Izuku checked the blood-drawn pentagram on the floor. Nudged a candle a millimeter to the side. Wafted the brimstone censer around the room and gagged at the smell. Flipped through the leather-bound book, with a suspiciously pale, smooth texture like his mother's hand on his cheek, telling him how proud she is, wiped away the unbidden anxious tear, and took a deep breath.

Izuku had tried working out. Tried every mail-order Quirk activation kit and medication in pop-up ads and junk mail, tried getting bitten by weird-colored spiders, dipping a hand in a vat of acid, and tried getting run over by a truck.

Now, it was time he tried something else.

In faltering Latin, Izuku intoned, "Blood of virgin flower, forcefully taken."

Izuku upended a bottle of extra virgin olive oil over the pentagram. Black flames roared to life. Izuku reasoned that olives came from flowers, and he made sure to steal the extra virgin stuff.

"Flesh of the innocent lamb, freely offered."

He unwrapped a package of loin chops and slapped them onto the fire. The meat sizzled as it roasted away.

"Salt of a mother's tears."

Inko cried a lot. It wasn't easy getting enough dried for the sprinkling he put over the lamb without her asking awkward questions.

"And herbs plucked from a father's grave."

That part he ad-libbed, but in Izuku's defense, the ink had run over a spot in the book. Izuku hoped the devil wouldn't mind a bit of extra thyme spent making the ritual.

"For a favor most foul, for perfidious petition, I call upon thee, Santa! Answer my summons in thine own infernal name!"

Izuku stumbled back as the flames roared. The screams of tortured souls filled the room, and wailing faces flickered in the deep shadows of the room. The ground shook, the very air trembled, and a deep rent tore itself into the fabric of space above the pentagram. Izuku sat transfixed, not daring to breathe, as a humanoid figure knit itself from darkness within the pentagram.

The fire died, the shadows receded, and the portal spat out a heavyset old man in a red coat.

"Oof!" The man groaned and picked himself off the floor. "What the? How far did I roll off the bed this time?"

Izuku swallowed nervously. "Uh, s-sir? Are you Satan?"

The man whipped around and looked at him. "Ah, you're Izuku Midoriya! Bright, quiet and reserved, bit of a muttering problem, and wants to be a hero for the right reasons. Good kid! Just need to stop using your mom's credit card to make shady purchases and buy All Might merch. Oh, and don't steal olive oil again. So, what do you want for Christmas?"

"C-Christmas?" Izuku asked. "Aren't you the devil?"

"Ho, ho, ho! Heavens, no. I'm Santa!"

Izuku gazed at Santa, looked down at the book, then slapped his head. "You have got to be kidding me. How did I screw that up?"

"Ah, cheer up Izuku. Summoning demons would've landed you on the naughty list. Instead, you get a present from yours truly."

"But wait, I asked for a Quirk years ago. Why didn't I get one then?"

"How did you try to ask me?"

"I sat on your lap at the Mall of America!"

"Do you think I hang around some mall to have kids sit on my lap? I'm not a pedophile!"

Izuku cringed. "And I, uh, wrote you a letter?"

"Who'd you have deliver it, the postal service?"

"Yes?"

"Hah!" Santa slapped his belly. "They couldn't deliver a letter to their own mailbox. You think they bother getting mail all the way to the North Pole? They just chuck them in a paper shredder and use the depression confetti to make kitty litter."

"Oh. So, how can people send you mail?"

"Why, it couldn't be simpler! Just hand your letter to a Humboldt penguin. Oh, and make sure you get the right species. The others burn your letters for warmth. Or out of spite, hard to tell with those beady-eyed gremlins."

"Penguins? Those went extinct a century ago."

"What, all of them? Well, get a leopard seal."

"Also extinct."

"Atlantic puffin?"

"Lost when King Atlantis sunk Maine into the ocean."

"Passenger pigeon?"

"The Americans got those long before Quirks!"

"Orcas?"

"The last one ever seen flew off into space.

"Unicorns?"

"Those were real?" Izuku asked.

Santa sighed. "Well, that explains why I haven't been getting my mail." He sniffed around, and noticed the seared lamb chops on the ground. "Hey, mind if I have that?"

Izuku glanced at the infernally-seared lamb on the floor. "Uh, no?"

"Thanks, I'm starving." He tore into it with hands and teeth and said between bites, "Don't tell the Mrs."

"Uh, right. So, you said I could get a Christmas present?"

"Sure can! What would you like? A baseball bat? Rocking horse? Cork rifle?"

"Can I get a Quirk?"

"A Quirk? One of those genetic thingummies?" Izuku's heart sank. Santa shrugged. "Sure, why not. Might knock a chromosome or two loose, but that's what free healthcare's for."

Izuku vibrated with excitement. "Thank you thank you thank you! What kind of Quirk will it be, how do I use it, when will it come in, how many of my first-born children do I owe you-"

"Whoa, slow down!" Santa patted Izuku's shoulders. "Christmas is months away. You'll have to wait until then."

"But U.A.'s entry exam is before that! Can't you do it sooner?"

Santa stroked his beard. "I can't give you a present anytime except Christmas. But, if you agree to help me with my mail, we could consider it payment."

"Yeah, sure, absolutely, Quirk please."

"Splendid! Now, hold still."

Izuku clamped his arms to his side. Santa dug into his pocket, pulled out a handful of white powder, and blew it in Izuku's face. As Izuku coughed and sputtered, Santa dusted his hands off and said, "There! Should come in within the next day or so. In the meantime, stay out of the sun, don't eat any bananas, avoid traveling by airline, and whatever you do, do not go to Nevada. Got it?"

