Step by step, shove by shove, scoot by scoot, the young man and the blond fiend were gradually making their way through the crowd. Wei-Ting was simply shoving people out of his way without a word, using his shoulders to pry his way past members of the crowd. Plyn on the other hand, was scooting and squeezing their way through gaps between the people with nimble ease, calling out little "excuse me"'s and "pardon me"'s that were easily drowned out in the wake of the continuous yodels.
Wei-Ting looked up towards the towering mass of howling flesh. Its limbs swayed and swung aimlessly while the scattered mouths of various sizes upon its abhorred body, curled and flexed with every cord. He then looked towards Plyn, watching the fiend twirl the decorated pen around between their nimble fingers. His eyes squinted in silent disapproval and moral disgust, knowing full well that that pen did not belong to the fiend. The fingers of his free hand, currently stuffed into his pocket, began curling and fidgeting. They were itching to just snatch the pen out of the fiend's wretched grasp and march right back to the car to return it to its rightful owner.
Little did he know that a murder of knives would plunge into his back before he could even have the chance to do so. Ignorant to the several distorted arms reeling and hovering right behind him like the fangs of a predator, on the verge of ambushing its prey. Each arm wielding blades of various sorts, yet all sharing the combined purpose and intent of violence, harm, bloodshed and murder. The trembling, distorted eyes of the crowd carefully inched closer and closer behind the oblivious young man and fiend, scanning and flickering wildly within their sockets. They were moving together in a freakish sync, as if each member of this ambush was a finger of a singular hand, just about ready to clasp its grasp shut.
The blades raised and positioned themselves with uncanny precision, accurately matching and keeping up with the motions the two's idle movements were making. Angled and aimed for the vitals, the arms reeled the blades back, just about ready for their unified lunge.
A sudden, blaring, and ungraceful noise pierced through the strum and flow of deafening yodels from behind Wei-Ting, Plyn, and the stalking members of the crowd behind them. All three immediately turning towards the source.
It was Aishi, his palm desperately pressed against the middle of the car's steering wheel, setting off the blare of the car's horn. His horrified, sweat ridden expression of clenched teeth, shrunken pupils and widened eyes speaking volumes in a mere moment. Wei-Ting and Plyn's faces stretched and distorted with horror and fright, both taking notice of the swarm of blades now lunging right towards them with killing intent. In an act of instinct, with no thoughts behind it, Wei-Ting grabbed the back of Plyn's suit collar, yanking the fiend behind him while blindly swinging the machete downwards towards the blades.
The machete manages to veer and redirect a few of the blades, others simply skimming tears and shallow cuts across his torso. A single blade manages to plunge itself directly into his lower abdomen, diving itself deep into his flesh. A grimace of pain escaping from his clenched teeth as his eyes glance towards the knife.
A sudden yank from the distorted arm pulls the blade out from Wei-Ting's abdomen, letting crimson spill and flow. The arms of the crowd dance as they flick their wrists upwards, letting the handles of their blades spin in their palms, switching to an upwards holding position.
Yodels continue to bellow and tremble the air, deafening and obscuring the lesser noises usually easy to hear and processes. Much like the sound of knives being pulled from sheathes and swinging in the air. Wei-Ting quickly prepared to defend himself from the knives in front of him. Yet he remained oblivious to the newly drawn crowd of knives surrounding him.
Arms wrap around his own, tugging him out of the way as the blades lunge toward where he stood. Members of the crowd stab and slash into each other as they miss their target. Pausing for a moment, the still is suddenly broken by the crowd beginning to lick and suck at each other's blood and wounds.
Wei-Ting looks to his side to see who had pulled him out of the way. A blond, short ponytail bounced around his savior's head. The Scam Fiend was dragging him through the crowd, ducking, dodging, and shoving the deformed and demented members out of their way, till their grip on Wei-Ting was lost with a sudden trip and stumble into an open alleyway. Plyn quickly recovered and continued their sprint, turning around and frantically waving their arms to gesturing Wei-Ting to follow them.
Wei-Ting dashes after the fiend as the crowd floods into the alleyway after them. Rapidly paced walks and jogs, heads curling and rotating as they scampered and sprinted. Some forward, some sideways, some completely backwards, some crawling and others skipping high in the air. The yodeling in the air dimming with each hurried step.
"Ah! Keep the door open!" Plyn yelled out with a frantic wave of their arm, spotting a pair of eyes peeking out of a slightly ajar door. The pair of eyes widened as the fiend dashed toward them. The person behind the door scrambled to shut the door before the two devil hunters could get close enough.
Plyn lifted up the decorated pen in their hand before slamming the plunge of it down with their gloved thumb. In place of the tiny tip of a regular pen, a long metal spike darted out of the socket. A series of metallic folds were wrapped around the spike, curling and twirling as they exited the narrow compartment. Upon the spike fully extending, the folds fluttered and lined up into a sleek form, taking the form of a double edged dagger.
Lunging forward with the dagger, the fiend wedged the dagger into the doorway right as it was being slammed shut, plugging it right into the wall and stopping the door. Panicked footsteps scrambled from behind the door, dashing further within while Plyn wedged the door open, slipping in and leaving it open for Wei-Ting to follow.
"Public Safety! We're allowed to be here!" Plyn blurted out with an exhausted, riled voice before they whipped out what looked to be an identification card and badge. Their sweat ridden, panicked, yet still smiling face contrasting the much calmer, grinning expression upon the identification.
