The sun was shining when Kobeni woke up. She was late for work, she thought. Then she remembered the previous night, and the drinks, and the incident, and her taking Denji back to her place because she couldn't remember directions so late at night, and a headache began to grow. She rolled off the couch and half-walked, half-ran to the phone.

The phone rang twice before the tired voice came out from the other side. "Higashiyama. You calling in sick?"

"I-I-I'm sorry, Sensei, I think I drank too much last night and now its so late and what time is it and I made Denji late too-"

"Shut up." Kishibe's voice was short. "You're not coming in today. Kid doesn't need to, either. I'll mark it down as a mental health day. Just get him home at some point, and you still get paid."

"I-is that okay?"

"Hayakawa was calm this morning." Kishibe said. "Came to meet me when you didn't show up. Told me to tell you he'll pay you back for whatever lunch you get the kid. Everything is fine."

"O-okay." Kobeni exhaled. "Thank you-"

The line was already dead.

Denji was asleep in her room, on her bed. It wasn't a very comfortable bed. It might've been nicer to let him have the couch, honestly, but it would've been too short for him, so the bed was probably better for his neck. He was still asleep when she checked in on him, a line of drool leaking onto her pillow. She would have to wash that later.

She let him sleep for a little bit longer. She opened up the fridge and pulled out the breakfast that was lasting her the week, a pot of miso soup. It was still the middle of the week, so she was gonna have to cook tonight if she was fixing breakfast, but…she was okay with that. So she poured the soup into the little bowls she kept in case her family came over, placed a piece of bread in the toaster, and went back into her room to wake up her ward.

"D-Denji-kun," She said from the doorway. "I-I made breakfast, i-if you're hungry."

Denji groaned from the bed, then rolled over. "Five minutes," He muttered.

"A-alright." She stepped back out. Idly, she wondered if he wanted to have any coffee with his food. She made a little bit extra, just in case. She set the plates at her table. It was probably the biggest piece of furniture in the apartment, so that it could fit ten people, even if not comfortably. She sat down on one side and set Denji's plate on the other with a cup of water. He came out of the bathroom a minute later.

"Thanks for the toothbrush." He said before he crashed on the chair. "Oh, this is the soup Aki makes in the morning, with the squishy white cubes!"

"I-I usually have a bowl of it for breakfast," Kobeni said. She took a bite. "I-I hope it tastes okay."

Denji put down the bowl, now half-empty. He gulped down a mouthful of soup and said, "Tastes great!" Then he picked up his piece of toast and ate half of it in one bite. There was some jam and butter on it already, and he hummed. "It's no super toast, but it's good too!"

Kobeni smiled. She savored a sip of her soup. It always came out too salty when she made it, but she was happy with the way this batch had turned out. It was a little closer to how her dad used to make it. It was the one thing he could make. "I'm sorry I don't have more food."

"Hey, this shit's good! It's better than I used to have, anyways." Denji shrugged it off. "Plus, Power's not trying to take shit off my plate today. So I actually get to eat all my food!" He grinned, before tossing the rest of his toast in his mouth.

"Do you want coffee?" Kobeni asked.

"Coffee? You drink that shit?" Denji stuck his topngue out. "It tastes like mud!"

"I-I really like it…"

"Your taste sucks, Higashiyama!" He declared. "Make good soup, though. Power and Aki would love it."

"M-maybe I could make something the next time I'm over," She replied. "I-I wouldn't want to impose, b-but I know Aki's the one who cooks, so…"

Denji grinned. "As long as I get to eat, I don't care who cooks it!"

"Right…" She hid her frown. "H-hey, Denji, do you wanna go home? My boss said today could be a day off, s-so if you don't want to work, we can get you back to Hayakawa-san's place."

"This place is fine too!" He said. "It's warm and cozy."

Kobeni looked around. The paint on the walls were chipped. There was a tear in the couch's upholstery. Smoke stains covered the ceiling of the kitchen. The shower had no hot water. The corners were filled with shadows. "Is it cozy?"

