Tachibana Canteen, Nerima West Building.
Denji and Power were leaning back, their legs propped up as they aggressively wolfed down bowls of udon noodles.
As a fellow Devil Hunter from Special Division 4, Kobeni had also made her way here. Virtually the entire division was gathered in this single diner. Yet, Kobeni's face was taut with anxiety; she sat rigid in her seat, casting uneasy glances left and right.
Mr. Demon said the attack would happen today. I wonder when it's going to strike, she couldn't help but worry.
Looking around, every corner of the canteen seemed entirely ordinary.
I really don't want Miss Himeno to die in the line of duty. She might be a bit loud and boisterous, but she's genuinely a kind-hearted senior.
Distracted, Kobeni withdrew her gaze and stared down at her own slender, pale hands.
Gravity.
That was Mr. Demon's power. She could now channel a fraction of his might, and while she was still far from proficient, she absolutely refused to let him down. She was still counting on Mr. Demon to make her filthy rich in the future, after all.
"Ah, humans really are inherently greedy creatures!" Kobeni clutched her head, looking utterly tortured on the outside while secretly giggling like an idiot on the inside.
Just then, a man wearing a heavy overcoat who had been sitting quietly nearby suddenly extended his hand toward Denji, muttering nonsense that no one else could understand. He held a photograph in his grasp. The face in the picture caused Denji's expression to instantly twist into shock.
It was an old man, the absolute scumbag of a mob boss who had saddled him with loans and later tried to have him slaughtered.
"My grandpa was actually a really sweet old gangster, you know. Sure, he trafficked drugs, kidnapped people, and ran extortion rackets, but he rarely ever killed women or kids. And he used the money he made to buy me whatever I wanted..."
The man rambled on, his voice dropping, "Hey, Denji? But you went and killed him, didn't you?"
Denji stood up, taking a sharp step back. The man in the overcoat was here for blood.
The moment the words left his mouth, the man drew a handgun from his coat with lightning speed and opened fire.
The situation erupted violently; everything happened far too fast.
His primary target was Denji. A bullet tore through the air, detonating in a spray of blood right against Denji's skull.
Aki Hayakawa and Himeno reacted instantly, but the man was already firing wildly at them. A round tore into Himeno's shoulder, while Power began bolting back and forth across the canteen like a panicked animal.
"Enemy attack!"
Snapping out of her shock, Kobeni thrust her hand out toward the gunman, tendrils of celestial Moon Demon Chi instantly coiling around her arm.
In that exact same split second, Aki formed a hand sign, pointing his fingers directly at the assailant as he bellowed, "Kon!"
The ground violently shuddered. A gargantuan, monstrous fox head manifested into reality, snapping its jaws shut and swallowing half the canteen, including the gunman, whole.
This was Aki's contracted entity, the Fox Devil, a popular partner for many Devil Hunters. However, the Fox Devil was notoriously vain; only handsome men deemed worthy by its standards were permitted to summon the power of its head.
Choking clouds of dust billowed outward as the building began to structurally fail. Kobeni dove through the debris, dragging Himeno out to an open, cleared space.
"Miss Himeno!" she cried out, her face pale with dread as she stared at the blooming crimson stain on the older woman's shoulder.
In a matter of seconds, the situation had completely fallen apart. Himeno was wounded, and Denji had taken a bullet straight to the brain. The only ones left capable of fighting were Aki, Power, and Kobeni herself.
"Kobeni, look after Himeno!" Aki commanded, scanning their collapsing perimeter.
Having swallowed the enemy, the Fox Devil hovered silently in mid-air, but a sudden flash of raw panic flared within its massive eyes.
"Hey, Aki," its deep, rumbling voice echoed. "Something absolutely horrific just got into my mouth. It isn't a human... and it isn't a devil..."
The next instant, a blinding, crimson light erupted from within its monstrous skull. A massive katana sliced upward, splitting the head clean in two from the inside out as a devastating shockwave blasted in all directions.
Stepping out from the geyser of blood was a humanoid figure clad in a military greatcoat. Three massive katana blades extended directly from his head and arms, and a scorching blast of steam hissed from his exposed, metallic jaw.
It was the Katana Man!
The moment he appeared, he lunged straight for Aki. With the Fox Devil taken out of commission instantly, Aki had no choice but to draw his own sword to parry the onslaught.