Wei-Ting followed right in behind the fiend, yanking the dagger out from the wall and slamming the door shut. The young man pressed his face against the peephole of the door, witnessing the crowd shuffle right behind them. Their paces, strange and awkward as they avoided pressing up against or nearing the door, simply circling around the entrance while their heads and eyes scanned and panned like customers observing the shelves of a store. The muffled onslaught of yodeling still quite audible, yet no longer ear piercing and agitating from where they were now.
"Get out! Get! Out!" The riled voice of an older woman screamed over Plyn's words. On the other side of the room, the older woman was standing in front of two younger relatives who were taking cover behind her. They seemed to be standing in the entryway of what looked to be a small kitchen.
_(1)_
A sweat-ridden, pale face, held crimson eyes stricken with hysteria and fright-filled adrenaline as they let their hand off of the center of the steering wheel, feeling a swarm of eyes turning towards them. After watching Wei-Ting and Plyn flee from the crowd, Aishi quickly reached a trembling hand over to a series of buttons settled on the car door. With a light click that was drowned out by the excessive yodeling, the locks on all the car doors dropped into their sockets.
Noriko's eyes darted towards one of the locks upon their sudden movement, her hand still firmly pressed against her exposed ear. She turned back to Aishi, who was now reaching over to her side of the car. He gave a quick tug on her seatbelt, as if testing it to ensure its function, before repositioning himself back into his seat. Sweat began to reek from her own face, still not fully realizing the situation, but coming to terms that it had taken a turn for the worst.
The crowd surrounding them peered through the window glass, staring at the two Devil Hunters trapped within the car. A hand with six fingers slams against the window of Noriko's door, causing her to reel her head away. She turned back towards Aishi with widened eyes.
"Hold on." Aishi mouthed the words as best he could, knowing full well Noriko most likely wouldn't be able to understand him through the cacophony of yodels. He turned his head towards the back window, watching where he was going before he slammed his foot down on the gas pedal.
The car's engine roars and the screech of tires pierces through the devilish choir in the air. By the next moment, the car rams itself into the crowd behind them, running over, shoving, and tossing a portion of the demented horde of deformed bodies. Things disguised as vague representations of beautiful models, tossed through the air, flailing their limbs. Things pretending to be civilian workers, dressed for various careers, trampled under the car's rear and underside. Things simulating humanity, rolling over the entirety of the car's roof.
Noriko watches as what initially looks to be a mother carrying a child rolls onto the front of the car. The mother's arms then flail away as she crawls toward the front windows, letting go of what appeared to be an infant, yet the child remained latched to her chest. The blanket unfolds to reveal a mass of ingrown flesh, bearing the vague face of a child, its jaw unhinging to let out the mockery of a baby's cry.
Yet despite it all, the thought that their origins may have at one time been genuine lingers in the mind of the Torture Fiend. His teeth grind wildly as he watches the horrid scene unfold before him. His trembling eyes watching the vague representation of faces fly through the air or vanish under the car.
Like the waves of an ocean upon the beach, the members of the crowd retreat away from behind the speeding car, before a sudden surge, a wall of bodies charge and slam into the car. With a violent splatter of blood, the tires of the car start screeching. The crowd was managing not only to stop the car, but was beginning to push it forward.
Noriko unintentionally lets her hand off of her exposed ear as she turns her head to look out the back. The yodeling had become not as ear piercing at this distance, yet it wouldn't last forever with the crowd slowly pushing them back to where they were.
"Noriko! Drop a door!" Aishi yelled while turning his head to his coworker, his voice cracking upon witnessing his plan backfire.
"Where?! There's no flat surfaces around here!" Noriko yelled back, glancing around wildly as the crowd began to swarm the car. The sound of knives screeching and stabbing at the windows, all around them.
"I-I don't know! I'm trying to think!" Aishi yelled back, his face scrunching and deforming from the stress and anxiety of their current predicament. He grabbed and tugged on his white hair as his eyes scanned around the car in a wild frenzy. His foot, heavy on the gas.
_(2)_
"Achoo!" Wei-Ting lets out a sudden sneeze. A loud bang, and a grimace of pain followed shortly after, the instant jerk of his head from the sneeze caused his face to slam right into the door in front of him. He covered and rubbed his forehead a little as he clenched his teeth in pain, pacing around the entrance of the abode aimlessly. Droplets of blood spilling across the floor from the stab wound in his abdomen.
"Ma'am! Please calm down!" Plyn cried out as they braced their arms in front of their face with a nervous smile. The sound of the cursing and yelling of a middle aged woman echoing from the other side of the room before a frying pan was flung towards Plyn. The fiend managed to cower and duck in time, causing the frying pan to hit the wall behind them, narrowly avoiding Wei-Ting, who was pacing obviously right behind them.
"What is going on with my nose?!" Wei-Ting grumbled to himself as he seemingly disregarded everything around him, focusing solely on clearing out his nasal cavity. Plyn, picking up their head, glanced behind them, then looked back towards the family of three. The fiend then flung their foot behind them, reeling the frying pan in front of them. Plyn then reached down and picked up the frying pan, before attempting to stuff it into the rear of their pants.
"Hey?! What are you doing?! You dirty devil! That's ours!" The woman then cried out, her enraged, defensive voice mellowing from surprise and shock.
"Sorry Ma'am! I'm afraid I have to confiscate this dangerous weapon for Public Safety!" Plyn quickly replied, waddling their finger at them with a practiced look of civility. Even while obviously stealing their property, right in front of their own eyes, the fiend's tone of voice was like that of a cunning lawyer on the verge of swaying the jury to their side. All the while, shamelessly adjusting their belt and pants to make room for the frying pan, in their pants.
