It all started when Hitoshi showed up at his house unannounced, covered in blood.
As the house rang out due to an unexpected visitor, Izuku glanced up from his kitchen island and cursed as Hitoshi had used his spare key, stepping into the kitchen and dripping all over the floor. Izuku immediately grabbing a towel and threw it at Hitoshi, motioning all over. “Clean yourself up and tell me what the hell you’re doing here, smearing blood all over the place, when you should be helping the next town over with their sudden case of dying animals.”
Hitoshi sighed, wiping his hands and face as best as he could since the blood was drying up. “I was when I encountered something you need to take a look at.”
Izuku raised an eyebrow as Hitoshi put a large box on his dining table, hissing when he realized what it was. “You brought a rotting box on my land? What is wrong with you?”
“I broke it. It’s not working anymore but I’m glad you recognize it because I’m sure there’s dozens of them buried under the ground where the town mostly gets its livestock from. I counted at least fifteen before I stopped digging. I had to call Katsuki to have him keep watch of the land while I came to you.”
Izuku scrubbed his face. “A deliberate attack obviously. I haven’t seen this kind of malice since Grandma took me to a town on the outskirts of London for a special job. In that case, people had been dying left and right due to some asshole planting that type of box under the London sewer system. If what you say is true, then we have some work to do. I’m surprised it’s only been animals dying and not people.”
“That I have no idea. There has been a rise in newborn deaths but I didn’t even think about that until you said something now. Well what do we do? Just breaking this box took several bottles of blessed water mixed with silver dust. I’m almost out.”
“The general curse removing potion wouldn’t be anywhere near enough to take on this kind of job. We need the heavy duty stuff.” Izuku moved quickly, dipping into the pantry behind the fridge to pull out his Grandmother’s recipe book. “This is not going to come cheap Hitoshi-kun. Like whoever is paying you to figure out what’s going on is going to need a big checkbook.”
“How much are we talking about?”
“You know how my happiness serums go for 500K yen each right? Due to the ingredients and how addicting it can be.” Hitoshi nodded and Izuku gave him a grim flat face. “This is about 15,000,000 yen.”
Hitoshi about collapsed. “How in hell is it going to be that much!”
“Several of the ingredients are costly to begin with and then the quantity of each will at least set me back personally months due to how rare they are, like the unicorn horn and blood since they only let me take on a strict basis. Which I get but then we have to combine all of these in a large cauldron under the moonlight with at least five other magical beings adding their magic into the fray. Then some of the money has to go to Kaminari-kun.”
“Denki?” Hitoshi narrowed his eyes at Izuku’s mention of his lover. “Why him?”
“Because I need Fairy dust and if he’s willing to part with about twelve inches of his wing, then I can give him a wing restorative potion.”
“You want to take that much of his wing? What the hell!”
Izuku slammed his hands down on the kitchen island. “Fairy wings are amazing magic conductors due to the fact that fairy magic comes from a combination of their inner strength and fairy dust. Even though Kaminari-kun is a third fairy, his unique fairy dust is perfect for this. And I know his own wings are small but fairy wings grow back easily, if not itchy.”
Hitoshi rubbed his forehead, “Let’s say Denki helps, my contractor does not have that kind of cash laying around. At most maybe half of that.”
“Then we are going to need volunteers to destroy as many boxes as we can and then we can calculate how much everything is going to cost. If we don’t destroy any boxes, the the price is 15 mil yen. If we can get most of the boxes, like 60%, then 8 mil should be enough to destroy the rest and purify the land. Volunteers, donors, anything at this point but that land probably only has one week left before it spreads and cruelly at that since I assume this has been going on for a while, right?.”
“At least a month. Let me make some calls and I’ll let you what’s going on.”
Hitoshi moved to the side and Izuku looked at the box with distaste. A rotting box was a box that held a dead animal corpse inside, with various deadly herbs and other ingredients that when combined with a particular curse, leeched death magic into the air and blood into its surrounding area. Hitoshi had done an ok job of breaking the curse on the box so now it was just a regular box with nasty shit inside but that didn’t mean that Izuku wanted it on his dining table. He sighed and started cleaning up, having a feeling he was going to be busy soon.
Hitoshi slumped down on the table but gave Izuku a thumbs up. “Full price is a-go. Apparently he’s going to borrow the rest from his brother so as soon as you can gather up all the ingredients. He’s absolutely angry that someone was able to sneak onto his land and plant so many boxes. ”
“It’s possible with a couple of distraction stones.” Izuku whistled, cracking his knuckles as he flipped the pages in his book. “And Denki?”
“He’s on board.” Hitoshi snorted, “He wants to show off to Katsuki that he contributed to the whole saving the town thing. And he just want wing scratches when his wings start repairing themselves.”
“You guys spoil him rotten but then again he is the glue in your relationship.”
Hitoshi smiled bashfully, “Yeah. He’s something. Anyways, what do you need me to do?”
“The recipe calls for thirteen different ingredients: Acromantula Spider Venom, Angel’s Trumpet. Unicorn blood and horn dust, dittany, dragon blood, fairy wings and dust, blessed water, moondew, pearl dust, silver dust, and thyme. For one rotting box, it takes 12 oz of everything combined. I’m going to assume that the land is about the size of mine and for that large of an area, we need to make about 13000 oz.”
