it had come from him .
Kamui Woods wrapped the thing with his vines again, this time pulling tight — but it still didn’t scream. It just turned its head slightly. Toward Izuku.
Watching.
And smiling .
The creature’s head twitched, its hollow eyes locking onto Izuku with unnerving precision.
“ Stay down , you idiot!” Katsuki barked, shoving Izuku to the ground as another tendril shot out from the creature’s body, slamming into the asphalt with a wet splat . The ink-like liquid spread and hissed, its edges bubbling as though the creature itself was alive , feeding off of the very world around it.
Izuku’s chest heaved as he tried to scramble back, hands pressed against the gritty pavement. His heart hammered painfully against his ribs, fear gripping him in a way he couldn’t explain.
Kamui Woods’ vines constricted tighter, but it didn’t seem to matter. The thing was too… elastic , bending, reforming. Each strike just splattered ink across the street, no matter how hard they tried to hurt it.
“Kacchan…” Izuku croaked, “I can’t… I can’t run away from it. It won’t let me.”
Katsuki’s eyes narrowed as he turned back toward him. “What the hell are you talking about, you’re not—”
And then, as if the world had gone upside down, the creature moved .
It wasn’t fast. Not in a traditional way, but it slithered through the cracks of the pavement, up the walls, and before Izuku even realized it, it was right behind him again .
Izuku’s breath hitched in his throat, his eyes wide with panic. He tried to get up, but his body felt like it was frozen. The connection between him and the thing was becoming too much — the ink … it called to him.
“ No , no, no…” Izuku whispered, his mind racing to make sense of what was happening. His quirk — Author — had always been something he controlled, something that he could manipulate through writing, but this? This felt different. He never wrote this thing into existence. It just was .
His eyes flickered down to his notebook, tucked safely in his pocket. He hadn’t written anything about this. Had he?
The creature’s grin spread wider, and a twisted, ink-streaked arm reached out, coiling like a serpent.
Katsuki’s face twisted into anger. “ Get away from him! ”
Without thinking, Katsuki launched himself at the creature, firing another explosive blast, but this time, the ink melted around it — not splattering , but instead evaporating into a cloud of black smoke. The grin didn’t falter. It just watched , waiting.
“We need to get you out of here,” Kamui Woods called, his voice calm but urgent. “We’ll handle it. Go!” He threw out more tendrils to restrain the creature, but they only slowed it down, never stopping it.
Izuku’s mind was in overdrive, but the only thing that kept playing over and over was the connection — the way the creature was always right behind him , always waiting for him to move .
“No—” Izuku gasped, his voice shaking. “I—I can’t move too far away from it. I think it… it’s tied to me. Every time I try, it just appears right behind me.”
Katsuki’s eyes flickered to him, then back to the creature. His jaw clenched, but before he could argue, Kamui Woods spoke again, this time with a new urgency in his tone. “It’s moving again—!”
The creature slithered back from the restraining tendrils, its body reforming again in a flash of black ink that hissed like liquid fire. There was a pause — and then it seemed to look at Izuku with that awful, sickening grin. A knowing grin.
Izuku could almost hear it, like it was whispering to him, though he didn’t understand the words.
It knows something about me.
Izuku’s hands balled into fists, his nails digging into his palm. He didn’t know how it worked. How he worked. But he knew this thing. He felt like he should have known it.
But there was no time for realization.
“Get back!” Death Arms roared, throwing up a barrier of debris to shield them as Kamui Woods’ vines tightened once more. Backdraft’s water jets whipped out like torrents of rain, aiming to wash the creature back.
The creature’s smile grew wider, inhuman.
Izuku’s heart dropped as he caught the spiral symbol on the creature’s chest again.
The same symbol that had haunted his thoughts for the past few weeks.
It was the symbol that kept reappearing in his drawings — ink-streaked sketches that had shown up long before today. The same symbol that had been linked to the creature ever since the first time it appeared. The same symbol he couldn’t remember writing .
