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Eijirou was stuck with a demon on a leash.
A pretty long leash admittedly, but the fact remained that at its end was an actual fucking demon.
If someone had asked Denki who in their friend group was the most likely to get stuck with a pet devil, he wholeheartedly would have answered himself. Yeah, he was self aware like that, thank you. Maybe Hanta or Mina on a particularly bad day, but certainly not Eijirou, who was probably more deserving of a pet angel instead of whatever the fuck he was stuck with.
In fact, they didn’t really know much about the thing at all, except that it had appeared in the middle of a pentagram. And it didn’t really look like what Denki imagined a demon would look like. Not enough horns and fangs and, frankly, too good-looking. Wait, scratch that. This was a serious issue and Denki needed to focus.
Here’s what had gone down.
Denki had been patrolling with Eijirou in the industrial port district. It usually made for pretty boring patrols, but Denki himself rather liked it because the proximity of salt water made for very fun quirk tricks whenever there finally was a fight. As it was, they were approaching the end of their shift and a grand total of zero (0) interesting things had happened. But all of a sudden, they had noticed smoke rising from a warehouse in the distance. It was way too thick and black to be innocent, so they had jogged in that direction, until the warehouse had started to glow, which was when they had started sprinting. The light was shining through every crack of the building, burning with a bright orange color. The door could have been paper with the way Eijirou had barreled through it, and just like that they were inside.
The warehouse was filled with the thick smoke, and it would have been impossible to see anything, except there was a supernova radiating light so bright Denki was still seeing orange spots when closing his eyes. It had taken him a few seconds to regain his bearings, Eijirou coughing beside him, and a few more to understand what was happening.
He could make out three silhouettes, standing around a circle drawn on the ground. Denki could see very clearly, thanks to the exceedingly powerful light source in the middle of it, that the circle was, in fact, a pentagram.
“What the fuck,” he had very eloquently said, which was also when Eijirou had shoved him down right in time to dodge a bullet, literally.
“Since when do you need a gun to summon a demon ?” He’d heard Eijirou mutter before he’d taken off in the direction of the shooter.
Denki had started towards the three silhouettes. They had also noticed him, and he could tell now that he was closer that they were chanting some kind of incantation in a weird language, and also reaching in their robes and taking out knives.
They were actually wearing robes.
But Denki could not let himself get distracted by the ridiculousness of it all because the supernova in the center of the pentagram was actually starting to concentrate into a vaguely human shape. It was hard to look at it for more than a millisecond, so Denki had elected to take out the three robes first.
It was not very hard, because they were more focused on the invocation than on him, which was fair and probably smart. He’d danced around the circle, being very careful to not disrupt it because he knew his fantasy stuff okay, and knocked out two of them.
At that point Eijirou had come racing like a freight train towards the pentagram, thunderous steps leaving cracks in the concrete. Before Denki could even open his mouth, Eijirou had crossed into the pentagram and lunged at the luminous shape, which was looking alarmingly defined by now.
But instead of crashing into the thing, there had been a weird distorsion of space and Eijirou had looked like he was sucked through the body and spit out on the other side, stumbling with the momentum. And evidently, he didn’t know his fantasy stuff like Denki did, because he’d ended up sliding right across one of the lines of the pentagram.
The remaining guy next to Denki had gasped loudly, breaking his incantation and thankfully reminding him of his existence, and taken off running towards the door. Denki had not waited to see what would become of the demon, trusting Eijirou to hold his own, at least for a while, and followed the guy. He’d quickly tied him up outside the warehouse before rushing back inside.
Eijirou was still in a fighting stance inside the pentagram, with his hardening rippling over his skin. At first Denki had thought the creature was gone, but upon closer inspection he could make out a strange warping effect fleeting around Eijirou, as if the air was turning solid and reflecting light while still being fluid and see-through. It was hard to describe and almost impossible to watch: every time Denki looked at it directly it disappeared and he could only really detect it out of the corner of his eyes.
It was definitely disturbing, but it hadn’t looked outright menacing so he’d turned to the passed-out body of the shooter and dragged it outside next to the other guy. Said other guy had been in the process of untying himself, because Denki’s rope skills obviously still needed work, and so he’d taken a minute to make sure he wouldn’t escape.
Then, Eijirou had barked his name and Denki had returned to the warehouse to see that the demon was definitely not gone and seemed instead like it had fully materialized.
It looked like a young man with blond hair, gleaming red eyes and matching gleaming jewels stretching his earlobes. It could very well have been a normal person, except that he flickered oddly in Denki’s field of vision. He’d stood, frozen by the sight for a moment, watching the demon’s face stretch into the most feral grin he’d ever witnessed. Only then had Denki finally noticed that his palms were crackling with what looked like small explosions. Which was probably the reason why Eijirou had called him back, and not because the demon was exactly Eijirou’s type. Except for the demon part.
Denki had followed Eijirou’s line of sight to the two guys still passed-out on the edge of the pentagram and promptly jumped towards the closest one to try and drag him out to safety. With his back to the circle, Denki had had no way to avoid what came next.
“Goodbye, motherfuckers,” the demon had said. And with a raspy laugh, he had all but exploded.
***
So this was what had happened. Which didn’t explain why the demon was attached to Eijirou. That had come a few hours later, when Denki had woken up in an hospital bed, covered with multiple burns that were already almost gone. Apparently Eijirou had shielded him and the guy he was next to from the explosion, which was typical. The last guy had been brutally burned by the blast and was dead, which was not typical and sucked ass. Denki was violently glad that he’d dragged the rest out of the warehouse.
