"Here's your damn files," Daphne said, entering Mephisto's office without knocking and unceremoniously dropping the folder of photocopies she'd made onto his desk.

"And a 'thank god it's Friday' to you, too, Miss Lux."

Daphne replied with a flat stare and Mephisto grinned, laughing a moment later. He waggled a finger at her. "Weekends away are supposed to result in refreshed, relaxed employees."

"Weekends away don't usually entail a murder investigation."

Mephisto's smile turned dark. "Depends on the weekend." The expression disappeared in the next instant and he sat up happily to inspect the folder. "What have you brought me? Maple leaf cookies? A Miyajima happy spoon?"

"They're files from the Hiroshima field office," Daphne replied.

"Oh."

"Files that very closely match the ones you gave us to investigate."

"Oh."

Now quite pleased with his gift, Mephisto opened the folder. He glanced over the first report with eager eyes, processing the information quickly, and moving on to the next.

"I know it's pointless to ask, but could you tell me what you've got up your sleeve?" Daphne said, watching with mild agitation as Mephisto wordlessly looked over another report.

"Nothing up my sleeve, Miss Lux," he answered absently.

Daphne sighed. She'd known better. While she sat and watched him process the files, she wondered what it must have been like to have had a mind like Mephisto's. He wasn't always playing a game, but it was difficult to tell when he was. Occasionally, situations popped up that needed looking after, and as preceptor of the Japan Branch, it was his job to send someone to go looking. It was possible that this had been one of those situations.

"And what of our dead exorcists?" he asked eventually, setting the last report down.

"Any recent developments will have to come from the field team," Daphne said. "When I left, their bodies had been identified, and it was determined they'd been killed by a demon."

"That's all?"

"The monks were very focused on restoring the purity of the entire island, so the investigation got a little stunted." She gave Mephisto a pointed expression. "And I've been locked in an office all week digging out those files for you."

Mephisto patted the folder. "They're lovely, but hardly exciting."

"Would you have preferred the corpse of a Hiroshima exorcist?"

He laughed. "You know me so well."

Daphne wished she didn't.

"Is that all you have to report on the situation, then, Miss Lux?" Mephisto continued, raising his eyebrows. "Nine dead exorcists and a handful of paperwork? We don't file official reports on favors, you see, so any information you have on the matter is best shared verbally." A glinting, sharp-toothed smile followed.

"There's something else on that island," Daphne said after a moment. "I'm not certain what. A demon. Kin of Azazel. Rin and I felt its presence several times. It's intelligent, and powerful."

"See, now that is exciting."

"I've felt traces of it since we left, both in Hiroshima and here in Academy Town. Nothing quite as strong as the first few points of contact, but it's definitely the same energy."

"Might I ask you to keep a detailed log of your encounters with this…demon?"

Daphne produced her notebook from her bag. "Already done."

Mephisto clapped his hands together. "Ah, Miss Lux, you are a marvel. I shudder to think what this branch might be without you."

In spite of all her best efforts, Daphne had still wound up another trophy on Mephisto's shelf. Alongside her husband. And her husband's brother, and every other curio or oddity of an exorcist who happened to cross paths with the demon king. In the end, it had been inevitable, though Daphne was still learning to accept it.

"I'll continue to track my encounters, and I'll talk to Rin about doing the same. Everything I have to say about the demon is in here." She set the notebook on his desk. "May I go now?"

"Of course, of course." Smiling, Mephisto drew the notebook towards himself. Daphne got up and was halfway out the door when he called her back with a chiming, "Miss Lux?"

Daphne turned around.

"TGIF."

Daphne'd found substitute teachers for her English and exorcism classes, but Rin had completely forgotten to get his cram school sessions covered, and Shura, who had had to pick up the slack in his absence, was none-too-happy to see him in his return. The second he walked in the door to their office, she pounced on him, forcing him into a headlock he was too surprised to fend off.

"Jesus! Shura! Ow, let go!"

"Do you have a brain in here or is it all just hot air?" she asked, knocking on Rin's skull. He swiped at her, but she tightened the headlock. "You owe me big time, demon boy."

"Uncle, uncle," Rin choked as Shura's arm tightened around his neck. She let go, but pointed a finger into his face.

