'Now this shit is just unfair!'
Denji watched in disbelief as the doll monstrosity's arms grew back, all the results of their battle on the roof being undone in an instant. The darkness looking like it was almost wrapping around the creature, cradling it in a healing embrace.
"This body was half a year from death, but it regenerates splendidly now."
Denji would have been grinding his teeth in annoyance had his now razor-sharp maw allowed for it as the creature Makima had called Santa Claus gloated its newfound powers over the hybrid.
"Less talking, and more fightin'!", Denji snarled in frustration as he launched himself towards the abomination, only to be stopped in his tracks when a wave of puppets swarmed forth from the darkness around them, the mass of them carrying Denji away as he swung his saws around haphazardly.
"Oh, crap!"
The horde of dolls pushed Denji away from Santa Claus, driving him back with such force that both they and Denji smashed through the wall, falling into the street; the wave of dolls spilling out and burying him beneath their mass.
Meanwhile, up on the roof above, Tsugihagi looked down at the writhing mass of dolls impassively, cradling Quanxi's head close to her chest. It was oft hard to tell what the patch-faced fiend was thinking, but as she looked back through the chain-link fence where the other fiends Long and Pingsti's bodies lay cut up on the ground, her face seemed to harden.
Almost tenderly Tsugihagi flipped Quanxi's eyepatch and slid her hand into the hybrid's eye socket, her hand looking as if it was rummaging around, looking for something: and then her hand stopped moving. With a firm grip the fiend pulled her hand back out from the socket, and with it came an arrow; the head of the bolt so long that it seemed an impossibility that it could've fit in the woman's head.
It came loose with a popping noise, slick with blood and, with one last look at Quanxi's face, Tsugihagi let the head drop, falling straight down and into the middle of the mosh-pit of dolls below.
"Ow, ow, ow, ow!", Denji was pinned to the pavement, unable to move or free himself as the dolls kept trying to stab at him, most of the blows thankfully just grazing him; the sheer amount of them making it difficult for them to land blows.
'Crap… won't be long until one h-'
"Ouch!", Denji's thoughts were interrupted as he felt a burning pain in his shoulder, one of the doll's bladed hands having just pierced straight through its soft tissue.
As Denji's frustration began to hit its peak, he started hearing… Whistling? Then the noises began picking up pace, the whistling being followed by the crunching and shattering of pottery until, suddenly the pressure on Denji alleviated as dolls flew away from him. The dogpile dissolved as the dolls flew through the air, some smashing as they impacted the ground, others being shot mid-air, bolts shooting clean through the porcelain bodies of the dolls, ripping through their torsos, decapitating them and even ripping limbs clean off as they shot through the air.
Denji is kneeling down on the ground, catching his breath as he looks up at his saviour, 'What in the hell is th- ohhhh yeah!'
His momentary confusion faded away as he remembered what Reze said about Quanxi 'being like them.'
"Hey! You're that eyepatch lady! Hate to break it to you, but I'm kinda busy with tall dark and creepy over there, you're gonna have to wait your turn!", Denji barked as he readied his saws. Quanxi stood, her head transformed into a sharp, angular form akin to a crossbow crested with a mane of jagged spikes.
"Tch", Quanxi scoffed at Denji's attitude, though it soon became very clear that she had a much more pressing target for her anger. "Chainsaw man, give me a hand until I kill that damn devil."
"That bastard killed my women…"
Denji had been prepared to fight the woman, or at least to give her some back sass, but hearing the way her voice quivered when she spoke, that mixture of rage and grief…
It made him think of Reze, he didn't know what happened to her in Hell, nor had he seen her on the roof. He hoped that she was alright, 'Nah, there's no point worrying now… Besides, Miss Makima is there, everyone will be fine!'
He got up and stood next to the woman, a bit battered but otherwise fine. However the same could also be said for the dolls: those that had been blown away just moments before now stood up, those with no arms, torsos barely existent, no heads even, all stood up. The only ones not standing up were those that were rendered completely immobile, though even some with no legs were now starting to slowly crawl towards the two hybrids…
"The dolls are powered up", Quanxi growled through her jagged teeth, her irritation nevertheless seeping through, "Looks like it's pointless to take them out without killing their master."
