WHEEE WOOO
WHEEE WOOO
Sirens tore through the air as police vehicles screeched to a halt at the edge of the city.
Doors slammed open.
Officers stepped out of the car and froze.
"…Dear God."
One of them swallowed hard. "Are those… those are human parts."
The asphalt ahead was no longer asphalt, The road literally pulsed.
As if something beneath it was breathing.
Buildings lining the street looked intact from a distance, but the closer the officers stared, the more details surfaced. Walls glistened faintly, their surfaces uneven like layered muscle. And Windows blinked.
Actually blinked.
An eye rolled sideways from within the concrete, focusing briefly on the nearest patrol car before retreating back into the structure.
One officer staggered back. "What the hell is this…"
"Has Public Safety arrived yet?" one of the policemen asked, his voice tight.
"We have."
Both officers turned sharply.
A group of men and women in black suits stood behind them, having approached without noticeable sound. Calm. Composed.
One older man stepped forward, adjusting his tie.
"Sakamoto Hiroshi. Captain of Division 2," he said. "What's the situation?"
"Bad," the policeman answered immediately. "Several blocks have been… converted. We don't know how else to describe it. The ground, the walls, it's all human tissue. We've confirmed mass casualties. Estimated above one thousand."
Sakamoto's jaw tightened.
"Has anyone entered the area?" he asked.
"Negative. Anyone who reported seeing the devil is dead. We recovered fragments of emergency calls, though. We have confirmation of a male voice."
"A description?"
"Human like."
'so a fiend?'
Sakamoto exhaled slowly.
"Alright. Surround the perimeter. Establish a three-hundred-meter quarantine zone. Confirm if there are any survivors inside but no one moves in until we assess—"
"Sir! Sir!"
A younger officer sprinted over, nearly slipping on the uneven pavement.
"Your phone, sir! Miss Makima is currently heading this way."
"…Miss Makima?"
The name alone shifted the air.
Sakamoto's hand moved immediately to his coat pocket. He answered before the second ring.
"Captain Sakamoto speaking."
"Hello, Sakamoto."
Her voice was soft. Clear through the phone.
He straightened instinctively. "Miss Makima."
"I want you to order your subordinates not to enter the city," she continued. "Focus on evacuating nearby civilians. Do not allow a single person or animal to cross into the affected area. Understood?"
He immediately answered. "Understood, ma'am."
The line went dead.
Sakamoto lowered the phone slowly.
"Pull everyone back," he ordered. "Full perimeter containment. No entry."
—
A black government sedan rolled to a controlled stop several blocks away from the perimeter.
Inside, Makima sat in the passenger seat.
Her reflection stared back at her from the side mirror her spiral eyes steady, not even blinking once.
'What a terrifying presence.'
This wasn't an ordinary large-scale devil attack.
It had taken nearly an hour for anyone to notice something was wrong. An entire district had gone silent before alarms were raised. By the time police arrived, the population had already been reshaped.
"Hm."
She tilted her head slightly, sensing the density of the presence ahead. It wasn't something like the Gun Devil's rampage. Nor oppressive like a Primal Fear descending from Hell.
It felt Human in a way.
"Driver. Stop here."
The car halted immediately.
Several vehicles behind them followed suit. Doors opened in synchronized sequence as Devil Hunters stepped out, forming a respectful distance around her.
Makima exited the vehicle last.
From where she stood, she could see the subtle movement beneath the city's surface. Roads rising and falling almost imperceptibly. Structures adjusting as if they're breathing living organisms.
A faint smile formed on her lips.
What kind of devil is capable of such feats? No more importantly why?
Not indiscriminate slaughter, Not explosive devastation.
Her eyes narrowed slightly.
Interesting.
A suited hunter approached her carefully. "What are your orders, ma'am?"
Makima kept her gaze fixed on the altered city.
"Find the devil for me."
"Yes, ma'am."