"Or. I could report you and your family for attempting to injure members of Public Safety. It's not appropriate nor just for civilians to harm government personnel and property after all! You could be looking at some serious fines for such behavior! And what shame it could bring to you and your family!" Plyn then continued, rubbing their chin with shut eyes while giving small, subtle nods. Buckling their belt once again, they settled their other hand on their hip and crossed one foot over the other, striking a pose of contemplation.
The woman made a small grunt upon hearing the fiend's words as her face grew a scowl. Yet, she pursed her lips after a few moments, keeping silent upon realizing the situation. She turned her head to whisper something to the two younger relatives behind them, before shooing them further into the house, out of sight.
A devilish grin grew on Plyn's face, a subtle flag of victory. With their crossed legs, they made a stylish spin to turn themself right around. A noticeable frying pan shaped indention visible upon the section of their pants usually reserved for the buttock, the handle of the utensil sticking out the waistband of the pants.
"So! What's the plan, Buzz?" Plyn asked the currently distracted Wei-Ting, who was making strange, stretching faces and using the bottom part of his bloodied suit to blow his nose. Oddly, the open stab wound seemed like a lesser concern at the moment than a stuffy nasal congestion.
Plyn glanced down at the spilling, fresh wound on Wei-Ting's abdomen as it spilt several more streams of blood onto the floor. The crimson gash in plain sight as the young man untucked his shirt to use the bottom flaps as a tissue. They clenched their teeth before quickly glancing around, searching for a solution. Yanking a curtain off a nearby window, the fiend haphazardly wrapped the fabric around their partner's abdomen.
"Plan? We have a plan?" Wei-Ting answered with a distraught question of their own. His congested voice complimenting his now, snot-covered, sickly face.
"Nope! That's why I asked you!" Plyn stated with their usual smile while playfully flicking a pointer finger towards their partner. The partner, in question, simply raising an eyebrow before making a loud snort of congestion.
"So! Let's first assess the situation!" Plyn then said as they spun towards the front door, walking over and propping themselves on their tippy toes to peer out the peephole. The members of the demented crowd outside were seemingly wandering around aimless. Their heads and eyes flickering from place to place consistently every few seconds, like pretending to imitate tourists absorbing the sights. Far off, the echoes of constant yodels were still persistent in the air.
"The Yodel Devil! It yodels. That seems to be about all it does, at least according to our oh so fearless leader." Plyn states, turning away from the door to look towards Wei-Ting again. After another snotty blow of their nose, Wei-Ting focused on the fiend, seemingly trying their best to pay attention to their words.
"This crowd however. Hostile! Dangerous! Who are they?! What do they want?! Is this the work of a devil? Or is it out of their own willing choice?! If so- why?!" Plyn questions, their voice ramping up more and more with intensity with each question. Wei-Ting raised their eyes up towards the ceiling with a look of pondering, critical thoughts in response to the questions.
"Most likely the work of a devil. But we cannot rule out possibilities! So with that said, let's follow our gut and do the worst thing possible. Assume! What do we assume?!" Plyn then asked, taking a step towards their congested coworker with an enthusiastic point and lunge, cueing an answer. Wei-Ting pursed his lips, squinted his eyes and began scratching his hair with a downward tilt of his head. He slowly began to open his mouth to hesitantly respond to the fiend.
"They're possessed! At least I assume they're possessed. Or turned into something, like the zombies or dolls in Tokyo!" Plyn answered, blurting out a response to their own question before their snotty nosed partner could answer. A momentary expression of sadness filled Wei-Ting's face, a face akin to the aftermath of a student confidently choosing an incorrect answer in front of the whole class.
"If they're possessed. We can't kill them." Wei-Ting then responded after swiftly recovering from their momentary sadness, a stern demeanor taking its place. Another sniffle sounded right after he spoke.
"Huh? Why not?" Plyn then asked, their tone and enthusiastic expression degrading with a sudden, unexpected muddle.
"Public Safety is allowed to dispose of such things." Plyn then quickly followed up.
"I won't. And I won't allow anyone to harm them either! If they're possessed humans, then they're still human. They deserve to be rescued, not to be exterminated." Wei-Ting stated with a newfound confidence, taking a step towards Plyn with a piercing look from the singular eye gazing out from under their curly bangs. Their snotty and dazed demeanor taking a sudden turn of resolve.
Plyn's enthusiasm and usual smile plummeted as Wei-Ting towered over them with a sudden presence of threat. Beads of sweat starting to drench their face. A momentary silence, with the muffled, distant echo of yodels, filling the room as the two simply stared at each other for several seconds.
"Ok, Buzz. Then what's the plan?" Plyn then asked in a coy, quiet tone. Their smile steadily returning as they attempted compromise. Wei-Ting paused, gazing his eyes towards the floor in thought, as if searching for an answer.
"I'll kill the Yodel Devil! Then they'll all be free from its wretched control! I'll save them! Buzzsaw Man will save them!" The sternness and threatening demeanor Wei-Ting possessed faded in an instant, washed away by a burst of overconfidence and poor judgment. Pointing a thumb towards himself with a bright smile and glimmer in his eyes.
Another long pause of yodel filled silence overtook the room as the two Devil Hunters froze, simply staring at each other.
"But how will you get to the Yodel Devil?" Plyn asked.
"I'm. I'm not too sure. I thought I'd just rush to it." Wei-Ting hesitantly responded, his enthusiasm quickly fading.
"And what will you do, if the people are still possessed after you kill it?" Plyn then asked.
"They shouldn't be." Wei-Ting replied with an uncertain tone, his posture slacking a bit.
Yet another moment of silence fell upon the two. Once again, they were simply staring into each other's eyes in a frozen muddle of thoughts and decisions.
