ORACLE [BNHA fantasy au]

Chapter 10 - Wizard

☆

Kai Chisaki stood in his cell, pondering the limits of his power.

There wasn't much to his little room: an earthen floor, smooth stone walls, a sliver of a window that was just too small for him to shove his gloved hand through, and a long, wooden bench that was, supposedly, his bed. All of it was filthy with dirt, dried blood, or rat droppings... or, incomprehensibly, a combination of all three.

Sneering at the bench, Chisaki paced the length of the space, muttering to himself about his options for escape and checking for the nth time that his mask and gloves were properly situated on his face and hands. Exhausted and running out of ideas, he'd been standing for nearly a year straight, refusing to lie on the soiled "bed" he'd been given. On a typical night, Kai fell asleep with his eyes open, resting in a corner of the room, facing the bars and daring a guard to enter.

So far, he hadn't had much trouble.

But a year in confinement was about 364 days too long for his tastes.

Time and time again, he ran into a specific sort of trouble... the thick, stone walls had magic-negating runes carved along the upper perimeter, well out of his reach even atop the bench. Which meant that Chisaki suffered, powerless.

He'd been wracking his brain for months, trying to think his way out of the problem, out of the cell... but that mostly would require a way to time travel back to when he'd murdered the king's best friend and stolen someone's alignment from them. He'd probably have to not do those things. Those super cool, super evil, super illegal things.

And maaaybe un-kidnap his boss's overpowered grandkid. Right. Her.

But none of that seemed like it was going to happen any time soon.

Not in that godsforsaken cell. Not until the sigils came down or he escaped on his own strength... which was a fever dream at best.

Except, by a sliver of the full moon through his window, a strange sound crackled in the hallway outside of his room. Silver-white light slowly filled the space, electric and raising the hair all over Kai's body like an impending thunderstorm. A shape took form on the wall opposite of his cell, tracing over the stone with no trouble, and coalesced into a transportation sigil. And out of the faintly familiar sigil on the wall stepped two men, both of whom he vaguely recognized.

Tomura Shigaraki and his right-hand man, Kurogiri.

"Welcome to my humble abode," Chisaki rasped, his voice low and taunting despite the hand he'd been dealt. No matter the situation, he always felt the need to gain the high ground... and that started with acting like a smarmy asshole. He'd never show the enemy his distress. "Don't mind the mess. I'm in the middle of redecorating."

Shigaraki clicked his tongue and approached the bars while Kurogiri hung back to keep the spell active, holding a whispering torch in his free hand. "Shut up, you piece of human trash," Tomura hissed, sneering at the disgusting slip of a man before him, "You're lucky I'm here at all." The torchlight cast his face in harsh shadow, painting him in shades of feral gray.

"Oh? And why am I so lucky?" Chisaki fired back, "I was just about to hit the hay, so you're really just interrupting my beauty sleep, you crackly bastard."

Behind the bickering young prince and mouthy wizard, Kurogiri shook his head as he sighed.

So childish.

"I came to free you, you germophobic mother-"

"Ahem," Kurogiri interrupted by clearing his throat, urging Shigaraki to focus with a gesture of his hand with the torch held aloft, "Sir, if you would. Please. We've got other things to do tonight."

Releasing an agitated breath from between his teeth, Tomura rolled his shoulders and refocused. "Fine, fine, okay. I'm going to generously free you from your squalid prison, Kai Chisaki, washed up wizard, on one itsy bitsy condition," he said, voice wavering with barely-bridled annoyance.

Kai tilted his head and crossed his arms. "I'm listening."

A taunting grin broke Shigaraki's face in two, disturbing and malicious. "I'm gonna need you to join my little army I'm amassing. And when the time comes..."

The end of that sentence worried Kai, so he raised his brow to egg Tomura on.

But he didn't need much prompting. He showboated just fine.

"When the time comes, I'll need you to help me kill King All Might."