"Yeah! You got pictures on the walls and shit, its like the houses people talk about on TV and shit!" Denji pointed at two portraits hung up on the wall. One was her graduation picture. The other was her brother's middle school graduation. Highest honors. Her parents were so proud. "Aki's got nothing on the walls, just white paint! It's boring as hell. Power wants to nail some mice she found to the walls but Aki says it'll smell, so she just let Meowy eat them."

"A-a-ah." Kobeni half-acknowledged, half-whined. "W-w-well, I think we should at least check in so Hayakawa-san knows what's going on. We'll take the train to headquarters and call from there, then head back?"

"Sure, sure, whatever." Denji shrugged. "Just no point going home to look at empty walls if I can be here instead, y'know?"

She felt the same way. She hated it here. But if he'd rather be here than back at his place, it was her job to indulge him, right? "L-let's head out when I finish my coffee."

The station felt closer when she was sober than when she was drunk, in broad daylight than in the cover of night. Denji followed behind her with his ruffled t-shirt and pants from the night before. Somehow, his clothes had escaped Himeno's outburst, a fact that Kobeni was endlessly grateful for. He sat next to her on the train, the rush of the morning thankfully absent.

At the next stop, some people got on, and others got off. A few men sat down in the seats across from them. One of them pulled out a book. Another crossed his arms and stared out the window. But the third simply stared at the floor, elbows on his knees, like he was going to keel over and fall asleep. He wore a long coat. Denji paid them no mind. Kobeni's anxieties made sure she did.

A few stops later, one of the men stood up and got off the train. The man with the book and the man staring at the floor didn't move. They didn't even look at the schedule. The gnawing in her stomach grew stronger. She tapped her foot on the floor.

"I can't tell how you people stand it." The man staring at the floor said. He still didn't move, still didn't look up. "Traveling in metal carts, packed like sardines, holding onto anything to make sure you aren't the one to sway and knock over a dozen people. Everyone disrespecting their common space like thugs. Public transit is a nightmare.

"My grandfather never would have let me ride something like this. He was a gentleman, you know. He wouldn't give his family anything but the best. We rode around town in his car so we wouldn't be subject to these base indignities." The man smiled coldly. "No one dropped cigarette butts in his car. We treated it with respect. I guess when someone starts from the bottom, they'll never learn what respect means, though, will they?"

He looked up at them. His eyes were cold, deep, and cruel. Kobeni's hands shook. Denji glanced at her and frowned. "Dude, who cares about your lame ass grandpa? Quit talkin' about your cars on the train, no one gives a shit.."

"Don't give me that attitude." The man said, shifting his attention from Kobeni. "Sure, he was a yakuza, but he was a good man. Never went after women and children, and when he did he made it quick. He'd buy me candy and clothes with the money he made from shipping contraband. He was a regular picture of a good citizen. We all loved him." The man reached into his inner coat pocket and pulled out a small piece of paper. "You loved him too, didn't you, Denji?"

Denji tensed at the photograph. In it, the man was there, and hanging above him stood an old man with a beard. "What the hell do you want?" Denji demanded. The other man placed the picture back into his coat and paused.

"Gun Devil wants your heart."

The gunshot tore through the cabin. Denji choked as blood leaked from a hole in his cheek. The two men on the other bench leveled their guns at Denji again and fired. The first caught him in his hand, ripcord caught on one of his fingers. The second caught him in the center of his forehead, and he fell down in his seat. The men tried to readjust their aim.

Kobeni cut their hands free from their wrist. The man who didn't talk stumbled back, reaching into his back pocket. Kobeni lunged again, her knife flicking out, and the man's throat spilled open. He fell to the floor choking on his own blood. She turned around, ignoring the wet feeling on her face, and leveled her blade at the man in the coat.

