Chapter 3

There was no other place I'd seen in my life more ethereal. Stepping out into it, I imagined breaching some sort of spiritual barrier or even into an extra-terrestrial space. The sensation was so consuming that I almost found myself gagging for air, its chill the only reminder that it was still there, like someone running the flat edge of a razor down my arm.

The landscape was just… hills.

Hills, rolled and curved by human hand, strewn with hundreds upon hundreds of white crosses. Each of them was uniform: the shape, height and width cut to exact specifications, precise distances apart, their only defining features were to what extent they had been worn by time and the elements. Any markings on them were minimal and clean, impossible to perceive at a glance. The earth had been overturned so many times that nary a flower had been able to sprout in between them.

"So… you really came. Not sure how I should feel about that."

Once the taxi had pulled away, his rough voice snatched our attention. Easily recognisable in this environment as the only other person for as far as the eye could see, Kishibe started to stagger toward us. I grimaced upon seeing the flask once again in his hand, even in a place like this.

"I'll take it you came here because you want to become Devil Hunters, not for a nice catch up."

Sasaki chewed the inside of her cheek and nodded, but I remained still, purveying my surroundings and following Kishibe, whose silhouette protruded into the grey sky.

"Here you are, then. This is it."

"Here? As in… where we are right now?"

"Yeah, here. I'll run the interview here." An uncharacteristic smirk flashed upon his chapped lips. "You must have wanted me to take you to where they all start out, is that it? Well, I thought I'd do that by showing you where they all end up, first."

"These are all…?" began Sasaki.

"Right. Public Safety cemetery for a reason," cut in Kishibe. "Every single one of those white crosses was once just like you. Brimming with sickening energy and blinding youth. Eager to get their hands dirty."

"Is this a test…?" I asked.

"Test? Of sorts, but not one I planned. This is just normal for me, I conduct all my meetings here. Cafes, restaurants and bars just aren't my scene. I've been around a while. Became the best there is, some say. But even I need a place that reminds me just what happens to anyone in this job that gets too cocky. Kind of me to do the same for my disciples, don't you think?"

Sasaki looked like she was about to vomit again, and I propped her up, rubbing her back. I cast a glare at Kishibe as if this were in any way his fault, but I knew it wasn't, and had nothing to explain why I was so defensive of Sasaki, either. When she was stable again, he continued.

"I'll keep the interview short. I hate bureaucracy. But you know what I do like? Booze. Booze and women. Booze, women, and killing devils. Just so happened that this job was perfect for a guy like me. So, I want to know: what is it that you want? What is it that gets you out of bed in the morning, no matter how much shit life throws at you? If it's also killing devils, then I have no reason to turn you down."

"I'll become a Devil Hunter."

"A… Devil Hunter?"

"Yeah… weird, right?" She tilted her head up at me as she asked, seeming like she wanted permission or confirmation of some kind. Crouched down beside the devil's single remaining piece, I couldn't help but be reminded of a child in the park playing with a ball. "If I wait any longer to decide this, I think all my adrenaline will flood away and I'll go back to my regular school life out of habit. But I don't want that anymore. I want to feel this kind of rush every day. I want it to mean something."

The hands she held the sledge hammer with this time were still jittery, but this time it appeared with a level of intent and drive behind it, and there was no sign of it being unsteady, her fingers wrapped tight around the handle.

"The old guy you saw at the hospital… did he have a scar on his cheek?" I asked.

"Yes, he did. Why do you ask?"

I didn't know if telling her would curse or free her, but at the time, all I could think about was letting Sasaki get what she wanted.

"When he found me, he told me I could meet him at the Public Safety graveyard if I were interested in being a hunter."

"...Where's that?"

"Huh? Uh.. I don't actually know," I fumbled, taken aback by how quickly Sasaki leapt to questioning. There was no digging into how or why, she took what I told her and immediately moved on.

"Hm… first thing tomorrow morning. Let's get a taxi. Taxi drivers must know where it is."

"Wait… you want me to come?"

"Why not? Also, it was you he mentioned it to, and we both contributed to defeating the devil. It wouldn't make sense for me to go without you."

Even in this state, Sasaki's rhetoric was tough to wiggle out of. Yet, this time it was laced with a little more certainty.

