Don't Judge a Book

and the darkness she called night

Dabi scratched the back of his neck, paced around a bit on the sidewalk, and then took a deep breath before walking up the path to the door. He gently knocked. He heard grumbling on the other side and a male with bags under his eyes opened the door. "Can I help you?"

"Ah, yes, I'm not sure if you remember me but I was there when your child was born?" he laughed nervously. "I kind of need to speak with her. It's important." 

"Eri? She is out playing with her brother in the woods over there," the tired dad pointed to the ominous woods. He really let his children play in that terrible thing? "What is this all about?" 

"Sorry, sir, it won't take longer than a moment or two. Thank you for your help," Dabi gave a slight nod and ran over to the woods. 

"Do you mind if I come in?" Izuku smiled, finally noticed by the tired father. "It's been a while we should catch up." 

"Yeah, sure, whatever," he yawned, taking a step to the side for Izuku to enter. 

Dabi raced through the woods following the tracks as best as he could. It must've rained recently because the mud was fairly easy to trace. It was the fact that they were avoiding leaving tracks in it that made this difficult. He growled in frustration until he heard the sound of voices. "Hitoshi, I'm starting to feel really sleepy. Can we take Cerberus and go home?" 

"We can't go home right now, your horn is glowing. You know what that means, don't you? Remember what happened last time? Your mother is gone now... and we can't risk anything like that happening again until you can control this." 

"I'm sorry," she sobbed, rubbing her eyes. "I didn't mean to..." 

"It's okay, Eri," he soothed her, "I'm not blaming you but Dad still needs some time to get over it." 

"Hitoshi," she wined, sobbing more.

"Call me Shinso, I don't like that name," he frowned, patting her head lightly. Shinso pulled her in close. Cerberus snarled and faced Dabi. 

"That's a nasty hound if I ever saw one," Dabi couldn't help but smirk. The kid was raised in a fairly normal environment after all! She didn't have any reason to destroy the world. It's a shame about her mother but he couldn't do much to help with that.

"Who are you?" Shinso glared, holding Eri closer to him. 

"My name is Dabi," the demon introduced himself. He allowed his horns to appear causing Shinso's eyes to widen. "I'm someone that can help your sister." 

"Tell me what is going on," Shinso didn't let up on his grip. His eyebrows furrowed and his frown deepened. 

"The end of the world is upon us," Dabi explained. "Your little sister here is the antichrist and until the designated day passes, we're all set to burn." 

"What?" his jaw dropped, not quite believing what Dabi was saying until a small blue flame appeared in his hand. "You're...the son of Satan?" he gasped. It was Dabi's turn to be confused. How did he know that?

"Yeah, I am," Dabi admitted. "But I'm trying to save the world not destroy it. So, you can trust me." 

"Yeah, I trust you," Shinso nodded. 

"Really? That was fast. You can't just trust strangers like that," Dabi frowned. 

"If you're the son of Satan, you can't be that bad," Shinso shrugged. "Rin was always trying to prove himself and no one believed him. That was kind of messed up so I'll trust you outright." 

"Rin?" 

"Rin Okumura?"

Dabi didn't understand what Shinso was talking about but he figured it was better if he just took care of Eri first. He knelt to the ground and touched Eri's horn. "It looks like the only thing making you the antichrist is this little horn here. So, if we can remove the horn you should just be a normal human."