But it was all there. In his mind, in his quirk. And it felt like a warning.
Then, with another sickening screech, the creature lunged forward, but this time… it wasn’t aiming for the heroes.
It was coming for Izuku .
The creature’s inky, black tendril shot out with unnerving speed, twisting and writhing like a serpent as it moved toward Izuku. He didn’t move. Didn’t try to run.
Something inside him — an instinct, a connection, or maybe just the twisted reality of his quirk — told him that this was meant to happen. The creature wasn’t just attacking him. It was doing something far worse.
Izuku closed his eyes for a split second, a faint flicker of hesitation in his chest, before the creature’s arm, an elongated mass of ink that oozed with sickening fluid, pierced straight through his ribs.
The pain was immediate, sharp, and blinding.
It felt like the entire world went silent, like the screaming of the heroes, the heat of the battle, and the thudding of his own heart just... stopped.
His chest felt like it was being ripped open, the ink-streaked appendage seeping through his flesh, slipping deeper into his body. He could feel the pressure building, his skin straining against the unnatural force that stretched his insides, and then —
It sank deeper.
Izuku gasped, his breath caught in his throat as the tendril pushed farther. His body buckled, the force of the creature’s arm inside him making him drop to his knees, coughing violently.
“ Izuku! No! ” Katsuki screamed, charging forward, but the creature was faster.
The smile on the creature’s face grew wider, impossibly so. Its hollow eyes glinted with a predatory gleam as its arm continued to move inside him, an inky, viscous substance oozing from its form and staining Izuku’s body as it traveled through his chest.
The ink was cold, slick against his skin, and it burned — not in the way fire would, but in the way something alive could burn. It suffocated him from the inside, the tendrils tightening around his organs as though the thing was claiming him from within.
Izuku tried to scream, but all that came out was a strangled wheeze. His mouth opened wide in an involuntary gasp for air, and that was when the creature struck again.
It wasn’t just the arm anymore.
The black ink that made up the creature began to spill from its form, dripping and pooling like a liquid nightmare. It twisted and slithered, reforming like a flood, and it crawled into him .
Izuku’s mouth stretched wider, the edges of his jaw dislocating with a sickening crack as the creature poured itself inside him. It wasn’t just an arm. It was the whole thing now. The thick liquid rushed past his throat, forcing itself into his body, slipping down his esophagus like a shadow consuming the light.
The taste — it was metallic, sharp, almost alive . His throat burned with each pulse of the ink, the sensation of it moving inside him filling his every nerve with a twisted ache. His chest tightened, his body trembling as the creature flooded his insides.
Izuku’s eyes fluttered, but he couldn’t look away. He couldn’t do anything.
Katsuki was still shouting at him, his voice distant now, fading as the inky substance filled him more and more.
Izuku couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t scream. His mind was a mess of pain and confusion, his body revolting against the invasion. The creature’s presence, now fully inside him, felt like it was pushing into his very soul.
A final, horrifying click echoed inside his mind as the creature finished its invasion. He felt its weight settle deep inside, a lingering, suffocating presence.
The last thing he saw before everything went dark was the creature’s grin, stretched impossibly wide across its face. It was smiling from within him, like it had won , like it had always been meant to do this.
And then, as the world around him blurred into shadows, Izuku felt a new, disturbing truth settle in his chest.
It had always been there.
Izuku’s body hit the ground with a sickening thud, the life draining from his features. His once bright eyes were now dull, pupils faded, lost in the endless shadow of whatever had just claimed him. Katsuki’s heart slammed against his chest as he tore toward his best friend, but before he could reach him, strong hands gripped his shoulders, pulling him back with a force that made his muscles burn.
“ No! Let go!” Katsuki screamed, thrashing against the arms of the pro heroes who had arrived to evacuate the civilians. His fists pummeled their arms, but the heroes didn’t budge, their eyes filled with concern and authority. One of them — Kamui Woods — gave him a solemn look.
