Yako's mouth dropped open. "Neuro!"

Neuro looked down at her. He took her hand off the handle and pulled her from the porch. "We're leaving."

"But- I haven't talked to Fuji-"

"That's already done, Yako. We have to leave, now."

"Wh-"

"I hope you're not questioning me, Yako." Neuro growled.

Yako blinked. He was angry. Something was very wrong.

The moment Neuro pressed down on the handle of the gate, police cars began to roar into the scene.

The first one opened and a portly officer tumbled out, for lack of a better word. He shook his pants and made his way through the crowd of arriving news reporters. He held up a paper warrant to Neuro's face. "I've received an anonymous tip that a man who is charged with murder is dead in that house."

Yako felt her heart drop to the bottom of her stomach. She felt her knees shake.

Neuro's grip of her wrist tightened. She knew that if he could, he'd turned around and give her a stern glare. She breathed in deeply. Her cheeks burned. She was innocent! She was, she was! ! ! Yako knew this was a bad situation. Every arrow was tilting to her. Pretty soon they'll start researching her other cases! They'll convict her, she'd go to jail, and the press will shame her; do anything to make it seem like her past cases were actually of her own composition- that she was the murderer-

People began to crowd in and question the reporters and the police. Pretty soon it will become a mob. Too many witnesses of Neuro and Yako in the scene. Too many memories to erase.

Neuro turned around and looked down at Yako. Yako felt weak, dizzy. Her eyes are watering. Neuro raised an eyebrow. "What in hell has gotten into you?" He muttered. He waved his hand.

A green half sphere erupted from the ground and enveloped everyone in the near vicinity. Neuro then tugged Yako closer to his waist and jumped onto the mansion's roof. Neuro tossed Yako over his shoulder and raced for the office. Yako watched as, behind them, the green sphere broke and the events continued as if they had never even been there.

Neuro zipped up the stairs, closed the door, and slammed Yako up to the ceiling.

"You are weak," he growled. "Even more than usual."

Yako knew that in any other regular day she'd get mad, get angry and try land a hit on him, but somehow her limbs wouldn't move. Yako sagged on Neuro's legs. "You don't understand..."

"No, I do, I understand very well," he said, and with one swift move pulled Godai's jacket off of her and unbuttoned her shirt. He put his leg between hers to keep her up against the ceiling, leaving his hands free. Yako felt her heart skip a beat and blinked. A flush crept up her neck. "Eeeeh?!"

Neuro pushed the shirt off her shoulders. Yako struggled away from him. Her legs were awkwardly held apart. "Hey, what in hell is up-"

"Where is it?!" Neuro shouted.

"I don't know what you're talking about!" Yako said sharply. She felt her old strength come shooting back. She fruitlessly tried to catch her shirt as it fluttered down to the ground. "Oi, Neuro, what are you-"

"Found it!" Neuro exclaimed triumphantly, and grabbed the side of Yako's waist. A tiny invisibility spell broke to pieces at his fingers. Yako looked down.

Neuro pointed at a tiny eyeball that had adhered to her waist with a tiny green tube and more than a couple strand of stringy yellow mucus. It bulged, sucking out Yako's life force with each tiny heartbeat.

Yako screamed. "Gah! Wh-what, I mean, th-that's your eyeball-"

"Yes, the one you stole from me, Yako, now don't move-" Neuro pulled a giant scalpel from somewhere in his suit and cut into one of the veins. Yako winced. It hurt. Some viscous fluid dripped on her skirt. Yako felt woozy for a few seconds, but Neuro made a quick second slice and the eyeball fell off and into one of the trash cans.

Neuro cleaned off Yako's waist with a wipe and then wiped off the scalpel.

"C-can you let me down from the ceiling, now?"

"No."

Neuro tossed the scalpel away and raised his eyebrows at Yako. "The 'eyeball,' as you call it, was sucking out your driving force to lengthen its own life since it has been separated from its main demon energy port, otherwise known as me."

"Oh."

"I hope you've learned another lesson, Yako. You've just lost a month of your life."

"Yes, yes, I did. Don't steal any more high-power demons from Neuro and he means it... Now, can you let me down, please?" Yako said. Her belt had been pushed to the side and her skirt was hanging from her hips, revealing more than she wished Neuro to see.

"No. I am going to punish you."

With a click, the door opened, and the shirt that was hanging on the doorknob fluttered down to the floor in front of Godai. He looked down at his welcoming mat, and then up to Yako and Neuro.

He left.

"So... Now they're both dead." Yako muttered, flipping the pages of the newspaper she held in her hands.

Neuro didn't make a sound.

"Now what?" Godai said. "That's it? They're just going to let the real murderer go?"

"The real murderer is dead," Neuro said. Yako sat up. "Don't tell me you killed her-!"

Neuro swung his chair around. "Her?"

