Archive of Our Own ^beta

“This tastes amazing,” Uraraka Ochako, the tenant in apartment A-12, said, delight in her eyes as she wrapped her hands around the mug of hot tea. “Peppermint chai, right?”

Kaminari wiped his hands on his apron. “Yup. A new shipment came in this morning.”

Uraraka made a noise of content as she sipped her drink. “I don’t know how you do it, Kaminari-kun,” she said, leaning against the counter. “It’s like—it’s like your drinks are magic!”

Amusement curled in his stomach, and he laughed. “Stop exaggerating,” he told her. “My tea is just that. Tea. Anyone can make it, you know.”

Uraraka frowned. “Don’t sell yourself so short, Kaminari-kun.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he smiled.

She snickered, and watched the blond restock his shelves and fill up tea kettles. Kaminari was fresh out of high school when he opened Megalixir, a cute teahouse across the street from their apartment complex, Yūei. The walls were dressed in soft blues and grays, and there were round tables and chairs systematically placed on the floor. A small bookshelf bore titles of various genres one could buy, and there was a bulletin board people could put flyers on if they wished to.

Uraraka stirred her tea. “How’s your cat?”

“Still waking me up at four in the morning,” Kaminari replied, smiling at her laugh. “He really gets irritable if I close my door, though.”

“I love cats,” Uraraka said, and then pouted. “But Tsuyu-chan’s allergic.”

Kaminari made an understanding noise, and patted her hand. He finished restocking the jar of green tea bags, and turned his attention to the new box of earl grey when the door to Megalixir opened. He turned, flashed a quick grin at the familiar customer, and said, “Be right with you, sir.”

Todoroki Shōto, who lived in apartment A-3, nodded and made quick work scanning the menu of available teas. Dressed in business casual clothes, Kaminari would’ve assumed the man to be the CEO of a corporate monster if he didn’t know better. He didn’t think he would ever forget the day Todoroki informed him he owned the bar down the street, and worked as one of the main bartenders.

“What can I get you, today, Todoroki-san?” he asked when he finished his task. “Your usual?”

Todoroki shook his head. “No, do you have any more Gyokuro Green Tea?”

Kaminari would’ve narrowed his eyes, if he hadn’t of grown up the way he did. Green tea had valuable properties in the magical world—health was one of them. Instead, he smiled. “Sure do,” he told the bartender. “You’re in luck, Todoroki-san; a new shipment came in today.”

He walked to the far side of the counter, where the box of Gyokuro Green Tea waited to be used. As he ducked out of sight, his ears pricked at Uraraka’s hiss of, “What’s going on, Shōto? Is Izuku—?”

“Not. Here.”

Uraraka quieted, and a chill swept over Kaminari’s spine.

When Kaminari moved into his apartment at Yūei, those who lived there did their best to integrate the quiet teen into their community. Although it didn’t work as well as they’d wished, Kaminari remained friendly with those who lived in the complex. Everyone at Yūei Apartments were human, and they were mortal, and vulnerable to supernaturals who wished them harm. Kaminari was quite fond of those who lived at Yūei, and he could say they were fond of him as well. Although they were under the impression Kaminari was a human as well, it didn’t mean he was going to sit back and watch some violent upstart harm them.

Kaminari may have turned his back on the magical world when he was seventeen, but, for the sake of protecting those who managed to wiggle their way underneath his skin, he would gladly reenter that world.

“Would you like a box of Gyukuro or—?”

“A box, please.”

Kaminari hummed, and ignored the way his fingers shook as he grabbed a box of Gyokuro tea leaves and rung up Todoroki’s purchases. Uraraka’s tea went cold, and the worry in her eyes made Kaminari’s heart rattle in his lungs. Todoroki paid for his purchase and left as quickly as he came.

Uraraka bit her lip. “I’m gonna have to go, Kaminari-kun. Something came up.”

“No worries,” Kaminari told her, an easy smile on his lips. Faking smiles had become as natural as breathing over the years. “Come back soon, yeah?”

“Of course,” she said, hopping off the barstool. She grabbed her purse, and paused before a determined look settled over her face. “Yūei is having another get together tonight, Kaminari-kun. It’s in the main common room and—,” Uraraka swallowed but plowed onwards, “—and we would love it if you came.”

Kaminari opened his mouth to refuse but she cut him off with a pleading, “Think about it, okay?”

“I will,” Kaminari said.

Uraraka beamed and slipped out of the teahouse. Kaminari watched her jog across the street and enter the towering apartment complex, and turned his attention back to his stocks. His thoughts jumbled together as he catalogued and counted what he had left, and attended to the customers that drifted inside his shop on their way home.

He locked up when the clock struck seven, waved to the familiar faces in the lobby, and chatted with Sir Nighteye, one of the complex’s security guards, for a quick minute before he made his way to the fourth floor. He lived in A-19, and found himself lucky most of his neighbors were around his age.  He sighed when Uraraka waved at him from the end of the hall, and raised a tired hand.

He had no intention of attending Plus Ultra.

Through exhausted eyes, Kaminari noticed the bright flyer plastered on his front door. He stood there for a moment, partially blinded by the vibrant splash of words, before he saw there were flyers on every door in the hallway. The flyer was warm orange, and the words were white, surrounded in a block of red. PLUS ULTRA, the flyer read. TIME FOR FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD BONDING. Underneath a splatter of cute caricatures engaged in various activities was the date and time.

He sighed, took it down, and entered his apartment. As he walked toward his kitchen, the sound of claws clicking against the floorboards floated in the air. Hitoshi, his calico cat, walked into the kitchen at a languid pace. Kaminari set the flyer down on the counter and began his search for his much-needed coffee mug. There was a whoosh of soft air behind him, but Kaminari didn’t need to turn around to see the lanky figure of what was his cat.

The cat-turned-man peered at the flyer. “Who made this monstrosity?”

Kaminari snorted, and turned on the kettle. “Dunno. Found it on my door just now.”

Hitoshi crinkled his nose. Bags lined underneath his eyes, but those were normal since the cat refused to go to bed before three in the morning. “Are you gonna go?”

Kaminari shrugged, and made a quiet noise of triumph when he managed to find a large coffee mug in his mess of a cupboard. He ignored the way Hitoshi’s eyes followed him as he maneuvered around the kitchen, gathering the ingredients he wanted to make a perfect cup of coffee. They waited in companionable silence for the kettle to whistle.

“You should go,” Hitoshi said when Kaminari started pouring hot water in his mug. “Only leaving the apartment to go to the shop isn’t healthy, you know.”

Kaminari hummed.

“Listen to your familiar, Denki,” a smooth voice spoke. Kaminari glanced at the sudden appearance of Monoma Neito, his sort-of guardian. They had a difficult relationship, one that Kaminari couldn’t properly explain. Monoma wasn’t dressed in his normal attire, but, instead, wore a pair of Kaminari’s old sweats and a frayed, washed-out tee. His lips curled upwards, a mimicry of a smile, and his eyes gleamed gold. “Hitoshi-kun knows you better than you know yourself, after all.”

“Stop ganging up on me,” Kaminari told them, bemused at the peculiar tag-team. Most days, Monoma was delighted to watch Kaminari crash and burn. He swallowed a mouthful of delicious coffee. “You’re both such mother-hens. I’m fine.”

Monoma picked at his nails. “Only socializing with the delivery boy and those who enter your shop isn’t healthy. We’ve a right to be concerned.”

Kaminari raised an eyebrow. “And you care, why?”

Monoma sniffed. “Your weak self has grown on me, unfortunately.”

Kaminari rolled his eyes and drained the rest of his coffee. “I’m fine,” he insisted, setting the mug in the sink, and ignored the look they shared over his head. “There’s no need to worry, okay?”

Hitoshi furrowed his eyebrows. “It’s been six months, Denki.”

“I know that, Hitoshi.” Kaminari said, and clenched his jaw. “You think I don’t know that?”

Emotions fluttered over Hitoshi’s eyes, and Kaminari looked at the dishes in the sink. His stomach rolled uncomfortably when Hitoshi spoke. “You and I both know it’s time for you to stop hiding away from others. You need to—.”

“What I need,” Kaminari interrupted, bristling at the subtle order, “is for the two of you to let me be. This isn’t something I can just…just get over, okay? I can’t just—I lost my family, Hitoshi.”

Hitoshi’s eyes were cold. “You are not the only one who has lost their family, Denki.”

His familiar turned on his heel, shifted back into his cat form, and bounded out of the kitchen. Monoma flipped through a tea catalog, nonplussed by Hitoshi’s exit, but Kaminari slumped against the sink and sighed. Emotions fluttered underneath his skin, a mixture of his own and of Hitoshi’s, and he started to wash the dishes as a means of ignoring them all. Kaminari was very good at ignoring his problems.

Kaminari startled when a hand rested on his shoulder. “You know he’s right,” Monoma said quietly. “I think it will do you good to give them a few minutes of your day, at least.”

“I—I know,” Kaminari said. He scrubbed at another stubborn spot on the plate. “I’m just…scared.”

Monoma hummed. “I’ll go with you, if you’d like.”

Kaminari made a face, and Monoma laughed.

“You hate humans,” Kaminari reminded him. It was an understatement. Hate was too soft of a word for the sheer level of contempt Monoma held for humanity. Kaminari never understood why, but he supposed the other had his reasons. There was a cloak of mystery wrapped around Monoma’s shoulders, and Kaminari wasn’t sure if he wished to remove it.

Monoma’s lips twitched. “I’ll manage.”

Kaminari narrowed his eyes at the amusement in Monoma’s eyes before he shook his head. “I’ll be fine,” he said quietly. “You don’t need to come.”

Monoma raised his palms in the air. “If you say so—well, I’ll be off. Be back by sunset.”

“Where are you going?” Kaminari asked, perplexed and curious. Monoma rarely stepped foot outside Kaminari’s apartment, and he avoided contact with humans unless direly needed. The times he left were few and far in between, and a quiet emotion stirred at Kaminari’s feet as he remembered Todoroki’s peculiar request. “Is…is everything okay?”

Monoma paused, tested the words on his tongue, and said, “Something doesn’t feel right in my world. There’ve been a lot of unsettling rumors.”

Kaminari swallowed. “Like what?”

“None of your concern,” Monoma said, a sharp smile on his lips. “You just keep your pretty head out of my affairs and go socialize like a good boy.”

Kaminari threw soap water at him, but the man disappeared into the shadows with a wink. The water splattered on the floor, and Kaminari shook his head. He finished the dishes, and made his way to his bedroom where he shed his work clothes and changed into something more comfortable. Hitoshi watched him from the bed, curled up in the middle, and yawned.

“Sorry about earlier,” Kaminari murmured as he crawled onto his bed. He scratched and petted Hitoshi, smiling at the way his familiar purred at the touch. “I—I’m going to try, okay? I know this isn’t healthy.”

Hitoshi meowed and showed his content by plopping down on Kaminari’s stomach.

Plus Ultra took place twice a month in a refurbished rec room on the first floor. Game systems were installed, one of the tenants donated their stereo system to the room, and there was an abundance of board games to choose from. The managerial staff of Yūei provided a variety of snacks and drinks to suit everyone’s tastes, and the event began after dinner and ended at midnight. There were few children who lived at Yūei, so drunk adults were a common theme at Plus Ultra.

Kaminari moved into Yūei six months ago, and he hasn’t attended one—until now, that is. Kaminari sighed and slipped on a pair of jeans, a button-down, and grabbed his phone and keys. Hitoshi stretched languidly and flicked on the tv. It turned onto the news.

“Be careful when you leave,” Hitoshi murmured quietly, tired eyes displaying his concern. “There’s a serial killer running about.”

Kaminari brushed his hair into something that resembled neatness. “I will.” He ruffled Hitoshi’s hair, chuckling at the dark scowl, and said, “I’ll be back soon.”

“Don’t have too much fun,” Hitoshi said.

Kaminari snorted, and left his apartment.

While he was fond of his neighbors, he didn’t know them. He wasn’t close to them. Kaminari made it a rule of his to keep humans at a polite, amicable distance. They were too fragile to his world. They were too breakable. Kaminari had to watch his life crumble to ash once, and he refused to do it again. If that meant turning down offers to hang at Todoroki’s bar, or to attend Plus Ultra, then he would do it until those offers dwindled away, and he was nothing more than an afterthought in his neighbors’ minds.

