Chapter One:
Shouto Todoroki had spent a year assembling the materials to summon a demon. The red wax, the candles, and the plastic skull had come from mail order kits. To prevent his father from realizing what he planned, he'd ordered them separately. He'd drawn the pentagram on his bedroom floor using blood from a steak Fuyumi planned to cook tomorrow. Two dozen different demonology books had been acquired from pawn shops around the city. True magic had to come from a creepy old pawn shop. The fire opal had been removed from an old necklace of his mother's left in her dresser at home, but he thought she wouldn't mind for such a noble cause.
For the past five hours, Shouto had been painstakingly going through the summoning rituals in every book. He was starting to worry that his Latin pronunciation might be too bad for him to pull this off.
While pricking his finger and dripping blood onto a candle, Shouto sneezed. All his candles went out. Since he'd turned off the lights and it was late at night, this plunged his bedroom into total darkness. Shouto sighed. He expected he would have to start all over again.
From the middle of the pentagram, an amused voice said, "None of those are real rituals." A pair of green eyes glowed in the dark.
With a shriek, Shouto leapt up and turned on the lights.
At first glance, the boy in the pentagram did not look like a demon. He was adorable, with fluffy green curls and freckles. The green nail polish on his fingers sparkled. He wore an All Might T-shirt and an All Might watch—since when did demons buy hero merchandise? Also, he had slightly pointed ears, leathery bat wings, curved horns, and a sinewy tail with a pointed tip. In a modern world of quirks, none of these features were automatically supernatural. However the smell of brimstone convinced Shouto.
The demon smiled, flashing very pointed teeth. "You don't need so much nonsense to summon a demon. You just need the pentagram, and to call our names. Your sneeze didn't sound like much of a name, but you were trying so hard, I took pity on you. My name is Izuku, in case you're interested in being a repeat customer."
"Nice to meet you, my name is Shouto Todoroki." Shouto bowed politely. Then he frowned. "Was I not supposed to give you my name? Oops."
"Don't worry about it, fae are the ones obsessed with names." Izuku shrugged. "The legends can be inaccurate and confused. You don't need blood to summon us, either." He snapped his fingers, and the small cut on Shouto's finger healed. "That's a freebie for my very first client." He winked.
Astonished, Shouto poked his finger. The pin mark had completely vanished. "Whoa, thank you. Um, am I not supposed to thank demons?"
"Nah, that's also fae," Izuku said cheerfully. He sat down on the floor with his legs crossed. Shouto sat down too. In a spooky voice, Izuku asked, "What dark desperation has driven you to knock on the gates of hell?"
Shouto said, "My father sucks."
"Join the club." Izuku rolled his eyes.
Shouto blinked. "There's a club? I would like to join. I don't have any friends."
"No, no, it was a joke. But we can start a club with just the two of us." Izuku sighed. "My father is an annoyingly old-fashioned demon and so powerful I can't get away from him. Because he has a perfect record fulfilling contracts, everyone keeps comparing us. He's arrogant and insanely protective. He wasn't so bad when I was a kid but now I'm trying to stretch my wings and he keeps—" Izuku inhaled and stopped. "Sorry, we're supposed to be talking about you, not me. What dire and damned task do you have for me?"
"I want to teach my father a lesson," Shouto said. "He's the number two hero, so he never faces any consequences for anything he does. I want him to realize he was wrong in how he treated his family. Then I want him to improve himself." Shouto clenched his fists. "Do you want my soul in exchange?"
Izuku laughed. "What would I possibly do with a soul? Pshaw, souls are passé. How old do I look to you?"
Shouto squinted. The demon looked about the same age as himself. "You look fourteen, but I assume you're actually four thousand years old."
Izuku laughed even harder. "You were right the first time! I'm fourteen. I'm a modern demon. I don't collect souls. They have no real purpose. I don't need human servants, I have magic. Demons don't eat souls—not in this universe, at least. The only purpose to collecting souls is to place them on your mantle and brag to other demons about how many you have. Boring! Collecting souls is out, collecting All Might merchandise is in."
Shouto stared. "Demons collect hero merch?"