"Either that or cut 'em up like a blender" Denji adds bluntly, "They won't get back up from that."
As the dolls close in, Denji's saws start to whir again as he prepares himself, "Alright, watch my back!"
Denji turned to Quanxi for confirmation, only to be greeted by empty air.
"Whoa, you're gone?!"
Denji looked at the empty space next to him for a moment, torn between exasperation and amazement as he tiredly turned back to the crowd.
'What a shit day…'
"Denji!"
Reze bolted upright, the girl hyperventilating as she looked down at her hands. She paid little heed to the fact that her arms were reattached to her body, her mind was somewhere else entirely.
"Denji! Denji!", she cried out, nearly in hysterics as looked at the ground, unable to raise her gaze, afraid of looking up and seeing that accursed darkness again.
"There is no need to worry. We have returned from hell."
Reze's head whipped up at the sound of a familiar, soft voice, her eyes meeting the fiery eyes of Makima. The woman was looking down at Reze with a small, calm smile; though it wasn't exactly hard to discern the lack of warmth in it, "As you can see, I've taken the liberty of reviving you."
The cut on the woman's hand, and the metallic taste in Reze's mouth confirmed as much. Though had Reze been in a better state of mind, she may have cringed at having to consume her blood. However, she had bigger concerns at the moment.
"W-where's Denji?", Reze asked the woman haltingly, still shaken, "Is he alright?"
Makima just continued smiling that cold smile of hers as she looked down her nose at her, "Denji is currently down there fighting the Darkness Devil, or rather its servant Santa Claus. I trust that I won't need to tell you to go down there and aid him?"
Reze averted her gaze as she stood up, Makima's domineering attitude irking her as she wordlessly strides past the unnerving woman to the edge of the building, a ghost of a smile coming to her face as she saw Denji alive and well, tearing through doll after doll on the street below.
"Good luck, 961."
Reze's smile proved fleeting as she froze, her finger looped in her pin as she felt herself break into a cold sweat, the panic returning as her blood ran cold. She didn't dare turn around, lest she give Makima the satisfaction of seeing her reaction.
Her mind raced: How did she know that number? Why bring it up now?
She felt her stomach drop as memories of Hell came back to her, and out of those horrors one memory stood out to her in particular: a sword flying through the air, and piercing Makima straight through her chest. That was the last question buzzing through Reze's head: Why was Makima still alive?
Reze didn't dare say a word to her, simply pulling out her pin and letting gravity take her off the edge.
It didn't take long for Santa Claus to rejoin her endless army of dolls, and in the same breath, bolts shot out at her from an unknown location, practically pulverising Santa's doll body, surgically picking off each of her limbs, leaving Santa broken on the ground. For a few moments at least.
Denji watched as Santa rapidly began to reform: her shattered pieces reforming in the shade until she stood there unperturbed and fully reformed, seeming more curious than annoyed at being shot to pieces.
'Well, at least I have back up, thought the old lady had just left there for a minute…'
"I didn't anticipate you joining us", Santa spoke, looking into the middle distance as she addressed Quanxi with a small smile on her face, "It's an honour to meet the human that was known as the first devil hunter."
Needless to say, for Quanxi, the feeling was not mutual. A fact quickly proven as more bolts tore through Santa's monstrous form, breaking her up into even more pieces than before: but to no avail. The monster just reformed as if it were nothing, shrugging off the damage as if it were nothing.
"That tickles", Santa giggled like some kind of demonic schoolgirl, revelling in her new power
"Ah, I see, I can spread my sense of pain across the other dolls too", Santa Claus looked awfully pleased, totally unperturbed as another arrow flew straight through her head, "Now, how to hunt an invisible hunter?"
Another bolt shot through Santa's head, obliterating the top half of her head: yet she kept talking, her attention now turning to Denji.
