Yuuei Academy is a strange place, really.

People with superpowers grow to become heroes or sidekicks, or villains, all part of, as her mother said once or twice, the great capitalist scam, but with sparkles.

Uraraka Ochako tried to avoid emulating her mother's darker moments, but the more she examined her studies for the next week and a half of examinations and theoretical… whatever, she wanted to at least sympathize. She was tired and she'd only been at this for… two hours? Yeah, two hours. Whatever. It felt like seven at the very least.

She leaned back away from her small, school given desk, brown hair sticking to her plump cheeks with sweat. Her fingers cramped up as she tried to twirl her pencil to distract herself.

When even that failed, she scooted away from her work to flop down onto the floor. The sigh Ochako let out was worthy of a master grump. Then again, she didn't think she had ever heard Bakugo sigh and Bakugo was the grumpiest person she knew. Even Todoroki was just… Todoroki.

It didn't help that it was still early fall, the contradictory time where sometimes it was chilly enough for ratty sweaters and the like to not be enough and other times it was so hot, she considered taking her shirt off while in the privacy of her room.

Ochako eventually made herself roll over, heading towards her door. She tripped partway up and flopped. A whine of annoyance escaped her lips

"I need…" she paused, not sure how to finish the sentence. "Chocolate," she decided. "Chocolate and eight hours of sleep and to be able to pass these exams with good grades."

Her grades were barely average, nowhere near enough to get to what was good and great and necessary, what would get her to the top of her position to save her parents before work killed them.

"I need to be better." She rolled over, stood up. "I just need a minute. Then I'll be back."

And she could see it now, her small but sturdy hero office, never having to budget for meals on a meager amount of yen, having assistants to counter her weaknesses, being able to go out with friends on weekends and be safely in the black.

She could see it dancing behind her eyelids as she left the room.

When she returned, there was a little green cat on her homework, and it looked like it was reading it.

Ochako screamed loud enough for the cat to escape, Bakugo Katsuki to run in with hands smoking, and the word Deku to be thrown across the room with six all new curse words

And that was before the rest of the class shows up.

The cat was now a boy their age. His green eyes flicked from one person to another, tail lazily swishing, ears up and eyes gleaming when he looked at Ochako.

He, quite deliberately, was not looking at Bakugo, whose hands were still smoking. The hothead looks fully prepared to leap across the tiny table. Todoroki was keeping him down with his freezing hand.

"You don't have to look so angry, Kacchan," the other said, looking bemused. "Anyone can make a contract with me, not just you.

Bakugo said something Ochako did not hear entirely and did not want to from the way that voice sounded. and leaned across the table but Kirishima got a hold of him and yanks hard enough to hurt.

The boy looked back at Ochako. "You want to be the best you can be right?" he asked, sounding completely unconcerned. "There are lots of ways to do that, you know. Most of them include what you were already doing. But best is also relative, as in there's always someone better? So maybe reconsider-" His voice trailed off into a low murmur as he cast his eyes about the room, fingers beginning to twitch as he did. It's like watching thoughts trail in and out like a group of wandering spirits.

"Shut up and get to the point, Deku." There was so much rage in that singular word, Ochako half-expected a blood vessel to explode from Bakugo's neck or something.

"You aren't ever letting that name go, huh?" 'Deku' let out a singular sigh and shook his head. "You never change. Anyway!" He turned back to Ochako. His face flushed with warmth and he took a good long look at his tattered shorts. "I'm… well, my name is Midoriya Izuku, and I'm a demon from the depths of hell. You summoned me with your frustration and feelings of inadequacy, so uhm, here I am. We can do a trade. I grant your wish and you give me something."

"Like her soul?" Mina, please don't give that suggestion to the possibly cute demon. She didn't need to lose her soul- wait what the heck did she just think?

Izuku couldn't quite contain the smile on his face. He waves his hands. "No, no! We stopped taking souls years ago. It's actually not conducive to eating… or profits. If every little thing cost a soul, humans wouldn't have any left you know?" His ears twitched. "Nah, your wishes were really personal so I'd need something tangible before I take them away… or something. Anyway, no, I don't eat souls. They actually taste terrible. Kacchan over there tried to feed me his."