He stared at the stump of a hand, before his face twisted into an even uglier scowl. He bit into his remaining middle finger and pulled, and his hand slid off of his wrist. A sword poked out of the stump. Kobeni blinked. Then, the sword extended, and a blade extended from the man's face, cutting through his eyes and the bridge of his nose. His upper head melted and reformed into a terrifying visage of a human skull, his hair twisting into a parody of a military cap, blades tearing their way out of his wrists until they extended a meter past his fingertips, a monstrosity, a demon.

Just like Denji.

The monster lunged forward and Kobeni dodged back. The blades cut the air in front of her, then through the poles at the center of the train car. He lunged forward and she ducked under the blow, her knife cutting along his outer thigh. He kicked at her and she jumped, bouncing off the wall of the train and kicking off the ceiling. She landed next to Denji and reached for his ripcord.

A heavy kick launched Denji to the back of the carriage, and then the monster was on Kobeni again, his teeth mismatched and his blades bearing down on her from all directions. She couldn't get out, she was too slow, she was too slow, she needed to be faster, she needed power, she needed help.

"Burn," she whispered. A fire consumed her stomach. She kicked back as the blades cut throught the floor in front of her. Then she lunged forward again, her knife flicking in and out, deflecting the monster's blows into the walls and seats and scoring small cuts on his chest and face. The monster yelled in frustration, then kicked at her while she was mid-swing. She flew, rolling along the ground and hitting the back wall next to Denji.

She wanted to run. She wanted to live. She didn't sign up for this. This was the exact kind of work she didn't want to do, the exact work she'd taken this job to avoid, and now there was another demon in front of her and she was alone and she was going to die.

She looked to her right. Blood leaked from Denji's mouth like drool leaking onto a pillow. She stood up and readied her knife."L-l-l-l-leave Denji alone." She stammered.

"I'll kill you first." The monster promised. It crouched on the ground, arms held across its body, and Kobeni ran forward, the fire in her stomach burning hotter, and the monster disappeared. She swung on instinct, felt her blade catch on something, felt something hit her like a bullet, and then she was on the other side of the train car. An odd numbness traveled through her limbs. Behind her, she heard silence.

She turned around, and then it hurt her. Pain across her sternum like she'd never felt before forced her to a knee. She looked across the car and saw the monster standing in front of Denji. Then the monster stumbled back, blood pouring from his chest, and he collapsed into a seat. He turned towards her, looking at the pool of blood forming at her feet. Then he staggered forward.

Her vision faltered. Her head felt light. She was going to die. She stared across the train at the young man trapped in a corpse, leaning against the opposite wall. She tried to stand, but her legs wouldn't move. She needed to move. She needed to get up, to pick up her knife, to do something, anything! She couldn't let him die!

The monster stood above her. He raised a blade to her neck and drew it lightly across the skin. "Say a prayer, if you believe in anything." The monster said. Its shoulder tensed. Kobeni closed her eyes.

"Oh? A challenge?" Power laughed, and laughed, and laughed, and Arai wondered why anyone thought a Fiend was a worthwhile recruit as a Devil Hunter. "Then set the terms, human! I, Power, will meet any trial you lay before me!"

He grit his teeth. He remembered what Denji had said the previous night. She was a brat. Deal with her like a brat. He exhaled. "It's simple. Whoever saves the most people wins."

"No way." Power deadpanned. "I like seeing them die."

"Hear me out." Arai said. Power didn't respond. "I said-" No. don't get upset. Just talk. "When you save a human, you will be doing it by killing a devil. Killing a devil will show the survivors how strong you are, won't it?"

Power still didn't look at him, but something in her eyes shifted. Something hungry. He pushed on. "If you kill a human, you watch them die. But if you let them live, then they can spread word of how powerful the Blood Fiend is."

She sniffed.

"And if I fail beside you, then they will see how…much…better, you are, compared to humans." The words were disgusting in Arai's mouth. "Is that not appealing?"

"…very well. You have convinced me!" Power threw a hand around Arai's shoulder. "I should have seen your wisdom when you protected my chicken from the shrimp at dinner yesterday, but now I understand! You know your place as a lowly human, and submit to I, Power!"