“We need to make sure you’re safe. Stay back, kid. We can’t risk it.”
Tears stung at Katsuki’s eyes, but he refused to let them fall. “ Izuku! ” he yelled one last time, his voice cracking with desperation as he fought against the grip holding him back.
But Izuku was already gone. His body lay motionless, a stillness that felt wrong — unnatural.
Izuku’s chest, punctured so deeply by the creature’s arm, began to… change.
Black ink, thick and viscous, pooled around the wound, and for a moment, it seemed like it wasn’t healing. But then, slowly, agonizingly, the ink started to shift, slipping into the gaping hole like it was filling it, binding the wound with unnatural precision. The hole in his chest began to close, the ink folding together like the stitches of a grotesque, living repair.
Katsuki’s heart hammered in his chest as he watched, powerless, as the creature’s influence seemed to remake Izuku’s body, stitching him back together in a way that felt wrong.
And when the wound closed completely, the creature’s presence seemed to linger, as if it had marked him. A faint, inky scar ran along his chest, a jagged, twisting line that was darker than his skin. It looked like something unnatural, a symbol in itself. The scar seemed to pulse , just for a second — as if alive.
The heroes, unsure of what to make of it, carefully approached Izuku’s still form, their faces tight with concern. Kamui Woods gave the signal, and the paramedics moved in quickly, loading Izuku’s body onto a stretcher and into an ambulance. The sounds of sirens filled the air, but Katsuki’s fists were clenched, his thoughts racing.
“They… they took him,” he muttered, voice shaking. “They took him, and I couldn’t—”
“I know, kid,” the hero with the thick, deep voice said, placing a firm hand on his shoulder. “But we’ve got to trust the professionals right now. Let’s go.”
But even though Katsuki nodded, even though he wanted to believe the words, a part of him stayed behind, watching the ambulance pull away, carrying Izuku away from the scene. Something deep inside told him that Izuku wasn’t okay. That something had changed.
Inside the ambulance, things were no better.
Izuku’s body lay completely still, hooked up to machines that beeped in sync, monitors tracking every pulse of his heart, every breath. The paramedics worked in silence, their movements hurried but practiced. The flickering light above illuminated the pale face of the boy who had been through so much.
One of the paramedics took a deep breath, looking at the machines.
“Well, this kid’s a fighter,” he muttered. “Vitals are back to normal.”
The others nodded in relief, their tense bodies relaxing just a bit. For a brief moment, it seemed like the worst was over. The sound of his heartbeat echoed in the quiet of the ambulance, steady and calm.
But then…
It wasn’t.
The first sign that something wasn’t right came in the form of a low, unnatural crackling sound. A tremor, almost like something was shifting inside of him. The paramedics paused, glancing at each other with confusion.
“ What the hell? ”
Before anyone could react, Izuku’s body jerked once, then twice, like a marionette pulled on invisible strings. The inky scar on his chest began to twitch, almost like it was alive, wriggling under his skin.
Then — the true horror.
Izuku’s body began to melt.
It was slow at first, a dark liquid oozing from his pores, dripping off him like he was made of nothing but ink. It pooled on the stretcher, slithering and coiling like a sentient mass, a shadow that knew exactly where it wanted to go. The paramedics scrambled back, their hands flying to their radios, but it was already too late.
The liquid slithered, flowing as if it had a mind of its own, and in one swift motion, the entire mass of it slid off the stretcher and toward the door.
The ambulance doors flew open, and before anyone could reach for him, the liquid that was once Izuku’s body disappeared into the streets. It pooled like a dark flood, reforming as it slithered down the road — each inch of it taking the form of the boy it once was, but with something darker inside. Something hungry.
Inside of him. Watching. Waiting.
