A/N: This is one of my older AUs, and my friend Siri convinced me to rewrite it. She's a darkfic enabler.
IMPORTANT: Hardly anybody is referred to by name in this AU because there's a name-change later on. I'll list the changes every chapter
Toushirou Hitsugaya- Shirou Hinamori in dialogue
Karin Kurosaki- the Queen in narraration, Lilith Shiba in dialogue
Luppi Antenor- the estate master's son in narration and dialogue


The estate master's son, three weeks prior, had picked out a new personal servant from the array of slaves available from the fields. His previous servant had died of asphyxiation, she'd officially hanged herself in his room, but it was another shitty cover up. The estate master's son had strangled her- he liked to do such- and he needed a new girl to torment then.

The new girl was slave number one hundred sixty-eight. And three weeks later, she was dead.

Officially, slave number one hundred sixty-eight had passed away from an accident in the kitchen. She'd cooked her master a late night meal when a heavy pot fell on her head, cracked her skull, and she bled to death on the floor. That was the official statement. However, the idea was ludicrous. The pots were always secured and hardly heavy enough to kill a person in a single blow.

No, slave number sixty-eight, Momo Hinamori- his dearest sister- had not died as a result of an accident, she'd died at the estate master's son's hands just like the servants before her. He'd beat her to death with one of the pots. It wasn't any secret, the man-child hadn't a shred of empathy for any organism on their plane of existence, and especially not for slaves. And he wished, damn did he wish that he could've done something about it.

But he couldn't, he was powerless, and when he realized it right after the news spread, his will to live perished with her. But from his helplessness and loss was conceived hatred so strong he never could've articulated it even if he was as literate as his masters. And he was sure he never could've satiated the beast that rooted itself in him.

It was then, at fourteen years old, that he decided he would avenge his sister. And he would've done anything to do so even if it killed him in the end. He hardly cared about himself by then, not without his reason to go on with his god-forsaken existence. He'd sold his soul to any monster however depraved to exact revenge.

He taught himself how to read first. He taught himself what the labels in the kitchen meant and then applied the patterns to the books he stole from the library. He'd learned enough from the kitchen that if he didn't understand something he looked it up in the dictionary. In under a year, he was literate, and then he taught himself magick, ice magick. It seemed appropriate, by then he was a cold, emotionless husk of who he used to be when his sister lived; a frosty desert that buried his potent grief under a thick layer of apathy.

Though he originally intended to kill the estate master's son himself, his father made him promise to stay with them until they died because they would've gone mad if they lost the only family they had left. Although his father wasn't his reason to live, he refused to perpetuate the cycle of loss. He refused to leave an old man in a merciless world without any support, and if he went after the estate master's son himself there was a strong possibility he would've been persecuted and executed.

In his research, he discovered demons and their influence over magick, as well as the carnage they wrought. A demon, he knew, would've been perfect for his plan. They were resilient and a demon wasn't even a part of their realm so any evidence of the culprit would've lead to a dead end. So he researched everything he could've gotten his hands on from the estate master's library. He needed to be prepared, a demon was like a natural disaster if one didn't know what to do and how to control it, and he wasn't one to take unnecessary risks. Not when it came to his vengeance.

He was ready when he was seventeen, when he'd finessed his magick to create semi-animated golems. He could've contained the beast that was a demon.

So, late in the night, he snuck out of the slave quarters and into the main house, and it was there in the abandoned wing he searched for a suitable room for the ritual. It was the perfect atmosphere to summon a demon in his opinion. It was dark, bleak, colorless, and from the dust and the lack of decor it was safe to assume it was scarcely, if ever, travelled. And it was likely because the stench of death was so thick in that wing.

Yes, he thought, such rankness over the area was that of death. He'd grown familiar with it over his life as a slave. Death was regular, weekly almost, and although unpleasant, by then he was completely desensitized to it and its accompanied abhorrent smells. But it upset him. It reaffirmed the selfishness of his masters, their disregard for life if they abandoned an entire wing because of a body. It wouldn't have been hard to bury it.

He found the corpse eventually, in a large, barren room. It was huddled in the corner, grey and leathery, long since mummified and blanketed in cobwebs.

And it made his blood boil; the tattered, moth-eaten sack it wore. They, too, were murdered and their body abandoned like they were a rat. The cruelty of their masters knew no bounds, he thought as the rage of his sister's own murder boiled to the surface. He was near tempted to let it overtake him and just let himself kill the estate master's son, his own life be damned.

But he had work to do. The room was perfectly suitable for his needs and he didn't want to waste more time. So he ignored the corpse, shrugged off his satchel, set the chamberstick with its candle on the floor, and lowered himself to his knees. He drew a wide, elaborate circle with a stick of charcoal on the ground to open a gateway, and then he placed candles- dyed black with ink he stole- around its perimeter. He then sat on his legs before it, fished out two more candles, froze them to his palms, and he lit those with the candle from the chamberstick before he held his palms to the ceiling.

He began to chant, and the room grew hot. He felt sweat drip down his temple and sides, and as the temperature sky-rocketed he felt the air simmer and crackle around him and the wax as it dripped down his arms. The floor inside the circle bled from the coal lines, poured black until it was completely filled like a bottomless pit. He would've been afraid if he already hadn't experienced the epitome of despair, of what Hell itruly/i was. No demon could've outmatched the torment he had already been through.

And then a humanoid emerged from the darkness, and it dripped off them like syrup and revealed their physical form; first a sable bob and a jagged tiara atop her crown, then ivory skin, a well-endowed figure, and then a funeral dress and a knife strapped to her thigh. The floor solidified then, a steamy char, but despite that the gate had been closed the air was as heavy and as hot as before.

He watched as the demoness landed on her toes before she peeled open her abyssal eyes, and he lowered his arms, peeled off the wax and set the patties aside. She blinked then, tilted her head to the side as her attention focused on him, and the demoness's lips turned down.

"A child." She stated. "A child summoned me." She snorted then, rest her fists akimbo and chuckled humorlessly. "Surely this is a joke."

He felt his eyebrow twitch then, he didn't appreciate the 'child' comment nor that he was a joke. "No, it isn't. I've summoned you, and you will do my bidding. And you will not refer to me as 'child' or any derivative of it. My name is Shirou Hinamori, and you will refer to me as such."

She barked out a laugh then, and it pierced through his ears and jarred him to his sense of self. She wheezed as she doubled-over, wiped mahogany tears from her eyes. "Oh please," she sighed, and then whipped up and glared at him through thick lashes and she snarled like a beast. "Listen here you insolent brat," She spat. "I am the queen of Hell, Lilith Shiba. I have a throne to maintain, I don't have time to humor some kid's petty schemes. Now if you'll kindly stay still, I'm going to kill you so I can return to my homeland."

He watched her as she flexed her hands, curled her fingers like talons, and fire as abyssal as her eyes manifested around her fists. She clapped her hands together, and he quickly responded, threw up an icy cocoon around himself before her explosion incinerated him, and then, before either of them blinked, he froze her legs up to her hips and her hands in motion. He stood then, lowered the wall he materialized and sauntered over to her. The Queen was wide-eyed, stared down at her frozen form in bewilderment.

"M-my hellfire…" she stammered weakly. "Oh god, you froze my Hellfire like it was nothing."

He cupped her cheeks then, pulled her face up to look at him. "Will you help me now? Or do I have to freeze you into submission?"'

The Queen shook her head then. He thawed the ice that held her and the frost that had branched on the walls, and he caught her as her knees gave out and helped her to her feet.

"What do you need done?" She inquired, pushed away from him and combed her fingers through her hair. "Let's get this over with."