"Big time."

It was probably best not to bring up all the classes and shifts of hers Rin had had to cover during her "mysterious disappearances" to various cities. Instead, he offered up a stunted, "I know," while he rubbed his throat.

Satisfied for the moment, Shura flopped down in her desk chair and propped her feet up. "How was your trip?"

"Terrible," Rin replied.

Shura raised an eyebrow, but he just shook his head. He'd texted Mephisto that morning to ask if he could tell anyone about what had happened in Hiroshima over the weekend, and had received a series of skull and sparkles emojis in reply, which was admittedly vague, but he figured it probably meant he should keep his mouth shut. Mephisto had even gone to the care of removing all traces of the story about the murders from the internet. Now everything was hush-hush. Shura, thankfully, seemed to understand.

"Bad luck," she said, clicking her tongue.

Rin opened his mouth to reply, but their pagers buzzed simultaneously, calling them out on an exorcism.

"Lower Ring, Seventh Precinct on yours?" Shura asked, getting out her phone to send a quick reply that she'd gotten the message.

"Yeah…"

"I'll tell them you're coming, too."

Somehow, Daphne found herself in the rarely-used girl's locker room on the top floor of the gym building. It was empty. It was empty most of the time, but particularly so with the approach of the weekend. There weren't any gym classes on Fridays. Nobody used this locker room even when there were.

She didn't remember doing it, but she'd filled the massive in-ground tub. Hot, rolling steam rose from the surface of the water. It must have taken a long time to fill, and the air in the room was thick with that same steam. Tubs like this were just another luxury of being a student at True Cross Academy. Daphne shed her coat and shoes.

Like she'd told Rin, she couldn't do nothing.

Shura gave one flat glance to the demons in question, then immediately laid into the exorcists already on-site like she'd laid into Rin when he'd walked into the office.

"You brought us out here for a bunch of goddamn goblins? GOBLINS?" She smacked the lead exorcist upside the head. "What in the mother-loving-hell is wrong with you?!"

"We're sorry, Miss Kirigakure, we didn't mean to bother you, but we did ask that two Senior First Class exorcists be sent down immediately. We didn't know they'd send us you." Trembling, the guy added an apologetic bow to the end of his sentence.

Rin glanced at the group of them—three men, all with insignia for Intermediate Second Class exorcists, all of them shaking in their boots at the Senior First Class exorcists that had been sent down immediately. Shura wasn't having any of it.

"What for? Did you piss your pants and forget how to exorcise goblins for Christ's sake? They're goblins."

"We know, Miss Kirigakure, and again, we're sorry, but please, look at them."

Shura did. Rin followed suit. The group of goblins was holed up in the back loading bay and dumpster area for a meat processing plant. There were ten or twelve of them, but it was hard to count with them constantly moving around and crawling all over each other. At first, nothing seemed out of the ordinary, then Rin noticed the goblins were crawling over each other in a pattern on repeat, a counter-clockwise swirling, the same demons going under or over each other as they snarled. Goblins didn't do that. He glanced at Shura. She shook her head.

"All right," she said. "I'll grant that's pretty weird."

Daphne didn't remember leaving Mephisto's office. She didn't remember getting into the tub, either. It was scalding hot, but she could no longer feel the heat, her body floating weightlessly in the water. She shut her eyes.

What few thoughts had been in her mind drifted away, leaving a dark and silent stillness. Daphne focused on her breath, on the warmth of the water as it exchanged with the water in her cells, an uneven osmosis. Gradually, she lost track of her body entirely.

It was in that state of nothingness that she felt that now-familiar presence return. She wanted so badly to put a name to it, but she couldn't. Not until she knew more about it. So she left her mind open, left it blank, let the energy creep around the edges—exploring, like an animal at the edge of a lake finding the best place to drink.

She wasn't prepared for its attack. She wasn't prepared when something shoved her under the surface.

Squatting side by side, Rin and Shura got low to the ground to get a better look at the demons. Rin picked one, kept his eye on it, watching it weave around and around, always placing its feet and hands in the exact same places. He picked a different one. Same thing.

"How long do you think they've been doing this?"