"Well! Before, we jump right in! I have a better idea to do before then." Plyn then broke the subtle stare down with a sudden clap of their gloved hands and a turn of their head, beginning to pace towards the middle of the room.
"Hm? And what would that be?" Wei-Ting asked as he watched the fiend make their way to the center of the room. The fiend then sat down on the floor, wriggling the utensil handle sticking out the rear of their waistband around to adjust themselves. Settling themselves firmly, the fiend criss crossed their legs, then planted their hands in the gap between their legs and hips.
"Call for help!" Plyn replied casually with a smile, before seemingly staring into space. Wei-Ting stared at the blond with a puzzled look for a second or two, before a sudden sneeze distracted and occupied him once again.
_(3)_
"Happy. We used to call him, Happy Happy Man!" An elderly man said with a big smile upon his face, pressing a trembling finger against a picture labeled on a presented newspaper. The specific face he was pointing to, seemed anything except happy.
"Yep, he sure is quite a happy happy person! Have you happened to see his happy happy self around lately? Possibly today?" An ever enthusiastic Meruki asked the elderly man with careful, slow words and a kind smile.
"Nope! He's probably still cooped up in that office I bet you!" The elderly man responded firmly, letting out a weak chuckle.
"Ha ha, maybe we just missed him then! You have a good day then!" Meruki finished the conversation with a fist pump before turning and walking away from the closing door. He jogged across a street to a group of black cars lined up and parked to the side.
"Any luck, sir?" A devil hunter with shades leaning against one of the cars asked the Third Division Captain as he approached.
"Nada!" Meruki exclaimed with an upbeat tone, folding up the newspaper in his hands, a smile still etched on his face. With the newspaper neatly folded up, the captain slammed the parchment onto the roof of the leading car.
Behind the line of cars, groups of devil hunters mixed with police officers could be seen searching and questioning all around the street. Knocking on doors, inspecting ditches, questioning passing folks, searching and scanning for anything.
Meruki's head snapped up suddenly as his smile dropped and his eyes widened, before turning towards a seemingly random direction further into the city.
"Something's happening." The captain mumbled to himself as his smile returned with a mischievous demeanor. The hunter with shades next to them glanced towards the direction they were facing, before looking back towards the captain with a puzzled look.
As if on a cue of some sort, the radio within the black car crackled to life.
_(4)_
"This is Fourth Division! There's a second devil accompanying the Yodel Devil! Please! Send backup as soon as possible!" Aishi begged desperately into a receiver clutched in his hand, connected to the car's radio by a spirally wire. His foot was still firmly pressing against the gas pedal, yet the car could only squeak and struggle against the tidal wave of deformed human bodies, shoving them towards the towering pile of yodeling flesh.
"The second devil is currently controlling a horde of human bodies! Its classification is unknown!" Aishi continued their explanation into the microphone in a hysterical, stressed voice. A sudden flurry of pounding fists against his window caused the fiend to jump and drop the receiver, the connecting wire reeling itself back over to the console of the car.
A deformed face was pressing and rubbing itself against the opposing window. Its enlarged eye rotating and peeking into the insides of the vehicle in an invasive and perverse fashion. An elongated tongue curls and crawls against the glass, pretending itself to be a serpent slithering aimlessly across the Earth. Past the glass, Noriko was holding her head slightly downward, her eyes flickering around as she took steady breaths. Beads of sweat trailing and dripping off her nose and chin. The metal of the car beginning to tremble and vibrate as they drew closer to the gigantic, howling devil in the middle of the street.
"Noriko, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry for dragging you into this. I'm sorry for relying on you so much." Aishi's voice began to crack as his scrambled, white hair covered his face. His gloved hands squeezing the steering wheel tightly.
Noriko reached her hand down to her seatbelt, pressing down the button to eject the seatbelt from its socket. The belt flung to the other side of the car as she reached a hand up to curl her fingers around a handle settled above the car door. She reeled one leg up and pulled it onto the seat, propping herself up with the heel of her shoe pressing against her rear.
"I don't want to give up, but I want you to know that-" Aishi continued his apologies as his arms trembled, yet his words were cut short by the other's voice.
"Aishi. When I say brakes. Slam the brakes. When I say gas. Hit the gas." Noriko interrupted the fiend with her usual quiet tone, yet the stress in her voice was evident by a dry swallow. With her other free hand, she wrapped her fingers around the gear shift settled between them. Aishi's crimson eyes peeked out from his disheveled hair, looking towards his coworker. The muffled sound of metal scraping against metal filling the car as rabid hands stabbed and scratched at the outside of the car with their steely knives.
"Understood." Aishi replied with a quick nod of his head, watching Noriko intently as he awaited her commands. Noriko reeled her hand away from the gear shift, wiping the sweat from her hands onto the hem of her suit before wrapping her fingers around the shift more firmly and tightly than the previous moment.
Her eyes concentrated intently upon the front window, looking past the bodies that had crawled onto the front of the car to squirm and slither against the glass with spilling blood and fluids. She carefully and gently bit her underlip, taking a final deep breath.
"Brake!" Noriko yelled, her voice cracking, yet the word clear and crisp in the air. On command, Aishi let his foot off the gas pedal and slammed the brakes. The squeal of rubber filling the air amidst the dreaded yodeling. Noriko immediately reeled the hand clutching the shift back with a yank of her arm. The crowd pushing the car further forward significantly in just a few short moments.
"Gas!" Noriko yelled. A foot slammed against the gas pedal as the car rammed its way forward through the unsuspecting crowd. Noriko's eyes glanced towards the rear view mirror, catching a glimpse of the wave of bodies behind them stumbling forward and falling over, losing their formation, structure, and composure. Her eyes flickered forward again as the continuous yodels began to grow in volume by the second.