"As for little Chainsaw… can you kill these dolls?"
Denji looked on as dolls began rising from the ground once more, but something was different this time, the dolls were… screaming. They started running towards him, this time with human faces, screaming about their transformed bodies, about how they couldn't control themselves. Some were even conscious: chunks of their heads missing as they screamed in terror.
"Yikes…", Denji readied himself to meet the charging dolls, thoroughly disturbed by their screams. "For real?! This is just super-villain-level stuff now!"
"Can a devil hunter kill these dolls?", Santa repeated herself, her head reforming as her eyes locked with Denji's, taunting him with the question. And Denji had an answer.
"Nope, nope, nope! No way!", Denji shouted as he began running away from the dolls, chainsaws sliding out from the bottom of his feet as he began running across the side of the building in an attempt to avoid them and come up with a plan. What he didn't expect was the dolls to follow him, their feet turning into blades as they ran full pelt across the side of the building.
"Craaap!", Denji yelled as he ran, finding that having suicidal dolls charging after him wasn't exactly helping him think. He then notices dolls starting to close in on him from the front, trying to catch him in a pincer movement and makes a split-second decision.
"Damn it!", he swung his saw around, cutting through one of the pursuing dolls before jumping down to the ground, the remains of the doll falling at his feet.
"M-murderer…"
Denji looked down at the doll talking to him, bleeding out on the ground. It didn't look like a doll at all, it just looked like a regular guy. For some reason, Denji couldn't bring himself to move.
'A murderer huh…'
Denji stood there numbly, not registering the dolls closing in on him until it was much too late, the screaming and crying dolls swarming him, the boy barely had time to cry out as he was once again trapped under a pile of puppets, each one screaming and yelling as their bodies lunged and stabbed at him. He could only desperately swing his saw, all whilst trying his best not to hurt them.
Then another scream could be heard, but this was from a doll, not a human. This came from above in the sky, a flaming meteor coming crashing down from the building above.
The comet made impact right next to the dogpile burying Denji, most of the dolls being blasted away, shattering them and showering the street with ceramic and gore. Denji coughed as he sat up, the smell of smoke and cooked meat searing his nostrils.
'What the hell hap-', Denji didn't get a chance to finish that thought as something rushed through the smoke and… wrapped him in a hug?
"Reze!", Denji returned the hug, everything clicking into place for him as he embraced his girlfriend, "You're okay! When I didn't see you up there…"
"G-god I was so w-worried!", Reze tightened the hug, holding on as if for dear life, "I-I thought you were… You could've…"
They stay like that for what could have only been a few seconds, but which felt like hours, their transformed heads grating against each other as they pull back, holding each other at arm's length; as if confirming that the other was truly there.
"M-my… You m-murderer…"
The tender moment was interrupted as a legless doll crawled towards them, only for it to be speared by an arrow, Quanxi's view of the battlefield having been restored as the smoke cleared.
"She… how could…", Denji muttered as he looked at the now headless corpse.
"Denji…", Reze says with a sigh, her voice rich with emotion: she knew how it must feel for him, being forced to kill innocents or to be killed, "Don't… don't worry about them, not now. There'll be plenty of time for that later.
"But we can't just kill them! Isn't there another way, can't we just kill the big bad over there?!", Desperation tinged Denji's voice as he gestured wildly.
"You should listen to your girlfriend Chainsaw. These dolls – they're only imitating humans", Quanxi's voice sounded down from above, the other hybrid hanging from the side of a building, half-perched on a window ledge, "Kill them. Don't hesitate."
"How do you know that?!", Denji yelled back to her, not convinced.
"If you understand it that way, you can kill them. Can't you?"
Denji didn't respond to that, just staring up at the woman. In their transformed forms, it was nigh impossible to tell what they were thinking at times, but Reze had a good idea of what Denji was going through and took hold of his hand.