Uraraka beamed when she spotted him near the doorway. “Kaminari-kun! You came!”

Kaminari gave the brunette a shy wave, and blanched at the attention of what felt like a thousand eyes. Contrary to popular belief, Kaminari didn’t like attention. Attention meant pain, sometimes. It meant death. He found it easier to fade into the back of people’s minds, to be the last of their thoughts, the person they wave to in the halls but ignore everywhere else.

He recognized most of his neighbors, a fact Hitoshi would be proud of if he knew. Jirō Kyōka was currently kicking Sero Hanta’s and Kouda Kouji’s ass at Mario Kart, Aoyama Yūga talked animatedly to Ashido Mina over the newly published fashion magazine, and Uraraka’s partner, Asui Tsuyu, was having what looked like a solemn conversation with Todoroki Shōto and a green-haired, freckled man he assumed was Midoriya Izuku. 

He recognized the head manager of the building, Aizawa Shōta, curled up in his infamous sleeping bag on one of the couches, humming along to whatever Yamada Hizashi, a man who owned a popular radio show, said. There were people he didn’t recognize. Most of them were the older residents of Yūei, and they looked at him with varying degrees of curiosity.

“Come, come,” Uraraka said as she grabbed his wrist. “I don’t think you’ve met Izuku, yet, huh?”

Kaminari shook his head, and allowed Uraraka to pull him deeper into the room amidst everyone’s eyes. The first thing Kaminari noticed about Midoriya was his bright smile, and his expressive eyes. The second thing he took quiet note of was the bandages wrapped around his forearm. Kaminari didn’t stare at Midoriya’s expertly wrapped arms, but he did wonder where they came from. He swallowed at the thought of those wounds having something to do with the green tea Todoroki bought earlier.

“Nice to meet you, Kaminari-san,” Midoriya greeted, and shook Kaminari’s hand with vigor. Kaminari blinked, a bit shocked at the strong grip the other male had. He gave Kaminari the impression he could blow over at a harsh wind. “Midoriya Izuku—I live in A-3 with Shōto.”

“N-Nice to meet you,” Kaminari said, unnerved by the attention he received from the other tenant. His heart fluttered in his chest as he felt their calculating stares. He swallowed and gave Todoroki a small smile. “Hope you e-enjoyed the Gyokuro tea?”

“I did,” Todoroki nodded. “Thank you again, Kaminari-san. It really helped.”

Kaminari smiled, and ignored his thoughts on the connection between Midoriya’s wound dressings and the green tea. “Glad it did, Todoroki-san.”

“So, you’re the owner of Megalixir?” Midoriya asked. “I’ve always wanted to go inside and try your tea, but I haven’t had the time yet.”

Kaminari rubbed the back of his head. “Y-Yeah, I’m the owner.”

Midoriya gave him a curious look. “How old are you, Kaminari-san? You…you look around our age.”

“I’ve wondered about that too,” Jirō called from across the room.

Kaminari tilted his head, perplexed at how she managed to hear them all the way over there. Maybe…? He shook his head, erasing the budding thought. Everyone in this room was human—well, except for him and Aoyama. As if knowing his name crossed someone’s thoughts, Aoyama looked up from his conversation, and sent Kaminari a grin and a wink.

Uraraka raised an eyebrow at the exchange. “You know Aoyama-kun?”

Kaminari nodded. “Yeah. I’ve known him since I was twelve.”

“Aw,” Uraraka cooed. “How cute.”

Kaminari met Aoyama when he was twelve, and learning the basics of charms. Aoyama had an unhealthy obsession with enchanted armory and laser hexes for a child but it was understandable given his history. Though that hadn’t changed as the teen grew older. Last Kaminari knew, Aoyama had a lucrative business selling and creating enchanted armory.

“Kaminari-san?” Midoriya touched his arm, pulling him out of his thoughts. “Your age?”

“Oh,” Kaminari blinked, and blushed at their amused looks. “I’m, uh, eighteen.”

“And you already have your own store?” a cheerful, awed voice said from behind him. “That’s amazing!”

There were certain unspoken laws in the magical world. Be careful with black magic. Love/Lust potions didn’t mean consent. Be careful when you attempt to summon a demon. Just like those rules, there were certain sects of the magical community that had some sort of ruling party. A coven kept a witch in line. Werewolves held yearly meetings with Pack leaders. Hunters had their own code and council. Vampires followed the word of the oldest and most powerful pair, whom were treated like royalty.

Kaminari knew the leaders of these sects, knew their names and their faces. He was raised to understand the weight of their word and their wisdom, and the death that trailed their wake during times of tragedy, but he never expected to meet one at something as mundane as Plus Ultra. Kirishima Eijirō grinned widely, his eyes as red as his spiked hair, and Kaminari’s mouth dried at the sight of the vampire’s sharp rows of teeth. He tried not to think of how easy it would be for the man to rip out his throat.

“Hey there,” Kirishima chirped. “Kirishima Eijirō! You’re Kaminari-kun, yeah?”

Kaminari nodded. His thoughts swirled, and he caught sight of Aoyama peering at him. Although he appeared engaged in his conversation, Aoyama dipped his head imperceptibly, and Kaminari knew his unspoken thoughts and questions had been answered. He remembered Monoma’s amusement, and his strange offer at attending Plus Ultra, and he almost wanted to track the man down and throttle him.

Yūei was not filled with humans and a hidden witch; it was filled with supernatural, and said witch (who took six months to realize his neighbors weren’t human).

“Oh, this is my partner, Bakugō Katsuki.” Kirishima motioned to Bakugō, who scowled darkly, and continued in a conspiring murmur, “Ignore him, yeah? He’s a grump, but he’s a soft grump.”

“Shut the fuck up, Eijirō!” Bakugō snapped, his lips pulled into a snarl. “The fuck kind of bullshit are you saying to Weird Hair?”

Kaminari sputtered. “Weird Hair? My hair isn’t weird! Your hair is weird!”

Bakugō’s eyes narrowed dangerously, and Kaminari’s heart shuddered at the sight. One didn’t just sass the literal Vampire King. Kirishima laughed easily, and rested his arm on Bakugō’s shoulder. Kaminari didn’t miss the look they shared. “It really is, huh?” smiled Kirishima.

Bakugō crossed his arms over his chest, and peered at Kaminari with such intensity, he couldn’t help but look at his feet. “What, you a runaway or some shit?”

Kaminari swallowed. In a way, Bakugō wasn’t wrong with his assumption. “No,” Kaminari said after a pause. “Why?”

Kirishima elbowed his partner, but Bakugō ignored it and plowed onwards. “You’re barely out of high school—fuck kind of parents you have that let you do all this by yourself?”

Kaminari was slightly touched by Bakugō’s concern. He knew, in their eyes, he was little more than a toddler. Contrary to popular culture and myths, the supernatural community was highly protective of children, since they were coveted and treasured, human or otherwise. Even Monoma swallowed his distaste for humanity if a child were near.

Nonetheless, Kaminari was jarred by the question, swallowed in the memory of a world he refused to rejoin. His lungs filled with icy water, and his heart rattled against his ribcage deafeningly. His ears popped at the sound of distant screams, and cackled laughs, gunshots, and spells designed for carnage. He saw collapsed walls instead of blue paint. He saw pools of blood and vacant eyes. He saw—

“Denki.”

Kaminari jolted at the sound of his name. He shuddered as a cold chill crawled down his spine. Hitoshi’s face swum into view, a protective gleam in those tired eyes of his. Hitoshi pulled a blanket tighter around Kaminari’s shoulders, and he distantly realized he was on his couch. Kaminari wondered how he got into his apartment, when last he knew he was downstairs.

“Thank you for bringing him back,” he heard Hitoshi say.

“No problem,” Uraraka replied. Worry spilled off her tongue.

“He’ll be alright, right?” Kirishima questioned. “I—Katsuki didn’t mean to get him…he was just curious, you know?”

“He’ll be fine…um…”

“Oh! Kirishima Eijirō.”

“Ah. Shinsō,” Hitoshi said, and then paused. “I’m his cousin.”

“Nice to meet you, Shinsō-san,” Uraraka said. “I’m Uraraka Ochako, Kaminari-kun’s neighbor.”

Kaminari blinked and came back to himself in pieces. His apartment was quiet again, his neighbors ushered out by a slightly irritated Hitoshi, and there was a cup of chamomile tea perched on the coffee table in front of him. Hitoshi curled up at his side, in cat form, purring lowly.

Kaminari took slow sips and calmed his breaths.

“Feeling better?” Hitoshi questioned (still in cat form).

“A little,” Kaminari said, and then paused. “What…what happened?”

“You had another flashback, a vivid one,” Hitoshi explained. “Your neighbors brought you here—by the way,” Hitoshi continued, voice deliberately monotonous, “do you know that the Kings of Vampires live upstairs?”

Kaminari’s fingers twitched. “I know now.”

“Hmm,” Hitoshi yawned. “By the way, another order came in.”

“Who is it now?” Kaminari all but groaned. “What type of order?”

“Blood replenisher,” Hitoshi murmured. “There’s been a couple of skirmishes lately.”

Kaminari sighed but nodded in agreement. Even though he rarely wanted anything to do with the magical world, he still needed an extra job to pay the rent and utilities for both his apartment and his shop. The only way to do that was to start a little mail-order business of potions and enchantments. He had been doing that little business (he called it Ether) since he was fifteen. Thanks to Ether’s growing business, Kaminari caught glimpses of what was going on in the magical world by his orders.

Lately, there had been an alarming amount of orders for blood replenishing potions, bruise salves, etc., and Kaminari was a little terrified of what that meant.

“How many?” he asked.

Hitoshi stretched languidly for a moment before he said, “Twenty.”

Kaminari swallowed another gulp of the tea, wishing it were something stronger.

*

He woke with a start. From the hallway, Hitoshi hissed, hackles raised, and a succession of soft knocks rapped against his front door. Kaminari stumbled out of bed after sparing a glance at his alarm clock, limbs heavy from sleep, and made his way to the front door. Hitoshi weaved around his legs, tense and alert. When he opened the door, Aoyama stood before him and sparkled way too much for such an ungodly hour.

It was three in the morning.

“Yūga,” Kaminari said flatly. “What the fuck.”

Aoyama breezed inside of his apartment like he owned it. “Cute,” he said as he took in Kaminari’s rustic themed décor. “It really resembles your personality.”

Kaminari locked his door and raised an eyebrow. “Why are you here?”

Aoyama pouted. “What? No good morning for your favorite childhood friend?”

“You are my only childhood friend,” Kaminari replied. He motioned for Aoyama to follow him and walked into his kitchen. Hitoshi hopped onto the counter and groomed himself, but his eyes remained fixed on Aoyama’s. Kaminari started to brew some tea.

 “Hey there, pretty kitty.” Aoyama smiled at Hitoshi, who hissed.

“If you’re going to fight, do it somewhere else,” Kaminari told them.

Aoyama sniffed. “Only a belligerent lowlife would fight someone else’s familiar.”

Hitoshi huffed, sounding more like a human and less like a cat.

Aoyama peered around the kitchen. “So, where’s that demon guardian of yours? Monoma-chan, was it?”

Kaminari’s lips twitched. “Call him that to his face. I dare you.”

Hitoshi snorted.

“Maybe another time,” Aoyama said, propping his chin on laced fingers. “Now. Where is he?”

“Out,” Kaminari said, and bustled around the kitchen in search for teacups and saucers. “Would you like any sugar? Milk?”

“Honey, please,” Aoyama said. “Out where?”

“None of your business,” Hitoshi said.

The kettle whistled.

“Such hostility, kitty,” Aoyama replied, voice almost a purr. “I’m asking but a simple question.”

Hitoshi hissed once again, rising on his haunches. “Nothing is simple with you—”

Kaminari reached over and pressed his palm against Hitoshi’s head. No words were needed, and Hitoshi calmed himself. Kaminari started preparing the tea and the kitchen fell silent as Aoyama and Hitoshi observed one another. Kaminari swallowed his sigh and hoped no blood would be shed on his newly polished floors tonight. He slid Aoyama’s tea in front of him before sitting across from him.