"Okay, maybe it's just me." Izuku looked around. "Hmm, I see you have an All Might poster on your wall. A freebie from the Musutafu Hero Convention. Low monetary value, but I don't have it yet."
"I got that to annoy my father," Shouto said. "You can have it. In fact, I'll buy you as much All Might merchandise as possible before we reach the limits of my father's credit card." He whipped out a golden card.
Izuku's smile grew even sharper. "Shouto Todoroki, you have yourself a deal."
Hisashi Shigaraki, known to his subjects as All for One the King of Hell, had spent the last hour searching his palace for his son, Prince Izuku. The silly child must have snuck out again. He didn't understand that his father had many enemies and he needed to be more careful. When Izuku had been a child, everything had been easy. He'd adored and worshiped his dad. But as soon as Izuku hit the terrible teenage years, he'd turned sarcastic and disobedient. He'd freed several of his father's souls, including one Oboro Shirakumo who had been a very useful servant. Yesterday, Hisashi had spotted an All Might tattoo on Izuku's wrist and nearly had a heart attack. It had turned out to be a temporary tattoo, but still.
When Hisashi felt a distant summons, it would have been easily ignorable. The human was only saying "Hi," just one syllable of his name. The pentagram hadn't even been completed. But Hisashi was annoyed and in the mood to take it out on a human. Hopefully the requested task would be bloody.
Hisashi appeared in the pentagram wearing his blood-red robes and black crown. His voice shook the room: "Who dares summon the King of Hell?"
"I got the King of Hell?!" A scarred human leapt in the air and pumped a fist. He wore a tattered black coat. "Endeavor is already dead!"
Hisashi blinked. "You look dead. Are you Endeavor?"
"No, I'm Dabi." The human crossed his arms. "I'm not giving you my real name. I know about demons and names."
"That's fae, actually," Hisashi said in a bored voice. "I take it you want me to kill someone?" A dull task, but easily done and it would help him work off his aggression.
"I want to murder my father, Endeavor," Dabi said.
Using his magic, Hisashi vaguely detected there was another demonic contract on Endeavor already, but he didn't care. He'd crush any rival easily. It was considered gauche to steal another demon's contract, but who would dare compete with the King of Hell? What, would they submit a complaint to him about himself? "An acceptable task. And in exchange?"
"I'll give you the soul of Enji Todoroki."
The contractor's soul was the standard price. Hisashi didn't need another soul to add to the several thousand decorating his home, but this ragged human had nothing else he wanted either. "Deal," Hisashi said, barely even paying attention to the familiar feeling of a magical bond settling into place. "Enji, take me to your father and we'll get this over with."
"I'm not Enji," Dabi said. "Enji Todoroki is my father's name. He's the number two hero, Endeavor."
Hisashi's face froze. Only eons of self-control let him keep the horror off his expression. A human could not sell someone else's soul, of course. If it was that easy, then every silly human would sell off their enemies. Contrary to some stories, it was not possible to sell off your children either. Only your own soul belonged to you.
In his boredom and carelessness, Hisashi hadn't even bothered to check the name before agreeing to the contract. Now the deal had been sealed. In other words, unless Enji generously agreed to donate his own soul to the cause of his murder, Hisashi had agreed to work for free. To make matters even worse, this idiot human hadn't even been trying to trick the King of Hell. Dabi simply hadn't understood the rules. If word got around hell that the legendary All for One had been cheated by a human who wasn't even trying, then he would become a laughingstock.
There was only one way out. Hisashi would have to quickly kill Endeavor, then declare he didn't want the ugly soul and leave. Thus his perfect record would be intact. This homeless human didn't look like he traveled in demonic circles and would be unlikely to spread rumors.
In truth, unlike his reputation, Hisashi already did not have a perfect record on contracts. His own brother and seven different humans had tricked him on various occasions. He was just very good at covering it up and preventing other demons from finding out whenever he failed. Most recently, a brat named Toshinori Yagi had tricked him out of a free quirk about four decades ago. To Hisashi's profound frustration, his own son had decided to become a fanboy of the hero All Might, swanning around with his stolen power. Hisashi couldn't even admit why he disliked All Might so much without owning up to his past mistake. It was infuriating.