"There's nothing we can do Denji… They're already gone…"
Denji just sighed, he'd kinda of wanted to be a hero at the start of this Public Safety business, but this didn't feel heroic at all…
"Ignorance is bliss Chainsaw", Quanxi spoke these words as if reading from the gospel. Those words were her creed, and she lived by them every day. However, whilst speaking Quanxi hadn't been paying attention to her surroundings, something she found out in short order as the window beside her shattered, Santa Claus crashing through it and grabbing a hold of the first devil hunter.
"I finally cau-"
Santa's gloating was unceremoniously cut short as a spark flashed on her chest, exploding into a ball of fire; the eldritch abomination was sent to the ground in a cloud of smoke, some fires smouldering on parts of her body as she screamed.
"Arghhahhhh!"
"Thanks, Bomb", Quanxi floated down next to them, gruffly thanking Reze, "But that'll just be the start. Sun's going down…"
And how right Quanxi was, because as the sun went down, Santa's screams turned into laughter, as sure as night follows day…
"Aaaarghhhahahahaha!"
Quanxi shot another round of arrows at the creature, Santa already having recovered from the wounds inflicted by Reze recovered just as quickly from the new holes shot through it, simply giggling as the sunlight disappeared below the horizon, darkness engulfing the streets of Tokyo.
"Hee hee hee hee hee…"
Denji and Reze recoiled as they saw the creature crawl out of the remains of the shop she had been blasted into: her limbs had multiplied; her skin had gone a dark bruise-like purple and her head was now as demonic as the rest of her; with piercing luminous eyes and wicked crescent horns jutting from each side of her head.
"So, this is the power of the dark…", the monster revelled in its new power, watching as the last of its wounds healed: with this power, she could easily defeat these damned weapons and end Makima's dream once and for all!
"Is it just me, or did you get even creepier?"
"Yeahhh… Something that ugly should really be put down. Would be a mercy honestly."
Santa turned towards Denji and Reze, her crowing abruptly stopping as she glowered at them. And then she was gone, leaving behind only dust.
"Wha-!"
Just as suddenly as she disappeared, Santa appeared in front of the two teens as if she emerged from the darkness itself, the monster carrying her momentum into a brutal swing of her arms, sending both Denji and Reze flying, straight into a nearby fuel station, both careening into the gas station store, dust and debris billowing out from the impact.
Quanxi meanwhile had elegantly hopped over the attack, once again sending a volley of arrows towards Santa Claus. This time, however, Santa's new limbs caught them mid-air with ease, snapping them like twigs.
"While you were busy killing me…", the monster spoke, a huge maw of razor-sharp teeth gleaming as she began to gloat once more, "I took the liberty of creating a few more dolls."
Quanxi turned to the side to see a sight which made her stomach drop, puppet versions of Pingsti and Long, and they were holding Tsugihagi hostage.
'I never should have taken this damned job…'
"This crap again…?", while her thoughts were melancholic at this point, Quanxi tried to keep up some bravado in front of Santa, though with little success, her tired voice betraying her.
In fact, all the fight seemed to go out of her as puppet Pingsti approached her, leaving puppet Long alone to guard Tsugihagi. Pingsti had always been her favourite, not that she'd ever tell the other girls, but she had been such a chatty and vibrant thing; she'd always liven up her day just by being around. So, even when the doll stabbed her straight through the chest, Quanxi couldn't bring herself to follow her own advice and, instead of killing the doll, she simply let herself fall into a crouch.
As she bled out from the gut wound, she decided that she couldn't just make herself assume that the doll Pingsti was just an empty puppet, if there was any chance she wasn't Quanxi needed to show how she felt one last time. So, with the last of her strength, Quanxi wrapped the small fiend in a tight hug.
Santa watched the whole display with an attitude of detached curiosity, not over the devil hunter's relationships, no. But over something more interesting altogether…
"Now… Can she be made into a doll…?"
"Urghhh… me and my big mouth…", Denji groaned as he quickly got up, Reze rising up nearby as well, dusting herself off quickly.
"Yeah…maybe not our best idea to aggravate darkness incarnate, at night"
Reze was quickly distracted from her grumbling, however, as she noticed Denji beeline straight to the other end of the shop, grabbing a can and dumping its contents over his head. Reze quickly caught on to what it was when the pungent smell of gasoline hit her nostrils.
