Okay, the main concern in all three reviews last chapter was the two Shinjis thing. Rest assured, there is a legitimate line of reasoning that will make sense well after a Revolution. Anything more than that would be a spoiler, and I really couldn't have introduced the second one any later than now, otherwise it would be nearly impossible to explain when this one eventually gets to Tokyo-3 with about a third of the Order of the Sword, as well as everyone he'll pick up next chapter. As for individual reviews:
WiredJunkiee1100: DMC4 did not happen, nor will it happen. In the same way that canon Evangelion won't happen. Both Shinjis are Shinji Ikari, in the same way God was both the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. You certainly shouldn't feel bad about getting a little mixed up with everything, it'd be difficult to understand absolutely everything about this without enough knowledge of MegaTen to earn a degree in it, especially with how many different parts of MegaTen will end up involved in this story. Hell, Dante's had a member of the DDS group with him since DMC 3. Nero is there because I need a few named members of the Order that aren't complete OCs. Gloria is not Trish.
Deep Space Cowgirl: By becoming the new Minato Kuzunoha, Shinji will not need the backing of anyone but Naoto (Raidou) in order to make him immune to the Council law, and attempting force those laws on him anyway would piss off Yatagarasu and the rest of the Japanese Pantheon (Izanagi, Susano-O, Amaterasu, Tsukuyomi...). SEELE may be old and uncomprehending of the true nature of what they're dealing with, but they're smart enough to do what they can to avoid picking a fight with a third nation of demons. And about his Kuzunoha lineage, how do you think Yui was able to acquire the knowledge to make clones of the two beings that the Evas were created from and fuse her soul with one?
Terms used last chapter that some may not be familiar with:
YHVH: This is best summed up by a passage from the book of Exodus. "God spoke to Moses and said unto him, "I am YHVH. I revealed myself to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as God Almighty, and did not allow them to know Me by My name YHVH." Shinji's reference to Him by this name is the most disrespectful of him that he can manage to be without simply ceasing to exist by His Divine Will.
Yeshua: Often considered the original name of Jesus of Nazareth, though Yehoshua is also possible.
Shinji walked down the hall to the ruined point they'd first come in through, Seta and Shirogane at either side. Souji asked, "So, you two are related?"
"Yes."
"Which makes you part Kuzunoha."
"That should be obvious."
"And where are we going?"
"I need to pick up something from my other birthright."
Naoto took over the questioning. "Are you sure it's wise to challenge a Summoner on his level with only a week to recover?"
"If I tried to set a date any further off, it wouldn't have set his title as invalid and we'd have execution orders hanging over our heads."
The group continued until Souji asked, "Why didn't either of you tell the rest of us you were related?"
"I have at least one prophecy and two contracts with demons based on my blood, one contract because of my dick, one prophecy that I got thrown into for being in the wrong place at the right time, and the possibility of making an ally out of one of Sparda's descendants will make most of the demon nations open to negotiations. If I keep racking up contracts and prophecies at the rate I have in the past month, I'm worried I'll end up tearing my soul into more pieces than it's already in just to keep up." He allowed the two a moment to blink while wondering what he meant about his soul being in pieces before continuing, "Acknowledging the human half of my ancestors and any accompanying obligations and prophecies could bring in even more problems." 'Like the clan contract with Yatagarasu.' He pulled at his bangs in such a way as to make his resemblance to his father slightly less noticeable. "Speaking of contracts; Naoto, if you'd be so kind as to let Alice out?"
Naoto's cheeks flushed slightly, she'd nearly forgotten about that. "How did you-"
"Alice and I sealed our contract in blood; you think I wouldn't know that she agreed to be shoved in there to keep SEELE from executing you on the spot?" He reached into her pocket and pulled out the tube he knew contained Alice, snapping it in half to negate Naoto's contract with her.
Alice rolled into a position on the floor to pop her right shoulder back into place, using it to untie her legs and other arm before standing and turning her skull with an audible crack. "Naoto, if we ever get ourselves into a situation where my survival depends on being stuffed into one of your bloody tubes again in order to sell a cover story, kill me."
"Well that's a fine hello." Shinji greeted her.
She looked at her surrogate brother and the only being she'd formed a true contract with for centuries. "Bite me."
"Well aren't you just a pleasure after waking up."
Alice glared at Shinji. "You think I could actually sleep in that damn thing? Why don't we try shoving you in one of those damn tubes and see how well you sleep!"