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Within the middle of the road stood several Public Safety Devil Hunters, all maintaining a close yet respectful distance behind Makima, some positioned slightly ahead or to her sides, ready to intercept anything that might approach her, their posture tense but disciplined as the fleshy surface beneath their feet pulsed faintly with each step.
"Kuro, go check that building over there."
Her voice was calm, almost casual, yet her senses, particularly her nose had already picked up the distinct scent of a devil lingering within the structure ahead.
"Yes, ma'am!"
The man named Kuro nodded firmly before making his way toward the building, his steps uneven due to the soft, shifting texture of the road beneath him, the ground yielding slightly with each footfall as if reluctant to let him pass. He reached the entrance and slipped inside, disappearing from sight for several seconds before reemerging.
"Safe! There's nothing insi—"
The entrance convulsed.
The building's doorway rippled violently before splitting open, a massive wormlike creature bursting forth in a single fluid motion, its body slick and pale as it lunged forward and snapped its maw shut around Kuro's upper half, swallowing him before he could finish his sentence. The structure around it reshaped instantly, forming a new opening of grotesque flesh that stretched into a tunnel lined with ridged muscle and uneven teeth before settling into a stable, pulsating corridor.
The hunters stiffened.
Makima simply smiled.
"Found it."
She stepped forward without hesitation, ignoring the blood that had already been absorbed into the living floor, her subordinates following closely behind despite the visible tension in their expressions.
The deeper they walked into the tunnel, the more the air shifted, damp and warm with a faint metallic scent lingering beneath something sweeter, and at the far end a soft glow became visible, steady and bright.
Makima continued walking.
As she crossed the threshold—
"What… is this?" one of her guards muttered.
Inside was a beach.
A literal beach.
Golden sand stretched beneath their feet, warm and fine against their shoes. The sky above was clear and blue, sunlight spilling down in perfect afternoon radiance, and the distant sound of waves rolling gently onto shore filled the air with a serene rhythm that felt profoundly wrong given where they had just come from.
The hunters exchanged bewildered glances.
Meanwhile makima walked forward calmly, eyes settling on a lone figure seated casually in the sand.
The figure was reading what appeared to be Weekly Shōnen Jump while sipping from a tall cup of milkshake, straw tilted between his lips, posture relaxed as though he were enjoying a quiet vacation.
"Hello," Makima said evenly as she approached, leaning slightly to see his face. "I take it you're the devil responsible for all of this?"
'A devil, not a fiend. Looks like the reports were wrong,' she mused internally before straightening her back.
"Pretty much," the figure replied without looking up, casually turning a page of the magazine. "I'm surprised you didn't try to kill me immediately."
"Well, you're more human than it seems," she answered smoothly. "The fact that you replied to me means you can communicate very well." Her gaze sharpened slightly as she continued. "I am rather curious—what devil are you exactly?"
Most devils were straightforward. The Fire Devil used fire. The Pig Devil resembled a monstrous pig. Even when their abilities varied or evolved, their core identity was usually reflected in either their appearance or scent.
But the devil before her appeared entirely human.
Even his scent was strange, constantly shifting, layered and unstable, making it impossible for her to identify a singular defining presence.
'Oh? Perhaps—'
"Mahito. My name is Mahito, and I'm the Human Devil." He smiled mischievously before sitting up and closing the magazine with a soft snap. "It's not polite to ask for someone's identity without introducing yourself first, you know?"
Makima smiled back.
"Makima. Chief Cabinet Secretary's Personal Devil Hunter. A mouthful, isn't it?"
"Makima-chan," Mahito said cheerfully, tilting his head slightly. "Tell me, what do you think comes first? The soul or the body?."
Mahito spoke while brushing off sand from his body. "You know like the chicken and egg question, does the soul dwells in the body or is the body built on the soul?"
Her spiral eyes widened just a fraction.
Mahito remained exactly as he was.
Unaffected.
"Mahito," she said calmly, extending her hand slightly. "Pass your magazine to me."
"No can do," he replied lightly, pulling it closer to himself. "It's mine, after all. And you haven't answered my question, Makima-chan."