"Alright Reze, light me up!"
"What?", Reze just stared at him for a moment, not quite registering what he'd just said for a moment: and then it hit her.
"Are you touched in the head?!", Reze shouted, making Denji recoil, "Your plan is to get me to light you on fire?!"
"Well… yeah…?", Denji says, quickly raising his saw placatingly seeing that Reze was about to shout again, "Wait, wait! Your explosions seemed to hurt her pretty bad earlier, and if the darkness is healing her, then I'll just make sure she can't escape the light!"
Denji grins, or at least does the best impression of a grin that his jagged max would allow as he presents his plan. Reze just shook her head and sighed.
"Y'know, I don't know whether to hit you or kiss you", Reze's voice was laden with mirth and exasperation in equal measure, "You've really come a long way from just hacking and slashing, hm?"
"I'd be up for a kiss later, but you could settle for lightin' me on fire for now", Denji replied cheekily, getting a sharp bark of laughter from Reze.
"Fine, fine… But you'd better not just burn up to a crisp out there!"
Santa's hand was reaching out towards Quanxi, the first devil hunter's still form still wrapped tight around the doll. She hadn't expected that little ploy to work so well, to think that she would be that sentimental…
Just as her hand was about to rest on the top of Quanxi's head she stopped, hearing a buzzing sound from behind her, she quickly turned as it grew closer, but she was much too late.
"This is the power of light!", Denji yelled out as he jumped onto Santa's back, his whole body alight as he got the monster in a headlock, his saws mowing through arm after arm as Santa squirmed, writhing in pain.
"AAAARGHHHH!", a monstrous wail came forth from Santa's maw as the fire coating Denji began spreading onto her, the darkness struggling to heal the damage.
"AIIEEEEE!"
With an ear-piercing screech, Santa's remaining limbs grabbed onto Denji's burning body, desperately tossing him as far away as she possibly could, looking at him disdainfully as she re-established her air of superiority after the undignified screaming.
"Even after deepening my wisdom with darkness, I still can't comprehend the behaviour of fools"
"HOOOT! HOOT!", Denji was constantly yelling, clearly in pain from the flames licking over his body, yet he still found it in him to snap back at Santa, "Hey! I ain't no fool! I watch education TV every day!"
'Only fool I see her is you lady!', Denji thought as Santa Claus looked down at the chains wrapped around her torso, 'Gotta remember to thank Reze for that makin' me learn that!'
"His chain…?"
Whilst Santa looked down in puzzlement at the chain, Denji lunged at her, closing the distance with a guttural battle cry and tackling her head-on; a saw blade piercing right through her throat while the other ran her straight through the chest.
This time however, Santa kept her composure as her hands got a firm grip on him, raising him up in the air away from her, his saws sliding out of her neck and chest as she did so.
"This is futile, I can distribute my pain", Santa's voice dripped with condescension as the boy was held up, the sight of his body burning up bringing something close to a smile to Santa's face.
"Gahhh…! Hot!", Denji groaned in pain before addressing Santa again, though this time it was him mocking the monster, "But can you make 'im faster than she can kill 'im?"
Right on cue, explosions started detonating all across the street, dolls being incinerated left right and centre as Santa swung her head around to look at the carnage, before looking back at Denji with hateful eyes.
"And, I dunno… but your regeneration is lookin' pretty slow to me… all thanks to the power of light!"
Santa responded by pushing Denji against a nearby wall, shattering it and revealing the mass of dolls behind it, the doll proceeding to swarm over him as she looked down at him imperiously.
"A fitting death for a dog that ignorantly wags its tail for Makima… Now stay still and burn."
However, that wasn't something Denji was in a hurry to do, the dolls pinning him down doubling up as his saving grace as he bit into them, their blood fuelling his regenerative powers. Thankfully, this wasn't a cycle Denji had to keep up for long as a spark flew past his head, igniting in the building behind an explosion detonating the dolls, freeing Denji and blasting him and Santa forward towards the middle of the street.
