Chatter and laughs, the common noise that one would expect from a classroom. The words "Self study" were written on the board, the teacher was nowhere to be seen. It was unusual for their homeroom teacher to be absent, but regardless, it was a normal day for class 2-B of Roppongi Junior High School.
Well, except for a certain girl the entire class was actively trying to avoid. Sitting in the back corner of the classroom, a pale beauty with hair like a lustrous onyx stone was looking at her phone without making a single sound, her blue eyes denoting boredom and annoyance.
She wasn't big or strong, she wasn't scary, nor was she a troublesome girl. Normally someone like her would attract people and be popular among her classmates, however, that wasn't the case.
Because Amano Ren was extremely hard to approach.
Her appearance wasn't scary, but whenever someone tried to talk to her, they would always be stabbed by a cold gaze that would commonly provoke nervousness or fear. She also never spoke, no one had ever heard a single word come out of her mouth since she transferred half a year ago, not even the teachers, because she wouldn't talk even when asked a question.
Not only that, she also displayed all kinds of strange behaviors. She would pull out a hand mirror from her pocket and stare at it for up to an hour, changing expressions constantly. Many people had also noticed that she was always using a hand gripper in class, hiding it under her desk. Even more concerning was the fact that many people had seen her walking alone around the city in the middle of the night.
Such strange behavior was the source of many rumors about the onyx girl, as her classmates had gotten used to calling her. Most people believed she was mute, others thought she was a daughter of the Yakuza or a street gangster even though there was nothing that pointed to that.
Some people even tried to spread the rumor that she wasn't human but a Devil in disguise, though everyone in the school refused to believe such stupidity and instead turned on the ones who started the rumor.
The onyx girl, Amano Ren. No one knew anything about her.
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"I'll get going now, teacher"
"Thank you for your help, Sayuri-chan"
Fujimoto Sayuri, president of the student council of Minato Middle School. One of the girls the students called Princess and someone who was used to staying in the school pretty late at least once a week, usually helping her homeroom teacher who was pretty clumsy and often had to rely on her.
After leaving the school, the sun was already setting, and it wouldn't take long before the sky went dark. Minato City was among the safest in the country, but it wasn't smart to be out at night.
A few decades ago parents would tell their children not to stay out at night because of crime, now not even criminals roam around at night, because when the sun rests and the moon awakes, Devils go out to hunt.
She stopped at a convenience store to buy something to eat on her way home. It was her usual routine, but this time something different interfered with that routine.
As she extended her hand to take the last curry bread on the shelf, it disappeared as if it had never been there. Confused, she looked around only to see a pair of blue eyes staring at her from not so far away. She recognized her as the girl from the rumors, but more importantly, she was holding the last curry bread.
"What...how?"
She couldn't see when she took it like the bread had just teleported to her hand. It seemed impossible, but there she was, with her prized bread in her hands and glaring at her like she had tried to steal it from the onyx girl.
Before she could say anything, the girl turned around and walked to the counter, leaving Sayuri standing there, with no clue of what had just happened.
Sayuri had never met Amano Ren before, only heard rumors about her strange behavior and mysterious beauty. After just a few seconds of meeting her, she already understood why that was the case. That girl was weird but also strangely captivating to the eye.
Maybe it was that feeling that pushed Sayuri to follow her. She forgot her routine and followed that strange girl, the setting sun didn't register in her mind as she saw her enter an alleyway and disappear from her view.
Not wanting to part ways so soon, she quickened her pace and entered the alleyway, but there was no trace of the girl. It was like she had just vanished, and that worried Sayuri. The idea that she could have been suddenly taken by a Devil worried her, and she ventured deeper into the alleyway, not even thinking that if it really was the case, she was walking straight to her death.
As she walked into the alleyway, she couldn't help but notice the unusual amounts of broken glass all over the place. At first, she thought that maybe some kind of fight between gangs or drunks had happened, but she quickly dismissed the idea. Minato City was one of the safest in the country, so the idea that such a thing would go unnoticed was absurd.
That absurd thought completely died when she noticed that the shards were reflecting her. They weren't broken glass, but mirror shards, which was even weirder.
Every step led her deeper until the darkness of the night had settled. It wasn't until that moment that the realization that she shouldn't be there hit her.