Naoto shot them both in their feet before they got too distracted.
Alice grimaced as the holes in her shoes and feet closed themselves up.
Shinji fell to the ground. "Damn it Naoto!" He shouted from the ground. "I can't grow back the skin over my thumb; you really think I can fix bullet holes right now?" She didn't answer him. "Seta, you have hundreds of Personae. Naoto, you have a dozen demons on you. One of you has to have a Dia ready."
Naoto pulled out a tube. "Yoshitsune!" The demon came out, shaking its head at what it knew Naoto would ask. Either it didn't have the skill or it didn't have the energy to use it. The Summoner sighed as she returned the demon and began fishing for another tube.
"Seta?"
The persona user was shuffling through his mind. 'Izanagi? No… Norn? No… Ooh, that'll work.' "Cybele!"
The missing pieces of Shinji's feet were restored as he stood. "Naoto?" he asked to be sure he was paying attention to him. "If you shoot me again without being sure that I can regenerate, I'm cutting off your trigger finger."
The group walked on in stunned silence before Naoto answered, "Try it and I'll shoot them off until they stop growing back."
Shinji and Souji both stopped moving as Alice smiled. "Why don't we talk more?"
The two males looked at each other, and an understanding look was passed between them.
They had bonded through their mutual fear.
As that thought entered his mind, Souji half expected time to stop around him as a Tarot card appeared in his mind. To his relief, it didn't happen. 'If I found out I had to bond with him to get any stronger…' He shook at the thought. It wasn't that he didn't like the kid, there were just times when he reminded him a little too much of another psycho he met once. But this psycho was a good one. Not even really evil, just not quite all there sometimes.
Shinji had a different thought. "Where's Rei?"
A door down the hall opened as a naked and sweaty man with long brown hair began trying to crawl out. Something seemed to grab his leg and drag him back into the room as he screamed, clawing at the floor.
Shinji sighed. "I'll go get her."
In ten minutes, Rei was appeased, wearing a NERV tech's shirt, Shigeru Aoba found religion in the form of the young man who saved him from said girl, and the group was on their way again.
As Rei raised her arms to stretch, Souji gained the unnecessary information that, just as the other blue-haired girl he knew, her carpet matched the drapes. 'Rise's gonna kill me for finding that out about a fourteen year old girl.'
They eventually reached the cordoned off area of the base where the Persona Users and Alice had restrained Vergil.
The lone guard posted at the entrance shouted, "Hey! You're not authorized to go in there!"
Naoto and Souji showed fake ids, Rei undid a button on her shirt, and Shinji glared. In retrospect, maybe he shouldn't have looked directly into the poor gibbering lump of flesh's eyes. There were reasons demonic power was filtered out of the sight of humans lacking in Magnetite.
It tended to drive the unprepared insane. It also gave people ideas for freaky-ass stories.
If he woke up, the man would probably go on to create a rather popular manga.
Shinji leaned in and looked at the name-tag. "Fumino Hayashi… Sorry about that, but you really shouldn't have tried to keep me out."
Naoto took a breath to try explaining why he couldn't do things like that before Souji put his hand on her shoulder. "It'll just encourage him." Shinji did seem more apologetic than usual, considering that the guy worked for his Gendo and got in his way while he was in a bad mood. And the man was stupid enough to try and tell the guy who bound NERV's only functional Eva to his will, survived headshots, and generally raped human understanding of biology and physics at every turn where he could and couldn't go. And that was just what he could be expected to know about.
"That doesn't change that he just drove this man insane."
"He's got like four out of five odds of coming out alright." Naoto glared at him. "Well, functional."
Shinji went on ahead of the others as they argued, retrieving what he'd come for and placing it in his coat. He proceeded forward to examine the shaft Vergil had used to break in. 'Every one of the armored plates has a pretty big hole in it thanks to him, but nothing should be able to get in until they fix it thanks to Seta's Grydyne. It pulled the walls near the top too close together for anything but this rain to get through, and the fall straight down would shatter their legs if someone broke through the collapsed section. It should be fine until someone gets around to fixing it.' He looked at the damaged seal on his palm as he tried to perform an Air Trick.
The others came in to see him kneeling on the ground. Rei got there a couple of seconds before Alice. "Are you alright?" It was instinctual for a contracted demon to be concerned about their master; they depended on them for protection in exchange for whatever service they could provide. Without that protection, they were fair game for anyone or anything that could overpower them.