For her part, Reze uses a small explosion to quickly hop over to where Denji landed, finding him locked in a tug of war with Santa Claus and her dolls, immediately sending some explosions Santa's way, decimating the dolls but doing little damage to the ringleader itself.
"Tch…", Reze upon realizing that tactic won't be effective joins Denji in pulling on the chain, trying to drag it in closer.
"I have a plan Denji, when I give the word, grab on to me. Tight."
Denji grunted in the affirmative, focusing entirely on pulling, trying to ignore the pain of the fire.
"He's pulling me towards him… Monster!", without her dolls, Santa began to panic, stubbornly using all he might to pull back from the two hybrids, "I can't understand him… Get away!"
On one hand, Reze was bursting with pride: Denji's idea really had Santa Claus on the ropes. Even with the power of a primal devil, Santa looked terrified as she desperately tried to hold her ground. On the other hand, it depressed Reze to think that he'd been put in a position where instead of living a normal life, he was here…
The chain was completely taut as the contest turned into a dead heat, neither Santa nor the hybrids having the upper hand.
Just what she'd been waiting for.
"Denji, now!"
At her signal Denji grabbed hold of Reze around the waist, she grunted in pain as the fire scorched her skin, but that was of little concern to her as she fired off a large explosion behind Denji, launching both her and Denji towards Santa at high velocity. They made contact with a huge explosion, shrouding them and Santa with smoke and fire, with a hint of what happened being Santa's pained screams echoing through the night.
And then it was all silent.
Denji and Reze stood over the incapacitated and burning Santa, their devilish features melting away, leaving behind two tired teens, their clothes tattered and burnt as smoke billowed around them. Denji raised one of the doll bodies above his head, letting the blood down over him; his burn wounds fading as it ran down his body.
Reze simply moved in close and embraced him, letting the blood run down over her as she rested her head on his chest, a content and relieved smile on her face as she heard the thumping of his heart.
"There's no way you're going to beat the cockroach allegations at this rate", Reze jokes as she looks up at him, both soaked in blood but with their wounds healed.
Denji smiles back, "Hey tha-"
He didn't get a chance to finish his sentence as a familiar fiend tackled them, having launched himself towards them from the ground below.
"LORD CHAAAINSAW!"
Denji and Reze were swept from their feet as Beam's momentum carried them through the air, the three landing in a pile a short distance away.
Right as Quanxi's dao swept through the air where they had just been standing.
"Thanks, Beam, I owe you one!", Denji says as he gets up, eyeing Quanxi and the two remaining fiends furiously, Reze getting up beside him, her finger already looping into her pin.
"What the hell! I thought we had a truce?!", Denji yelled at the older hybrid who seemed utterly non-plussed that she had betrayed them.
"Truce only lasted until we killed Santa Claus, now it's over."
As if the universe was trying to prove Quanxi wrong, the burning cadaver of Santa Claus began to talk, its rasping voice sounding even more demonic as the fire consumed it piece by piece,
"Hee hee, I understand you all now", the creature somehow still had its smug attitude as it lay immobile on the ground, "Me and my family… We'll evolve with the power of darkness, and come to kill you again and again. Can you imagine your lives, constantly stalked by death? "
"So, is that truce back on then?", Reze asked dryly as the head continued spouting threats as it burned up.
"Luckily for you. Time to work Cosmo", Quanxi said, sounding like she just wanted this job over and done with.
"Halloween!", the fiend in question was one they hadn't seen yet, a pink-haired girl with an eye hanging out of its socket and with half her head looking like her brain was spilling out from her head.
"Consider it your punishment for sight-seeing Tokyo without us", Quanxi's one eye darted to Cosmo as she spoke, "Let her have a taste of an all-out Halloween."
"What the hell…?", Denji said, he and Reze watching in confusion as the fiend crouched down, getting into a pose as if she was preparing to shoot a beam from her hands, aimed right at Santa Claus.
"HALL-OOOO! HALL-OOOO!"