"I did no such thing!"

"Ahahaha! No need to lie, my servant!" Power grinned. "There is no one around to impress, and I know the depths of your pathetique already!"

He hated this. He wanted to go home. If he wound up with this Fiend as his permanent partner, he'd quit on the spot, and it wasn't even because she was a Fiend anymore. She was simply vulgar and rude.

"Oh? I see further wounds!" Power grinned. "Scars on the hands and the face. Pathetic as you are, you have the scars of a warrior! How wise of I, to pick you from the crowd of worshiping onlookers!"

Arai just grit his teeth.

"And wounds around the hand! Perhaps a garrote? How devilish, indeed!" Power let him go. "Show me the quality of your garrote, human!"

"I don't have one." He said. "I have a contract with-"

"Then how do you have such seasoned scars?" Power asked.

He remembered his first time in the field. He remembered vines spilling out of a pair of cauliflower ears and the devil hunter being torn into the air, his legs hitting the ground while his torso stayed on the ceiling. He remembered Kobeni's hands shaking as she stepped forward, and then her darting forward, and the fiend's head and shoulders sliding off its chest, and vines springing from the cavity.

He remembered sprinting forward and wrapping his hands in the vines and twisting them around the fiend's neck as they cut into his hands like razor wire, and pulling and pulling and pulling until the vines cut to the bone and then one final pull and the fiend's head popping off its body, and then stillness. Nothing but the sound of crying and the smell of blood. His hands still didn't move like they used to.

"I made do with what I had once and it left its mark." He said after a long silence.

Power yawned. "Boring. Requisition yourself a more interesting weapon. I have no need for boring retainers."

She didn't know. And even if she didn't know, she wouldn't care, either. She wasn't human, and he shouldn't treat her like she was. Arai straightened his tie. "Even so. If you win the competition, I will buy you lunch."

"I shall triumph!" She shouted, and he couldn't help a slight chuckle. She looked at him and grinned, and he couldn't help but think of a sister taken too young. She was annoying, too, when he knew her. "Let us-"

Gunshots roared. Arai felt a pain in his lower back and collapsed to a knee. Next to him, Power fell onto her back, clutching at a hole in her chest. Two men stood over them, guns leveled at their heads. The one on top of Power plugged the bullet wound with his shoe and pulled an ax from beneath his coat. They knew she was a Fiend. He reared back and swung towards her neck.

The blade sunk into Arai's forearm before he realized. The man above him pulled the trigger, but a small shield of blood took the hit. It fragmented, then flew back up into the eyes of the gunmen. Arai lifted his uninjured hand. "Kon!" He roared, and a massive canine paw crushed them into the pavement.

Power choked on blood. Arai forced himself to his knees. Blood pooled at the front of his shirt, and he cupped some in a hand. Then he poured it into her mouth. She sat up quickly, the hole in her chest healing as she did it. "Why?" She asked.

"You didn't let me die." Arai said. "I wasn't going to fail to do the same." He struggled to his feet. Pain welled in his lower back, his stomach, and somewhere in between. "We…need to contact the others. We need to get to HQ."

"You need a doctor." Power said. "Do you truly wish to go to headquarters?"

"I won't leave them to die." He said. He thought about Denji, and how he convinced a child to jump into hell for the people around him. "A good Devil Hunter wouldn't do that."

Power clicked her tongue. "I won't carry you."

"I don't need you to." He lied. "Now come on. We need to hurry."

"When we save everyone, they will all know it was the work of the great Power!" She grinned. He sighed. She really was simple, wasn't she? Still, maybe she wasn't what he'd thought she was: some kind of morality-deprived monster that only wanted to spread destruction. He just hoped it wasn't too late for the rest of the Division.

"You're mad at me."

"I'm not."

"You're mad at me. You're so mad at me you can't even admit it." Himeno exhaled. "Come on, you can at least be honest! Just fill me in on what happened! I can't even remember."