“That seems like a lot.”
“It is. It’s multiplied by more than a thousand. I have enough of everything except for the fairy wings, dust, pearl dust, and thyme. I need you to go out and buy 24 lbs of thyme. I’m going to go to my lake and gather the pearls I need to make the pearl dust. Tell Denki to take a shower and make sure his wings are clean. Also tell Katsuki to call mom and tell her that we need five other magical creatures that are willing to participate in a rotting cleanse. That they’ll be compensated 1 million yen for their magic. We’re also going to need more than just Katsuki for security so I’m going to call someone that I trust to come along.”
Hitoshi smirked, “Is it that hottie Ocha been talking about?”
“Yes,” Izuku sighed, Ochako gossiped more than his mother some days. “Hopefully he’s free to keep watch for us. Now what are you waiting for? Hurry up and bring me my thyme and take that stupid box with you. Throw it into the dumpsters near the convenience store and wash your hands.”
And as Hitoshi rushed off, Izuku rubbed his eyes. He was gonna have to open up Grandmother’s shed, the one that held her special cauldron. She had made it herself when she found all the cauldron shops around her couldn’t hold 100 gallons and it was a monster to move from place to place. Thankfully she had carved runes all over the legs, making the huge pot lightweight and easy to maneuver. Izuku only used the cauldron when it came to massive orders that needed to be distributed to various covens and groups when they ran out of blessed water, etc. The cauldron was pitch black, sparkling of red and black glitter, as it stood several feet tall. Grabbing hold of the moving handle he had installed, Izuku dialed Shouta, mentally hoping the older man would answer.
“Aizawa.”
Izuku let out a sigh of relief. “Shouta, I’m so glad you picked up.”
“Izuku, what a surprise. You told me you were going to busy until next week so what’s up?”
“A change in plans. Hitoshi-kun came to me with a massive problem and I need some help. We have to cleanse a huge plot of land but all of our attention is going to be on brewing and chanting so we need protection. Hitoshi’s partner Katsuki is helping but I’d feel better if you could watch over us as all.”
“Absolutely. Let me get some things and I’ll come over.”
“I’m going to be at the lake behind my house, just a couple of feet away. Just make sure you bring a jacket because it’s going to get real cold with all the magic happening.”
“Ok. I’ll see you soon.”
Izuku hummed and hung up, moving the cauldron to stand next to his front door. He went to his mini-shed and dug out his gloves and shoulder bag. Gathering pearls was going to be such a hassle. Each pearl was going to give him anywhere from five grams to twenty grams, depending on how big they were. Usually the pearls were pretty big due to the food he gave the oysters, which was a mixture of algae and blessed water and if he needed any vibrantly colored pearls, he would add crystal dust to the algae.
The lake was ten feet away from his home, a cool thirty by sixty feet with magical mesh hanging off the sides so his oysters had a safe home. Izuku had been saving these pearls to start experimenting with makeup for all genders but now those plans were at least pushed back a couple of months while his oysters created new pearls. He got down on his knees and let his hand reach down, his magic slowly leaking out. His grandmother had taught him that leaking magic out made the oysters spit out the pearls, which then he could collect by manipulating the lake current. The process could take hours, it just depended on when the oysters decided to let go off their pearls. Closing his eyes, Izuku swirled his arm around, wishing he had a book he could read when his phone rang, Hitoshi’s name on the screen.
“Yes?”
“I’ve got eight pounds of thyme so far. Ochako is buying up all she can on her side of town as well as Momo. We should have all 24 lbs in about two hours.”
“Good. Has Katsuki called mom yet?”
“Yes. She’s calling around now as we speak and said not to worry about a thing.”
“Mom works miracles, I swear.” Izuku felt a ping at the back of his head and smiled softly. “I felt my detective on grounds so I’ll speak to you later.”
“Have fun with your boy.” Izuku chuckled, shoving his phone into his pocket as he started feeling the oysters release their little precious stones. One finger moved in circles, the water moving to push the pearls towards the shallow end of the lake. The glimmer was reassuring to Izuku’s eyes as he didn’t have time to create pearls from hand, which was doable as long as he had blessed water and a mature oyster.
“Izuku?”
Izuku couldn’t help the grin that burst from his face as he responded to Shouta. “I’m here.”
Heavy footsteps followed by leaves crunching helped Izuku glance over to where Shouta was walking towards him, dressed in a light jacket and jeans. “Shouta! You’re a sight for sore eyes.”
Shouta snorted, moving to stand right next to Izuku before squatting down. “And you to me. Mind explaining what you’re doing?”
“I’m collecting pearls right now to make pearl dust. The next town over is suffering from boxes that are causing their livestock to die so I’m going to cleanse the land. It’s gotten pretty bad and we don’t know who’s caused the situation either. I was hoping you could help us on that while we deal with the nasty curses.”
“Do you have any information over who could be doing this?”
Izuku shook his head, “No but you can talk to Hitoshi’s client and hopefully he can shine some light on the problem.”