The dark ink-like liquid that had once been his body slithered down the street with unsettling precision, carving a path toward his home. The process wasn’t fast, but it wasn’t slow either — a strange in-between, like something alive that knew exactly where it was going.
Eventually, it reached the Midoriya household.
The house was eerily quiet when Izuku’s reformed body slithered through the back door. It felt like an eternity, though it had only been a few minutes. The floor creaked underfoot as his limbs—still slick with the remnants of ink—slid across the wood with unnatural smoothness.
He moved as if guided by instinct, his feet carrying him forward without his conscious command. His vision was blurry, but the bathroom door was a beacon of familiarity. It was as though something inside of him — some strange, foreign presence — wanted him to look.
He stepped inside, and the door clicked shut behind him with a soft thud. The air in the room felt thick, almost suffocating, as if the very walls were holding their breath. The mirror loomed before him, its reflective surface cold and uninviting.
Izuku’s eyes — no, not Izuku anymore. Something else now lived beneath the surface of his skin.
He raised his hands, trembling slightly as he touched his face. His fingers brushed his hair, feeling it for the first time since he had… changed . It felt different. He felt different. The hair on his head, once a bright green, was now black, its color absorbing the light around him, like the ink that had been inside of him only hours before.
He stared at his reflection, his breathing shallow. His right eye — the one that had always been bright, bright like hope — was now a deep, pitch black, a hollow abyss that pulled the light into it.
His left eye, however, still retained a trace of the familiar green, but even that seemed less vibrant than before. His gaze shifted lower, his mouth going dry as he noticed something else.
Sharp, gleaming teeth. Not too sharp, not like a monster, but sharper than before. He could feel them as he ran his tongue over them, the sensation unfamiliar and unsettling.
A tear-shaped mark under his right eye, barely noticeable but deeply inked into his skin, stared back at him like some kind of cruel reminder. It was as if the scar itself had been written into his body, a mark of something more.
Something he couldn't explain.
"What's happening to me?" His voice sounded off, not quite his own — hollow, distant. The weight of the moment pressed down on him, and for the first time since the creature’s attack, he felt a creeping terror crawl through his chest.
But there was something else, too. A cold calm. A strange presence in the back of his mind, whispering to him, through him . It wasn’t his voice, yet it felt like his thoughts, swirling around like ink in water.
His body was healing, yes, but at a price. And something else had been born within him. It was alive now.
A part of him, a piece of him, and yet not.
The creature inside of him — this inked, twisted thing — had written itself into existence. And now, it lived inside him. Watching. Waiting. Its will now intertwined with his own, guiding him in ways he couldn’t control. It was silent for now, but Izuku could feel its presence growing stronger with every passing second.
He turned his face toward the mirror again, the reflection staring back at him with something new in his eyes. It wasn’t just fear anymore. It was something darker, something unnatural . The fear was still there, but there was also acceptance .
This was him. Or, at least, this was what he had become.
And deep down, he knew…
The world would never be the same.
Izuku sat on the edge of the sink, his hands gripping the porcelain tightly as he tried to breathe through the rising panic in his chest. He could still feel the presence inside him, a constant pressure in the back of his mind. It wasn’t quite like a thought, more like a whisper — a lingering hum of something ancient, twisted, and familiar. His fingers twitched, and he pulled his phone out of his pocket, his thumb hovering over the contact for Katsuki.
I need to talk to him. I need to explain.
Izuku’s mind raced as he unlocked the screen and quickly dialed Katsuki's number. The phone rang twice before a familiar voice picked up.
"What the hell, Deku? Where the hell are you?" Katsuki’s voice was sharp, as always, but there was an edge to it today — something unspoken. Izuku could hear the tension in the words, and it made his heart ache. He was supposed to be the reliable one — the one who never worried people.
But now… now he wasn’t sure what to even say.