Shinji grumbled as he stood. "I just need some rest."
"Are you sure?" Alice asked.
He looked down and gave her a reassuring smile for Rei's benefit. "Don't worry about it." He was thinking clear, easy to read thoughts as he tapped his temple as a signal for Alice. 'I tried to draw Vergil's power out from the Seal to do an Air Trick. Instead, he started to slip out himself. The seal must have been damaged when it was forced open. It's too dangerous to try drawing out his power.'
Alice was concerned by that. The reason the Seal was still working after all these years was because it was being powered by his own demonic power. He stole everything but his strength and some of his healing from Vergil.
'If I can't draw on Vergil's power anymore because of damage to the seal, I should be able to finally access some of my own power that's been powering it.' He looked at his palm again. 'I have one week to find out what kind of powers I can use that aren't being diverted to keeping Vergil locked up.' "I say we head home, get some rest." Shinji looked at Naoto and Souji. "Was there anyone else that came down here with you guys?"
Souji blinked twice before he took off running to the detainment cells. Once he'd reached them, he opened the doors for his friends' cells.
Yukiko stumbled out of one at the end of the hall, looking disoriented by the sudden light.
Kanji came out of the closest one, slowly, calmly, and cracking his knuckles. "Hey sempai…"
His arm at the ready, he ran through the city at speeds that wouldn't be possible for a human. 'There isn't a single survivor in this city. I've gotta get to Fortuna Castle before it falls.' If the fortress went down, then there would be nothing left to protect the surviving civilians except the walls of the Order's HQ, and they wouldn't last long if they brought out another demon at Seiryu's level.
He arrived at Old Town, an abandoned section of the city at the base of the mountain range. To his left, he saw the remains of a replica of the Hell Gate Sparda had built in the center of Fortuna. He took a quick headcount of the people in front of him, estimating about four hundred men, women, and children; the majority of them were injured in some way or another. Scattered among them, there were maybe half of the twenty-four men and women who had dedicated their lives to learning how to manipulate the magnetite flowing through their bodies to the necessary precision and power to heal others.
He saw Nero standing beside Kyrie as one of the healers tended to his arm. "Kyrie, stop worrying about it. Look, the arm's as good as new!" He lifted his oversized sword with the newly healed limb to prove his point.
"Stop waving that thing around like that, would you! You'll hurt someone." Scolding Nero for being reckless was the only thing keeping Kyrie from worrying about her older brother.
Shinji walked toward the two. "Nero, what's the situation?"
The human correctly interpreted demon's cold tone to mean he couldn't find Credo. "We've got four hundred and twenty-seven survivors total, including eleven of the thirteen healers that were in the city and eighty-three children. We have about twenty Order members capable of fighting."
"And the enemy?" the demon prompted.
"About fifty summoners, each of which likely has at least three low-level demons with them. They don't have any kind of conventional weapons with them though. It's almost like their commanders want us all to kill each other," he mused. It wouldn't be the first time the UN had sent summoners on suicide missions because they'd had something against them. Didn't like the way they looked, thought they might consider turning against them, disagreed with their political association… "As long as we receive assistance from our allies inside, we should win with minimal casualties."
Shinji stared at him with a disappointed look. "Are you an idiot?" Though Nero's willingness to argue against something he couldn't bring himself to support was one of the traits in him Shinji admired, he wasn't given the time to make an argument to defend himself as the demon continued. "You just said that they probably wanted us to wipe each other out, and here you are suggesting that we go with a plan that could get our people killed. Did you forget who the Hell I am!"
Nero was taken aback by the anger in his voice. "O-of course not!" He protested. "It's just that you just took down one of the Ssu-Ling, and several other summoners and their demons. I didn't know if you were still going to be able to fight at your best."
Shinji smirked at the answer he'd received. "I'm the only one that needs to be concerned over my physical condition. And besides," his smirk had changed into a genuine smile. "How could I expect anyone to follow me if I were unwilling to lead them into battle?"
After walking through the streets for about five minutes, Shinji's temper broke. Blame it on being the last thing to go wrong for him in a long and shitty day, part of him enjoying a big fight while he did nothing, or just a great personal dislike of being soaking wet outside of a shower, hot spring, or bed.