It took Todoroki freezing Bakugo's hands to the floor to keep him still at those words.

Maybe it was because everything was super absurd, but Ochako couldn't help the giggles that bubbled out of her mouth.

This is all probably just a dream anyway.

For once having been summoned with socks gave Izuku the advantage that he needed. Normally, he would be barefoot, or with boots. If he had socks, he was usually outside and they got ruined. Or worse, he lost him. Also, none of the humans could see him, but that was beside the point. Now they couldn't hear him.

Kacchan could, come to think of it, but Kacchan wouldn't say anything, and he had slammed his bedroom door so hard after leaving Izuku's new contractor behind that the name plate had fallen off. Some things never changed, did they? Kacchan really couldn't say anything, though. That was how the contracts worked, after all. Kept dirty secrets from spreading out and about, making gossip and causing problems. As a rule of thumb, demons loved gossip.

Izuku made his living on supernatural deal and what not after all. It was much too late to feel guilty about it after the many centuries he'd been making a living on it. If it left his mother happy and healthy, he could deal with the rest later, especially after succeeding at such a shockingly easy task.

Uraraka Ochako was definitely on the lesser end of the summoning contract situation scale. He didn't even know how she had managed to summon him. It wasn't like it was costing her the one soul she had in her body. It'd take some blood maybe, her sweat and tears that she'd already paid in the hours of studying days and days before. She shouldn't have been able to summon him in the first place.

Perhaps there was more spiritual energy here than he thought? He wasn't in the human world enough…

If Kacchan just let him help more often, it would be diferent. But whatever.

Izuku slunk along the walls, watching a muscular boy take boxes downstairs. Longing filled his stomach, mixed with sorrow. He swallowed each tear. They would give him away, after all. His fingers crossed over each nameplate as he reached the end of the boy's wing.

He had watched this heroic world rise, slowly, over time, hundreds of years. Human society was terribly fascinating, albeit very distracting as well. He watched the moon rise as he shrank down to the size of an ordinary human cat, albeit with his twin, soft green tails trailing about and moving through the air.

Izuku remembered being this age for real, rather than stuck in it out of pure habit and politeness. There was a girl like Uraraka-san back then, sweet but firm, soft but devoted. Also human. Very human. It had made his father laugh every time he had blushed at the thought of her. He had… grown past that of course.

Easily. Thinking of girls in any way did not make him a mess. He was on duty for spirit's sake!

He shook himself at the sound of soft, human footsteps. The one he was looking for, the boy with red and white hair, entered his room.

Quick as a whip, Izuku followed.

The second he entered the room, he was hit with multiple sensations. From the very smell of carefully aged wood, to the color of the tatami, and to the the drying ink on paper tacked to the wall, all of this brought him back to a long time ago. He could easily see his childhood days summoned by elderly men who missed their sons and were too deluded to see the ears and tail and the days spent in a dojo learning how to swing a bokken and tasting blood in the back of his mouth when he hit the floor just hard enough.

Whoever Todoroki Shouto was, he had weird taste. But that wasn't important. He had a job to do.

Izuku crept towards the desk, watching Shouto methodically go to his sleeping spot. It would take only a few minutes of idle stillness. His tails twitched.

He could only hope he could stay still that long.

Ochako had remained flat on top of her bed for the past half hour. At some point, Izuku had left. To research, he had said. But what he wanted to research was beyond her. Considering he knew Bakugo, it would figure he knew everything that they were working on.

She let out a sigh. "How could I even summon a demon?" Magic had been redefined by science for over a century. If it even existed, it was in the hands of cultists and third world country survivors who didn't know what a quirk is, if she went by all those old documentaries and stories. Still, Japan was superstitious, superstitious in that natural, understanding, good way. It simply existed.

Knowing that, was it really so strange for demons to exist?

"Hey, round-face."

Ochako twitched as she usually did when Bakugo called her that, even though he knew her name, knew everyone else's names and just flat out ignored them. Her nickname was accurate at least. She didn't mind her round face and slightly wide cheeks. So she stopped getting offended, even though he had all the concern and understanding of a dead goose.