The Katana Man's presence was suffocating, his razor-sharp killing intent sweeping across the ruins.
"The Gun Devil needs that guy's heart," he muttered, glancing toward Denji's limp body buried under the rubble.
As the Chainsaw Man, even a bullet to the brain wasn't fatal; so long as someone pulled the starter cord on his chest, he would resurrect. In the blink of an eye, the Katana Man engaged Aki in a brutal, high-speed clash of blades.
On the other side of the clearing, Kobeni was desperately trying to stem Himeno's bleeding.
She attempted to channel a small stream of the Moon Demon Qi, pressing it firmly against the injury. Remarkably, the moment the dark, cosmic energy cloaked the wound, the hemorrhaging stopped completely.
Himeno struggled to force herself up. "Aki is no match for that fiend."
Suddenly, a flash of bloody light cut through the battlefield.
One second, the Katana Man was crouched incredibly low to the ground, his three blades gleaming with lethal intent. The next second, he vanished into thin air, materializing directly behind Aki.
It was a devastating, ultra-high-speed draw-slash fueled by the Katana Devil. A horrific, deep laceration instantly tore across Aki's torso, spraying blood into the dirt.
"Miss Himeno, don't force yourself!" Kobeni cried, trying to hold back the stubborn woman.
"Ghost!" Himeno snarled, ripping her arm away from Kobeni's grasp to forcefully summon her contracted devil.
Every single member of Special Division 4 knew exactly how deep the short-haired woman's feelings ran for the top-knotted Aki.
"Miss Himeno, you'll die if you do this!" Kobeni finally screamed.
Himeno paused for a fraction of a second. A bittersweet, comforting smile touched her lips as she sighed, "Well, it wouldn't be the worst thing if a guy like Aki shed a few tears for me."
She looked down at Kobeni. "Your contracted devil is far too powerful, but you don't know how to control his strength yet. Leave this to your seniors."
An invisible, crushing force began to coalesce over the battlefield as the unseen Ghost Devil prepared to manifest its full form.
"Ghost, I'll give you everything I have..." Witnessing Aki's mangled state, Himeno resolved to wager her very life.
In that exact moment, Kobeni snapped.
Faced with her utterly unyielding, suicidal senior, she let out a fierce, desperate yell: "Mr. Demon, please stop her!"
Instantly, the Ghost Devil, a monstrosity woven from countless pale limbs and flowers that Himeno was in the middle of summoning, froze completely in mid-air.
An overwhelming, suffocating pressure descended, feeling like a million invisible blades pressing against everyone's spines. Even the Katana Man, who had been on the verge of executing Aki, found his movements grinding to a sudden, heavy halt.
Something terrifying was here, looking down on them.
As their gazes instinctively whipped upward, the pupils of everyone present violently contracted.
Without anyone noticing, a colossal, slender hand, ash-gray with a deathly, pale tint, had completely blotted out the sky, looming heavily over the shattered ruins of the building. Extending past the wrist was the sleeve of a purplish-red Daoist robe. The hand seemed to have manifested directly out of thin air, its owner's true form completely concealed within the fabric of the void.
Beside the Katana Man, a young woman stepped out from the shadows, her face grim.
"Hey, Sawatari," the Katana Man barked nervously, all of his previous bravado evaporating in an instant. "What the hell is that thing? Can your Snake Devil swallow it?"
Akane Sawatari, who possessed a contract with the all-consuming Snake Devil, slowly shook her head. She stared up at the slender, titanic hand hovering above them, her eyes reflecting pure, unadulterated dread.
"We're trapped," she whispered, her voice trembling. "Some monstrous entity has turned this entire place into a closed colosseum."
With a swift flick of her hand, she shed a fingernail as payment. In response, the massive, twisting form of the Snake Devil materialized, thrashing and slamming violently around the perimeter of the battlefield.
Yet, in every single direction, an absolute, invisible barrier completely cordoned off the area.
The colossal, muscular Snake Devil slammed into the air walls until its snout was battered, bloody, and broken. Beneath the shadow of that magnificent, giant hand, the massive devil looked like nothing more than a pathetic, uselessly flailing little earthworm.
————
Want to read ahead of schedule? Head over to my p-atre-on: p-atre-on.c-om/Overgod [Just remove the hyphen to access normally]