"Brake!" She yelled once again, making sure to scream over the deafening cry of yodels. A foot obediently slammed against the brake as the inertia pulled the bodies of the two passengers forward in their seats. The squirming bodies on top of the front window flying off and skimming across the pavement, staining the street with speaks of crimson. With another yank of her arm, she pulled the shift forward.
"Gas!" She screamed at the top of her lungs, turning her head toward her partner. The foot slamming against the gas pedal as the screech of tires howled, sending the car flying backwards once again. The stumbled pile of bodies dropped their jaws and widening their eyes in surprise, only a moment before the shiny, busted rear of the car slammed directly into them. Blood splattered across the rear window upon the subtle impact of bone and flesh.
"They're gonna slam into us again!" Aishi's voice cried out as he whipped his head around to look out the rear window. Already, the crowd was rapidly retreating and forming up once again, not even allowing the duo to reach further back than they were previously.
Yet, Noriko's eyes were still watching out the front window intently. A noticeable gap within the crowd, a section of exposed, clear road. Yet it wouldn't last, the members of the crowd scrambling and skittering to reach the car once again by the moment. She let go of the shift, pushing her reeled foot upwards, and pulling herself forward and up with the handlebar. She flung herself on top the dashboard, haphazardly balancing her knees onto it, her small stature giving her just barely enough room to stay on top. With her free hand, she made an upside down L shape with her thumb and index finger, pressing and tilting the hand against the front glass.
"Here it comes!" Aishi screams as his disheveled hair flings around wildly in the air, watching the tidal wave of bodies rush towards them again. A horrid wall of grinning, laughing and bloodied faces and arms, rushing towards them relentlessly.
The sudden impact sent inertia through the car once again, a momentum flinging all inside forward. Just enough inertia for Noriko to remain on top of the dashboard for but a moment. The hand that was gripping the handle bar forms the shape of a regular L, before pressing itself against the opposing hand, forming a rectangular shape with her fingers. A shape much similar to someone gesturing a photograph, except sideways. A concentrated eye stares through the shape, aiming right at a clearing on the road in front of them, moments away from being overtaken once again by the crowd.
"Petapeta." Noriko whispers under her breath in that moment. Black gaps taking the shape of a door appear right where she aims. The shape swinging downward, just like a door, revealing a black, darkened space beneath it. Nearby members of the rushing crowd topple, trip and fall into the darken space, never to be seen again.
By the next moment, the inertia causes Noriko to bang her head against the window, letting out a grunt of pain before she was sent toppling back down into her chair. Her legs sticking up into the air as she finds herself wedged in the gap of the car regularly used for placing one's feet.
The car once again is shoved forward by the crowd, that is, until a wheel of the car seemingly drops. The car tilts to the side, wedging itself in a door shaped hole in the middle of the street. The wall of bodies continues trying to push the car forward, yet the car refuses to budge, stuck in place.
"Noriko. Noriko! You did it! They can't push us anymore forward!" Aishi exclaims excitedly as he glances out the various windows with a joyful smile. The crowd behind them untethering themselves and slowly ceasing their assault, simply circling and pressing their bodies against the car. Noriko simply replies to Aishi's exclamation with an arm thrusting into the air and giving a thumbs up.
The fiend's celebration was cut suddenly short as a deformed hand slams its knuckles against the car window. The glass beginning to crack upon the sudden contact, and the fiend's smile dropping upon the impact.
"Well. At least we aren't being shoved towards the Yodel Devil anymore." Aishi quietly stated as he undid his seat belt, scooting away from his window as far as he could. Noriko crawled out the gap she was wedged in, climbing back onto her seat and adjusting her clothes properly while her hair was a complete mess now.
The ringing of a phone then suddenly sounds in the car. Noriko looks up, seeing what looks to be a landline phone with the words: "Psycho Hotline" written upon it. The phone was mounted upon the roof of the car at an incredibly odd angle and location. She grabs the phone and pulls it out of its mount to rest it against her ear.
"Hello, valued customer! How are you this fine day?" A familiar, androgynous voice calls out from the phone.
"Plyn, where are you and Wei-Ting?" Noriko simply asked in her usual, expressionless, quiet voice, rubbing her head as a noticeable bump was forming upon her forehead.
Aishi, who was in the middle of fixing and readjusting his hair, looked towards Noriko upon hearing her speak. The thumb and the pinky of her hand were sticking out, while the curled fingers of the hand were pressed against her exposed ear. The pinky hovered in front of her mouth, as if she was talking into it.
"I'm doing fine! Thanks for asking!" Plyn replied sarcastically from the phone.
"Plyn." Noriko stated, assessing her question with a single word.
"Don't worry! Me and the snot faced human are perfectly fine! We're currently holed up in an apartment. They haven't tried barging in or anything, just been standing around the door like a bunch of idiots." Plyn explained, their tone and wording much more carefree than usual. Back in the apartment, Plyn was still seated silently with a big smile upon their face, staring off into space. The older woman from earlier, was seemingly shuffling around the kitchen door with unease. The fiend's blank staring was right in her general direction, causing her to give worried glances towards them every few seconds.
"Is that Plyn?" Aishi whispered to Noriko, trying his best not to interfere in her call. She simply turns towards the fiend and nods twice before staring out the front window again.
"Tell them the crowd is from a separate Devil! Not the Yodel Devil." Aishi then said, still trying to keep his voice to a whisper.
"Those people aren't connected to the Yodel Devil, Aishi says it's a separate devil controlling them apparently." Noriko states firmly into the phone.