Izuku nodded.

"Good. So, uh, how do I get back?"

Izuku flipped through the book. In Latin, he said, "Our blighted business be done, our pact writ in blood, I banish you back from whence you came."

The pentagram roared back to life. As Santa disappeared, he shouted, "Is it supposed to hurt this much?"

Inko was thoroughly displeased to find dried blood and burnt olive oil on the basement floor when she came home. Izuku told her it was an accident for a school assignment, nervously picked at dinner, and went to bed shivering with excitement. He stared at the ceiling, trying to will himself to sleep, but questions about what his Quirk would be like and wondering if every little sensation in his body was his Quirk activating kept his eyes glued open.

"Ugh," Izuku said, throwing the covers off himself. "I wish I could stop thinking. I'm giving myself a headache."

The headache worsened as if to spite him. Growling, Izuku flung himself out of bed and plodded towards the door. When he tried to walk through, he got stuck, fell back, and landed on his tailbone.

When he went to rub his aching backside, it felt oddly fluffy. Izuku explored it with his fingers, eventually finding that the fluff connected to his tailbone. It twitched, and he felt his fingers brush against it.

Izuku's heart leapt. "Mom! I have a tail! I have a Quirk!"

He ran for the door, and once again, the door repelled him. Izuku's feet fought for traction on the floor, and Izuku wildly flailed his arms around for anything he could find purchase on. As it happened, he had a stand full of valuable hero merchandise sitting right next to his door. The stand tipped over, taking Izuku and years of stalking hero conventions, hiding credit card bills, and hunting online forums with it. Izuku went crunch, the hero merch went crunch, and the stand fell on top of everything with one final shattering of glass.

Careful to not cut himself on all the glass, Izuku rose back to his feet. His head felt strangely heavy, and his footing unsteady, so the slightest twitch of his head sent him careening across the room. He rammed into a wall and felt plaster crumbling around his eyes. Yanking himself free, Izuku stumbled back across the room and managed to swipe the light switch on just in time to watch himself fall head-first into a limited edition All Might table lamp. He swung his head aside, but he saw the lamp shatter out of the corner of his eye.

"No, All Might!" Izuku scrambled over to the fallen pieces. The left torso was gutted, and only a thin sliver of wire kept the head attached to the rest of the body. "Speak to me!"

Izuku hit the voice button on the lamp's stand. All Might's head flickered feebly to life and said, "It's okay. Why? Because I am - am -am - I - I am - so cold…"

The light guttered out. Tears welled in Izuku's eyes as he raised his head and shouted, "All Might! No!"

Inko threw the door open. "Izuku, what's- Izuku!"

At Inko's shriek, Izuku yelped and turned towards her, scraping his antlers across the wall and gouging out more drywall. Barely registering that he now had antlers, Izuku turned around and said, "Look mom! I have a Quirk now! See?"

As Izuku's tail wagged eagerly, Inko calmly looked around Izuku's room, which look like a tornado had swept through it, then looked back at Izuku. Her eyes rolled back into her head, and she toppled backwards like a felled oak.

"Mom?"

One Quirk counseling session and a stack of government forms later, Izuku walked up to Aldera High, antlers waxed, fur brushed, hooves trimmed, feeling like an entirely new person. He paused at the door, taking a deep breath and imagining how Kacchan would react. They could finally be heroes together, just like they dreamed about back when they were really little! Surely that would make everything better between them.

The room went dead silent as Izuku shyly strode in and took his usual desk. A few people tittered in amusement as Izuku set his books out, but no one said anything to him.

"Excuse me," the teacher said, "But I believe you have the wrong classroom."

"Huh?" Izuku asked.

"I wasn't informed that we had any transfer students. Do you know the name of the teacher you're supposed to be in class with?"

"Oh, I'm not a transfer student. It's me? Midoriya Izuku? Oh, I got an update from the Quirk registry I'm supposed to give you."

When Izuku handed the teacher the forms, the teacher raised an eyebrow at them. "Reindeer mutation? Well, better late than never. Have a seat, Midoriya."

Grinning, Izuku sat back down. Kacchan sauntered over, and Izuku eagerly awaited the first words out of his mouth.

"A Quirk, huh?" Kacchan said. "Yeah right. I bet you glued these on. Here, let me help you."

Bakugo yanked on his antlers, flinging Izuku out of his desk. Izuku stumbled on his hooves, trying to keep his balance and shouting, "Hey, quit it! That hurts!"

"Shouldn't have used superglue, idiot. Anyone got some scissors? We should cut off all this hair off his arms before someone thinks he escaped from the zoo."

The teacher cleared their throat. "Bakugo, perhaps you should take your seat? We need to start classes."

"Tch. What, you think you're hot shit now that you've got antlers and fur? I bet your 'Quirk' can't even do anything!"

Izuku's nose chose that moment to start glowing bright red. Bakugo howled in laughter and pointed at it. "Seriously? That's the best you can do? I'd call you Rudolph, but even that loser was more useful than you are!"

Izuku's cheeks turned nearly as bright as his nose, but before he could stammer something about using it for rescue missions, he felt his hooves leave the ground. Bakugo's laughter cut off, and his mouth opened and shut without a single shout leaving them.

Izuku tried pulling himself back into his desk, but his antlers had a mind of their own. They pulled him forward, and Izuku barely had time to scream as he went hurtling through a wall and off into the horizon.

At the gaping hole in the wall, Bakugo shouted out, "Get back here you stupid scaredy Deku!"