Hitoshi scampered off the counter and hopped onto Kaminari’s lap, and Kaminari softly scratched the underside of his chin. His familiar purred at his touch.

“How’s Tenya?” Kaminari asked.

“Fine,” Aoyama replied after a sip of tea. His nose twitched, a subtle movement, a tell that he hated, but it was glaringly obvious to Kaminari. “He is very enthusiastic about color coding our bookshelves, though.”

Kaminari smiled, briefly, before his expression settled into something somber. “How are his legs?”

Aoyama frowned lightly, his fingers curled around handle of the teacup, and he replied, “They are getting better, with those salves of yours. He was able to stand for a good hour yesterday.”

Hitoshi lightly nipped the crook of Kaminari’s elbow. He’s lying, the action murmured. Kaminari bopped his nose. I know.

“Wonderful,” Kaminari said. “I’ll make another batch tomorrow.”

Aoyama dipped his head. “Thank you, Denki.”

A brief quiet settled between them as they sipped their tea. The clock above the microwave ticked, and, after a moment of gathering his thoughts, Kaminari set his teacup down with a deliberate click.

“Yūga,” he said quietly, “why are you here? At this hour of the night?”

Aoyama stayed quiet. Emotions fluttered across the bridge of his nose—loss, resignation, fear, panic, hope, desperation—before it shuttered and shifted to a blank, monotonous canvas. “The Guild has returned,” he started, and Kaminari’s heart rattled against his lungs. “And they are opening demon portals all around the city. Those orders you and I’ve been getting…they’re correlated to these portals. Demons are spilling out into the human world, bringing chaos and death with them.”

 There’s more, Kaminari thought to himself but doesn’t verbalize. There was always something more with Aoyama.

“It’s getting out of hand,” Aoyama continued. “The Guild hasn’t strayed down our way yet, but it is plausible what with our apartment being a congregation of the equivalent of blue bloods in the supernatural world.”

 Kaminari took another sip of his tea. It crawled down his throat, resembling slime rather than liquid. “Is that all?”

Aoyama drained the rest of his tea and stood. “Yes,” he said. “That is all I wished to tell you, Denki. I will take my leave now.”

His mind is a maelstrom of thoughts, of plans, of fear, at the knowledge of the darkness creeping his way.

“Where’s Tenya, Yū-chan?”

Aoyama froze, and his blank expression threatened to shatter under the weight of the emotions he felt. A bitter smile crossed his lips. “I don’t know,” Aoyama informed, his eyes blank, and his voice devoid of emotion. “He’s been gone for a week, now.”

Kaminari closed his eyes, and his stomach sunk to his feet. Hitoshi jumped from his lap and shifted, taking a seat at the table. “Where was he last seen?” Hitoshi questioned. “When did you know he was missing?”

“What, did you switch careers and became a detective?” Aoyama asked in a clear attempt to deflect the question.

Hitoshi growled, though it was more like an irritated hiss, and Kaminari opened one eye and said, softly, “Please answer the question, Yū-chan.”

Aoyama’s shoulders slumped. “At first, I thought he was running errands, or visiting his brother, but, three days ago, Hatsume-san told me about those rumors, and I knew Tenya’s disappearance wasn’t a simple coincidence.”

Kaminari and Hitoshi shared a look. Kaminari stood, placed their dishes in the sink, and ushered Aoyama towards the guest bedroom. “You’re staying here for the night,” he said amidst Aoyama’s sputtered protests. “There’s no way I’m letting you go back to an empty apartment.”

Hitoshi slipped past them, and murmured, “I’ll take a look at the scry boards.”

“You do that,” Kaminari said. “Don’t stay up too late, though.”

Hitoshi hummed, and disappeared inside the bathroom.

Aoyama touched his wrist, whispering, “Denki, I don’t want to be alone right now.”

Kaminari paused and turned towards his bedroom. Even when they were younger, Aoyama placed his emotions he deemed “unnecessary” into boxes, and locked them away, and he only dealt with them when the box overflowed, and he broke in the aftermath. Pulling out ones’ own nail was easier than prying Aoyama’s emotional state. Kaminari placed an old pajama set into Aoyama’s hands before he crawled into his own bed.

Aoyama changed quickly, and the bed dipped underneath his weight. In the dark, Kaminari listened to the steady thrum of his heart, to the deep sighs of his breaths. It’d been a while, since they shared a bed. The last time they did, it was when Aoyama appeared on his doorstep, freshly twelve-years-old, blood pooling around his feet as he begged for sanctuary from the League. He had squirmed his way underneath Kaminari’s covers, upsetting Hitoshi, trembling and sobbing, whispering the names of his family into his pillow as if to immortalize their memory.

They were distantly related, and they belonged to different covens, but Kaminari, still eleven, still innocent, still fascinated by the wonder of magic, curled around him, and promised to keep him safe from his nightmares, from the demons haunting his very breath. Tenya watched their exchange next to Hitoshi, quietly cleaning the blood caked into his fur.

We were still so innocent, then, Kaminari thought to himself as he drifted to sleep. Oh…how the times have changed…

Kaminari woke, once again, to beams of sunlight in his eyes, and a foot smudged against his cheek. Aoyama snored (though it sounded more like a snort), eye mask snug over the bridge of his nose, and he looked so comfortable, Kaminari didn’t have the heart to shake him awake. Quietly, he made his way to the kitchen, and started making Aoyama’s favorite breakfast foods.

Hitoshi’s claws clicked against the tile as he trotted towards him. After pressing his forehead against Kaminari’s ankle, he shifted. The bags underneath his eyes were much more pronounced than before. Kaminari worried his bottom lip at the sight of his familiar’s exhaustion and pressed him down into one of the chairs.

“I’ll make you some tea,” he said as he reached for a box of green tea. “You know, I can always make a batch of chamomile tea if you’re still having trouble sleeping.”

Hitoshi yawned, and stretched languidly. “I slept fine, thank you.”

Kaminari eyed the dark crescents and snorted. “Yeah, okay.”

Comfortable silence settled between them as Kaminari moved around his kitchen with practiced ease, and Hitoshi trailed his movements with his eyes. Aoyama’s snores continued to drift down the hallway. They ignored the elephant in the room, the hole Tenya left behind. Rice boiled over the stove, Kaminari chopped some green onions, and Hitoshi wrinkled his nose.

“Is that what I think it is?” he asked.

Kaminari nodded and laughed at the displeased look on Hitoshi’s face. He slid a cup of green tea in Hitoshi’s direction, and the cat-shifter grumbled but drank it slowly regardless.

“I have good news and bad news,” Hitoshi said after a few sips. “Good news first?”

Kaminari paused and shook his head. “I want the bad first.”

“If you say so,” Hitoshi muttered and then said, louder, “Wherever he is, he’s behind powerful wards. I can’t break through their layers of charms—which, by the way, is a fucking lot. Like an onion,”—despite the atmosphere, Kaminari chuckled at the look on Hitoshi’s face, his familiar had the oddest loathing of onions— “and I didn’t want to alert them that I was looking for Tenya, so I closed the connection. He’s somewhere damp, that I can tell you. Damp and a little isolated. I don’t think he’s the only captive there, however.”

Kaminari hummed. “Interesting. Good news?”

“Whoever took him, they want him alive,” Hitoshi informed, stirring his tea with his pinky. “Alive and uninjured.”

Kaminari sighed at the limited amount of information. At least, he told himself, at least we know something. He grabbed three bowls and spoons, tossed the chopped onions in the skillet, and tested the rice when his bedroom door opened, and Aoyama padded down the hallway. He paused for a moment, sniffing the air, and skidded to the entryway of the kitchen within two large steps. His eyes sparkled.

“I smell Natto!”

Hitoshi clucked his tongue. “Unfortunately.”

Aoyama smiled. “Denki, you’re making Natto for breakfast?”

Kaminari nodded. “Surprise.”

Aoyama took a seat next to Hitoshi, who sighed, and fake cried. “Denki, you’re always so sweet to me! My favorite cousin!”

“He’s your only cousin,” Hitoshi said, monotonous and dry, but Aoyama ignored him in favor of dramatically dabbing his eyes with a handkerchief. Hitoshi stared at the embroidered napkin. “Where—?” he started but stopped himself. “You know what? I don’t want to know.”

Aoyama winked at him. “I am a man of mystery, Hito-chan.”

“Don’t call me that,” Hitoshi said, lips pinned back into a silent growl.

“Okay, Hito-chan.”

Hitoshi bristled. Aoyama sparkled.

Kaminari slid two bowls of Natto over rice in their direction, an empty smile on his lips, and said, dangerously, quietly, “If you two are finished? I would like to eat breakfast without warfare, thank you.”

They quieted.

“Thanks for the Natto, Denki,” Aoyama said after a few mouthfuls of food.

Hitoshi grumbled his own thanks into his bowl.

Kaminari sipped his tea. “It’s no problem,” he told Aoyama, and gave him a smile. Aoyama returned it, albeit smaller than normal. “I know you needed it.”

The table fell silent save for the sounds accompanied by eating. A damp place, huh, Kaminari thought to himself. But who would take someone’s familiar? And why?

“Well, I should get going,” Aoyama declared once he swallowed the rest of his food. “Thanks for the meal, Denki.”

“Where are you going?” Kaminari asked, and then narrowed his eyes. “If you’re going to track Tenya down, I’m coming with you.”

Aoyama’s lips thinned. “It’s too dan—”

“Yūga.”

They stared at one another, a silent war between them, and Aoyama sighed. “Fine, fine. I wouldn’t mind the company.”

Kaminari smiled. It was not a happy grin—no, it was terrifying, and dark, and ominous, and full of promises drenched in blood and decay. Hitoshi knew that smile quite well. Aoyama, used to it as well, still shuddered at its’ sight.

“Excellent,” Kaminari said and stood. “Let me grab my pouch, and we’ll be on our way. Hitoshi—,”

“I’ll open up shop,” Hitoshi interrupted. He picked at his nails, indifference in his body language, but Kaminari noticed his worry. “Just—come back alive, yeah?”

Kaminari ruffled his hair. “I’ll do my best.”

Hitoshi hummed, and shoveled another spoon of Natto and rice in his mouth. His nose crinkled. Kaminari snickered at his expression before he made his way to his bedroom. He dressed quickly, in inconspicuous clothes that wouldn’t wear him down should they come to battle and grabbed the innocuous leather-brown satchel from his desk chair, slinging it over his shoulders.

“Ready?” Aoyama asked from the doorway.

Kaminari nodded. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

They passed by the kitchen. Hitoshi, doing the dishes, said, nonchalantly, “I’ll kill you if you die.”

Aoyama grinned. “Aw, Hito-chan, I didn’t know you cared!”

Hitoshi pointed a knife at Aoyama. “Call me that again,” he said, a perilous gleam in his deadpan eyes. “I dare you.”

Aoyama snickered. “Hi—.”

Kaminari cleared his throat. Hitoshi turned his attention back to the dishes, and Aoyama pouted at the lack of entertainment. Kaminari rolled his eyes at the petulant pout on his cousin’s lips, and gently moved him to the front door.

“I’ll try not to be long, okay?” Kaminari called as he slipped on his shoes. “Don’t forget to open up shop at nine!”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.”

Kaminari smiled, softly, and grabbed his keys. He looked at Aoyama, who had a bright smile on his lips, and said, “Well? Let’s get this over with.”

*

The sun crawled above the skyscrapers and buildings that made up Musutafu. Kaminari tightened the strap of his satchel and stepped over a pile of trash. Demon portals needed dim light and enclosed spaces to work, and alleyways were perfect albeit cliché locations, but he was not here for demon portals. Aoyama hummed a lighthearted tune underneath his breath, which Kaminari found to be ironic given their grim situation and paused in front of a door before knocking three times in rapid succession.

Kaminari blinked. When the fuck—?

“Tama-chan,” Aoyama chirped. “Are you home? Open up, please!”