He looked up into the sky and shouted, "WHY THE HELL IS IT RAINING LIKE THIS!" before his mouth began to fill with rain, forcing him to look down. "There wasn't a damn cloud in the sky this morning, now it's raining too heavily to look up without risking drowning," he muttered. "And why the HELL are we out here?" He spun around with an accusing finger aimed at Naoto. "I don't care how shaken up he says he is, get the damn car out!"
The soaked woman pulled out the silver tube as she sighed. "Oboroguruma." Green light flowed from the tube, condensing on the street in the shape of a rather old automobile. Despite the car's protests of exhaustion, the group piled in, leaving it with no relief save that there weren't as many as last time. It's not like the poor thing was even having to do much work; with Naoto actually driving him, it was as close to being carried as a being with wheels could be without leaving the ground.
Of course, perfectly matching the rest of the day, there was a woman with a microphone standing beside a man with a camera over his shoulder when they arrived waiting right beside the door to the building Shinji was setting up as a base. Upon seeing the woman and recognizing her for what she was, Naoto had to resist the urge to slam her head against the wheel before her. Such an act would be juvenile, and unbefitting someone of her position.
The sound of the Oboroguruma's horn was heard through the street until Souji pulled her head back.
Shinji prayed to his grandfather, Izanagi, himself, and even offered a small prayer to Athena in hope that it might give him a bit of leeway should he ever encounter her. It wouldn't be a good idea to irritate the Goddess of Wisdom.
The woman came over.
Shinji's head dropped as he realized his prayers wouldn't be answered.
He was about to have to deal with the one thing he despised more than arrogant gods who disrespected their worshippers.
A reporter.
The microphone was in his face before Rei or Alice had left the interior of the demon. "Shoji Kurosaki, Jiji Press." It was oh so tempting to just kill her. "According to my sources, you have some knowledge of what happened here today." Shinji just shoved her out of his way and proceeded toward his door. The woman was unperturbed. "The people have a right to know!"
Ah, how he hated that line. "And I have a right to my privacy." Seeing the woman preparing to spout off some form of tirade he had no interest in hearing, he looked directly into another human being's eyes for the second time that day. However, it was with far less malice than the last one, causing a more hypnotic effect than mind breaking. "Leave this city. Never question the incident that occurred today. And most importantly, forget that you ever had even the slightest suspicion that I had any information that anyone might see as relevant."
The woman would have stood in place for hours after the group entered the building before moving had her cameraman not shaken her out of the trance she'd fallen into. Shoji calmly took the camera from the man's hands, placed it in the van, and drove straight to Tokyo-2 without looking back.
The poor, unnamed man ran like hell.
Nero rolled out of the way as a tree rose out of the snowy ground he was standing on, ducking behind the ruins of a stone wall. He reached to the holster hidden by his coat, withdrawing a six shot revolver, and blew out the brains of the summoner commanding the pair of Kodama that had been plaguing him. The forest spirits were snapped back into the pair of silver tubes in the dead man's belt as a part of the failsafe.
'The bastards have it set up so they can't get free even if their masters die. What happens to the one's they don't find the tubes of?' Nero abandoned that train of thought as a fireball slammed into the stone beside his head. No time to muse over the fates of those demons while an Ukobach was chucking fire at him from a spoon.
Shinji smirked as a bullet narrowly missed his ear, instead going into the stomach of the young man to his left. Most members of the Order looked down on firearms, mainly because they were nearly impossible to use effectively against demons. But in a battle against summoners, they were far more effective than cutting pieces off the demons until they stopped growing back.
Shinji broke from his straight line of destruction as he dived at the injured man, destroying him as electricity flowed from his right palm into the man's neck. Poor guy was probably barely even in his twenties. He ducked beneath the swing of a Nekomata's claw and found himself narrowly avoiding a decapitation by a sword from behind.
The sword user was obscured from his view as he dodged a stream of flame coming from the cat-woman hybrid, which raised a wall of steam between him and the summoner. Though he knew the Nekomata was setting up some kind of trap, he couldn't risk taking his eyes off it, as evidenced by the blast of wind fired from the demon's open paw. As he spun out of the way, he saw a shadow moving behind the disturbed wall of steam right before a two-headed lion bound toward him, flames spewing from both mouths.
Shinji ducked beneath the steady streams, slamming his right hand between the two heads of the Orthrus as ice began to spread over it. His eyes widened in shock as the demon collapsed into a glowing sphere that flew away, tracing it to a black gauntlet on a rapier wielding woman's right arm. In a moment, he took in the full image of her.