"The old ex-girlfriend, the one who works at the butcher shop- all the evidence points at her!"

Neuro laughed. "Just when I thought you gained some detective skills, Yako!"

Yako blinked. "It's not her...?"

"No, Ms. ex-Fuji is alive and well and planning to attend Fuji and Kiku's funeral."

"They're going to be buried together...!" Yako gasped.

Neuro smiled at her. "Which is what one of them really wanted, Yako."

A few days earlier...

Fuji walked up to the house he bought for Kiku. A fat bouquet of flowers sat in his hand, a ring in its case made a small bulge in his pocket, and his wallet was full of empty checks to buy exactly what she wanted.

Who would say no?

He rang the doorbell and as the footsteps walked over to open the door, he grinned at his perfect reflection on the shiny panels of the window.

The door opened and Kiku peeked out. He smiled at her.

She looked up at him nervously and grinned.

"Hi, Fuji," She murmured in her whispery, high-pitched voice. "I thought you said you'd be here at 7...?"

He pushed her inside. "Sorry, I had to do some stuff. I'll make it up to you, I promise," He said confidently, stroking her chin. She pressed her hands together and closed the door.

He strode down the entrance hall into the living room carpet without taking off his shoes. He turned around and looked at the clock. Man, he was late. The dining table was set with two plates that were both untouched.

He looked at Kiku and grinned an apology, sure that she would accept it. "You didn't eat? Aw~ You don't have to wait every time, you know."

"I didn't feel like eating." She said.

He looked over her. "Why are you wearing such a plain print dress? What happened to the yellow silk one I gave you?"

"I-it's in the closet."

"Wear it! I like it better than this country-girl..."

"Well, I like this one better!" She shouted.

Fuji stopped taking off his coat. He looked at her. "What?" Shadows began to form under his eyes. "What did you just say?"

Kiku fell silent, then turned around and ran up the stairs into the bedroom, feeling her heart start to speed up. That look he just had... She should have listened to the rumors!

All those divorces he's had... What was he trying to do? All those girls who he proposed to just after a few weeks of meeting them! Did it really mean anything anymore- She was thankful of this house...

But it smelled like all the different girls he had given to before.

She would find panties that she never bought under the bed, leggings thrown over the chair, and when she searched online to buy a pregnancy test the computer automatically took her to an account that wasn't hers.

Boxes of entertainment that didn't suit her stocked up in the attic. Photos, pictures, paintings, torn off the walls.

Kiku fell flat on her bed and kicked off her shoes. The door opened but she didn't turn to look at him.

Which was why she didn't see the cleaver in his right hand.

"All I wanted was someone to be buried next to me when I die... Is that so much to ask?"

As the final funeral chimes rang from from the bell tower of the church nearby, Yako knelt down and tossed a bunch of white flowers over their graves.

"I don't suppose anything I would say now would get them to be in separate plots." Yako said.

Neuro watched carefully from behind her. "This is a waste of time."

"I'm sure Kiku wouldn't want to be sleeping forever next to her murderer."

"Where you are buried has nothing to do with where you end up, Yako." Neuro said. "The man is going straight to hell."

"Then, what about Kiku?"

"She was murdered. She's probably a ghost somewhere until she sees that the object of her fury is already dead."

"... How long is that going to take?"

"It already came to pass," Neuro murmured, turning away. "Now, Yako! We are done paying out 'respects' and will continue finding juicy morsels of human evil for me to consume."

"You killed Fuji, right?" Yako said, tossing another bunch of white flowers, this time one by one.

Neuro's expression went flat. "Yes."

If it had been a year ago, or three years ago, or six, Yako would have called him a monster and refused to meet him ever again. But it was now and she had a feeling that it wasn't all that he presented it to be.

Neuro sat in the chair of Fuji's house and watched at the idiotic narcissist explain hurriedly that he wasn't poking around the office to steal anything, but was searching for help and any way he could prove himself innocent. (lies)

Neuro felt the tool in his pocket beep and flash a cold blue. The curtains ruffled and the temperature dropped a few degrees.

Kiku was here.

Neuro calmly looked at the time. Yako was probably rushing over to here right now, excited with her discoveries. Should he hurry?

The somewhere inside his barren heart, Neuro realized that he didn't want Yako to see him kill this human. And this fact immediately pushed him to be exactly what she didn't want him to be.

Neuro looked at the two knives that were set horizontally in place with steel wire hanging over the fireplace. It could take off Fuji's throat cleanly if he were to be stupid enough to walk back three steps.

Or scared enough.

Neuro pressed a button on his demon tool and Kiku appeared.

As he left, ignoring Fuji's screaming, he heard Fuji trip and the sound of his throat being ruptured. Then he walked to the main door, put his hand on the doorknob, and sniffed.

Yako was on the other side.

He smiled... And opened the door.

"Neuro!"