Kaminari squinted at the wooden door and mouthed, “Tama-chan?” until the door creaked open, slowly, hesitantly, and his eyes widened in realization. They were ushered inside after a moments’ pause, and Kaminari found himself under the gaze of a man their world called Suneater; a ruthless, meticulous witch who worked as a mercenary and an assassin. Ever since the Siege of Solaris, Suneater declared the League a Black Target, which meant he would hunt them down on his own will. Nothing boiled Suneater’s blood like the unnecessary slaughter of children and innocents.  

“Ah. Denki.” Amajiki Tamaki blinked tired eyes in his direction. “You’re alive.”

Aoyama pouted. “I told you he was, Tama-chan. Why don’t you listen to me?”

“So dramatic,” Amajiki muttered under his breath, ignoring Aoyama’s offended gasp, and motioned for them to follow him. “Let’s chat in the backroom.”

From what little Kaminari saw of Amajiki’s home, it was brightly lit despite Amajiki’s somber appearance. His home was drenched in deception—visitors assumed Amajiki was a pushover, someone bright and hopeful, due to the warmth seeping out of his walls and décor. Kaminari, however, knew the truth. Amajiki Tamaki was a man who had taken out a conglomeration of eldritch horrors by himself and came out with a few kitten-sized scratches. He was not one to be trifled with, and Kaminari held little pity for those who attempted to cross his way negatively.

As Amajiki settled them into a little sitting room, filled with plush, comfortable seating and cherry oak furniture, a tray holding tea and biscuits floated in their direction. Kaminari thought nothing of it, since levitation spells were common in their world (let’s be honest, witches can be very lazy when they want to be, Kaminari knows), until a voice from nowhere chirped, “Hope you enjoy! I got a new brew from this awesome teashop this morning!”

Kaminari choked.

“That’s Hagakure,” Amajiki said, unbothered by the coughs wracking Kaminari’s slim frame. Aoyama patted his back half-heartedly but no less worriedly.

“Thanks for the tea, Hagakure-san,” Aoyama said as he picked up a cup and saucer. The brew, admittedly, smelled delicious. It reminded Kaminari of the jasmine green tea shipment he had received a few days earlier. Many of his regulars, especially those who were getting up in their years, raved about the taste.

“Sorry to scare yah,” Hagakure spoke, and Kaminari felt an invisible hand pat his head. “I’m just invisible. Oh, wait, is this a meeting? What’s going on? Does this have something to do with the Eight P—.”

“Tooru.”

The air shifted.

For a tense moment, Hagakure said nothing. Then, there was a cheerful, “Overstepped my boundaries again, sorry Tamaki-sama,” she said, remorse dripping from her lips.

A crash echoed from upstairs, and a string of curses followed, and Amajiki sighed.

“SORRY—FALSE ALARM—DROPPED MY CAULDRON.”

“Nejire-chan!”

Footsteps rounded the corner and echoed up a set of stairs. Amajiki pinched the bridge of his nose and looked as though he wanted to be someplace else. Kaminari listened to the muffled conversation above him, to the groan of a cauldron as it was being righted and turned his attention back to Amajiki.

“So,” he said, “what’s the deal with Hagakure-san?”

“An Angel,” Amajiki replied, and then muffled a laugh at their disbelief. “Our eyes are too—uh, what’s the word—blighted by earthly corruption to see her natural, angelic form, so she appears invisible.”

Aoyama tilted his head to the side. “What is a divine being of purity doing in your care?”

Amajiki smiled, displaying glinting teeth, and Aoyama shuddered at the death his deceptive grin whispered.

Kaminari blinked, blank-faced, and said, “I don’t want to know, but we are here for a reason.”

“And that reason is?”

“My familiar is missing,” Aoyama explained quietly. Amajiki’s expression shifted to pensiveness and intrigue. “We do not know who took him, or where he is, only that his captors need him alive and unharmed."

Amajiki hummed. “Interesting. Tell me, Aoyama-kun, do you have any enemies?”

Aoyama’s eyes clouded, and his lips thinned. “Maybe.”

“List them,” Amajiki said—no, ordered. “We can trim down the culprits that way.”

“They would not harm my familiar,” Aoyama said, dismissing the command.

Amajiki raised an eyebrow. “The fact that Tenya is missing is quite telling.”

“Familiars are a sacred entity to witches,” Kaminari said, sensing the bloodlust in Aoyama’s veins. “Yūga’s enemies know not to touch Tenya, as they are all witches.”

Amajiki stared at him. “You know who took him.”

Aoyama tensed when Kaminari dipped his head, nodding. “I have a strong inkling,” he said, lacing his fingers together. “It’s the League, most likely. They’re the only ones who would dare.”

“They’ve stepped out of the shadows, so to speak, with those demon portals they’re opening,” Amajiki murmured. “My, ah, partner, Togata Mirio, has been tracking them down for the past few months.”

“Has he found anything?” Aoyama asked.

Amajiki frowned and laced his fingers together. “The League is covering their tracks alarmingly well.”

Kaminari drifted out of the conversation when they discussed recon and rescue plans. His eyes were narrowed in thought as he went through scenarios of why the League would be interested in Aoyama’s familiar. He watched Aoyama as he spoke, watched the dark rings underneath concealer, watched the way his hands trembled in his lap. The League were responsible for hundreds of deaths, of families lost and buried, of frozen smiles and faded memories.

The League (of Villains, he added in his mind. It was fitting.) took, and they took, and they took, and Kaminari wondered if there would be anything left in the aftermath of their greed.

“There have been some other unsettling rumors, regarding the Vampire Kings,” Amajiki said when the room fell into contemplative silence.

Kaminari tensed. He knew the Vampire Kings. They lived on the floor above him, and Bakugō would come into his tea shop whenever he had difficult customers, as though he telepathically knew Kaminari was dealing with assholes, and would generally be a silent, intimidating (but still comfortable, to Kaminari at least) presence whereas Kirishima attempted to ply him with food since he was “so skinny” in the Vampire’s eyes. Kaminari didn’t want to know how one of the oldest Vampires in existence knew how to cook nor why he insisted on plying him with food from various countries, an irresistible smile on his lips.

“What about them?” Aoyama questioned. “Are they involved in something dangerous?”

Amajiki snorted. “No. It’s more like the League is attempting some ritual—.”

An alarm blared suddenly, and Kaminari’s ears bleed from the noise. Aoyama hissed at the noise, and Amajiki’s eyebrows pinched in concern.

He stood. “Nejire, what’s—.”

“There’s a demon portal in downtown,” a girl Kaminari assumed was Nejire ran into the room, hands clamped around her ears.

Kaminari’s blood went cold.

Yūei Apartments was downtown.

*

Demons were eldritch horrors that didn’t belong in the human realm. Most of them were blind and relied on their sense of smell when they managed to smuggle themselves into the human realm. Their figures shifted every minute, as human eyes were too pure to see their otherworldly corruption. One minute, they would have fur; the next, scales. They were an amalgamation of terror and hatred, poison and ire. After the Siege of Solaris, Kaminari wanted nothing to do with demons. He wanted nothing to do with the world he grew up in.

His stomach churned at their unsightly, grotesque presence. One slumped towards him, their mouth a wide, gaping maw of poisonous teeth. Hisses and garbles poured off their tongue, an archaic language that grated human eardrums.

Simmers of lightning-based magic hummed and crackled against his fingertips. It’d been a while since he used magic that wasn’t for the creation of potions. It’d been too long since he had fought, side by side, with Aoyama. The last time was during the—

The demon leapt.

His magic crackled and hissed, an echo reminiscent of a thunderstorm. His fingers burned, flushed from the energy magic stole from its user, and scorch marks glistened on dirty concrete where demons once formed. Aoyama sliced through his targets cleanly, a storm of silver swords and daggers. Amajiki looked unruffled by the amount of demons streaming out of the portal, an indifferent expression settled over his eyes as though this was a scene he saw daily.

His attacks left no spoils, no echo of demon life.

The portal shattered underneath their combined attacks, and the demons that were still in the alleyway were dispatched quickly.

Kaminari shivered.

“Well,” Aoyama grinned. His weapons disappeared in shimmery sparks of light. “Wasn’t that fun.”

Amajiki made a noncommittal noise in the back of his throat. “Do be careful,” he told them. “I’ll keep an ear on the ground, so to speak, for information on any familiar-kidnappers. I’ll let you know what I find.”

“I always knew I could count on you, Tama-chan,” Aoyama said. There were shadows in his eyes, and Kaminari shuddered to think of what would happen if they were to find Tenya’s corpse. Kaminari knew his cousin. He knew his cousin quite well, so he understood Tenya was Aoyama’s tether to humanity, the difference between a witch and a monster.  

“Please, don’t call me that.”

“Bye-bye, Tama-chan.”

Amajiki sighed, and Aoyama snickered at his resigned expression.

“Denki-tan,” Aoyama said in a falsetto tone, bouncing forward to wrap his arms around Kaminari’s waist. “Time to go!”

Kaminari blinked—which was a mistake—and bile piled in his throat as the world around him twisted and turned around him, a blinding color. The world settled back into place, but Kaminari was disoriented for a moment from the teleportation spell. Aoyama patted his back, amused and fond, and Hitoshi blinked at them from the couch, an annoyed expression on his face.

“Must you do that?” Kaminari asked when his breakfast wasn’t going to ruin his polished floors. “A little warning goes a long way, Yūga.”

Aoyama smiled and—Kaminari blinked, again—disappeared in a shower of white-gray sparks.

Hitoshi yawned and stretched languidly. “There weren’t a lot of customers, and you normally close early today anyway, but I officially met your regulars.”

Kaminari raised an eyebrow. “Uraraka-san came?”

“Her, Todoroki, Aizawa…most of the people in this building popped in,” Hitoshi elaborated and then, after a pause, said, very quietly, “I’m pretty sure Bakugō-sama knows I’m not human.”

Kaminari blinked. “What?”

“He’s suspicious,” Hitoshi murmured. “And if he’s suspicious, then so is Kirishima-sama.”

“Hmm, well they’re both Olde Ones,” Kaminari said. “I would be surprised if they didn’t find anything odd about the two of us.”

Hitoshi hummed.

Kaminari collapsed on the couch in a heap of limbs and exhaustion. Hitoshi shifted into his cat form and curled up by his feet. His little form vibrated from purrs. Kaminari looked at him, in his tiny and vulnerable form, and a ball grew in his throat. Fear curled up at the base of his spine as he remembered the well-hidden terror in Aoyama’s eyes, remembered his tense shoulders as they discussed Tenya’s probable whereabouts, remembered the dread and grief welling up in his chest at the thought of discovering Tenya, glassy eyed and devoid of warmth.

His stomach rumbled at the uncomfortable thought of Hitoshi being kidnapped. After the Siege, his familiar was the only family he had left. Hitoshi was Kaminari’s pillar of strength. He was his link to his humanity. Kaminari was well-aware of the demon he turned into when the things he loved were threatened—the Siege of Solaris proved it.

The Siege of Solaris took place on his eighteenth birthday. The sun had barely rose, still a light pink dusted across the sky, when the League crashed through his coven with spells designed for carnage. His family fell one by one, crumbled corpses mangled, pools of blood staining the wooden floor. The Siege was a haze of death and terror to Kaminari, but he does remember the demon that spilled out of his veins as he fought alongside the coven members left alive.

Kaminari Denki, by the time he turned six, was considered the most powerful member of Solaris. 

(his mother once called him an omen of death.)

*

“This tea is delicious, Denki-kun,” Yamada Hizashi said. His hair, normally in a wild, pointed hairstyle, was in a braid.

“It’s just tea, Yamada-san,” Kaminari said, checks warming from the praise, as he wiped down his counters. A quiet stream of customers entered his shop since he’d opened it, and he was quite pleased to see a few familiar faces. Lunch hour had passed, so there was a lull in the number of patrons.

“Stop being so modest, Kaminari-chan,” Nemuri Kayama, one of Todoroki’s bartenders, said. She sipped her own brew and hummed from its taste. “These are all exemplary.”

“I should tell my kids to come here for extra credit, write their report in English,” Yamada muttered to himself, though the entire shop heard.