If Izuku found out about this mistake, then he might look more closely into his father's other contracts. The boy was in a rebellious phase. If he found out that All Might had thwarted his father, he'd become insufferable.
This silly little contract had suddenly become a lot more important.
Before heading out of the Todoroki house, Izuku had vanished his horns, wings and tail through some mysterious means. Shouto had told him it wasn't necessary given he could just tell people he had a demon quirk. But Izuku said demons had policies about keeping a low profile that hadn't been updated in the last five centuries. Even if the rules were meaningless, he wanted his first contract to be unassailably perfect. Although the demonic features were invisible, they still seemed to be solid since Shouto had bumped into the tail once and Izuku was currently floating down the aisle of the hero merchandise store.
Eyes wide, Izuku gasped, "So much merch! There are hundreds of figurines! I've never been in a paradise like this before. My father forbade me from going to the human world. I've snuck out a few times, but this is the longest time I've ever been able to avoid him."
"Fathers suck," Shouto agreed, pushing a shopping cart.
Izuku cleaned one of every piece of All Might merch off the shelves, dumping his findings into the cart. "Oh whoa, what are these things?" He held up a lunch box.
Shouto said, "Humans use them to keep our lunches inside."
"Fascinating." Izuku added it to the cart. He peered at a figurine of Mirko the Rabbit Hero. "Who is she? Her smile looks demonic. Perhaps she's a distant relative."
"That's Mirko, one of the top ten heroes."
"I don't know much about other heroes," Izuku confessed. "I saw All Might briefly the very first time I snuck past Dad to investigate humanity. He was so cool! All Might destroyed a giant villain with one punch. There's something a little demonic about his power, I can smell it."
"All Might's hair tufts do look like demon's horns," Shouto said, already forming a conspiracy theory.
"Can I have just one Mirko figurine? Even though it's not included in the contract?" Izuku asked, clasping his hands together and batting his eyes.
Awe-struck by the adorableness, Shouto stammered, "Yes, of course. You can pick any merch you'd like."
"Thank you!" Izuku bounced even higher in the air, then zoomed around the shelves, collecting merchandise from dozens of different heroes. "Gosh, I'm nervous about getting this contract right with so much merch at stake."
Shouto frowned. He felt a little guilty, because his terms had been vague and he knew Endeavor didn't learn lessons easily. Izuku might fail through absolutely no fault of his own. That didn't seem fair. Shouto asked, "What happens if you can't change my father?"
"I don't get your payment." Izuku shrugged. "Nothing bad happens to either of us, except my reputation would take a hit in the demon world. I really, really don't want to fail my first contract, but plenty of young demons do, so it wouldn't be a big deal. Now, my father has a perfect record of fulfilling all of his contracts, so if he failed, then it would be big news across the demon realm."
Shouto nodded. "I see. How do you measure success?"
"With a vague contract like ours, it counts if you feel satisfied with the end result. Most demons insist on more stringent, objective terms, and my father would call me foolish for not negotiating more, but I was eager to obtain a contract." Izuku flushed. "Besides, you seem far too nice to try and cheat me."
Shouto nodded like a bobblehead. "I'd never."
It took the cashier nearly an hour to ring up all their purchases. As they left the store, Izuku stared longingly at the bags of merchandise. "I can't wait to take these treasures back home."
"You can take it now," Shouto said. "I don't have room to store it in my bedroom." They'd purchased five carts of merchandise. Izuku had used magic to attach all their purchases together and float them. It was a good thing magic looked the same as quirks.
Izuku glanced sidelong. "You're not supposed to give me the reward until I complete the contract."
"You can have this as a down payment," Shouto said. He liked how the demon smiled and wanted to see it again. "It's yours whether you succeed or fail. That way, you won't be held responsible if my father proves incapable of change."
"I can't take something for nothing. I'm not that kind of demon."