She had short brown hair, dark skin indicative of either an oriental descent or a nice tan, though her eyes were covered by grey goggles that seemed to be connected by wires to the grey terminal attached to the strange glove on her left arm. She was obviously better at manipulating her Magnetite than the average summoner, indicated by the extremely light clothing option of jeans and a t-shirt while on a snowy mountain. The confident air she carried herself with gave the impression that she was familiar with demonic battles.
The woman charged with her thin blade raised, stabbing quickly enough to force Shinji to fall back while avoiding her blows, actually having his neck grazed in two separate stabs. 'She's almost as fast as I am!' he realized as he tried to distract her by raising spikes of ice out of the snow between them. A gust of wind from his right hand sent the stream of fire back at the Nekomata back at it, forcing the woman to return the demon to the weird thing on her arm in the same way as her Orthrus. "That's a nice trick…" The panting demon complimented. "You don't use the normal kuda, do you?" This woman was… interesting. As was the thing on her arm.
The woman relaxed her grip on her sword and held one finger over a button on the strange terminal. "No, I don't. I picked this thing up in Hell." Or at least something very close to it.
"That so? I'd heard rumors of a demon summoning program, but this is the first time I've ever seen it in use." 'Just keep her talking. She's probably their leader, and even if she isn't, that thing is worth playing nice for. Hell, I can always use someone with her skill.'
The woman smirked. "That isn't all this COMP can do." Her left hand opened, palm facing Shinji, as she pushed a single button. "Megidola."
The destructive sphere flew from her hand with the speed of a gunshot, just barely giving Shinji the time to brace his right arm against it, a layer of demonic power over his Devil Bringer the only thing keeping the arm from being destroyed. With an audible grunt betraying the strain he was under, he knocked the Megidola into the sky, where it shouldn't cause any trouble unless a plane suddenly flew over. The exertion necessary to accomplish that had been enough to soak Shinji in his own sweat. "Nice… very nice…" There were thousands of demons that wouldn't have been able to fire off something like that and stay standing.
Unfortunately for the summoner, her human body wasn't quite up to the standards of demons using that spell. The force behind it had put a severe strain on her arm, and it had really been a last resort. Trying to use it again could break every bone in her arm, if not kill her from the sheer strain the attack had on her Magnetite reserves. But still… she had her mission, and the thing standing before her was the main target. However, she was shocked by the question he asked her.
"Why are you fighting for the UN?"
"Why shouldn't I?" she answered. "If it weren't for their coordination, rogue summoners would have killed millions in the Resource Wars!" Though it was a legitimate explanation, even true to an extent, there was a slight trace of doubt in her voice.
Shinji scoffed at the answer he'd received. "Yeah, and Stalin fought the Nazis. Doesn't mean he's the kind of guy you should be swearing loyalty to." He saw the anger starting show on the uncovered portion of her face. He also noted that they were they only two still fighting. "You do know that they sent you here to die, right? Did they even give you a reason to lead these summoners to assault a small, peaceful town?"
The woman pushed the button on her COMP again. "Because you're a bunch of damn cultists," she spat out. There was a thin but steady trickle of blood flowing out her left ear.
'She doesn't even know who they ordered her to attack. I can tell she doesn't approve of how things were going down in the city, but she still let it happen. They must have some kind of leverage.' He had no more time for thought as he ran forward, slamming his demonic fist into the glowing sphere before the woman could fire it. The two screamed in harmony as the force of the spell began to send cracks running along the nigh-indestructible scales covering Shinji's right arm and grinding the bones of the summoner's left arm into a fine powder.
Souji was roused from his position on the couch by a buzzing against his crotch. It took him a good thirty seconds to realize it was his phone, and another fifteen to pull it out and answer it. "What is it?" 'Who's the idiot that wants me to hunt down, make into a block of ice, then strengthen gravity around until they're slowly chipped down to dust?'
"Damn, you're certainly grouchy today." Why was Yosuke calling?
"Why are you calling me at…" 'What time is it?' He started looking around before he realized he wasn't in his bedroom. Or a hotel room. Or the spare room at the Dojima's. He checked the clock on his phone. "Two in the afternoon?"
"I just thought you'd want to know that we found Rise and Teddie, and we slept at that kid's place. Where should we meet up?"
Souji smiled at the good news. "I guess here's as good a place as any. There's enough room to fit a couple dozen people anyway." He gave Yosuke directions to the street. "Trust me, you'll know which one it is."
"How?"