"When did the initial call come in?" Shura asked, rising and turning to face the intermediate exorcists.

"The plant's morning manager called around nine. We were dispatched and arrived around nine fifteen. The goblins were already doing this when we got here."

"Did the morning manager find them or did they manifest when he got here?"

One of the exorcists shook her head. "No, he found them. The plant's closed at night and security doesn't check this area regularly. So they could have been here since yesterday evening."

Shura nodded, considering. Rin continued watching the demons. There was something kind of artful in the way they were crawling. The pattern didn't seem random. Nor did the demons seem to be enjoying themselves. The way they snarled… Why keep doing something so specific if you didn't want to do it?

"I'm gonna get a look from above," Rin said. He scouted out a high wall dividing the dumpsters from the loading bay and leapt to the top of it. Shura moved instinctively closer, ready to cover Rin if needed, but the step forward put her in proximity to the demons as well, and they picked up speed at her nearness, snarling even more.

"Woah."

"Stay where you are for now," Rin said. He balanced across the wall until he was standing right above the goblins. As he'd suspected, they were crawling in a perfectly symmetrical pattern—one in the shape of a five pointed star.

"The hell?"

The goblins picked up speed again. Their snarls became outright screeches. They moved faster and faster, maintaining that star shape, wailing loud as all get-out, until the pattern blurred with their speed and individuals were indistinguishable. Then, out of nowhere, and with a rising shriek, the whole of them exploded, spraying bits of goblin in every direction.

Daphne's eyes snapped open, and the water seared them, now covering her face and blurring her vision. She gasped, sucking water into her throat and lungs that burned just as badly. Her thrashing only made the water seem hotter, but she couldn't stop herself. It was a knee-jerk survival reaction.

Inhaling the hot water made her cough, and coughing made her gasp, and after a matter of seconds, she didn't have any air left in her. Pressure built in her head. She struggled against the distinctive sensation of someone holding her under the water, but for all her efforts, it kept her down. She continued to kick, splashing wildly. Pressure. Pain. Her lungs screamed. She screamed, but it hardly made any bubbles.

Unable to resurface, her limited vision going dark around the edges, Daphne reached behind her head and summoned Helen of Troy from its seal. The bonded blade connected with her skin and she slashed her arm through the water, recklessly aiming at something she could only imagine being there. A deafening, shrill shriek tore into her ears, and Daphne felt the force release her.

She shot out of the tub, gasping and hacking up water as she struggled to get her arms over the edge to haul herself out. She splashed onto the wet, tiled floor and collapsed, coughing still. She couldn't stop coughing, couldn't stop gasping, and found herself throwing up a moment later. Her arms shaking, her entire body trembling, she just laid there on the floor, soaked and shivering.

Daphne did not get up.

Gingerly, Rin hopped off the wall to examine the spread of scattered goblin bits. They'd exploded. He'd watched it happen with his own eyes, but it wasn't something he'd seen before. The goblins had exploded, yeah, but they'd exploded from the inside—like they themselves had been the bombs.

Shura nudged a dismembered arm with her foot, turning it over. Her boots were spattered with blood. "I don't know," she said. "What do you think?"

Rin shook his head. "Beats me." He glanced back at the intermediate exorcists to ask their opinions, but given the looks of bewildered horror on their faces he decided it wasn't worth the effort. "Do you think they self-destructed?"

"Maybe." Shura nudged a leg next, then a section of a side. "These look kind of…shredded."

Rin had to agree. The various pieces of goblin were strewn in strips. "We should get another team down here." He and Shura were great for killing stuff, but not so hot when it came to forensics. And the goblins hadn't even needed killing.

"I'll send out a call."

Sniffing, Shura walked casually away from the pieces of exploded goblin. Rin couldn't quite get his legs to move. There had been something familiar in the way those demons had moved. Something about the way they'd been swirling, but he didn't know what. The forensic team would be better suited to analysis.

Out of the corner of his eye, Rin saw Shura approach him and her body language was all weird and reserved.

"Yukio's the one on dispatch," he said. "He answered my call."

"What? So he's not gonna send a team down?"

Shura shook her head. "They're on their way, but, Rin…nobody's seen Daphne for an hour."