'That confirms it,' she thought.
A new situation, certainly, but not one beyond her control. Her smile remained steady as she lightly tapped her chin in thought.
"Hmm… I suppose the former?"
Mahito sighed with exaggeration.
"Wrong. It's the latter, Makima-chan. Let me teach you something about myself."
Makima decided to humor him. In truth, she was curious. A devil that could overwrite an entire district with this level of precision was not something she could dismiss carelessly.
"Throughout this entire world, whether it be Earth or Hell, I am the only one capable of seeing and reshaping souls at will," Mahito began casually. "The shape of the body will always follow the shape of the soul. That includes consciousness."
As he spoke, he extended his hand lazily.
Without warning, his arm stretched forward like rubber, elongating across the sand in an instant before wrapping around one of Makima's guards' throats.
The other hunters tensed but did not move, awaiting her command.
"ARGH—!"
The man was lifted briefly off the ground before Mahito released him just as suddenly.
For a split second, nothing happened.
Then the guard's body shifted.
His limbs bent at unnatural angles, not snapping but reshaping, as his posture collapsed forward. Within seconds, he stood on all fours, his spine arched, features distorted into something animalistic yet unmistakably human, breath coming in ragged, confused bursts.
Makima observed silently.
"I see," she said calmly.
Mahito beamed.
"See? The body always follows the shape of the soul."
"So that's how you replaced the city," she continued evenly. "You reshaped the population souls to match the infrastructure."
"Correct!" he chirped. "And they're all still conscious. Of course, I could've turned them into mindless, brainless creatures—but that felt like a waste."
He shrugged as if it was something insignificant.
Makima's gaze shifted briefly to the distorted guard before returning to Mahito.
"And how do you activate this ability?" she asked for a moment yet before mahito could reply she suddenly answered her own question, "You have to physically touch them,"
"Bingo!"
Mahito hopped to his feet, brushing sand from his clothes.
"Normally, I'd need direct contact," he continued. "And I can't be altering my hand at the same time. The touch has to be intentional."
"Then how did you do that earlier?" she asked.
Mahito's grin widened.
"Because you're inside my domain. It's incomplete, sure but I've figured it out now."
He clapped his hands together.
The sound echoed unnaturally, reverberating as if the space around them were thinner than it appeared.
"Within an incomplete domain, I still need to 'touch' you," he explained, flexing his fingers. "But I can do that with a transfigured extension of myself."
His eyes gleamed.
"But inside a complete domain?" His voice lowered slightly. "I've already touched every soul present. There's no need for physical contact at all."
Makima's interest sharpened.
Domain.
The word lingered in her thoughts. The effect was evident through mahito's explanation but the mechanism intrigued her more than the result.
"Why don't you show me, Mahito?" she asked gently.
He turned toward her fully now.
For the first time, there was something more than just mischief in his expression.
Two additional hands emerged from his mouth, folding outward with unsettling precision as they formed a deliberate hand seal.
"Domain Expansion: Self-Embodiment of Perfecti—"
BANG.
Before the final syllable left his lips, his upper body exploded.
A violent force tore through his torso, scattering sand and fragments outward in a sharp burst that shattered the illusion of the serene beach.
Shadow-like hands had begun creeping along the edges of the space—but halted.
Silence followed.
Makima stood still, arm lowered slightly from the unseen force she had invoked. A thin line of sweat traced down the side of her face.
An attack born purely from instinct.
She hadn't allowed him to finish.
The lower half of Mahito's body remained upright for a moment, absurdly intact, before collapsing onto the sand.
The hunters held their breath.
Then—
Flesh began to knit itself together.
Muscle reconstructed. Bone realigned. Skin sealed.
Mahito's head reformed last, tilting slightly as his features settled back into place.
He blinked once.
Then smiled.
"How rude, Makima-chan," he said lightly, brushing imaginary dust from his shoulder. "I wasn't finished."
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Chapter end
A/N: hope you enjoy this chapter.