"WEEEEEEEEEEEEN!"
Everyone just stood there watching the odd display as the fiend's arms shot out, her 'beam' firing.
"Why Halloween…?", Reze asked, nearly to herself as the odd scene unfolded.
"To put it simply, Cosmo here is frying their mind; can't hunt us if they're a vegetable", Quaxi replied, watching as Santa's head burned, listening to the last words of the assassin as they were consumed.
"Hallow…een"
"Halloween… Halloween… Halloween… Halloween…"
As Santa was fully consumed by the flames, Quanxi turned back to the other two hybrids, her sword raised.
"Offer from earlier still stands Bomb, let us have Chainsaw and you won't be harmed, you could even come with us. The handlers in China give a lot more freedoms than Makima ever would."
"Fat chance, I won't hurt him for anything! Not again!", Reze vehemently snaps back, remembering how she had brutalised Denji before in her attempt to get his heart. No, she wouldn't do that again, and she'd make damn well sure no one else would either.
"Looks like you're barking up the wrong tree granny!", Denji gloats as he loops his finger into his starter, ready to pull at a moment's notice.
"The hard way it is then", Quanxi sighs as she readies her blade.
Then she froze, turning as the smoke cleared around them; locking eyes with an old friend.
Kishibe and Yoshida were revealed as the wind blew the smoke away, Quanxi raising her sword as she turned to face them. Kishibe just gave her an almost mournful look as he and Yoshida… put on blindfolds.
The reason for this became clear as Makima stridently strolled through the smoke, walking between the two devil hunters, katana in hand, holding the blade up in a readied position.
"We surrender."
To Denji and Reze's surprise, Quanxi didn't even try to fight. Instead, she dropped her sword and raised her hands in the air.
"You can cut off my limbs if you think I'll run, just don't kill my women", Quanxi pleaded as Tsugihagi and Cosmo hid behind her, "I'll do anything to save their lives, even lick your shoes."
"Halloween!"
Makima stood there for a second, her expression unchanged as she eyed up Quanxi and the fiends until her eyes flitted to Denji and Reze.
"Denji, Reze. I'm afraid you'll have to turn around. This is classified Public Safety intel."
Reze wasn't sure why, but she felt compelled to turn around upon Makima's order, Denji clearly feeling similarly as neither wasted any time, finding they had moved before even realising it. Beam was practically cowering on the ground, phasing his head through the concrete like an ostrich.
Seeing that the two teens were facing away, Makima smiled as she turned back to Quanxi, her head slightly cocked as she spoke.
"A corpse is talking"
All Reze heard was three thuds from behind her. She could guess what had happened: Quanxi and her girls were dead, just like that. But a couple of things bothered her: why did Makima kill Quanxi but spare her?
And how did Makima heal that quickly? Just what sort of contract did that witch have?
Kishibe felt the warm blood trickle down his face.
He'd known how things would end as soon as Makima walked out of that building alive. There was no way that she'd let any of the assassins live after that. But despite that, despite being prepared he couldn't bring himself to move. He felt… tired. Felt his age…
"Aren't you going to take off your blindfold?"
He heard that hotshot Yoshida talking to him, the kid had good sense, leaving Public Safety when he did. With Makima at the helm, their lives may well be on a timer.
"I don't wanna see a thing."
No, Kishibe much preferred to keep it on: preferring his fond memories to what would be right in front of his eyes. Every time he'd drank with her it had become a tradition that he'd confess his love to her. It had started as a joke, but as the years passed and the bodies of his colleagues piled up around him, he'd found that the words 'I love you' had only grown more and more sincere with age.
And even now, he still did.
Well, that's the International Assassin's arc wrapped up! I ended up getting this chapter written up much faster than I thought. I have the whole of part 1 planned out so far, with about half the chapters fully planned out and the others having at least a rough plan, so hopefully I can keep this rate of writing for a while!
Anyways, just wanted to say thanks to everyone who has followed, favourited, has left reviews or has even just read along this far, it's all very much appreciated!