"I'm getting something out of this too—a chance to spend my father's money on his worst enemy's merch. We'll buy even more merchandise after you finish. I promised you as much merch as my father's credit card can buy. Endeavor is work-obsessed and rarely home. It will probably take him a few weeks to notice the strange charges on his credit card. The faster you finish, the more merch we'll be able to buy before he cancels the card." Shouto shrugged. "We can call it a bonus for speedy performance."
"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" Izuku hugged Shouto so hard it knocked the breath out of him. Flying up in the air, Izuku did a backflip. "I'm going to fulfil your contract so hard. You will go down in demon history as the most satisfied customer. Endeavor won't know what hit him."
For Izuku's very first contract, he was determined to pull out all the stops. Using magic was harder in the human world—it felt like he was swimming through molasses. Most demons tried to use as little power as possible to fulfil contracts in order to preserve their strength. But Izuku knew when his father dragged him back, he'd be locked up in the palace and unlikely to get another contract any time soon, so he might as well go wild on this one.
After a quick client interview, Izuku wrote down a list of Endeavor's greatest fears and motivations. Then he prepared a dream vision involving Endeavor's deceased father and oldest son scolding him, followed by a massive All Might cardboard cutout crushing him. If guilt didn't work, then fear would. Izuku had even helpfully added in a subliminal message about how Endeavor should double his youngest son's allowance.
But just as Izuku floated through the bedroom wall to deliver his dream, the roof collapsed on the snoring Endeavor.
The scent of demonic magic gave Izuku a few seconds of warning. He quickly cast a spell to repair the roof, and another to keep Endeavor asleep, then a third to shield himself. He couldn't let Endeavor die, because corpses couldn't be redeemed and their credit cards probably got canceled. The magic smelled powerful…and familiar. "Dad?"
Hisashi materialized from the shadows. "Izuku, you should be back at home. Isn't it time for your dancing lesson?"
Izuku would not be deflected so easily. "Excuse me, did you take out a contract on Endeavor? Even though I already had one?"
Hisashi sniffed. "You're too young for contracts at all."
"Not according to the Fifth Conclave of Hell, Dad! You've got a lot of nerve when you had dozens of deals at my age." Izuku bared his teeth. "I was here first. This one is mine."
Hisashi's answering smile was slow and languid. "My dear little prince, the number two hero is a rather advanced target. Why don't you let me handle this one, then I'll find you a perfect easy contract for your first time?"
Izuku growled, "I already have my first contract, and I don't need you. I won't let you win, you thief."
Hisashi lunged, reaching for his son. Turning insubstantial, Izuku took off through the wall, flying across the city until he'd lost his father.
OMAKE TIME!
Izuku: What did Endeavor do to deserve your revenge?
Shouto: Abused his family, forced me into heroism, and hates All Might.
Izuku: This is very serious, what kind of monster hates All Might?
#
Shouto: I'm shocked that the reputation of heroes has spread to the demon realm.
Izuku: Would you believe Eraserhead is the most popular hero in hell? Apparently he has a big villain fanbase on your world, too.
Shouto: I'm just glad it's not my dad.
Izuku: A flaming hero isn't going to impress hell. We've seen real hellfire.
#
Hisashi: My son is rebelling!
Shouto: I bet it must be something really bad to shock the King of Hell. I'm taking notes.
Hisashi: Izuku is going around being nice to customers and freeing souls. Absolutely shocking demonic behavior.
Shouto: Huh…I guess I should plan to annoy my own dad by becoming a noble hero? That doesn't feel quite right but I was already going to do that anyway.
#
Shouto: Obviously All Might's power smells demonic to Izuku because they're related. Could All Might be the King of Hell's secret lovechild?
Hisashi: Great, now I have to decide if I hate this theory enough to admit the truth.
#
Shouto: So modern demons don't take souls?
Izuku: Mostly. I do have some fantasies about completely my All Might collection. No serious plans. I'm just saying that All Might's soul would look fabulous on my bedroom shelf.
Author's Note: Thank you to MelancholysSunshine for yet another amazing prompt, and BlueRose0justBlueRose for adding ideas on discord. Let us unleash the combined drama of the Todoroki and Shigaraki families.