Shouta nodded, observing as Izuku moved his arm faster under the water. “I’ll do my best. How long will collecting pearls take? I can make some calls to some connections I know to see if there are any rumors lingering around the livestock community.”
“I’m going to need at least an hour, maybe two. I need 24 lbs of pearl dust and since the pearls range from small pea size to large gumball, I have to collect as much as I can. At minimum I need 3,000 pearls.”
Shouta leaned over the pool, eyeing the oysters. “Do you have that many oysters? It doesn’t look like much.”
“The pool has about 2,000 pearl oysters living inside. Most of them have been magically engineered to at least give me two pearls so it will be enough. They’re just a little slow to give up their treasure so I’m giving them a helping hand. Take my phone and call Hitoshi-kun, he’ll be able to give you his client’s name and you start chomping down on who it could be.”
Shouta raised an eyebrow at Izuku’s growing grin and sighed, shaking his head as he took the phone from Izuku, moving ever so slightly to the side as he dialed Hitoshi. Izuku dipped his other hand into the water and let his eyes close, throwing his senses to the water to see how many oysters had opened up for him. In approximately forty minutes, he had gathered 200 pearls. Which wasn’t bad but he needed more and fast. He knew that he had to reserve some magic for brewing and chanting later since he was the only one who knew how to guide the cleansing magic. Which meant he had to resort to drastic measures…meaning he was going to have to go get the large vial of habanero powder from his pantry. His pearl oysters loved eating spicy algae, which was only a treat he gave them when the pearls they gave him were nice and big. He usually just mixed a tablespoon of habanero powder with the algae and the lake vibrated with how much the oysters were happy.
On the other side, just giving them habanero powder seemed to make them drunk, like how cats were with catnip. It was the perfect way to make sure they gave up their pearls. Izuku withdrew his arms and went back into his house, motioning to Shouta that he was ok before digging into his kitchen pantry. The habanero bottle was the only one with a red lid, indicating that he should handle with care because the last time someone handled this jar without care, well someone had gone to the restroom without washing their hands and that had been a wild afternoon. He measured out three tablespoons into a small bowl, even going as far to add a little bit of cinnamon since cinnamon was also a good treat for his oysters.
Shouta was rubbing his forehead as Izuku came back, a frown on his face. “Shouta, are you ok?”
“Yeah, apparently there’s a company that wanted the land the livestock is living on to build a huge mega mall a couple of months ago and one of their employees was caught in the area as of recently. Shinsou sent me a picture from his client. Do you recognize him?”
When Shouta let Izuku examine the photo he cursed. “For fuck’s sake, yeah I know him.”
“Really?” Shouta’s eyebrow rose, following Izuku as he went towards his pool.
“His name is Giran. He specializes in dark curses and hexes and will do anything you want for a hefty price. Last I heard he had been avoiding a coven since he swindled them but to think he joined up with a building company. He was probably paid to plant the rotting boxes to steal the land at a fraction of the cost. The magic community knows to stay away from him but he’s been known to change his looks. If you can capture him, I know someone that can definitely make sure he won’t cause trouble anymore.”
Shouta gave him a weird look. “Are you going to murder him?”
“No!” Izuku snorted out a laugh, “My dad works as a sorta magical policeman and I know he’ll enjoy throwing Giran into jail for the rest of his life, his magic bound so he can’t do harm ever again. If he gets out, that is. I’m sure that once he gets tried, they’ll find a way to make sure he stays put.”
Izuku started pouring the spice mixture into the water, “I also wouldn’t be surprised if he already found out that we know it’s him and is planning something. So please be on the look out while we’re casting the magic tonight. The cleanse can’t be interrupted more than once so you and Kacchan will be defending us. Hope you’re ready for a long night.”
“I’m as ready as I can be.” Shouta watched as the powder spread throughout the pond, Izuku immediately dropping to the floor to stick his hand inside it again. “Want me to help grab pearls?”
“Yes please. Just put the pearls into my shoulder bag. Most of the pearls will be yellow, white, or pink but if you see any red pearls, please put them to the side. Red pearls shouldn’t be used in this situation.”
“What’s wrong with red pearls?”
“Nothing.” Izuku shrugged his shoulders, “But red pearls are better suited for potions that deal with draining energy, so they wouldn’t be good here. I mostly use them as a way to help sick people who have trouble draining pus and other liquids from their body. If I mix red pearls with soju, it makes a good stress reliever to the point you end up passing out.”
Shouta hummed, creating a small pile of red pearls off to the side as Izuku wiped his forehead and dried his arm off. “Ok all the pearls are free from their homes and should be washing up towards you soon. I’m going to grab everything else I need and then we can head over to Hitoshi-kun.”
Izuku went back into his home, leaving Shouta to continue his little job. He definitely didn’t think that the magical world could get this dramatic but as long as there were good people like Izuku it made sense for there to be bad people as well. He was a bit weirded out, not by the situation but by the fact he had grabbed his gun before leaving home. His gut had him staring at his gun when he had been leaving home, something in him telling him he would need it today.
He hoped that his instincts were wrong, just for today.
Lovely Story Time 