Akane tilted her head as she looked at the young man across from her. He seemed bored out of his mind or like he was trying to think about something too hard. Kimo was usually always outgoing and talkative, but today he seemed lost in thought.

"Hey so I was thinking… What if we went to my house later today?" She didn't want to push him, of course, but when he got like this, she had to do something special. "There's something I'd like to tell you about in private." The sudden change in the atmosphere made it clear that this wasn't a romantic confession as much as a personal one. Of course, her observant Kimo caught the detail and looked up. Every time their eyes met, Akane knew she was blind. He really could see into her soul. She was always the emotional one and she couldn't help but let it out now. But just before she could speak, he answered with a kind smile on his face and his soft warm hands grabbing her own.

"I'd love to hear it," He smiled as an instant fluster hit her face. Fuck, she was going to have to answer now. This was already eating her up inside. She couldn't lie or hide it from him anymore. She just had to hope that he could accept this.

"Kimo, I'm a bad person." She could feel tears welling up inside her as she broke eye contact for a second. Looking around at the beautiful garden patio around them. The wall of soft white flower petals with pink tips that gently bobbed with the wind to her right. "I'm trying to take down the public safety devil hunters." She said as her face finally relaxed. Finally letting out who she really is. "I've been on the run for so long because they keep trying to chase down and kill the only family I have. A devil who's kept me safe and-"

And then she stopped talking because she couldn't feel her tongue. It stopped moving. She couldn't feel anything except something warm dripping down the side of her face and down her chin. Someone stabbed Akane in the side of her head. It couldn't have been Kimo, so why was he still looking at her like that? That look of intimacy and care as she died.

XXX

"Damn," Kimo muttered as he stood up and licked some of the blood splatter near his lips. "I spent all that time with her just to find out it was just a stupid fucking grudge." His partner held a much happier and relieved look as Kimo watched him pull out his weapon from the head and held it.

"Hey man, imagine how I feel at least? I had to sit, watch and listen through all of that. The romance was cute and all to watch but man, you're so fake, I can't even buy into it for fun." Naveen added as he rubbed a hand through his solid red hair.

Before Kimo could retort, people began staring and shouting at the pair as they saw the dead woman. Her head leaned into the table as the food hadn't even shown up yet. The red leaking out into a neat puddle from the wound. Upon a second glance, the look was almost artistic, the way the blood splattered onto the flowers through the other side of her head would make for a really nice photo or album cover.

"We're with the PSDH. Relax!" Naveen shouted into the tense public as he put away his weapon and picked up the girl's corpse. Tossing her over his shoulder as blood was spilling from the hole in her head, the restaurant would just have to live with that.

Eventually, they made it far enough away that they had time to put on their lanyards. They wouldn't get hassled with these. Though the sight of a couple of fiends walking around with a dead body was always going to be started at. "It's a shame she wasn't some kind of spy or had any kind of bigger connection to the devil hunter deaths. Why didn't you just use your powers so we could have been done with this?"

"You know they don't trust a word out of my mouth. Besides, Kishibe wants us to fail." Kimo groaned as he looked up. His hand moving to his eye to carefully pinch the decorative full eye contacts and remove them. It felt like forever since his heart-shaped irises could breathe for a moment. After a couple of blinks, he could continue. "Making her confess her reason for killing devil hunters was our goal. Not like I wanted any of that,"

"The feelin's mutual. Just watching you two on those dates felt gross. I'm not a romantic, but man, I can't buy into these relationships for a second." Before Kimo could respond, the alley they were walking through opened up to a sunny intersection. The loud sounds were easy for his stabby partner to ignore, but Kimo wasn't a fan. Though the sight of their other squadmates across the street was something good. Of course, Naveen put the corpse against the wall as their teammates approached. He'd regret that pretty soon.

XXX

Akane woke up. She was in a box, the one she used to hide in as a kid. Right in front of her was a familiar sight. Sol was sitting on her stomach, just like he always used to. His soft, mossy layer of fur was a welcome feeling. Around the opening edges of the box, light bled through to the inside. Bright and blinding. She didn't like the light. It forced her to remember. It forced her to remember what happened. All the running.

"You died, Akane," her little devil companion spoke in a voice she always imagined he had. "I failed you. So I'm making a contract, you're going to get a second chance."

She was stunned. The way her friend spoke for the first time and the creeping realization of what was going to happen silenced her. "You can't," or "it's ok," is what she would have said if she had the chance. But for some reason, the one thing she could think about was seeing the first person who loved her again.

"I want you to live on for me. I want to see you happy and kind. Just like the day you saved me."

She was going to let her only family sacrifice himself and all she could do was smile and hug him as she hoped she could meet Kimo again.

How selfish.

XXX

"I want ice cream," a pale girl said as she ran her fingers through blond hair. Pulling it by the roots to turn her head to her shorter companion. Poor guy is just trying to mind his own damn business. "Kimo and Nav get to eat food."