Kaminari raised an eyebrow. “Kids? I wasn’t aware you had children, Yamada-san.”

Yamada and Nemuri glanced at one another before they burst into laughter.

“No, you misunderstood me,” Yamada said once he finished chuckling. “Shōta and I don’t have children, but I am an English teacher at one of the local high schools.”

“Oh, how nice,” Kaminari said, preoccupied with refilling the jar of jasmine green tea bags, before he paused and blinked. “Shōta?”

“Aizawa Shōta,” Yamada informed him cheerfully. “My husband.”

Kaminari blinked. He hadn’t known his taciturn building manager was married.

“They’ve been together for more than fifteen years,” Nemuri added. “It’s so cute, I could throw up.”

“19 years, to be more precise,” Yamada said and then spoke a phrase in English. It sounded like “The light of my life,” but Kaminari wasn’t so certain the phrase was correct.

“You have anyone in your life, Kaminari-chan?” Nemuri asked him, a finger pressed against her chin in thought.

Kaminari shook his head. “Not at the moment, Nemuri-san.”

“Well, there’s nothing to worry about,” Yamada assured him. “You’re eighteen, so you have plenty of time!”

The bell above the door rung, and Uraraka entered Megalixir with a bright beam on her face. Midoriya followed her, arms still wrapped in bandages, a hesitant look on his face.

“Afternoon, Kaminari-kun,” Uraraka greeted.

“A-Afternoon,” Midoriya murmured.

Kaminari smiled. “Good afternoon, Uraraka-san, Midoriya-san. What can I get you two?”

They made quick work of scanning the overhead board and ordered.

“Ah, Nemuri-san, Yamada-sensei,” Midoriya greeted once he noticed them. “I didn’t know you guys liked Megalixir, too?”

“Kiddo, I’m certain all of Yūei are addicted to Denki-chan’s tea,” Yamada said.  

“It’s that good?” Midoriya blinked.

“Yes,” the three other patrons chorused.

Kaminari flushed. “I-It’s just tea!”

“Wonderful tea,” Uraraka sighed as the aroma of their orders floated in the air.

Kaminari ignored their chatter and focused on the orders. Soon, he slid two mugs in Uraraka’s and Midoriya’s directions, and continued restocking his materials.

“How’s work going, Midoriya-kun?” Yamada asked.

“It’s going well,” Midoriya replied. “Kirishima-kun and I are thinking about expanding a bit more.”

“What do you do?” Kaminari asked, intrigued at what one of the Vampire Kings does. He didn’t know what Midoriya was, exactly, but he smelled the magic in his veins. The teen was quite powerful.

“Oh, I own a tattoo parlor,” Midoriya said, chirpy and vibrant, a visible contrast to what his words connotated. “Uraraka-chan, Kirishima-kun, and Yaomomo work with me.”

Kaminari whistled. “I would’ve never thought.”

“I know, right?” Nemuri said. “I used to think Midoriya-kun was a preschool teacher, not a tattoo artist.”

Uraraka sniffed. “Appearances are deceiving, Nemuri-san.”

Kaminari snorted.

Ain’t that the truth.

Kaminari closed Megalixir early the next day to a peculiar sight that left a horrible taste in his mouth. After his three-day disappearance, Monoma waited outside, and his lips curled at the sight of humans walking to and fro. He had a gleam in his eyes that made Kaminari think blood would be shed if someone bumped into him.

“What’s going on?” he asked once he checked his locks and walked closer to his bodyguard. Monoma grabbed his elbow in a firm, almost bruising, grip, and steered him towards Yūei. “What the—Neito!”

Disdain glittered in Monoma’s eyes as he noticed the attention they were receiving from strangers. “Not here, Denki,” the demon warrior said in a biting, blistering tone of heat.

They entered the lobby at a brisk pace, and sir Nighteye watched them with raised eyebrows. “Everything alright there, Kaminari-san?” the security guard questioned, eyes trained on Monoma’s hand. He looked ready to rip Kaminari out of Monoma’s grasp if he so much as hinted at discomfort.

Kaminari smiled, but he knew it looked more like a grimace. “Everything’s fine, Nighteye-san.”

Sir Nighteye opened his mouth, but Monoma whisked Kaminari up the staircase and grumbled underneath his breath about old men who meddled in other’s affairs. Kaminari stayed quiet as Monoma practically dragged him to their apartment, though he attempted to reassure those they passed by that everything was fine.

His stomach twisted into knots. Monoma had never been one to pull Kaminari around like a ragdoll. He preferred to drop hints and subtly influence Kaminari’s decisions, sticking to the shadows to watch the aftermath. Something happened in Monoma’s home, in his realm, and it as something big enough to rattle his normally cool exterior.

Kaminari swallowed. There were few things capable of disturbing Monoma’s unflappable countenance, and none of those things bode well for Kaminari’s current state of peace.

“What the fuck is this shit, Pikachu?” Bakugō looked at Monoma’s hand on Kaminari’s arm with a dark scowl on his lips. inwardly, Kaminari winced at the redness of his skin and knew it would bruise.

“Um.” Kaminari’s mouth dried at the sight of Kirishima’s blank, empty smile. The smile terrified him a little. “Hey, B-Bakugō-san, K-Kirishima-san.”

“Hi, Kaminari-kun,” Kirishima chirped, and Kaminari’s heart thudded at his cold eyes. Bakugō’s scowl darkened. “Who’s this?”

Kaminari glanced at Monoma, at his irritated expression, and said, “This is, um, Monoma N—,” Kaminari winced at the tightened grip—, “Um. Monoma.”

First names were dangerous in their world. The power it could wield was oddly breathtaking.

“Right,” Kirishima said.

Kaminari noted the dark gleam in their eyes and wondered what put it there. Maybe they’re hungry? Sometimes, Kaminari forgot his upstairs neighbors were the Kings of Vampires.

“Denki,” growled Monoma.

Kaminari blinked and fumbled with his keys. “R-Right. Um. S-See you guys later?”

Monoma pulled him inside his apartment before he could hear their replies and shut the door behind them. “Neito,” Kaminari cried out when he was dragged into his bedroom. “That was rude! And to royalty, no less. What is—?”

“The Lord has stirred,” Monoma spoke flatly.

Kaminari ceased his struggles and stumbled, back pressing against his dresser. His ears deceived him. They must have. Hitoshi’s hackles rose before he shifted and hissed, small fangs gleaming, “Elaborate.”

Monoma sniffed. “Someone is opening demon portals al around the city, and I’ve been investigating for a few days, as you know. I heard some rumors and went back home to find the source,” Monoma paused and took a deep breath. “The Lord of Demons has awakened from his slumber—and he’s preparing to travel.”

Kaminari trembled at the look of fear in Monoma’s eyes—he was a demon warrior from a clan who swore allegiance to Kaminari’s blood. Kaminari didn’t know how old Monoma was exactly, but he knew the other man was old enough to have seen many civilizations rise and fall, old enough to instill a healthy amount of fear and awe by his coven members whenever he was in their presence. Monoma was not the type of man to be afraid.

“Where?” Hitoshi asked.

Kaminari couldn’t comprehend the fear in his veins. It pooled in his stomach. It curled inside his heart. It snaked around his ankles the longer Monoma kept quiet.

“Neito,” Kaminari snapped. “Where is he headed?”

“Here,” Monoma breathed out.

Hitoshi snarled.

“He’s coming here, Denki. For you.”

The world started to tilt, and his vision swam in front of him. His chest constricted as his lungs rattled in response to his every breath. “Air,” Kaminari gasped as he fumbled for his doorknob. The floor wavered underneath his feet. “I need air!”

He leaned against the back of his armchair when he reached the living room, and swallowed mouthfuls of air. His skin prickled as the air in the living room shifted. His fingers itched as he looked around for anything out of place. In wordless, quiet movements, Kaminari checked on the wards surrounding his apartment. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, so why did—?

Sharp twinges of pain blossomed across his shoulder. Blood trickled out of the wound as he whirled around and stumbled back at the sight of Toga Himiko. The humanoid demon, well-known for her eccentric tastes and obsessions with human blood, grinned widely at the sight of his widening eyes.

“Good morning, Denki-kun,” she spoke after a moment of tense silence. She spoke in a high-pitched, almost babyish tone of voice. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it, since we’ve last seen each other.”

Toga wore a bloodied school girls’ uniform, her hair down up in high pigtails, a mimicry of a high school student. A bandaged wrapped around her neck, hiding the souvenir Kaminari gave her during the Siege a few minutes after she sliced her way through a quarter of his coven.

His magic crackled against his palms, white hot fury in his veins. “What the fuck are you doing here—?”

His knees buckled.

“Ah, ah, ah, bad boy,” Toga chided and tapped the flat part of a bloodied blade against her chin, as though in pensive thought. “No magic for you, so we can talk like calm, rational adults.”

Kaminari slid to the floor, heart rattling against his lungs, as he realized the dagger was poisoned with a magic-dampening paralyzer. He was unable to use his magic until the paralyzer left his system (which would take a few hours, at minimum), so it left him defenseless—and that was a dangerous status to have in the presence of the Lord of Demons’ personal bodyguard.

Hitoshi…Neito…He opened his mouth.

“Don’t bother about that bodyguard and familiar of yours,” Toga said, giggling. “They’re in the same state as you. I wanted to have some privacy to speak with you.”

Kaminari’s breath shortened as he understood the weight of their situation. Toga was here for revenge, most likely, to spill the last of his covens’ blood on polished wooden floors.

Toga Himiko was not known for her mercy.

“I’m not going to kill you,” Toga assured him and pat his cheek with the blade. He flinched, and she laughed. “I’m just a messenger this time, I promise. I’m afraid we’ll have to postpone our little fight.”

Kaminari attempted to swallow, but there was a ball of terror in his throat. “What—what’s the message?”

“From my Lord.”

“What does he want?” Kaminari whispered.

Toga tilted her head to the side and narrowed her eyes. “Don’t act so coy, Denki-chan, you know what he wants.”

 “Tell him to go back to that throne of his,” Kaminari spat out. His magic crackled in the air, a daunting presence, and Toga took a step back. “And tell that Lord of yours this: I am not his, and I will never be his,”—Kaminari’s eyes glinted underneath the lighting, almost a fiery glow of ire, and his magic thrummed in the air, a bubble begging to be burst— “and what he wants will happen over my dead, rotting body!”

His ears buzzed with static, someone screamed, and the world turned a blinding white as his magic tore out of his body, a maelstrom of wrath.

When Kaminari came to, his head was cushioned on Hitoshi’s lap. His familiar’s fingers ran through is hair in soothing ministrations. They were on the couch. Kaminari wondered how long it’d been. Monoma paced in front of the couch, a storm of emotions on his face.

“You’re up,” Hitoshi commented. “How’re you feeling?”

“Where’s—,” his shoulder prickled, an echo of pain, and Kaminari struggled upright. “Toga!”

“Breathe,” Monoma instructed, his tone a tad brisk, and placed his hands on Kaminari’s shoulders. “She’s gone. I don’t know what happened, but she’s gone now.”

Kaminari attempted to breathe. He didn’t know how much more of this he could take. His entire life, the Lord of Demons and his entourage haunted every step he took, mocked every shadow and crevice he found, threatened all of the places he found safe. Ever since he turned six, and he was revealed to possess power greater than his own ancestors, there seemed to be a countdown to his freedom.

When Kaminari turned six, his mother sobbed against the crown of his head as his magic manifested. His father and a few of his uncles began to teach him battle magic. Monoma was the one who told him of the fate that awaited those the Lord had his eye on.

“It’s like that human fairytale,” he had said. “You ever heard of Persephone’s myth?”

The Lord of Demons liked to collect the powerful. He plucked them away from their havens and their lives and made them entirely dependent on him. He morphed them into his soldiers, into mindless entities crafted for his whims. He had never taken anyone as a lover, never had intentions of doing so—and then Kaminari wandered too far into the woods when he was nine and, like Persephone in the ancient myths, had fallen through an entrance to his castle. One of the Lord’s servants had taken him back to the entrance per the Lord’s request, but the damage had been done.

Their meeting sealed his fate.

(“We will meet again,” the man had told him, his smile hidden by his mask. “On your eighteenth summer, okay?”