Mina had met them at the hospital, and Eijirou had told them that the demon had talked to him before he’d detonated. Denki hadn’t heard any words apart from when Eijirou had shouted for him, but apparently the demon had thanked Eijirou for breaking the pentagram and becoming his anchor. They were guessing that meant it had not actually blown up and was still around somewhere, linked to Eijirou.
So yeah, Eijirou had a demon on a leash, but it remained to be seen if there was a leash at all, or if he just had a demon. Roaming around. The three of them were pondering this around Denki’s hospital bed, when suddenly the space seemed to start contracting in a corner of the room.
“It’s coming back !” Denki shouted, pointing at it.
The warp was rapidly shaping into a body, refracting light everywhere and impossible to look at. And between one blink and the next, they were staring into the red eyes of the demon.
Eijirou forcibly pushed Mina and Denki behind him. “Don’t touch them,” he snarled, crouching halfway onto the bed.
The demon looked bewildered for a split second, before veering straight into the most profound annoyance Denki had ever seen. He’d never thought demons were capable of such emotions; this one was really full of surprises.
“I don’t want to touch your disgusting friends, shitty hair,” the demon spat at Eijirou, stuffing his hands in his pockets. He was wearing huge pants and a black t-shirt with a screaming skull on it.
Damn. Why was this fucker more reminiscent of a middle school bully than an entity summoned straight from hell? Denki had more and more trouble taking it seriously. Maybe he was concussed.
“You killed a man, back in the warehouse,” Eijirou snapped, proving he was infinitely more focused than Denki right now.
The demon cocked his head to the side, the perfect picture of feigned interest. “Did I?”
“Yes, you did. Does it amuse you?” Denki could see Eijirou’s shoulders trembling slightly, from the effort of containing his quirk or maybe just his anger.
“Does killing people amuse me?” The demon seemed to contemplate the idea for a second. “Not particularly, no,” he stared at Eijirou. “You, on the other hand, look like a lot of fucking fun,” he added, taking a step forward.
“Back off!” Eijirou’s whole body hardened with his shout.
At the sight, the demon stopped in his tracks and his mouth opened in an expression of pure awe.
“Oh, yes,” he murmured, and his eyes gleamed with a renewed interest. It was extremely unsettling, and maybe also a little bit attractive, if Denki was honest with himself.
“What are you ?” He piped up from behind Eijirou.
The demon turned his disturbing stare to Denki for the first time.
“Are you dumb? Didn’t you see the fucking pentagram back there?” He sneered.
“Okay, okay, I knew it, no need to insult me…”Denki glanced at Mina to see that her lips were pinched like she was trying not to laugh, presumably at a fiend calling Denki dumb. At least he wasn’t the only one not taking this demon as seriously as they probably should.
“Why did you come back?” Eijirou interjected.
The demon crossed his arms, visibly annoyed once again. “It’s not like I had a fucking choice. I was running away and suddenly I was pulled back here like I was at the end of a fucking rubber band.”
“Oh, so you really are on a leash,” Mina blurted out.
The demon pounced on her immediately, effortlessly side-stepping Eijirou. “Say that again, you stupid fucking pink-faced-“ and threw a punch to Mina’s face.
To Denki’s instant and overwhelming relief, his fist went straight through her jaw, without being able to touch her. Mina jolted into action, sending a spray of acid at the demon. The droplets phased through his face, piercing his image like bullets but leaving him unaffected.
Apparently he was not entirely materialized in their world, maybe because the summoning ritual had been interrupted, Denki thought.
The demon seemed to come to the same realization, and with a roar, he raised his hands in front of him, palms mere centimeters from Mina’s face. Without thinking, Denki threw a burst of electricity in his direction. The demon’s appearance flickered and rippled like he was made of water and Denki had thrown a pebble at him, and then he brushed the waves off him as if they were nothing. But Denki’s distraction had given Eijirou the time to move in front of Mina, blocking the sizzling on the palms of the demon with his hardened chest.
“I said back. off.” The growl coming out of Eijirou’s throat was barely human.
A beat passed, and the demon took a step back, putting his hands up in surrender. Not that Denki found it reassuring, since his hands were the source of the explosions. At least it seemed like he understood they were useless against Eijirou’s quirk, or maybe he didn’t want to hurt his anchor. In any case, he was still watching Eijirou with that weird glint in his red eyes.
“Tell that pink bitch to stop calling me a fucking dog, then.” He raised his eyebrows, looking way too smug for the situation.
“You do not call her a bitch.” Denki had very rarely heard Eijirou sound so strained. He could see his hardened fists shaking by his sides, and he knew without a doubt that if their enemy had been fully corporeal, Eijirou would already have bashed his skull in.
The demon’s smile only got bigger. The tension in the room was so thick that Denki had half a mind to start looking for a knife. Instead, he settled for one of his many talents, which was his cutting wit.
“What can we call you, actually? Do you have a name? Or are you like, The Devil…” he trailed off.
The demon just bursted out laughing in his face. Frankly, Denki was going to start feeling insulted.
“A name? You think I’m gonna give you my fucking name,” he scoffed, shaking his head. “You really don’t know anything.”
“Give us a fucking name,” Eijirou ordered, baring his teeth.
“Sure, shitty hair,” the demon said, locking eyes with Eijirou. “You can call me Bakugou.”