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Daichi speaks the last word of the incantation and the demon-summoning circle before him fills with smoke, the entire plume of it curiously contained within an invisible cylinder the exact circumference of the circle. The thick smoke obscures the contents of the circle and Daichi waits for it to clear, toeing the line of the circle, his heart beating hummingbird-quick in his chest.
Through the smoke, Daichi sees an unmoving figure shrouded in red and black, the colours of the demon he had summoned. Given the simple nature of his circle, Daichi doesn't know which demon he had summoned exactly. He had given the circle his requirements and it would pull a denizen of the dark out of the infernal realms at random. As long as the summoned demon gets the job done, Daichi doesn't care which one the circle calls up. He needs help and he needs it fast.
The smoke thins and Daichi peers into the enclosed space, trying to make out the demon in it. There is a humanoid figure splayed out in the centre of the circle, with long legs decked out in red and its torso wrapped in black. It holds a sphere in its hands, the red, green, and white colours of it oddly familiar, and Daichi looks up sharply into the face of Kuroo Tetsurou, captain of the Nekoma Volleyball Club.
"What the fuck," Daichi says eloquently, inspecting his circle for any misspelt runes that would have summoned a high school boy from Tokyo instead of a demon from the infernal realms.
Kuroo looks spooked, his long limbs all a tangle and his hair even more tousled than Daichi remembers. The sides of his red track pants reads "Nekoma Volleyball Club" and he clutches a volleyball to his chest like it could protect him from whatever craziness he had just gotten involved in.
"Sawamura?" Kuroo says incredulously, brushing himself off and pushing himself up into a sitting position at the sound of Daichi's voice, still hugging the volleyball to his chest. "What are you doing here? What the heck just happened?"
"Nothing. It's just a dream. Go back to sleep," Daichi says curtly, walking around the circle and scowling down at it. It is perfect, the runes perfectly drawn and placed, his circle perfectly circular. Where did he go wrong?
Kuroo pinches himself and winces. "Nope, this is definitely not a dream. Care to tell me what's going on, Sawamura?"
Daichi completes a round of his circle and stops before Kuroo, his eyebrows still furrowed in thought. "I was summoning."
"Summoning what? Volleyball rivals?" Kuroo asks. "Is this some sort of magic thing?"
"Yes, it's magic. And no, I was supposed to be summoning a demon but I got you instead."
"Well, that seems unfortunate," Kuroo comments sardonically. "Look, since this all seems to be one big mistake, why don't you send me back to Tokyo and let me get back to practice so I can kick your school's ass in Nationals."
"I would, if I could just figure out what went wrong with the summoning circle." Daichi mutters, leafing through his notebook and comparing the circle on the floor to its sketch on a page. "I don't get it... Nothing seems to be out of place..."
"I am," Kuroo puts in unhelpfully. "I am out of place."
Daichi glances up from his notebook, unfazed and unimpressed. "Get out of the circle, Kuroo. I need to check the runes you're sitting on."
When Kuroo doesn't immediately comply, Daichi looks up again and Kuroo smiles charmingly at him, still seated square in the middle of the circle, his volleyball propped on his knee.
"Oh, don't mind me," Kuroo says airily. "It's actually pretty comfortable in this circle."
"Regardless of how comfortable it is, if I can't figure out what's wrong with the circle, you're going to have to return to Tokyo by train. And I'm not paying for that," Daichi informs him. "Get up."
Kuroo smiles weakly at him. "Um. Actually, you see, my legs aren't doing too well today."
Daichi sighs and puts his notebook aside, about to walk into the circle to help Kuroo up. Then he stops and looks up at Kuroo, a strange thought forming in his head.
"You can't get out of the circle by yourself, can you?" Daichi asks slowly, keeping his eyes trained on Kuroo.
"Oh, no, I can't," Kuroo insists, grimacing. "Bad leg and all, you know."
"And it's not because of the barrier I put up around the circle preventing the summoned demon from getting out, is it?"
"Definitely not," Kuroo assures him with a flippant hand wave. "I don't even know what you're talking about."
Daichi looks down at his notebook, spread-eagled on the floor by his foot, turned to the page containing his sketch of the circle. The runes on the floor match up exactly with the ones on the page. His circle is perfectly drawn. He just hasn't known which demon it would summon or that he would already be acquainted with it.
"I didn't know that you were a demon," Daichi says.
Kuroo freezes, his mouth open in confusion. When Daichi doesn't budge, Kuroo sighs and stands up in one languid, fluid motion, both legs working perfectly under his track pants. "Well, this is awkward."
He runs a hand through his hair and a pair of horns appears among his unruly spikes, sharpened to deadly points. He looks directly at Daichi and his pupils expand to swallow up the rest of his eyes, turning them into pits of solid, unnerving black.
"I didn't know you were a mage," Kuroo says, walking to the edge of the circle and stopping a scant inch away from Daichi, separated from him by the invisible wall of the barrier. He smiles and it isn't a pleasant smile, his lips drawing back too wide to show uneasily sharp teeth, a far cry from the teasing smirks he has treated Daichi to before. "So? Who do you need me to get rid of?"