"Uh oh! Well that's gonna be a bummer for Buzz!" Plyn replied with feint woes and exaggeration in their voice.
"How so?" Noriko simply asks.
"I, Buzzsaw Man! Refuse to kill innocent people!" Plyn mockingly enacts with a rather nasally impersonation.
"Achoo!" Wei-Ting lets out another sneeze right as the name is called. He then wipes the leaking snot onto his coat sleeve.
"Hmmm…" Plyn's voice hums through the phone, as the lips to their physical body curl silently in curiosity.
"What are you planning?" Noriko asked, seemingly recognizing the fiend's intentions just from a mere hum.
"You know me too well! Am I really that obvious?!" Plyn's voice complained and cried out the phone. After a moment of silence, they continue talking.
"Well. This guy keeps saying he's Buzzsaw Man! Buzzsaw Man! Buzzsaw Man will save you! Buzzsaw Man will do what's right! Well, enough barking! I want to get him to show his bite! Bring out the Buzzsaws! Kill 'em all! Ya know? You've seen what that chainsaw guy can do in Tokyo! Right?! I just want to give 'em an excuse to clean this mess up!" Plyn's voice explained enthusiastically, their wording just like a salesman pitching an idea to a company.
Noriko's eyebrows slightly lowered in disapproval. A distorted hand slams against the front window, causing more cracks to appear across the glass. Her expression suddenly changes, as if her mind had reconsidered the proposal at that very moment. She lowered the phone away from her ear.
"Plyn wants to try talking Wei-Ting into going Buzzsaw and killing all these people. Are they all a lost cause, Aishi?" Noriko asked Aishi, continuing to stare blankly out the front window. A bead of sweat running down the side of her face. The fiend's crimson eyes stared towards her with a frozen expression.
He slowly panned his eyes out towards the crowd once again. The deformities and perverted shapes representing people, dancing around them like wild animals. Could they be saved? Could they ever go back to their regular lives if the devil responsible perished? Where even was this unknown devil? What even is it?
"Come on! It's just like the zombies and dolls that popped up in Tokyo! They're lost causes!" Plyn's voice cooed from the phone. Noriko's grip around the phone shifting uncomfortably. Plyn, was a devil, through and through after all. No sympathies for that which is human.
Aishi lowered his head down slightly, staring down at the various meters and gauges of the car.
"I'm sure Barusa would be proud to see Fourth Division take care of two devils in one go! Huh?!" Plyn's voice continued cooing from the phone with sweet little persuasions and comments.
"Noriko. You know I can't say yes. But I don't think we can afford to say no." Aishi quietly stated, his voice trembling and quivering with each word. Noriko took a deep breath, then brought the phone next to her ear once again.
"Let it rip." Noriko quietly affirmed into the phone.
"That's what I like to hear! Now sit back and enjoy the show!" Plyn's voice exclaimed from the speaker. A beep then sounded from the phone, indicating the call had ended. Noriko silently placed and slid the phone back into its mount. Muffled gargles and groans filling the air around them, while the yodels continue bellowing out in the far distance. The enormous, singing abomination slowly dragging itself further and further down the street.
The sound of a window shattering sounds behind them. Aishi and Noriko both turn around to see an oily, tanned, shriveled figure slither onto the backseats of the car. Their wriggles akin to the fluid movements of a snake as they shifted across the seats smoothly. Their ear lobes elongated like that of a twisted depiction of a Buddha.
"Someone's been disturbing my sleep." The shriveled body croaked with a dry, husky voice as it raised its wrinkled, flabby face and turned towards the two passengers. Their eyes and teeth hidden behind the countless wrinkles as it gave them a horrid, stretched smile.
"Was it you?" The figure hissed.
_(5)_
A clap of gloved hands broke the silence of the apartment once again. The blond fiend reanimating and hopping up to their feet. They spun around to face Wei-Ting, who was still struggling with their nose and sinuses.
"I got good news buddy!" Plyn exclaimed with their usual smile as they took gleeful, exaggeratingly long steps towards their partner.
"What's that?" Wei-Ting asked with a choked up voice, his nose making an audible sniffle and suction with each syllable.
"Well, I guess kinda bad news if you think about it- but good news for us! I just got in touch with Aishi and Noriko, and guess what they said?" Plyn said as they leaned forward with clasped hands.
"What?" Wei-Ting replied before they took a few breaths using their mouth instead of their runny nose.
"They said. The mob of possessed people out there? It's all a trick! Because it's all just a devil! None of the people out there are or ever were human! It's all devil! And only devil!" Plyn exclaimed, confidently spouting lie after lie. Their silver tongue running wild with deceit.
"What?" Wei-Ting stated again, his expression becoming dumbfounded, as if coming to a sudden realization. His eyes flicking around, like trying to put together pieces to a puzzle.
"It's all devil?" Wei-Ting repeated as his eyes widened and his posture straightened. He took a deep breath, then blew all the snot out of his nose with a sudden jet of nasally air.
"Yep! It's all devil!" Plyn repeated, rubbing their hands together while pacing around, a little playful bounce to each step they made.
Back within the tilted black car swarmed by the deformed crowd, Aishi and Noriko were carefully distancing themselves as much as they could away from the shriveled figure in the backseat. Findings themselves crawling out of their seats to cram and shove their bodies against the doors and windows of the enclosed space. The faces and hands of the crowd pressing and sliding their flesh across the car windows, obscuring the passenger's view of the outside world and drenching the interior of the car in shifting shadows.
"You. You're the devil controlling these people? Aren't you?" Aishi accused the figure with a tensed, strained mumble as the back of his sweat-drenched, pale head pressed against the front window.
