Priceless

[prologue] -power

The witch Uraraka--Round-Face--stared at him, a serious look on her face. "You want power."

"Did I fucking stutter?" He glared at her. She glanced down at her hands, her fingers twisting around each other in anxious knots.

"Are you sure about this, Bakugou?" Her eyes rose up again, strongly meeting his. "You know power like this always comes at a massive price. It literally says that in the spellbook. Look, 'Great power always comes at an even greater price'."

He scoffed, rolling his eyes. "Hell yeah I'm sure, why wouldn't I be?"

Round-Face didn't reply.

He turned to her, a snarl on his lips. "Well, Round-Face? Are you going to give me what I asked for, or did I come to you for nothing?"

She sighed, that stupid worried look on her face. It made him want to punch something. Probably her. "Fine, if you're so sure. Give me your left hand, palm down."

He did as he was asked, and a burning pain flared out across his arm. "Ouch! What the fuck?" He jerked his arm back, then paused. An explosion-like mandala had been tattooed across the back of his hand. Not bad, he thought.

Uraraka glanced up at him. "We can stop now," she said. "You wouldn't get the power, but you wouldn't pay the price, either. This is your last chance to turn back."

"Are you saying I'm a quitter, Round-Face?" He shoved his other arm at her, palm down. She paused. "Well?" he barked.

"Are you sure," she asked, and the words held a more... Urgent air to them.

But he was not a quitter. "Yes," he answered. She took his hand, quickly tracing a symbol on the back of it. So that's what she'd done. He hissed as another tattoo formed, and waited.

"Isn't something supposed to happen?" He barked.

Uraraka shook her head. "Not necessarily. It should manifest itself anywhere within a week of the spell. Most likely, it'll be an enhanced version of whatever is already in your blood."

He nodded, a manic grin slowly spreading across his face. He felt a bit more alive, as if before he'd been living life half-asleep. He tossed the witch a purse of gold coins, and made to head out of the cluttered cottage.

"Bakugou!" Uraraka called out. "Wait--you know the price, right?"

He flicked his eyes back to the coin purse. "What, that not enough?"

Her face paled, and it looked as if her heart had stopped dead in her chest. "You didn't listen to a word I said beforehand, did you?"

"Of course not. Why should I?"

"Why should--because everything comes with a cost, Bakugou!" Her voice had become frantic. "You have no idea what you've done, do you?"

"Shut up!" He roared. "Stop just babbling senselessly and explain yourself, before I kill you for talking too much! You're acting like fucking Deku!"

She slammed her fist on the table, startling him into silence. "Bakugou, the price for that power-" She paused, breathing in deep, then continued on. "The price for that power is the thing you need most. You will lose the thing you need most in life."

He looked at her, confused. "But didn't you just give me power? Power was what I needed most, so are you saying that this was pointless?"

"No. The tattoos are on your hands, you have the power. You can't just get rid of something like that, that's not how that works-"

"Good." He cut her off. "As long as it's not my power, I'll be fine."

Uraraka turned away, running a hand through her bobbed hair, and he used that moment to escape. He didn't want to spend another moment with her if he didn't have to.

He had some shit he'd been wanting to get done, and this new unmatched power seemed like just the thing to help him. 

X_X

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