"I'm still worried but...I should go home"
As she turned around, a dull sound came from behind her, like a heavy box being suddenly dropped. Her breath got cut off, and her body stopped completely. She could hear the ragged breathing of something behind her.
She didn't want to turn around, but when she heard that something was taking a step toward her, she did so instinctively. Then she met eyes with a creature from a nightmare, its yellow eyes looking at her with hunger. The body and legs were broad and tall, but covered in cuts and stabs, the skin the same bright red color as its blood. The right arm was long, almost as long as the rest of the body, but the left one was nowhere to be seen, apparently cut clean of the shoulder.
She recognized the thing in front of her, the bulbous head and bulging eyes made it obvious. It was a Frogman, a Devil that looked like a humanoid frog with sharp claws and human teeth, but this one looked different from the one she saw in textbooks.
The Frogman opened its mouth, showing her its teeth. A long red tongue came out, easily thicker and longer than her whole arm, coiling like a coil spring while pointing at her.
"N-no!"
She closed her eyes, expecting a sudden surge of pain. A thunderous sound echoed through the dark alleyway, but there was no pain.
"Where do you think you're going?"
Startled by the sudden voice, she opened her eyes. A girl with long golden locks was holding the tongue in place with a single hand. Her blue dress fluttered in the still darkness. Sayuri could only see her back, but the overwhelming feeling of power that came from the girl was obvious even to her.
"...A Witch?"
The Witch of golden hair opened her right hand and with a short-lived flash a knife made of glass appeared. With a swing, the tongue of the Frogmen was cut in half.
The Devil howled in pain for a second before lunging at the witch, its fist moving faster than a bullet. A sound akin to an explosion was heard and an enormous cloud of dust and flying debris obstructed the view of what had happened. The student council president was sent tumbling back from the shockwave, her body covered in dust.
"Too slow"
The cloud of dust was suddenly blown off with the sharp sound of cutting wind. A giant slash had appeared alongside the buildings to the right, with blood splattered over it. But there was no sign of the witch.
The frogmen was still standing there, breathing heavily with a large and deep cut on his chest. It had barely avoided death, but it was not willing to take its chances again. It flexed its legs, and the muscles and blood vessels bulged out from the sheer strength that was being accumulated in the legs.
The ground broke into multiple pieces of rubble that were shot outwards as if a high-power explosive had gone off, but none of them reached Sayuri. They were suddenly smashed in mid-air with no apparent cause.
She stared at the broken pieces of concrete falling to the ground in awe before looking up. The devil was high up in the air, much higher than the nearby buildings, but something was above the devil, reflecting the moonlight.
"a hand-held mirror...?"
She thought she recognized the object, but couldn't recall where she had seen it before. She didn't have any time to ponder about it though, as with a sudden glint the devil's right arm was sliced off. The frogmen looked bewildered and turned its head around towards the direction from which the invisible slash had come, but his head was immediately grabbed by the delicate hands of the girl dressed in blue.
"These are my hunting grounds, you don't get to leave without my permission"
She had come out of the mirror in a split second and grabbed the head of the frogmen between both hands and started crushing it. The devil only heard the sound of his skull cracking for a second before its head exploded from the pressure, scattering pieces of bone and brain.
The next second, the witch vanished and reappeared in front of Sayuri. She held her right hand towards the sky and caught her hand mirror, swiftly hiding it inside her dress. Just seconds later the corpse of the red frogmen crashed behind her, the muscles still twitching.
The witch with golden locks looked at her. Her blue eyes with golden iris seemed hypnotic in the middle of the night, she was covered in guts and blood, like a monster dressed like an angel, and yet she only found one word to describe her.
"...so cute"
The witch was taken aback by the sudden compliment, though she didn't show it on her face. Her expression showed nothing but boredom, and yet her body flinched when she heard the compliment.
"go home"
Her lips stopped moving, and she vanished like a ghost. Sayuri didn't have time to say anything before her savior disappeared, leaving her alone in the alleyway. She closed her eyes and let out a sigh trying to calm herself, she hadn't noticed before, but a warm and wet sensation was present between her legs, to her embarrassment.
When she opened her eyes, the corpse of the devil and even its blood were gone. She would have thought that it was all a dream if it wasn't for the destruction that remained.
"...I'm gonna ask the teacher for Amano-san number to check if she is okay, I don't wanna stay out any longer"