"I don't need to tell you anything, Devil Hunter! You're about to die anyway. And don't you know it's rude to answer a question with another question? Huh!?" The shriveled head barked with its scratchy voice while slowly beginning to peek itself out from between the two front seats.
"No wonder why my nose has been bothering me so much." Wei-Ting said, as he turned away from Plyn, beginning to walk toward the front door.
"Huh? Where ya goin, partner?" Plyn mumbled with a bit of surprise in their tone as they noticed Wei-Ting walking up to the door.
"A devil that slipped away, two fiends, a really huge devil that won't shut up! And now an entire crowd of devils?! All in one day?! No wonder why my nose is killing me! This city absolutely reeks!" Wei-Ting's voice was growing more intense with each word. Their congestion, agitation and stuffiness converting into anticipation, anger, and annoyance with each delayed step they took.
"Buzz? Whatcha talking about?" Plyn called out while trying to figure out what Wei-Ting was saying and doing, realizing the fellow hunter wasn't even listening to their words anymore. They took a few steps to follow the young man, yet were now keeping a significant distance.
"It's all devils!" Wei-Ting roared out, his expression sharpening to a grimace. Swiping a hand across his face, he stuck the thumb of his clutched fist out, before pressing said thumb under his nose. The nose beginning to climb his face with the applied pressure.
The sudden noise of metal slicing through the air sounded as Wei-Ting yanked his hand away from his face. Two parallel, vertical, circular blades viciously rammed themselves into the top of his head in seemingly an instant, digging all the way past where his eyes should be. A wicked grimace of exposed, clenched teeth that make an unclear, mixed expression that represented a clenching strain of pain, and a malicious, eager smile. Small whirling sounds echoed from his cheeks right before two diagonally aligned, smaller circular blades sliced their way out of the sides of his mouth, spilling even more blood onto the floor.
The woman standing at the kitchen jumps with a short scream, covering her mouth with her hands. Startled and alarmed by the sudden mutilations.
Plyn freezes in their tracks upon seeing this. Shutting their mouth tightly, jerking their head back, and staring at their coworker with shrunken pupils. They slowly began raising a hand up, as if regathering their thoughts before attempting to speak. Yet before they could speak, a whirling sound started emitting from Wei-Ting's mutilated, bleeding head.
"But I'll tell you something. So you die with a guilty conscience, hehe! I'm a simple devil. I simply like sleeping and eating like anyone else. And the Yodel Devil's song lulls me right to sleep." The figure in the backseat of the car explained with a ghastly chuckle, their steady hands creeping around the heads of the front seats. The distant yodels still dancing around i the air.
The four circular saws lodged in the young man's head began spinning and whirling, spilling more blood all across from where he stood, obscuring his head in a gory cloud of crimson. The stab wound on his abdomen sealed and shut itself in mere moments, while his head began bobbing and swaying around wildly. A low, sinister sounding laughter rising from beneath the wild, brutal tearing sound of the buzzsaws.
The woman screamed once again, before dashing down the hall, away and out of sight from the two devil hunters. A splatter of blood hitting and soaking Plyn's jaw dropped cheek as they watched the spectacle of gore unfold. While still watching dumbfoundedly, the fiend's tongue slithered out of their mouth to lick the blood off their cheek. The fiend's face then suddenly distorts to a bulgy-eyed volatile gag of disgust upon the blood gracing their taste buds.
"Had you just let us pass through, you wouldn't have had to die. Just the folks stupid enough not to run or hide in our wake die after all!" Bloody blades started to slowly slide out of the figure's shriveled eyes as their distorted smile grew wider and wider with each word spoken.
The braided cluster of flowing hair that reached down to Wei-Ting's hips began swinging around while the cranial carnage continued, whipping in various directions before reeling itself into the crimson cloud like the pull cord of a howling machine. Right as the end of the braid reached the head, the blood cleared, the whirling ceased, and a T-shaped handle lodged itself into a socket on the back of the navy blue piece of material that now encased their head. The crunchy grinding of teeth sounding as four metal tubes, two for each side, bursted out of the face. The ends of said tubes blinking and flickering awake like the headlights of a starting car.
"I wouldn't mind aimlessly wandering the desert, hiking the mountains, or enduring the barren arctic, as long as I get to hear my precious beloved sing!" The devil laughed, blades growing out of the nubs of the figure's back. Narrow spikes started to extend through the tips of their fingers, growing ever closer to the cowering Aishi and Noriko. The two still silently trying to push their bodies as far away from the figure as they could.
While Aishi's trembling eyes concentrated on the devil's wretched face intently, a gloved hand of his, fumbled around the console and dash of the car, desperately searching for something.
"This process seems entirely painful. How much does it hurt?" Plyn mumbled under their breath, seemingly asking nobody but themself.
"Like hell!" The Buzzsaw Man howled in response before raising his leg up towards the door in front of him. With a single kick, the door flies off its hinges and into the alleyway. A member or two of the wretched crowd standing in front of the door, sent flying with it. Sudden splatters of blood spray across the street upon the door smashing against a wall on the other side of the alley.
"Huh?" The figure lets out a startled grunt as the blades suddenly retracted back into their body. Their head whipping around to one of the car windows as the crowd cleared the way to allow the figure to see out said window. Their gaze darting in the direction of an alleyway on the side of the road as their deformed grin drop to an open frown.
A swing of metal whistles in the air before blood begins to spray across the car's interior. The figure lets out a ghoulish shriek of pain as their expression distorts to a volatile, inhuman shape. A small, one handed axe clutched in Aishi's hand had been driven into the flesh and assumed bones between the devil's neck and shoulder.
