Higuruma's corpse slumped against the alley wall. The lawyer best at lying, not to any other human, but to himself, was finally still. A man who had never lied to anyone except the one person who mattered the most, himself.
A chill stirred through the alley, carrying the metallic tang of blood, something evil. Shadows twisted unnaturally. A presence manifested, impossible and wrong. A devil.
No. Not just any devil.
The Judgment Devil.
Perhaps it was a cosmic joke.
The Judgment Devil itself descending on a human lawyer. Perfectly. Impeccably. Irony dripped from the walls like wet paint.
The devil approached. Its form could not be described in human terms. A limb extended. Not an arm for it had no hand nor elbow. It wasnt a leg either for it had no foot or knee. Just a twisting, writhing appendage moving with intent.
It touched the corpse.
It fused. Slowly at first, then violently. Shadow and sinew intertwined with flesh and bone. The corpse convulsed as darkness poured into it. The devil had assimilated the body. No longer merely a devil for it had become a fiend.
As it began to rise from the ground it grinned with the face of the lawyer that lied himself to believe in the world.
And then it stumbled.
"Why… why does it resist me?" it hissed, voice trembling with centuries of authority.
The realization struck, like a strike from a gaval. It wasn't the body. It was… itself?
The Judgment Devil, by nature, holds dominion over the concept of judgment. Not justice, that is merely one way judgment manifests, but judgment itself. Judgment exists everywhere. In humans, in courts, in the world, in death. Every act, every choice, every consequence is a form of judgment. And yet… dominion does not grant immunity.
The devil had been judged.
By the concept it embodied. By judgment itself. And it had been judged less suitable to bare dominan of judgment than a human.
Higuruma, the human lawyer, the man that believed in his own lie.
He had been found more suitable to bear the mantle of judgment than the judgment fiend itself. The irony was absolute. The devil had claimed the corpse, assimilated it, never in it wildest imagination had it thought something like this would happen, but in that very moment, its power, the essence of judgment it served, passed verdict. Less worthy.
The fiend convulsed, twisting in shapes unnatural to flesh. Its power, infinite in theory, faltered. Dominion that should bend the world bent against itself. Tremors ran through it and unfamiliar impossible feelings ran trough it. The feeling of a part of yourself being torn out and given to another. The alley fell silent, save for the faint rustle of the wind and the drip of blood onto the grimy asphalt. Higuruma's corpse sagged onto a wall was still, all his muscles and all his organs. But against the all common sense a heart started beating. At first it was just a twitch but as time passed it became stronger. Intill it eventually sounded like it had life again.