"...What time tomorrow morning?"

"Uhh…"

I set my alarm for 6:30 am. It was beyond me why Sasaki would want to go that early, but I relaxed by appreciating that it gave me something to do. Keeping myself busy was exactly what I wanted to do right now.

With nowhere else to go, I was able to pay for a night in a three-star hotel room on the outskirts of Tokyo with the money that Kishibe provided me, slipping the bills to the lady at the reception desk with the tact and appearance of someone two years older than me, or at least, the way I perceived someone two years older than me might act. You know, gloomy expressions, short answers, a mind constantly aware of where you might be next rather than where you are.

The room itself was snug but unexpectedly spacious, but only because the only hotels I'd stayed in before then were four-star or higher, much to my father's insistence. At least one quarter of the space was taken up by a wooden unit pushed up against the left wall, upon which sat a lonely CRT television set in the centre, a tea set with two upturned glasses lingering above it on a raised section to the left, and, for some reason, a spray bottle and a roll of toilet paper on the right section, probably left behind by the cleaner. Part of me had wanted to spend more of the money on a fancier hotel out of habit, but I had no idea for how much longer I'd have this kind of money, so I started by going down just one star. See if I like it, maybe go down to two stars next. Then to one star. Maybe.

You know, let's take a rain check on that.

Taking a seat on the plain, puffy single bed, I tugged off my remaining shoe. Inspecting it in my hands, the purple blood art had now dried into the upper of the shoe, in a way that, to anyone else, would like I had gone out of my way to customise it. The more I looked at it, the more I wanted to chuckle, if not just from the sheer absurdity of seeing shoes that had been white for so long finally have some colour on them. In the bathroom, I struggled to wash the blood that had also dried on my hands, scrubbing the webbing between my fingers and under my nails with gallons of soap that splattered out of the cheap plastic dispenser. What is even in this stuff? I'm tempted to ask a devil biologist…

The scent of soap mingled with the acidic stench of devil's blood, leading me to clamber up on the sink and crack open the small hinged window above it to let some air in.

After what felt like an hour of vigorous cleansing, I gave up, residue still sticking in the folds of my palms. Next best thing is to take a shower, I thought. Slipping out of my school uniform, I glanced around for somewhere to store them, but no basket or table that could fit them all came into view. So, with a gradually diminishing worry, I plopped them on the floor beside the shower mat. It's a hotel, I thought. The floor wouldn't be dirty before I got here.

I was about to step in the cubicle shower when I noticed a mirror on the wall beside the sink. For some reason, it was a full length mirror, reflecting everything from my head to toe back at me. Something inside me, an indescribable nothing, pushed me toward the mirror, and to satisfy it, I looked back at the reflection. Standing there was a scrawny young girl, uncovered, unhidden. Her body was delicate and bony. The blemished patches of skin burned on the glass. Hair, black and shiny, full as it flowed down her back and past her shoulders, was beginning to melt with encroaching sweat. Even the bangs that traced my eyebrows and framed her face started to show gaps in their stalwart and previously upkept straightness, with rebellious flecks jutting out.

I sighed and poked at myself, watching my fingers sink into my skin, circling around my supple cheekbones.

Was this really all I was underneath? I couldn't accept it.

After a long, hot shower, I scooped up one of the towels from the rack and hung it around my neck, shuffling it to slow the dripping. I once again caught myself in the mirror, sullen and sodden. I didn't feel the least bit cleaner. Instead, I felt an invisible dirt begin to build up around me, one that would stay no matter how many times I washed and dried myself.

In a white room bathed in a honeyed orange light peeking from under the half-shut blinds, I only had the strength to slip into my underwear before collapsing in bed, curled up in a foetal position atop the sheets. Whether or not my unwillingness to get inside was because of my fatigue, or because I didn't want to mess up the bed, I couldn't say. I would only be staying here for one night, after all.

I asked Sasaki to meet me just outside the hotel that morning. I didn't want to have to walk anywhere else, having the meeting place right outside meant I could stay in bed a little longer. Even with that, though, the morning rays had to try their best to wrench my eyelids open as they blazed through the gap in the curtains and assaulted me in tandem with the blaring of the alarm clock.