“Do you promise?” Kaminari had asked, unaware of who he was dealing with.

The man’s smile widened. “I do.”

His parents had warned him of many things, but they forgot to mention the devil that lived in their backyard)

“Your magic lashed out,” Hitoshi explained quietly. “Right as you left the bedroom, Toga appeared and paralyzed us both before we knew what was happening. She’s gone now, but we know you injured her from the blood on the floor—why was she here?”

“A message,” slipped out of Kaminari’s mouth, exhausted and heavy with the weight of the world. “She gave me a message from the Lord.”

A rumble of sounds too harsh for human ears curled out of Monoma’s mouth. Kaminari glanced at him, noticed his eyes had turned completely black with rage, and looked back at Hitoshi. “Are you okay?”  he asked his familiar. “She didn’t hurt you?”

“I’m fine,” Hitoshi said and then furrowed his eyebrow in concern. “Are you okay?”

“I don’t know,” Kaminari replied.

It was an honest answer. His life had been destroyed six months ago, and he had managed to delicately stitch it back together. He had started to find his feet once again, his niche in Yūei, but then Toga appeared with that sultry, demonic smile, and unbridled terror licked at the base of his spine at the knowledge of the Lord of Demon’s presence in the human realm.

Hitoshi pressed their foreheads together, his breath warm against Kaminari’s skin. “We’re going to be okay,” he murmured. “We’ll get through this.”

Kaminari closed his eyes.

Well, he thought to himself, a bitter tang souring his tongue. I got six months of peace.

The following week was, for lack of a better word, a nightmare. There was a string of murders all around Musutafu, and all of the victims had blond hair in a spiky or messy hairstyle; they were slender and had a subtle muscle mass; they were all eighteen; they all looked like him. Monoma shadowed his steps whenever he left his apartment, and Hitoshi shoved bracelets heavily layered with protective and defensive charms in his hands almost every hour.

Dread and terror welled up his throat whenever he looked at the news and saw another victim, another lost life, because he knew what those deaths meant. He knew what the “serial killer” wanted. It was a message, a declaration of arrival. The Lord of Demons was in the human realm, and he was making a statement.

More demon portals were being opened, at an increasing rate no one expected. The Lord’s presence was noted by others in the supernatural community, and Yūei had thrown together a War Council in which the tenants participated it bar Kaminari, as majority of his neighbors were under the assumption that he was an oblivious human. Aoyama had promised to stop by when it was finished and inform him of any decisions made.

Kaminari sighed and finished the luck potion an old witch across town had ordered. He didn’t know why the elderly woman (whom his world called Recovery Girl) needed a luck potion, since she was a renowned healer, but he didn’t have the right to question what his customers ordered. Engrossed as he was in his job, he didn’t notice Amajiki’s entrance until he bottled the potion for delivery, and the man coughed to grab his attention.

Hitoshi perked up from where he was perched, which happened to be on a bookshelf (his familiar liked to climb up the oddest surfaces). “Amajiki-san, when did you—?”

“I found the familiars.”

Kaminari almost dropped the vial in his hands. He set the orders down on the counter and wiped his hands on his apron. Amajiki didn’t comment on the way they trembled visibly. Hitoshi jumped off the bookshelf and shifted, face settled into a fierce expression.

“Where are they?” he questioned.

Amajiki grimaced. “With the League.”

Kaminari’s heart almost stopped. “Are—Are they in town?”

“Yes, in a squally part of Musutafu,” Amajiki replied and leaned against the doorway. “They’re at Kurogiri’s Bar, hidden in an antechamber that’s layered with spells.”

Kaminari controlled his breaths, controlled his fear, his rage, and said, “When are we leaving?”

Amajiki looked at him, as if measuring his mental stability, before he grinned, all sharp teeth and poison, “Now.”

*

The bar belonged to a warlock named Kurogiri, in the squally district of Musutafu, where crime was a daily occurrence, and few gave it a second glance when it happened. Kaminari raised his eyebrows at the building—it looked rundown and seemed to have an abundance of health code violations. Nonetheless, it had a healthy stream of patrons.

Amajiki murmured an invisibility spell underneath his breath, and Kaminari shivered as the spell cloaked around his person. Hitoshi looked unruffled at the display of powerful magic, and his dual blades glinted at his side. “We are here to excavate any hostages,” Amajiki explained as they walked into the bar with a group of drunken college students. “Nothing more, nothing less.”

“Got it,” Kaminari said.

Hitoshi hummed.

Amajiki side-eyed them but walked towards a corridor that split away from the bar. The rest of the building had crumbling mortar walls, damp from age and weather. Kaminari felt that, one wrong wind, and the building would collapse.

“Hitoshi,” he said as they walked deeper inside the League’s hideout. “Use that hearing of yours.”

Hitoshi tilted his head to the side, complying to the demand. They were unbothered as they walked along the twisting, long corridors. They had not bumped into anyone associated with the League, and Kaminari’s stomach churned at the thought. Something’s wrong, he thought to himself, fingers trembling at his sides. Something isn’t r—

“Found them,” Hitoshi said, eyes trained on the floor. “They’re in the room underneath us.”

Kaminari swallowed. “They?”

“There’s another person with him,” Hitoshi said. “I don’t know who it is, but they’re there.”

“A threat?” Amajiki questioned in an idle tone.

Hitoshi shook his head. “No. I think it’s another hostage.”

Amajiki’s lips thinned. “Of course, it is.”

They moved swiftly, following cues from Hitoshi as he utilized his heightened hearing. As they rounded a corner, Kaminari’s skin prickled, and Amajiki hand shot out. He cut Kaminari off, pausing their movement, right before a lumbering figure slumped in front of them. Kaminari’s breath caught in his throat, horror pooled in his mouth, at the sight of—of—

The creature had massive muscles, a towering height, and a brain that was not enclosed in its skull.

He knew this creature.

He had killed this creature before, during the Siege.

This creature had smashed the skulls of five family members, slaughtered Hitoshi’s blood family, before Kaminari ended its life in a gruesome, bloody way. He reached out and gripped Hitoshi’s hand, and his familiar’s nails bit into his skin at the sight of the Noumu, a genetically bioengineered thing the League created for purposes unknown except for death and destruction. It was almost undefeatable, with skin impervious to spells—except, well, they did not account for the power Kaminari wielded.

Electricity, after all, was a formidable, deadly force of nature.

The Noumu plodded down the hall, out of sight and out of mind, and Kaminari felt breath return to his lungs.

“I want—,” Hitoshi started, voice full darkness and retribution, but Amajiki cut him off.

“Another day,” Suneater said. “We are not here for revenge.”

Hitoshi fell silent, and Kaminari squeezed his hand. “It’s okay,” he murmured as Amajiki rounded the corner. Hitoshi frowned, a mulish scowl pulling at his lips. Grief and rage and all the visceral emotions in between flashed in Hitoshi’s eyes and swirled in the pit of Kaminari’s stomach, an echo of their empathic bond. “We’re gonna be okay.”

Hitoshi closed his eyes, and breathed deeply for a moment, before he squared his shoulders. “Yes,
 he agreed quietly. “We are.”

When they came across the room holding Tenya and the other hostage, Kaminari sensed the mountain of spells lathered over it. Amajiki sucked his teeth in annoyance. “There’s an alarm spell,” he explained at their looks. “If we attempt to dismantle the wards, it’s over.”

“Can you teleport us inside?” Kaminari questioned. His knowledge of teleportation spells was limited, as his coven didn’t dabble in that area of magic, and Kaminari had no reason to learn them. His lips twitched at the bitter thought of how different his life might’ve been, how different the Siege would’ve gone, if his coven knew how to teleport.

Amajiki took a calculated, somber breath and said, “Hold onto me.”

Kaminari and Hitoshi grabbed onto his arms, and the world pulled in various directions, bent in various positions, swirled before Kaminari’s eyes in a perplexing haze of color and awe. He stumbled as the world righted itself, but Amajiki, used to such means of transport, was unfazed. As Kaminari blinked away his unfocused vision, snarls floated in the air.

“Be calm,” Amajiki said, monotone, at Tenya’s hostility. “It’s me.”

The snarl slipped from Tenya’s mouth. “S-Suneater?”

A small head, belonging to a smaller silhouette, poked around Tenya’s leg, and stared up at them with wide eyes. “A-Are y-you gonna k-kill us?” the little girl asked, voice trembling.

Kaminari twitched at the sight of the bandages wrapped carefully around her arms. Bloodlust rose in his lungs at the sight of her apprehensiveness, at Tenya’s protective behavior, for he understood what it meant. The League would slaughter an orphanage if they so wished it, he thought to himself, something sour in his throat, kidnapping and harming a small girl is of no consequence to them.

If not for the urgency of their rescue, Kaminari wouldn’t have minded leaving a few surprises for the League members.

“No,” Amajiki replied. “We don’t have much time—Tenya, kid, grab onto me.”

Hitoshi tensed and twitched. “Someone’s coming.”

“Now,” Amajiki ordered, eyes flashing dangerously.

*

The first thing Kaminari had done when they teleported back into his apartment was make chamomile tea. The little girl, Eri, sipped at hers quietly and observed them with wide, pensive eyes. When Hitoshi slipped back into his cat form, he curled up in her lap and she pet him with an awed, fascinated expression. Kaminari wanted to wrap her up in a warm blanket and shelter her forever.

“Eri-chan,” Amajiki began after a moment of silence. “I believe you would be safer with me and my husband than with Kaminari-san—no offense,” Amajiki added.

Kaminari shook his head. “I’m not safe to be around, not with—,” he stopped and swallowed. He cleared his throat and gave Eri a warm smile. “Eri-chan,” he began, reaching for his little bowl of sweets, “Would you—?”

“I AM HERE!!”

Startled by the sudden appearance of the air sylph, Togata Mirio, Kaminari threw the glass bowl in his direction, Hitoshi shifted, hissing protectively, and Tenya scooped Eri into his arms in a defensive hold, legs tensed to run for safety. Lightning crackled from Kaminari’s fingers before he realized just who was in his living room.

“WAIT,” Togata cried out when the tip of Hitoshi’s sword pressed against his neck. “It’s me!”

Hitoshi lowered his sword and gave the blond man an unimpressed look. “You do realize I was about to kill you, right?”

“No hard feelings,” Togata beamed. “It happens to the best of us.”

Amajiki sighed. “Why are you like this?”

“Your beloved husband comes back from war, Tamacchi,” Togata sputtered, though it sounded more like a whine, as he wrapped his arms around Amajiki’s waist. Amajiki, exasperated, didn’t move. “War, and this is how you treat him?”

Amajiki rolled his eyes, and patted Togata on his cheek.

And then, a quiet whisper: “Lemillion-san?”

Togata turned and stared blankly at Eri, as if stunned by her existence, and then, a minute passed, and a smile brighter than the sun itself curled on Togata’s lips. “Eri-chan,” he shouted, and Kaminari winced at the volume.

Eri squirmed out of Tenya’s hold and held her arms out for Togata, who answered her silent plea with another bright smile. Kaminari shared a perplexed look with Hitoshi, wondering what had just transpired in his own living room, before he glanced at the time. The War Council should end in a moment. With that thought in mind, Kaminari sent a quick message to Aoyama.

He’s here.

Short. Sweet. Simple.

“I’ll keep you updated,” Amajiki said, “if I discover any new developments.”

Kaminari nodded. “Stay safe, alright?”

Amajiki snorted and gave him a wry look. “I should be telling you that, you know?”

Kaminari grimaced at the subtle reminder of what loomed above his head.

“It’s going to be okay,” Hitoshi said after Amajiki, Togata, and Eri left. Tenya was quiet, rewrapping the bandages on his arms with fresh gauze. “We’re going to be fine.”

Kaminari hummed and took another gulp of tea. He stared at the fading bruises around Tenya’s neck, and a quiet rage slithered down his throat. “Why’d the League take you and Eri-chan?” he heard himself ask. “What do they want with—?”

