Mystic

Prologue

        "Are you lost?" I asked, staring at the boy.

        He was a few years older than me, if I had to guess, and had pale blue hair that messily covered his face. I tried not to flinch as his red eyes locked onto mine.

        "Lost? No," he replied, his voice a bit scratchy. "But I am a bit lonely. Would you like to play a game?"

        I glanced over my shoulder to the apartment complex. It was getting late and my mother would be waiting for me. Izuku would have already returned from our messing around with Kacchan and his 'friends,' so I wouldn't be able to use him as an excuse. I mean, he lived four doors down the hall, and his mom always acted like he'd just come back from some life-threatening adventure and wail about how happy she was that her baby'd come back safe and sound. So, yeah, that was a no-go. Still, it would be rude of me to say no to this kid, even if he did seem a bit strange.

        "Sure, what game?"

        He smirked. "TAG! YOU'RE IT!"

        His hand had moved so fast, I'd barely had time to react. Great, a game where I'd have to run, most likely further from home. Yay. This was what I got for being too kind to strangers. I took off after him.

        The boy was fast and, as I expected, not sticking nearby. Perhaps his home was nearby and he was using me as an escort back. If so, his game suddenly seemed highly strategic, especially for someone who couldn't be older than ten. I wondered if he had a Quirk. We were all discovering ours at this age, so he would certainly know by now.

        I chased him from street to street, through a few alleyways even, not really paying attention to where we were going at this point. My only goal was to tag this kid and hopefully be able to outrun him all the way back to the complex. Crap, the sun was a third of the way under the horizon. I pushed myself to go faster.

        Suddenly, we veered off into a park. I chased him to the top of a hill to find a man, if you could call him that, in a suit with a large metal cuff around his neck. He didn't appear to have a corporeal form, instead being made of a blackish-purple fog. I couldn't help but stare up into the guy's bright yellow eyes that trailed upwards just a bit. His appearance was so distracting I almost forgot about the whole game.

        "Found her, Kurogiri," said the boy.

        The man, who I now knew to be Kurogiri, gave the boy a curt nod. "Good job, Shigaraki. Master will be quite proud of you."

        I may have been young, yes, but I wasn't a complete idiot. These guys were trouble. It was obvious now, I just wished I'd known sooner. I should have just made an excuse and gone home. Instead, I'd managed to get myself into a mess, and looking around I realized I had no idea where I was either. Just wanting to get back to the road, my legs moved without thought and I began running once more, but this time with the intent of getting as far away from that kid as possible.

        "Ah, ah, ah. Not so fast," chided Kurogiri.

        Before me spiraled open a small portal, made up of the same stuff he was. If only I'd reacted quick enough. Alas, I tumbled into the void and plunged into darkness.