"Because of the giant blue neon rose above the door."
"… You're kidding me, right?"
"Nope."
"We'll be there in an hour."
"Got it." He hung up. "Where the hell's the kitchen?" He stumbled through the ground floor until his feet hit tile. Looking around, he found himself distracted from his quest for food by Rei's bare chest. He mustered all his willpower and met her red eyes.
She stared back with a glint of mischief in them.
"Why are you naked?"
She put her finger on her lip as she pretended to think about her response. "Why not?"
It was too early in the morning to try and argue against such amazing logic. "Touché. Where're the others?"
"Alice and the Master are downstairs practicing. Naoto-san went to get food."
The more important of the two questions warring with each other in Souji's head won out. "Food?"
In Berlin-2, an unshaven man took a drag from his cigarette as he sat before his computer. "Kids these days, no sense of discretion at all."
He read the text that appeared on the screen without any prompting on his part.
"Yeah, go ahead. Couldn't be a good thing if this gets out." The man ran his free hand through his brown hair. "Little bastard better appreciate this."
Yosuke began, "This is just… weird."
Chie whacked him in the head. "You don't get to say anything is weird until the chicken bone comes out from behind your ear."
The group of Persona Users plus Rei looked at Yosuke and confirmed that, yes, the bone from his chicken leg had at some point been tucked behind his ear like a pencil. A slight giggle could be heard.
Souji's palm hit his forehead. "And now we've lost Yukiko."
Kanji was the first to actually address Yosuke's comment seriously. "Which part is weird? The bit about the kid here," he gestured at the still naked Rei, "being cloned from the other kid's mom and some major lust demon, that demon being locked under NERV to keep it away from God, or the part where we live or die based on the outcome of a fight between a fourteen year old boy and his grandfather?"
Yosuke sighed. "I was talking about the part where the media hasn't had a word to say about thousands of demons running through the streets, killing thousands of people, only for them to come back to life last night." The attention of everyone in the room was focused on him. "Am I the only one who checked the news today?" The way the others were looking at him told him that he was.
Naoto was the one speak up about it. "It's obvious that someone in the know has the contacts to manage to completely remove any visual evidence of the demons. Without proof, even the people themselves may eventually be convinced that there was some kind of hallucination induced by the NERV acknowledged Angels. As much as I'd like to find out who did this and why, there are more pressing concerns at the moment."
Teddie was the one to bring up the next subject. "You mean like what we're going to do with that Aida kid?"
"I guess it's as good a place to start as any." Rise answered.
Kanji gave a surprisingly callous answer. "I say we go take his computer thing and let him think he dreamed it all."
"The kid's smart, Kanji-kun. It'd only be temporary at best."
Chie'd been all for Kanji's idea until it was ruined with logic. "I guess you're right Yukiko."
"As long as he can keep his mouth shut for a week, we can leave him." The others looked at Souji with shock. "If Shinji wins in a week, he can deal with the kid personally. If not, then it won't really matter to us, now will it?" He sat with a satisfied look on his face until Rise got behind him with the lamp. "OW!"
"You're just being lazy and trying to pawn it off onto someone else!"
Souji rubbed the spot the metal pole hit his head. "So what? It's not like I'm trying to stick it with any of you."
Everyone present in the room ceased their objections. Kanji, Yosuke, and Teddie all simultaneously declared their support for Souji's idea, which met the agreement of everyone else in the room.
"Alright, now that that's settled, we should see what our chances of surviving to the end of the month are." Souji turned to Rei, who's nudity was slowly becoming easier to ignore. "You said those two were in the basement?"
Rei and the Persona Users arrived to see Shinji and Alice apparently doing all they could to kill each other. A steady stream of blue fire came from Shinji's palm, but Alice just ducked beneath it and ran her hand across his stomach. Shinji collapsed on the ground as his flames sputtered out, but Alice seemed quite refreshed from the assault.
As Rei went to check on Shinji, Souji couldn't help but give an impressed whistle as he asked Alice, "What the hell was that?"
The little girl gave a far too innocent smile for anyone's comfort. "That's just a little trick I like to call my Death Touch. If I can get my hands on my enemy, I can drain their own power and use it to heal myself."
Souji looked at the sweaty and bloody teenager before sighing to himself. 'We're screwed.'
Devil Survivor reporter sent to Tokyo-2? Check.
Two additional unnamed characters of some signifigance? Check. Anyone care to guess who they are?