His front door banged open, and a blond blur tackled Tenya to the ground a mere second later. Tenya squawked at the sudden embrace, and squirmed as Aoyama’s litany of “Tenya, Tenya, Tenya” increased in volume by the second. Kaminari watched, inexplicably fond, as Aoyama’s chants tapered off to throat-ripping sobs. Hitoshi closed and locked the front door and curled up in his lap in cat form. Kaminari pet him and ignored the way his fingers trembled.

I was so close, he thought to himself as he stared down at Hitoshi. So close to losing the only thing I have left.

Kaminari was well-aware of the demon lumbering under his skin, the monster that appeared in crackling light and blinding sizzles. He was cognizant of his explosive power—after all, it was the reason his entire coven was slaughtered by a Lord who took, and took, and took until there was nothing left to give. Monoma had once observed a training session when he was younger and told Kaminari that his displays of magic reminded him the reasons why he protected their clan.

Kaminari was powerful. He was dangerous. The magical community knew him by another name, Chargebolt, and the Lord of Demons loomed above him his entire life, a haunting apparition in every corner he looked at.  

“I have news,” Tenya said once Aoyama finished sobbing. “Terrible, terrible news.”

Kaminari straightened.

“It’s about the League,” Tenya continued and cleared his throat, “and about the Lord of Demons.”

Hitoshi shifted, and his lips pulled back into a snarl. “What is it now?”

“The League wishes to kill the Kings of Vampires,” Tenya explained in a clinical tone-of-voice, and Kaminari stilled from the shock of what he’d heard. Hitoshi made a high-pitched noise in the back of his throat, as if someone had stepped on his tail, and Aoyama spat out the tea in his mouth. “They have also been contracted by the Demon Lord to, ah, kidnap you, Kaminari-san.”

“I’m not surprised,” Kaminari said blankly, stupefied.

“What makes the League think they can take on the Vampire Kings?” Hitoshi asked, eyebrows furrowed together. “They’re immortal.”

Tenya shrugged. “I’m guessing it has something to do with the Demon Lord, but you’re guess is as good as mine.”

“Why did they kidnap you?” Aoyama questioned. “And—and that little girl?”

“Eri,” Tenya said. “Her name is Eri.”

“Who is she?” Kaminari asked. “I’ve never heard her name before.”

Tenya’s lips twisted, but his eyes sparkled. “She is someone very important to the magical world but—I believe the League wished to do some sort of ritual.”

“Probably one of those forbidden ones,” Hitoshi grumbled underneath his breath. “Life for a life or some bullshit like that.”

“Oh,” Aoyama exclaimed, “I just remembered!”

Kaminari raised an eyebrow. “What?”

“You have a security detail, Denki-chan,” Aoyama informed, and then laughed at Kaminari’s dismayed groan.

*

The world was quiet for two blissful, peaceful weeks. There were no murders, no news articles growing more and more hysterical as bodies piled up with no probable cause, and there was no Lord knocking down his door. Yet, at least. Despite the threat hovering over his every waking moment, Kaminari opened his shop and continued to serve customers.

A new shipment came in that morning, so Hitoshi offered to help unpack the various boxes of tea. Kaminari was looking forward to a new jasmine and—

—and the world exploded.

*

Kaminari faded in and out. He noticed things in flashes—

Hitoshi.

Curled up on the floor, a puddle of blood underneath his side.

Megalixir.

Crumbled and broken, like the life he was forced to rebuild on his eighteenth birthday. A mess of glass and debris and screaming, terrified humans swarming the front.

Dabi.

A member of the League, but Kaminari was in too much pain to remember. The man plucked him up off the ground as though he weighed little more than an infant, and a smirk curled his lips.

“Well, well, well,” Dabi said, pleasant and saccharine. “It is a pleasure to finally meet you, Persephone.”

Kaminari Denki shattered, and he knew nothing more. 

*

“Well,” Toga Himiko said as he came back to himself, in pieces, and smiled. She poked his cheek. “I suppose since you’re clearly alive and this isn’t your dead body, that you were all bark and no bite in our earlier discussion.”

Kaminari bit her finger.

Toga drew back, snarling, before she paused, remembering who he was to her Lord, and huffed. “You’re too much trouble, you know,” she said. Her voice dripped honey. “Maybe I should kill you?”

“Himiko,” Dabi sighed warningly.

“Touch him,” another voice said, dark and perilous, “and die.”

Kaminari knew that voice.

“K-Kirishima?” he sputtered as Kirishima attempted to give him comfort via smiles. The vampire patted his head nervously, his legs and wrists bound together like Kaminari’s. He looked pale and exhausted, which was a disturbing thought as the man was a vampire. “What are you—? What happened?”

“Funny business, that Quirky Brew,” Dabi said and Kaminari’s breath shuddered.

Quirky Brew was a potion that, when brewed correctly, temporarily forced a Vampire’s heightened senses and abilities to a mere human. It was used to control newborn vampires, as they had the worst control over their newfound strength. Some used it to hunt Vampires and kill them. Quirky Brew was developed by Kaminari’s grandmother, though only Kaminari and Hitoshi knew that, but the magical world operated under the assumption that the brew worked on all vampires.

Kaminari knew it had no affect on an Old One.

Kirishima Eijirō was a Vampire King.

He was the first Vampire.

Quirky Brew did not work on him, and the League was blissfully unaware of that fact.

“What do you want with him?” Kaminari questioned. “He’s done nothing to you.”

“He exists,” Dabi replied.

Toga giggled. “It doesn’t concern you, Denki-chan—after all,” a smile curled on her lips, and Kaminari noticed the blood around the corners of her mouth. “You belong to our Lord now.”

His mouth dried at the thought.

“I don’t belong to anyone,” Kaminari hissed.

Dabi snored. “Keep telling yourself that.”

“What do you want with the Kings?” Kaminari burst out. “What do you want with me? Why is the Lord here? Why are you here, in Musuta—?”

“Not telling,” Toga sang, and something bitter curled in Kaminari’s throat.

His fingers burned. They ached.

Then, as Kaminari worked himself up into a panicked frenzy underneath Dabi’s nonplussed gaze, Toga tilted her head and smiled. Her eyes glinted.

“He’s here.”

*

Kaminari Denki, in a sense, was Persephone.

Hades had come to collect his Queen.

*

The Lord of Demons, a man named Chisaki Kai, a man their world called Hades, stepped into view and smiled at the sight of Kaminari, alive, whole, slightly battered but his, and of Kirishima, the first Vampire, the first King, wrapped up before him like a present. The grin was bloodthirsty, greedy, confident with the knowledge that he would be leaving the human realm with an explosive power under his thumb and the murder of a King staining his hands.

“My Lord,” a man Kaminari was unfamiliar with walked out of the side room and bowed. “The ritual has been properly prepared for your service.”

“What ritual?” Kaminari spit out, and Chisaki’s grin widened. Kaminari wanted to cry at the sight of it.

“You should be quite familiar with this ritual, Denki,” Chisaki murmured. His eyes glittered. “After all, it was the one used for the Siege.”

Kaminari flinched back, his breath stolen from his lungs, as he understood. The ritual was an old one, possibly older than Kirishima himself, though it had been banned and blacklisted from being practiced. It was darker than black magic, and the ghosts it left behind were innumerable.

“What ritual?” Kirishima asked quietly as Chisaki made his way inside the ritual room.

“A life for a life,” Kaminari echoed Hitoshi’s earlier words, and almost laughed at the irony. “It steals a life and grants the other immortality. It’s an extremely old practice, practically forbidden.” Kaminari swallowed and looked at Kirishima. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You’re stuck in the middle of this because of me.”

“It’s not your fault,” Kirishima said, a tad too cheerful for the atmosphere. “I would’ve been targeted anyway.”

It is my fault, Kaminari thought to himself, bitter and grieving and terrified. I kill everyone I love.

He flinched when Toga’s hands wrap around his arm.

“Don’t touch him,” Kirishima growled, lowly, his own bonds straining from his muscle. “Touch him, and I will kill you.”

Dabi laughed. “That Brew will be in your system for a few hours, Kirishima—you’re little more than a human like this.”

“Come on, Denki-chan,” Toga cooed in his ear. “Our Lord is waiting.”

Toga’s grip was unforgiving, and Kaminari couldn’t swallow the whimper. Kirishima sighed, as though disappointed, but his teeth glint underneath the light. “I warned you,” he said, blithely, casually, like they were discussing the weather, and broke out of his bonds.

Toga shrieked. “What the—?”

Kaminari closed his eyes as he sensed the bloodthirst rolling off of Kirishima. It was better, he decided quietly, if he did not see the carnage Kirishima left in his wake. Kaminari had seen enough death and blood to last him the rest of his existence.

“Now then,” Kirishima said, upbeat, when Kaminari opened his eyes. He ignored the blood dripping from Kirishima’s hands and mouth, ignored the still bodies on the ground. “Let’s get you out of this, yeah?”

The door slammed open, and Chisaki stormed out. “What is—?” the man barked but faltered, at the sight of Toga’s blood. His eyes narrowed in on Kirishima, and he growled, “A dead vampire is poetically ironic, you know, but a stolen life is still a stolen life.”

Kirishima bared his teeth. “You really are getting on my last n—.”

A burst of shimmery light interrupted him.

“Leave Kaminari-sama alone!”

Kaminari’s breath ripped out of his lungs at the sight of Eri, so small and delicate and little, staring defiantly at Chisaki, whose lips curled into a facsimile of a smile.

“Oh?” said Chisaki, amused at the tiny slip in front of him, but tone still dangerous nonetheless. Dark shadows and wraiths twisted and writhed from Chisaki, creeping towards Eri, who continued to stand there, defiant and so, so little.

“What are you doing?” Kaminari cried, horror and rage curling around his neck. “You need—you need—!”

“It’s okay,” Eri told him and smiled. “He won’t touch you, Kaminari-sama.”

The shadows crept closer, like the ghostly sound of one’s last breath, and Kaminari’s heart threatened to burst out of his chest. He struggled out of his binds, and Kirishima blinked at the sight of Eri, and Kaminari’s fear threatened to drown him alive. His fingers crackled, hummed, burned, but it wasn’t enough. The shadows arched upwards and started its’ downward slash of death. An instant kill, merciful of Chisaki, but Kaminari could only watch in horror.

“Eri,” he screeched, no, sobbed, because he was so tired of watching people die in front of him. “Eri, please! Run!”

Eri—

glowed.

*

The world bathed in ethereal light.

*

His mother used to tell him stories, myths, about the First.

Before the Split, before demons became demons, and angels became angels, before Vampires were cursed into immortality, there was a little girl who dreamed, and hoped, and yearned for a family. She walked the earth by herself, immersed in nature’s gifts, and quietly went about her days until she healed a pair dying, star-crossed lovers, and created the first demon and angel.

Human legend and myths gave her numerous names but her true name was lost in the centuries that appeared, and few were honored with her presence.

 “Oh, if only,” his mother would whisper, at the end of those stories, stroking his hair as he pretended to be asleep. “If only you had never been born.”

*

Monoma had barged into his tutoring session when he was four, once, and looked at him, and a mocking smile curled on his lips when he called him Persephone. Kaminari was too young to understand what it meant, to bear such a name, until he turned nine, and tumbled through an entrance, and met a king with sweet words and an even sweeter smile that hid the poison and hunger for power and control.

He did not know who Persephone was; not until he was eighteen and his world crumbled around his feet in carnage and blood and death and fire and the cruel, cruel smirk of the man Monoma called Hades.

To be Persephone was a curse.

It took Kaminari a slaughtered coven and a destroyed home at his feet to realize that.

*

He woke in his room. Moonlight floated soft beams of light into his room, and he blinked, puzzled, at where he was. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, nothing was out of place, but then he turned his head and a pair of glowing red eyes blinked back at him. His demon guardian stood in front of his door, vigilant of any possible threat.

“You’re awake,” Monoma said in lieu of greeting. “Good. I was beginning to think you never would.”

“What?” Kaminari croaked out. His memory danced away from his grasp, taunting him, smiling. “What happened?”

“A lot,” Monoma replied, and then chuckled at Kaminari’s glare. “I see you met my darling little sister three days ago.”

“Sister?” Kaminari attempted to sit upright but he felt so weak, so exhausted, his arms refused to move.