"What's up?" she said, smiling at him like always. He scoffed at her, expression barely changing, barring the deepening line on his face, the faded eyeliner dangerously close to his sclera masquerading the bags under his eyes.

Still, he didn't speak for a few minutes, regarding her with narrowed red eyes like she was the impossible puzzle and not him.

Finally, he scowled at the wall and said, "Don't trust Deku."

Ochako stared at him. "What?"

That was a leap. They'd barely even met, and while he seems polite enough, that didn't necessarily mean that she trusts him. He was a self-admitted demon after all. He hadn't even told her the catch to all of this or even if he was doing anything at all.

Bakugo grunted, hands stuffed in his too-large khaki pockets. "You heard me. You're too nice, round face. You'll let him in even if you say you-"

He was interrupted by a very loud crash. Both of them run from the room and into the hallway. Mina was leaving her room, but that wasn't particularly unusual, and she didn't seem to be jumping and running away. She looked towards them, orange eyes lighting up with the potential for gossip.

"Was that you?" she asked, rubbing her pink hands together with glee.

Bakugo let out a snort. "No. Why would I bother, pinky?"

Mina giggled and shook her head. "Well, you were smoking earlier."

"I damn well was not."

There was another loud crash and then they heard it: Todoroki was cursing. Very loudly. Very creatively.

The word cat was also in there.

All three of them looked at each other before running into the hall separating the two sides of their dormitory.

Ochako, clad in a sleep t-shirt and the thinnest, ragged sweatpants she has, shivered at the chill in the hall, the railings covered in a sheet of frost and little spikes and ice freezing over the ceiling. A green cat was leaping away from them, right as a new construction of ice slammed into the wall. Paper flapped in the air as he leaped, the source currently in the cat's mouth. The cat paused to perch on a rafter, emerald eyes sparkling with what was likely amusement. Cats were fond of that, right? It was looking right at Ochako too… oh crap.

"Todoroki-kun!" Iida was on the other side, large hands on the other teen's bony shoulders. "That is entirely unnecessary, this is a small building, you will cause problems for the systems."

"It's still drying," Todoroki said, voice completely deadpan now, if a little less homicidal. "And my sister bought my futon, which he scratched up."

Iida paused. "I… I understand your fervor. However-" His grip tightened. "Perhaps he is trying to tell us something."

"He wants to borrow your homework for round-face."

Ochako's eyes flicked right to see Bakugo lounged against a wall like he is the only one with a brain in the Heroics Department. A fiery welling up of lava like anger pulls up from the depths of her gut, and almost spewed out like the loud shout of her father across the latest site because the rope was just a little short and someone could get hurt or die-

Her word instead came out quiet, almost impossible to hear. "No."

No one turned around, maybe Bakugo snorted, but that could mean anything.

"I don't need that!" She exclaimed, and she felt how much she meant it, feels how badly not being anything else burns her bones. "I don't need Todoroki-kun's work! He's really smart, but his handwriting is terrible, and I can do it myself, Midoriya-kun, thank you very much!"

She felt everyone's eyes fall on her and Ochako's cheeks burned so hard mixing with the corners of her eyes.

Todoroki-kun paused, ice melting, expression smoothening over in that way it had as he tilted his head to look at her. "My handwriting is terrible?"

Denki snorted (when did he show up?), Mina giggleed, and Iida's eyes shifted to the side as she said, "Yes, Todoroki-kun, I can barely read it."

The cat let out a mew of laughter and leaped to land on the railing in front of her. He shifted before their eyes into a boy lounging on it instead.

"Terms acknowledged," Izuku said, lips twitching with mirth. "Contract set. From now on, Uraraka Ochako-san, I will be your new tutor! Let's work together, okay?"

Now, the entire class was sitting on the sofas, the tables, even the floor as Izuku paced the room, describing with fierce waves of his hands and a too-bright smile about the history of Quirks and society. If his eyes sparkled when he mentioned All Might, only Ochako noticed, she thought.

She definitely was the only one to find it cute.

Wait. What?

A/N: Written for the MHA Hallowzine which sadly flopped. Oh well, it was a lot of fun to write anyway!~