"Firma, that's because they're on a mission. If they don't eat food, they'll look weird." Atra, of course, didn't rub a hand through his hair because then it would mess up his topknot and he'd be exposed as a fiend. He also didn't want to entertain any ideas that could go wrong. "It's not like fiends can even taste properly,"

"Eeerrrr! Wrong! Normal fiends can't taste properly 'cause their brains are messed up, unlike them we—" Her voice cut out for a moment as she looked up and saw something that must have been a divine signal. An ice cream truck with paintings all over it advertising various flavors. The two devils would never know, but the owner's children actually painted it for him as a gift. "Watch!" Firma asserted as she strode towards the truck with Atra right behind.

The ice cream truck operator caught sight of the approaching customers and silenced the feeling of dread as he opened up the window to the pale blond girl and tanned boy. They were likely foreigners.

"Hey, what can I do for you two?" He recited, as he watched the two try to figure out the menu. Did they know how to read Japanese? "We have chocolate, vanilla, mix and—"

"Two chocolates" Atra blurted. The girl beside him almost protested, but quickly realized she had no clue what to pick, either. The owner looked a little confused but got to work making the two cones.

"That'll be four-hundred and fifty yen," he said as he handed the two their ice cream.

Firma felt like her face was going to slip off. She wasn't one to normally get angry or nervous, but the fact that she had to pay for food while she provided a public service was an incredibly annoying one. Not just because the agency didn't pay her a dime. A closed fist about to fly before it was interrupted by Atra grabbing her arm and kicking the side of the truck hard . Hard enough to shake and spill almost everything inside as they booked it. The truck almost tipped over but shifted back to knock even more things over in the other direction. The owner's screams was louder than any humans she'd heard. Firma yelped herself into a whirl as she saw the raw impact of the kick and ran. The small boy's leg not only caving in but tearing some of the metal apart, small chips of steel were everywhere on the ground.

Since getting paired up, Firma actually hadn't gotten the chance to see most of her team's devil powers. They were almost exclusively given non-combat missions so far, and witnessing some actual action for once sent her heart rate into the sky for once, finally something exciting!

Atra, on the other hand, was instantly regretting every choice he made today. Of course, he wasn't going to stay and get in trouble. The fact that he let his emotions boil up like that was embarrassing, like a hairpin trigger on a landmine. It was like this body couldn't handle stress buildup without breaking down or bursting. The fact that this is the body with the strongest compatibility to him feels like a sick joke. Oh great, and he dropped his fucking ice cream. Just—

Mid-thought Atra was stopped as he heard his partner laughing. The girl clutching her chest and almost falling over with nothing but a look of pure joy in her eyes. She was talking now. Something about how he dropped his ice cream or how the human inside the truck got all messy. This was a new feeling.

The noise of the world filtered back in with the sound of her talking.

"Alright get some on your finger and we'll both try it." Firma smiled as she waited. He paused before pressing his finger into the cold cream and got a small glob on his finger. It looked like it was melting a little bit, going down the side onto her rough fingers like paint. "Alright 3, 2, 1…"

Firma felt her eyes press open from the cold that was spreading and melting in her mouth. It was sweet? Did she even have the words to describe this? If anyone asked her, she would answer chocolaty. Frankly, she couldn't care less. It tasted incredible. Across from her, Atra looked to be holding the same viewpoint. His normally plain face was all flushed and red looking as he tasted it. "We need to go tell Kimo and Naveed about this." She said with a gulp as the area around her mouth and shirt were stained.

"Oh yeah, I wonder if they're done with…" Eyes went wide again as Atra checked his watch. The two shared a wordless acknowledgement of how late they were about to be if they didn't run.

XXX

"Wait, why did you attack the food driver? The last thing we need is attention like that."

"That wasn't the point of the story, Kimo. The point is, unlike regular fiends, we can actually taste food, and ice cream is really good!"

"We already knew that Firma,"

Now the group had the lovely chance to continue waiting for their escort car. To explain; Pretty much the entire agency that knows of their existence hates the hell out of this group. Most squads are allowed to use public transit, but to try and avoid the associations of devils working in the agency, they drive this group to and from like children. Firma and Atra's general good mood and self perceived revelation about food left them rather distracted. Kimo's and Naveen's pure unfiltered boredom and distaste for the mission also factored into the events that happened in the next three seconds.

In the first second, Akane got up. Her hybrid form reveals a long scythe coming out of a newly armored head with additional blades coming out of her forearm.

In the next second, she rushes forward as Atra notices. Kimo's whereabouts are unaccounted for, starting now.

In the last second, an event known as "The Midtown Massacre" began. Because of the actions of these four fiends, the death toll would reach one hundred fifty people.

This is the story of what happened next.

A/N

Thanks for reading. I put a decent amount of effort into this. Feel free to guess which Devils they are. I'll be back with something better next chapter.