“I-I’m at home, Kacchan,” Izuku said, his voice shaky as he pressed the phone to his ear. “I… I don’t know how to explain it, but something happened. I think—well, no. I know it’s because of my quirk, but I—” His breath hitched. “I need you to come here. I—I can’t move. Not like I used to.” His voice faltered. “It’s like... it’s like something took me here .”
A distorted, almost unnatural sound interrupted his thoughts, like a low buzz in the back of his mind. He froze for a moment, trying to listen, trying to understand it. And then, through the static, a word pierced his consciousness — clear, distinct, like it was his name being whispered to him from the depths of his soul.
The voice inside his head was calm. Almost… amused. “Nyx,” it said. The word felt heavy, foreign, and yet oddly familiar.
“Nyx?” Izuku thought, the name echoing in his head.
The voice was silent for a moment, as if pleased by the question, before responding again. “Yes. I am Nyx.” It didn’t feel like an answer to a question, but rather a declaration. The word resonated inside of him, a part of him that wasn’t quite his own.
Izuku blinked rapidly, his heart racing, and suddenly the phone in his hand seemed distant. It can speak to me. Inside my head. His thoughts swirled in confusion as he tried to wrap his mind around it.
"I—Kacchan, I’m not alone in my head anymore," Izuku muttered, the words coming out without thinking, his voice distant as he tried to make sense of everything happening to him. "There's something... something inside me now. I think it's called Nyx, but I don’t understand—"
The buzz of static filled his mind again, but this time it wasn’t frightening. It was… almost comforting? He didn’t know why, but somehow, it was as if Nyx had become a part of him already.
"I—" He paused, blinking and holding the phone tighter. "I don’t know what’s happening to me, Kacchan. It feels like I’m not me anymore." His voice cracked as he finished the sentence. It was a terrifying realization, but he couldn’t deny the truth. Something had changed, something had written itself into his life.
On the other end of the phone, Katsuki was silent for a moment. Izuku could hear the sound of heavy breathing, his friend clearly unsettled by the unexpected message. But then, as always, Katsuki’s voice broke through the silence, rough and laced with anger.
“Deku, what the hell are you talking about? What do you mean ‘inside your head’? Are you—are you saying you’ve got some freaky thing in there now?” Katsuki’s voice hardened with concern, but he was still too stubborn to admit it. “Damn it, just tell me what happened.”
Izuku couldn’t quite explain. How could he? He didn’t understand himself. But he knew one thing for certain — Nyx was real. And it had chosen him.
“I—I don’t know how to explain, Kacchan. I just…” He looked down at his hand, the scar under his eye still so raw. “But I’m… I’m not the same. I can feel it. I feel different . I think this thing inside of me—Nyx—it’s not just a part of me. It is me. But not in the way you think."
Katsuki let out a sharp breath, clearly frustrated. "Deku, just stay there. I'm coming over right now. Don’t you dare do anything stupid while I’m on my way!"
Izuku chuckled weakly. "Yeah, ok. But, uh... Kacchan?"
"What?" Katsuki snapped, probably half-annoyed at the thought of Izuku being so calm about something so insane.
Izuku closed his eyes, feeling the presence of Nyx stirring just beneath the surface. "It talks to me. And, uh... I think it wants me to call it Nyx."
The silence stretched on, but this time, it wasn’t just Katsuki being silent. Izuku could feel the eerie, quiet pressure of Nyx inside him, and for the first time, he could hear it in his thoughts, almost as if it was… amused by the name?
“Nyx…” The voice purred softly in his mind, “It’s a name I’ve always had.” There was a strange satisfaction in the tone, and Izuku shuddered slightly, realizing how real this was becoming.
"I'll be there soon, idiot. Don’t go dying on me," Katsuki muttered before hanging up.
Izuku stood in the bathroom, the mirror reflecting a version of him he didn’t quite recognize. And somewhere deep down, he realized — this wasn't just his quirk anymore. Something else had taken hold. Something new. Something powerful.
And Nyx was only the beginning.