The crowd in the alley stared at the splatter of blood. The door fell onto the concrete with a squeak and thud. In sync, they all began turning to where the door was once bolted firmly. Mid turn, a singular member was met with a somewhat clean, navy blue and white, high top Chuck Taylor, forcing itself into the side of their face with the added weight of a manic Buzzsaw Man behind it.
Right as the kick landed, time seemed to slow down. The cheeks of the deformed face flapping and shifting around from the impact of the kick. In the next moment, a circular saw bursted out from the Buzzsaw Man's foot, the bores of the blades centered right where his ankles should be, like a pair of gory, single wheeled roller skates. The saw sliced and bored its way right into the member's distorted face, before beginning to spin. The member's head inching towards the concrete as blood began spilling from their eye sockets, nose, and mouth.
The shriveled figure in the car and every single member of the dreaded, deformed collective, distorted their face to a twisted, silent scream as the circular saw sliced and diced through the singular member's flesh. Blood spraying and gore splattering uncontrollably.
The shoestrings and main body of the Chuck Taylor, sliced in half, stained and drenched in blood, ruining their cleanliness and integrity in a crimson instant. The ankles of the fancy, black slacks, sliced and torn in an instant. The fancy, black socks, sliced and torn in an instant.
Time returned to its natural flow as the member's head was squashed against the concrete. Their screaming, pain filled face, peeling away from their body and flopping onto the cement as but a loose sliver of skin. The circular saw halting as it presses a section of blades against the concrete. The other members of the nearby crowd, freeze in their movements as they stared towards the Buzzsaw Man.
"Time for a purge! Ya scrambling filth!" The Buzzsaw man erupted as he jerked his wrists inwards, two circular saws attached the pistons erupting from his arms and tearing apart the sleeves of his suit. With a frenzied lunge, he pounced onto another member, tackling them down to the ground before tearing and dismembering their body into a bloody veneer.
The figure in the car lets out a raspy, dry hiss as they scurry and slither quickly out the broken car window they had entered from. The axe lodged in their body tumbling onto the car seats. Their flesh seemingly merges and sinks rapidly into the exposed flesh of one of the crowd members nearby. Once fully embedded into the flesh, the merged crowd member flees into the sea of deformed bodies with an uncanny scuttle.
An elongated appendage of the Yodel Devil rises high into air. This particular appendage sporting what appeared to be the shape of an upper human body, their arms crossed and melded into their chest as the hands were one with their opposing shoulders. The appendage raised its deformed head up high into the air and began singing in a foreign tongue over the bellowing yodels, complimenting them in an ear splitting, yet magnificent duet of voices.
The crowd in the alley drew their knives and blades, swarming towards the Buzzsaw Man before plunging their daggers rapidly into his exposed back, stabbing and stabbing, uncaring if they slice and cut one another in the process. The whirling of buzzsaws sound from underneath as they continue piling ontop of him. Bodies then begin trembling and shaking here and there before collapsing into dismembered piles of limbs. Carcasses sent airborne across the alley as but separated chunks and pieces of ravaged flesh.
Malicious laughter and hollering starts rising from the center of the pile of bodies, before the deformed bodies start tumbling and flying off the pile. Members of the pile quickly begin scrambling away quickly after, skipping, crawling, and sprinting to the rest of the crowd in the main street. Where they had piled up, the Buzzsaw Man was now standing tall, spinning in place rapidly as the saws on his feet spun in opposing directions. Clutched in his hands, a deformed body was being swung around and around by their ankles as a human shaped bludgeon, smacking and sending other bodies airborne with little to no coordination or aim.
The Buzzsaw Man reeled his head back and let out another hearty laugh as he spun faster and faster. Letting his fingers loose, the body in his hands soared high into the sky before hitting a nearby building a few stories tall. A vile crack sounding upon the body's impact, leaving a splatter of blood upon the structure before falling back to Earth in a limp flail.
"Where ya runnin to?!" The Buzzsaw Man hollered as he wobbled around from spinning so much, watching the other members of the crowd flee as he swung his arms in frantic circles to regain his stability. After recovering his balance a second or two later, he positioned his feet forward, before the saws on his feet began spinning up once again. The saws send sparks flying into the air as the metal grinds against the concrete crudely. He leaned forward and bent his knees, and by the next moment, he was flying through the alley, charging right into the crowd.
"Huh. That was. A lot easier than I thought?" An astonished Plyn stated to themself. Standing right in place, staring out the open doorway, processing the past minute or two. The fiend then stuffed their hands into their pants as they strolled out the doorway with exaggerated high kicks. They then began letting out idle whistles from their mouth as they gazed around and inspected the bloody carnage left behind.
"Oh!" Plyn let out a little noise upon spotting a body missing the lower half of its body, still active and attempting to crawl away from the scene. The fiend reached their hand behind their back and tugged on the utensil handle sticking out of the waistband of their slacks. Ambling over to the active body, they pulled out the stashed frying pan out and gave it a flick. With the simple flick, the handle of the pan extended out like a polearm as the rounded portion expanded and took a more sturdier appearance.
"Afraid I can't let you do that." Plyn mumbled as they stepped to the side of the body, hovering the pan over the deformed head before taking a few practice downward swings. Confirming their aim, Plyn reeled the converted weapon over their head.
"Hup!" The fiend then let out yet another small, unserious noise as they swung the pan downwards with significant force. Blood squirting out upon impact as the pan crushed the head in a single blow. The body underneath the pan ceases its movements. Plyn then took another look around, noticing several other twitching bodies among the remains. With another start of a leisure whistle tune, they started making their way to each and every one, repeating the process of aiming followed by a lethal downwards blow to the head.