"I don't believe you." Aki said. He pulled the dagger out of the devil's forehead and wiped it on its corpse. "And even if that's true, you did the exact thing I told you not to do."

"Wait, did I wind up kissing Denji?" Himeno frowned. "I feel like I'd remember it if I did, even if I forgot everything else." It wasn't her fault the alcohol felt so good.

"You puked in his mouth." Aki told her.

Himeno blanched. "What? That's fucked up!" She stuck her tongue out. So that was why she woke up with such a nasty feeling in her mouth. "How'd the kid take it?"

"Arai said he looked traumatized. Helped him in the bathroom, but Kobeni-san had to take him home early. Went to her place, I believe." Aki hung his gun piece over the devil's head, and Himeno prayed that it wouldn't move. The piece hung still, and Aki put it away. Himeno smiled. One more devil between him and the Gun. "I thought you promised that you wouldn't go through with the promise."

"I did! But that was drunk me. She's a loser who doesn't keep her word, you know that!" Aki leveled a glare at her, and her face fell. "I'm sorry. I just…I guess I wasn't thinking. I can't tell you exactly what it was cuz I can't remember what it was."

He kept his glare on her for another moment, then sighed. "Sometimes its hard to believe you're the one with seniority, senpai. Things like these make me feel like a babysitter."

"Aw, is Aki-kun still mad at me?" Himeno asked. A mischievous smile crossed her face. "I'd do anything to get back into his good graces, you know. Just name the price!"

"A cigarette will do." He said. Her face didn't falter. He was an awful flirt, and worse at recognizing when someone was flirting with him. That's why it was so fun trying to mess with him. "I'll get the light."

"Yeah, yeah, gimme a sec." She pulled out the pack and tapped two cigarettes free. Then she walked up to him and placed one of them in his mouth, then put the other in hers, not even a centimeter apart. "Light us up!"

He lit the cigarettes without a word. Then he leaned back and looked at the corpse. "Cleanup's on the way already. We should move on. This side of town tends to get more devils than the others."

"Right." Himeno sobered up. "Next street usually has something squirming around in the trash. How's that knife holding up?"

"Should be good for a few more days." He examined it. It was a cheap kitchen knife, barely sharp, but Aki was strong enough to make it work. And if it got crushed by a devil, he could afford a new one easily. Stuff like that made Himeno glad her contract was a one time payment. Having to choose between using some cheap piece of sheet metal or cutting up your wrist again for the Fox would've driven her insane after a few weeks, let alone three years.

Aki was just suited to that kind of contract.

They stepped out of the alleyway and walked down the street. It was past rush hour, and there weren't a lot of people walking around. A man and a woman stood by a convenience store door talking about vacuums. They looked happy. Aki walked by them with a second glance. Himeno smiled. He was a lot more sentimental than he looked.

A pair of gunshots tore through the air. Her cigarette hit the ground before she did. She twisted as she fell, and the woman followed her with the muzzle of her gun. The husband lined up a second shot over her head. She moved before she thought, her ghost hand crushing the man's head before he could fire.

It didn't stop the woman. A second bullet tore through her chest before she hit the ground. A bottle flew through the air and hit the woman square in the forehead. Then Aki's fist slammed into her sternum, and she collapsed. He kicked the gun out of her hand and punched her again in the jaw, and the woman fell still. Then he ran to his partner and pressed his hands into her wounds.

"Himeno-senpai!" Aki's hands shook against her sternum. "There's a doctor a few blocks from here. Can you move?"

She tried to sit up. Pain tore through her torso, radiating from her stomach and somewhere higher. She felt the blood pooling on the ground below her back. She collapsed back to the floor. "I can't."

"I'll carry you." Aki said. His voice shook. "Please bear with me." Then he lifted her, and the pain grew white-hot. Her vision swam. Tears flowed from her eyes, and he noticed. "I'm sorry."

"It's fine." She forced the words out. There was a hole in his suit, too, at the lapel. Blood flowed down his shoulder from the wound. "You're bleeding."