Monoma sighed. “Go back to sleep, Denki—.”

“Neito.”

“You need rest,” Monoma deflected and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Look—.”

“Where’s the League?” Kaminari questioned as his memory began to piece itself back together. “Where’s—Where’s Kirishima?” he attempted to move, heart hammering against his chest. “Where’s Eri-cha—?”

“Calm down, Denki,” Monoma barked. Kaminari stilled, unused to such a harsh sound from his bodyguard. “The League is dead. Kirishima is fine. Eri is fine.”

“Where is she?” Kaminari whispered. All he remembered was Eri, so small, surrounded by dark wisps of corruption and then—a blinding light. “What happened?”

Monoma walked to his side and pressed his hand against Kaminari’s forehead. Underneath his breath, he muttered a chant in another language. “Go to sleep,” he told Kaminari, in a soft, gentle voice.

Kaminari closed his eyes and slept.

When he woke again, sunlight poured inside his room. Hitoshi was pressed against his side, arms locked around him in a protective embrace. “You scared me,” Hitoshi murmured against his back. “You’re not allowed to that, you know.”

Kaminari chuckled quietly. “I’m sorry.”

Silence passed between them, a quiet peace. Kaminari felt exhausted, but it was a sort of freeing exhaustion. The weight of the world did not press against his shoulders. He felt like he could breathe. “Hitoshi,” he said after a moment. “What happened?”

“I don’t know everything, since Kirishima’s being tightlipped,” Hitoshi began after a pause, “but I do know that Eri saved you and, well, I doubt Chisaki is going to be much of a threat to anyone anymore.”

“She killed him?”

“I don’t know,” Hitoshi said, and Kaminari frowned.

“Where’s Monoma?”

“Here,” Monoma said as he appeared by Kaminari’s desk, perched atop the wood, smiling at the looks on their faces. Wisps of shadow curled around the edges of his feet from travel. “I’d like to apologize, Denki.”

“What for?”

“When it mattered most, I have failed you,” Monoma said. “I have failed you many, many times before. For that, I apologize. I’m afraid I am not the best, ah, bodyguard.”

“You don’t need to apologize for that,” Kaminari replied and sighed when he saw the look of discontent on Monoma’s face. “I’m here, and I’m alive—but…what happened back there? What – what happened to Eri-chan? Kirishima-san? Chisaki?”

“One question at a time,” Monoma said, a chuckle in his voice. Kaminari gave him a look, and he sighed. “You’ve heard the myths of the First, correct? The girl colloquially called ‘Mother Nature’?” Monoma waited for them to nod before he continued. “Well, as these things are wont to do, the myths became muddled, for lack of a better word. Yes, she exists, but what the myths fail to point out is that she was not alone.”

Monoma’s voice floated inside of Kaminari’s head, a wispy memory on the hinges of his mind. I see you’ve met my little sister…

“You,” Kaminari said before he swallowed the urge. “You’re Eri-chan’s older brother, right?”

Monoma’s lips curled into something that wasn’t a smile but wasn’t a smirk either, and Kaminari knew he was right.

“So, what?” Hitoshi spoke. “Eri-chan is the First?”

Monoma dipped his head. “She is—I was—am, I suppose, her darker counterpart. The Yin to her Yang. The—.”

“Get on with it, Monoma,” Kaminari interrupted, exasperated by the metaphors.

Monoma snorted, and then said, almost gently, “Eri is the first Angel. I am the first demon.”

Those had implications Kaminari did not want to touch with a ten-foot pole. Mainly, the fact that the first demon in existence had been his “bodyguard” ever since he was seven. Kaminari didn’t want to know how his ancestors were able to score a contract with Monoma in the first place.

Hitoshi tilted his head. “I thought mortal eyes could not see angels?”

“You are correct,” Monoma said, “but Eri is one of those few pesky exceptions to the rule.”

Kaminari tilted his head in thought. “You’re the first demon? I thought—in the myth, it said…”

“Ah, that’s the part where it gets muddled due to oratory traditions,” Monoma said and hummed, gathering his thoughts together. “See, the part about the dying lovers is true, however they did not become the first demon and angel.” Monoma smiled and Kaminari felt a little disturbed at the sight of it. Hitoshi shuddered against his back. “Eri and I are the first demons—,”

“What?” Hitoshi snapped. “That’s impossible, angels are not—.”

“The denotation of angels and demons have become twisted and corrupted through mortal thought,” Monoma continued to explain, giving Hitoshi a quelling look. Kaminari carded his fingers through his familiar’s hair to calm him. “Until, perhaps, the Renaissance period in Europe, there was no true terminology for an angel and demon. We were considered demons of purity and demons of corruption—now, however, we are colloquially referred to as angels and demons. Now, as I was saying,” he gave Hitoshi a stern look, and Hitoshi looked indifferent. “Eri and I are the first demons, and that dying pair became the first vampires.”

Kaminari choked on his spit. “Y-You mean—?”

“Kirishima and Bakugō?” Monoma finished. “Yes. My beloved, annoying nephews.”

“I need to sit down,” Kaminari said, faintly. The world started to sway underneath him.

“You are sitting down,” Hitoshi said, though his familiar did wrap his arms around his waist. “You’re lying down.”

“I need to sit down,” Kaminari repeated, a tad hysterically.

“Anyway,” Monoma replied, a smile of bloodthirst and death and destruction on his lips that Kaminari really didn’t want to touch with a ten-foot pole at all. “You do not need to worry about Chisaki, Denki-chan. He has been taken care of.”

Hitoshi sat upright, as though he remembered something suddenly, and asked, “Chisaki was the Lord of Demons, wasn’t he? Why was he that, when you’re the first demon?”

Monoma’s lips thinned, and a dark, thunderous expression clouded his face. “That,” Monoma said, almost hissing, “was a dire consequence of your idiotic ancestors—when they fancied themselves powerful enough to bind me to your bloodline without my consent while I was severely injured. Due to this, I was removed from the underworld and temporarily weakened in both power and form, chained as I was to the human realm. Chisaki rose to power and—well, you know how the story goes and ends.”

Kaminari swallowed. “Oh.”

Monoma hummed. “Any other questions?”

“What happened to the League?” Kaminari asked.

Monoma smiled, and his eyes glinted. “Now that, I’m afraid, is a story for another time.”

*

Kaminari felt strong enough to leave his bedroom the next morning and was surprised to see half the building camped out in his living room. Todoroki and Midoriya were entwined with one another on his armchair, Uraraka and Asui were sprawled on his couch, Bakugō and Kirishima were on the floor, Bakugō quietly carding his fingers through his husbands’ hair. Tenya and Hitoshi were curled up on his second armchair, and Kaminari crept inside of his kitchen to find Aoyama sipping some tea.

“The next time you give me a heart attack of this caliber,” Aoyama said in lieu of greeting, “I will kill you myself.”

Kaminari snorted and gave his cousin a smile. “Love you too, Yūga.”

“Honestly,” Aoyama grumbled, “All of this stress is not good for my skin. You’re going to give me wrinkles.”

“And gray hair,” Kaminari chuckled.

Aoyama glared playfully and then stood, ushering Kaminari into a chair. “Sit, sit, Denki-chan,” he said, “I’ll make you some tea.”

Kaminari grimaced. “Uh, Yūga—.”

“I’m not that bad of a cook,” Aoyama interrupted.

You burn water, Kaminari thought to himself but said, “If you say so.”

Aoyama sniffled. “Such doubt from my own cousin. I’m wounded.”

Kaminari watched Aoyama bustle around his kitchen, wincing at the unfamiliar way his cousin went about making tea. Besides the occasional clatter of cooking equipment, the snores from the living room, and Aoyama’s cheerful humming, his apartment was quiet and peaceful.

“So,” Kaminari said, “what’s with the party in my living room?”

Aoyama snorted, but gave Kaminari a soft look. “I don’t think you’ve realized the imprint you’ve left on their lives—oh, before I forget, Suneater and Co. should be coming over later today to check up on you—anyway, even before they discovered you were a witch instead of a human, you were – excuse me, are – a beloved fixture in this community.”

“Aoyama-kun is absolutely right,” Yamada Hizashi announced.

“Hizashi, you’re too loud,” said Aizawa Shōta.

Kaminari, once again, choked on his spit at their sudden appearance at his kitchen table. “When did—when did you—what?”

“It’s a secret,” Yamada grinned.

Aizawa rolled his eyes and looked at Kaminari. “While I would have preferred to know your status, I understand your need to keep it hidden given…these current events.”

“Right,” Kaminari said, and Aoyama slid a mug of tea in his direction.

“Well?” Aoyama said. “How’d I do?”

Kaminari took a sip and hummed. “Not bad.”

Aoyama sparkled.

“No matter what happens in the future, Kaminari-kun, you will always have a home here,” Aizawa continued and rested his hand on Kaminari’s shoulder. “You will always be a part of Yūei’s community, whether you are a human or a witch.”

Kaminari swallowed and stared down at his mug, tears prickling the edges of his eyes. How long had he yearned for a place to belong? How long had he wished for a home? He had never felt at peace with his coven, too tense with the implications of his power and the metaphorical ticking clock hovering over his shoulder. Many coven members had kept him at a distance, treated him with impersonal, borderline clinical, words and touches. Kaminari’s existence, to his coven, spoke of their death.

If only, his mother would say, you had never been born.

 Yamada caught his eye and gave him a warm smile. “You’re safe now, Kaminari-chan.”

“DENKI,” shrieked Kirishima as he bolted into the kitchen and wrapped himself around Kaminari like an octopus. “You’re alive! You’re awake! You’re—!”

“Shitty Hair, shut the fuck up,” Bakugō growled from the living room, though he was louder than Kirishima. “People are trying to fucking sleep.”

“Trying and failing,” Todoroki’s deadpan floated in the air.

“Hah? You wanna fight, Halfie?”

“I’d rather not, thank you.”

“OI.”

“Good morning, everyone,” Uraraka yawned as she stumbled inside of the kitchen, ignoring the bickering between Bakugō and Todoroki. She gave Kaminari a warm, gentle smile. “Glad to see you’re awake, Kaminari-kun.” She pouted then and gave Kaminari a mock-scolding glare. “You scared everyone, you know? Don’t do it again.”

Kaminari chuckled. “I don’t plan on it.”

“LISTEN HERE YOU HALF N’ HALF PIECE OF—.”

“Bakugō-kun, please, it is seven in the morning—.”

“DON’T TELL ME WHAT TO FUCKING D—.”

Kirishima unwrapped himself from Kaminari, winked, and seemingly danced into the living room. “Katsuki,” came Kirishima’s voice. “Watch your blood pressure.”

“We’re vampires,” Bakugō said. “We don’t have blood pressure problems!”

“I don’t know,” Todoroki said blandly. “You look like you’re about to have an aneurism.”

“I’LL GIVE YOU A GODDAMN ANEURISM YOU—.”

Aizawa sighed, long suffering. “I’m too old for this.”

“Honey, you’re barely thirty-three.”

“I am too old for this.”

Uraraka took her seat next to Kaminari and curled her arm around his. “Hey,” she murmured. “It’s gonna be okay now, yeah? You’re gonna be okay.”

Kaminari swallowed.

“You’re home now,” Uraraka said, pleasant and sweet, and stole a few sips of Kaminari’s tea. She made a face. “Blegh—I prefer your brews.”

“Hey,” Aoyama protested. “It’s not that bad!”

“It tastes like leaf juice!”

“That’s what tea is!”

Uraraka gasped, scandalized. “You take that back right now!”

“Make me!”

Kaminari laughed at their smile and took another sip of his tea. Two different arguments floated in the air and, through it all, Midoriya continued to snore. Hitoshi blearily watched Kirishima calm Bakugō down for a moment only for Todoroki to obliviously set him off once again, and Uraraka and Aoyama jokingly fought with one another. Tenya was still asleep, and Aizawa listened to Yamada’s laments over his students’ English essays. Monoma was perched on the countertop, observing the chaos of his apartment.

Kaminari felt warm, and protected, and loved. He had not felt this way since he was seven.

“Yeah,” he murmured to himself, eyes crinkling with emotions. “I’m home.”