She was already waiting for me by the time I had pulled myself together, tidied the room and packed my things. Only once I'd returned my keys at the front desk did I realise I'd made a mistake in setting my alarm to wake up for 6:30 am, which was actually the meeting time.

Outside, a short walk to where the taxi would come to pick us up, it took me a few seconds to actually confirm it was her. She had arrived dressed in a button-down shirt that was clearly too baggy for her, and a pair of slacks, both of which, in her words, she had 'borrowed' from her dad's closet. There was also evidence of an attempt at combing her hair

"Are… you sure it's a good idea to keep wearing that?" she questioned, pointing to me.

"No 'Good morning?'"

"I- well, sure, sorry, good morning, but… your clothes?"

"I haven't got any others. What, too good for the student look now?"

"It's not that, per se, I mean… look, just turn around a second."

I turned on the spot until she told me to stop, and my back was facing her.

"There's a footprint on your back."

"A footprint?"

"Y-Yes."

"A human one?"

"It looks like it," she pondered.

I stretched my arm down my back, fidgeting to reach it. I was just able to touch it. It was wet.

Oh…I had stepped on it when I walked out of the shower.

"You did what?" spluttered Sasaki when I regretfully explained it to her.

"Hey, give me a break, it was a long day," I pouted.

"Sure." She gleamed a smile back at me. "Footprint or no, though, we have to make a good impression today. Is that really all you have to wear?"

"Yep."

She reached into a messenger bag that she had slung by her waist.

"Well…" she hummed, rooting through its contents. "I did bring spares in case mine got covered in blood. Would you, uh, like to wear those?"

I ducked back inside the hotel and used their bathroom to change, carrying the spare clothes in a bundle. When I saw the back of my sailor uniform, stripped from my back, there was, as she had said, a footprint there, dried in a mixture of purple blood and a faint grey stain where it was still damp. Oh well, looks like it's already dirty now, I told myself, tossing it on the floor, and I finished wrestling my way into the new set of a zip jacket, high waisted trousers with a belt and wide legs, and a tank top. I envisioned my father's disgust as clearly as the air tickling at the back of my neck.

When I walked back outside, Sasaki was already waiting by the door of the taxi. Her first reaction to seeing me was concern, but as she scanned me, she released a soundless, amused sniffle. A raw, soft blush arrested the crest of her cheeks.

"Yeah, yeah… you look great, Reika. Like you're ready to go."

I flashed something akin to a smile back at her.

"You bet I am," I responded, dripping with a sarcasm I'd never dressed my words in before.

"Where did you put your school uniform?"

"I left it in the bathroom. We're in a hurry, right?"

"I mean, it's okay. I can ask the driver to wait a second."

"...It's alright. I don't really feel like I need it anymore."

It was the first day that we were both skipping classes, but neither of us saw any need to mention it.

"The… uh… Public Safety cemetery, please?"

Sasaki shook with uncertainty, but the prim taxi driver's nod put her at ease, and she nodded in turn, nostrils flaring. We both made our way into the back, our tatty appearance almost an offence to the clean suede seats.

We were overcome with tension for the first few minutes of the ride, and Sasaki tapped a nonsensical tune into the wood of her mallet's handle, which lay on her lap. As if telepathically aware of the mental state of his passengers, or just out of habit, the driver switched on the radio to a music station. Its tone saturating between our ears as it grew in volume, the song forced the silence to squeeze its way out through the gaps in the windows, a salty-sweet, synthpop symbiosis of female vocals taking its place. Its notes floated and swayed in unison with the trees that dashed past in hushed dances under the blue glow of the city above, until the popping and prickling of the urban atmosphere was canned, stored only in the vibrations pulsing from the speakers, and the taxi swerved away from metropolis.

Sasaki was fidgeting all the while still, but not in embarrassment this time, at least, as far as I could tell.

"I-Is that…" she began quietly, then swallowed her sentence. A moment later, she raised her voice: "Is that… Samishii Nettaigyo?".

"Indeed it is, miss," replied the driver.

"Could you perhaps… turn it up for me?"

"Gladly."