"It's nothing." His voice was pained. "I'm fine. I'm worried about you."

"I'm glad." She smiled. Her vision faded in and out. Each step jolted her wounds, but each step hurt less than the last. She was going numb. It was getting dark. "I'm lucky to have a partner like you, Aki-kun. You're not gonna die on me, are you?"

"No, so don't die on me."

"If I do, will you cry for me, too, Aki…?" Her voice felt far away. The world was slipping away, further and further. She felt the Ghost chuckle to itself. An eye when she died, for the use of an arm while she lived. That was her contract. It sounded like it was ready to close out the contract forever, to take its arm back. Aki said something that she couldn't understand. There were worse ways to die than in the arms of someone you loved

She let herself slip away.

The monster with the sword through its head stared at the stump that was once its hand. Then it looked down at the floor. The girl was still kneeling there, fat tears falling from her face and mixing with sweat and blood on her cheeks. He didn't even see the knife move that time. She was as fast as he was, it seemed. His head felt light. He was losing too much blood. Shit.

He kicked his arm behind him and stumbled back. He pressed it back against his wound and ripped the sword from his arm, and the hand stitched itself back. The swords retracted back into his arms. He was anemic, too anemic to keep going, and the girl was still crouching there, knife raised, staring at him.

Denji still sat behind her, a bullet in his head. Barely alive, his chainsaw heart still beating, taunting him. He needed to get past her and get him before their reinforcements could show up. Then he heard a familiar voice behind him.

"You're the social worker." He turned. Sawatori walked down the aisle, hands in her pockets. "Should've figured Makima wouldn't leave her dog unprotected anywhere. Contract for speed, plus your own skill. Not bad. If this guy knew what he was doing, you'd be dead."

"I underestimated her." The monster admitted. "But she's as fast as I am."

"Don't fuck it up this time." Sawatori leaned down and picked up Mishima's hand, still leaking blood to the floor. She tossed it to him, and he caught it. "Drink."

"No. That's disgusting."

"Then have fun bleeding out."

He growled. Then he lifted the hand to his mouth and sucked. The blades tore out of his arms once more, and he stared down at the girl. She shifted back away from him, and he smiled. She was afraid now. She was outnumbered. Her hands groped for the handle to the door. "You can't run." He taunted. "Put down the knife and I'll make it quick."

Then her hand found Denji's shoulder, and she lunged. The girl hooked her finger into the ripcord and pulled hard. The boy's back arched, and chainsaws tore out of his forehead and arms. The girl squeaked and jumped away, and Denji stood tall, as if a bullet wasn't still sitting in his skull, as if he was still something that could be considered living.

"I've got no clue who you guys are." Denji declared, his voice distorted by his inhuman mouth and the roar of his engine. "But you're the bad guys, aren't you? That's my favorite type, you know. Cuz no one complains when I rip them to shreds!"

"Cocky brats get cut." The monster returned, raising his blades high. Sawatori raised her radio and spoke quietly into it. The girl raised her knife. The monster didn't care. His prey. stood in front of him.

Denji's tongue lolled out of his mouth and he sprinted forward, chainsaws flailing and cutting up the sides of the train. "Die!" He bellowed, swinging both blades forward and locking with the monster's. The girl ran along the side, ducking all the blows and cutting the monster's hamstring. She lunged at Sawatori.

The Snake Devil's tail tore through the side of the train, and the girl barely dodged it. Sawatori clicked her tongue and pulled her gun. Its report filled the train as it ground to a halt, the emergency brakes finally kicking in. The monster didn't care.

He was going to kill Denji, rip his heart out, and feed his corpse to the zombies.

Author's Note: SO yesterday I celebrated a belated Valentine's Day with my partner, and I slipped on making sure I updated today. Not gonna double post to make up for lost time, but I did want to apologize if anyone was waiting on the update. I'mgonna try to be more consistent! Take care and I hope you enjoy the fic so far!