The driver turned the dial and the speakers bulged into a steady, rhythmic thump, their prickle spreading to Sasaki's skin as she started to shiver.

"What's the matter?" I wondered.

"Oh?" She blushed, lowering her head, but continued to talk. "Uh… to be honest, I've never asked that before. It always felt rude. But, well, I heard this song a few days ago, on the way to school before we fought that devil. I didn't think much about it at the time, but…I really liked it. It just hit me. Like I'd discovered some new way to put what I was thinking into sound." She lifted her head a little. "I'd liked the same artists for a long time, always listened to the same songs, wore out my records and cassettes… but this… this was new."

I let her words stew for a moment, then pickled a response in my brain.

"They're popular, right? I think I hear people in class talking about them. 'Sachiko or Shoko, which one am I more like?' Things like that."

"Don't laugh, and I know it's not comparable, but… do you think I could be like them?"

"It might be a big ask to be like both of them," I joked.

"I know, I know, but… nevermind."

Before long, heralded by the thinning of trees on the horizon until there was nothing but the distant glow of dawn sky outside, we arrived at the grave site.

"What I want?"

"Your motivation. How you'd get by in this job. Weak will is a devil's favourite meal. A cousin to fear."

Sasaki glanced back toward the direction of the taxi, which had long since driven away.

"One thing you should know about Public Safety is that you don't get your pick of the devils," he grumbled, swigging from his flash as usual. "You want that, you go Private. In the mood for a puny devil and don't mind the shitty returns? Go for it. But in Public Safety, we exist precisely because there are devils out there that even professionals can't handle. 'Cept we haven't got the option to turn tail and run when those cases come up, 'cause we got people that we answer to other than ourselves. So, don't take your time about what you're here for. Make up your mind quick, or get someone to do it for you, I don't care. Get yourself in shape mentally and physically even if it tears you apart. Otherwise…" He shifts his arm out to the hills, the sleeve of his trench coat blustering above the graves below. "Yeah."

The essence of morning fought to burst forth from the ground, but remained trapped. As if, here, everything lived in perpetual evening, never quite able to end or begin.

Buried beneath the silence there was a tapping. Muted, imperfect, but measured. Following the sound to its source, I saw Sasaki's foot moving up and down, in time with something I couldn't hear. The more she did this, the more her posture straightened.

"I'll still do it," she declared.

"You sure?"

"...Certain."

"You better be. And you, kid?" He turned to acknowledge me.

"I…"

"I didn't defeat that devil alone," Sasaki interrupted. "Maybe we're meant to do this. You said you have nowhere to go. I'm leaving a lot of things behind too. Perhaps this is where we're meant to go. You coming with me… or what?"

Her newfound confidence struck a nerve with me. She said all of this to me with her gaze fixed straight behind her, but not on anything in particular. Just behind. Or, from her perspective, ahead.

…Devil Hunter. You really had to go with that, Sasaki. Not a lawyer or a tennis player. Not something easy, oh no.

"The more people, the better. People who can handle themselves against devils are in short supply nowadays," retorted Kishibe.

Sasaki beamed for a moment.

"But… I'm not just going to let you cosy in already," he continued, liquid dripping from the flask's opening. "Need to find you a beginner assignment. Hold on…"

He rifled around in his coat pocket and pulled out a crumpled handful of papers. Perusing them, and even dropping some which fell and floated away with the wind, he mumbled to himself.

"Right, this'll do, pretty important one too, direct order from Makima," he then said, mumbling complete. "Nothing like getting yourself some cred straight out the gate."

He extended the sheet of paper to us, which, under all the creases, appeared to be what was called a Devil Incident Report.

"Public Safety needs to re-apprehend this one. Pretty embarrassin' for us if the public learns we caused this slip-up, so it's an open assignment to anyone so long as we keep our mouths shut if the media catch a whiff of the news. No pressure to kill it either, we actually want this one alive. An 'asset' is what they call this kind of devil. (Fuckin' asset they say… any living devil is a waste of breath…) Ahem… You'll have some backup too. There'll be a lot of bowing involved for me if you mess this up, and I'm not in the mood for that."

"Which one is it?" inquired Sasaki eagerly. "Which devil?"

"The Punishment Devil."