Detective Reid stepped quietly through the threshold of the Robertson house, the worn floorboards groaning under his weight. Dust hung in the air like ash after a fire, coating the cold, stale silence. Sensei entered behind him, hands tucked inside his sleeves, scanning the shadows as though they might bite.
Sota followed, breathing slow, then closed his eyes. His pupils vanished into milky white, his body going rigid. The room seemed to hum around him.
He scanned the living room first—the overturned couch, the cracked glass of a family picture frame, the television dark but faintly reflecting his pale eyes. Nothing. The kitchen was the same: quiet, empty, stripped of any lingering demon presence.
Frowning, he moved up the narrow staircase, boots muffled on the carpet. The air was heavier here, the smell faintly sweet and rotten.
Sophie's room was small but bright, sunlight struggling through thin curtains. In the center, her dolls were arranged in a circle around a tiny plastic tea set.
Sota's vision ignited.
The scene shifted—Sophie sat cross-legged, smiling, humming as she poured imaginary tea. Her dolls played their roles quietly. But one doll… one stood out. It was dressed in a red-and-white kimono, tiny hands folded neatly in its lap. It glowed faintly red, as though lit from within.
"She's playing 'Family,'" Sota murmured, voice far away. "But one… one's different. Red-white kimono, glowing… wrong."
Detective Reid exchanged a glance with Sensei.
Then—footsteps.
Sota's brow furrowed. That wasn't part of the memory… was it? The sound was coming from downstairs. Heavy, deliberate, slow.
Impossible. He had seen no one there.
He turned sharply, vision still active, and stepped into the hall.
A woman in a red-white kimono was halfway up the stairs, head tilted unnaturally as she sang softly, "Sooophie…" Her voice was like silk dragged across glass.
Sota followed her, drawn by a mix of fear and duty.
The demon entered Sophie's room, then crossed into the parents' bedroom without pause.
Sota's gut twisted—he knew what was coming.
The demon's mouth split wide, revealing rows of jagged teeth. She lunged, sinking them deep into the mother's throat, shaking violently. Flesh tore, blood sprayed across the bed sheets. The father wasn't there—just Sophie, frozen in the corner.
When the demon was done with the mother, she turned on the girl.
Sota turned his face away—he had seen enough—but froze when he felt another presence.
Another demon stepped into the room. She was identical—same black hair tied with a styled bow, same red-white kimono.
A clone.
The second demon smiled and crouched beside the blood pooling on the bed. She dipped a finger into it, then climbed onto the mattress. Slowly, almost playfully, she painted on the wall—first a circle, then an eye within it.
The vision was cut out.
Sota blinked hard, breath coming fast. "Two of them," he said quickly. "Both females. Red-white kimonos. One killed them. The other drew… a symbol. A circle with an eye."
Detective Reid's jaw tightened. "So, a female demon is trying to copy the Zodiac Killer's M.O. But instead of couples, it's going for families? Why? And that symbol—what does it even mean?"
Back at the shrine.
Jay was mid-training, sweat beading on his forehead. Across from him, Aiko grinned like a predator. She wore an orange sports hoodie and black skin-tight pants, her posture loose but lethal.
She disappeared in a flash—gone—then appeared behind him, her fist slamming into his ribs before he could react. He stumbled, gritting his teeth.
Another flash. This time from the left—her knuckles clipped his jaw. The world tilted for a second.
"Too slow!" Chiaki barked from the sideline, arms crossed. "She's dancing around you, idiot!"
Ellie winced. "Jay, keep your guard up!"
He tried, forcing his breathing steady. His goal wasn't to win—it was to stay calm enough to transform only his arms into demon form under pressure.
Flash—punch.
Flash—kick to the shin.
Flash—elbow to the back.
Every strike forced him to react faster, but his transformations flickered—sometimes his arm shifted too much, sometimes not at all.
Aiko vanished again—he turned too late—her foot connected with his shoulder, spinning him halfway around. He dropped to a knee, panting.
"You're not reading me," she teased, vanishing and reappearing right in front of him with a jab to the forehead. "You're just guessing. That's how you die."
He forced his left arm into demon form just in time to block her next strike. She smirked. "Finally."
But the moment he thought he was catching up, she teleported low and swept his legs. He hit the mat hard, breath knocked from his chest.
Chiaki sighed. "Pathetic."
The shrine's front doors opened. Detective Reid, Sota, and Sensei stepped in.
Chiaki straightened. "Welcome back. Tea?"
They sat, steam rising from small cups as the detective explained. "The Robertson family. Two identical demons in red-white kimonos. One killed, the other painted a symbol—a circle with an eye—in blood."
Sensei nodded grimly.
Sota frowned. Sota remembered something that he saw in his vision that he forgot to mention before. "There's something I didn't mention. Both demons had a mark on their necks. An eye with a vertical line through it. Like a tattoo."
Sensei's cup paused halfway to his lips. "The mark of the Chosen Ones," he said softly, almost to himself.
Everyone stared. Even Chiaki who has been fighting along his side for years.
Chiaki tilted her head. "What's a Chosen One?"
Sensei leaned back. "Back in the 1400s, in the Age of the Witches…"
"Back in the 1400s, sometimes known as the 'Age of the Witches'. There was a woman by the name of Sarah Good. She was a mysterious person as she never left her house after her husband's death due to an accident. A group of children dared each other to spy on her. They snuck into her house and what they found in her basement were jugs of dead animal parts, human parts, herbs and chemicals. They saw her mix something, while mumbling to herself. The only sentence that they did manage to hear was that she was going to bring the dead back to life. The children told the town folks and they immediately took her out of her house and tied her up to a wooden pool and burned her to death. Before she died, she said that this world was rotten and everybody shall be cursed. One day she'll become back alive as the Goddess of Creations and bring death upon this world.
After her death, the town folks went through her belongings and found her notebook, her experiments of reviving death things to life. All black magic. There were two symbols. An eye that had a vertical line going through and the circle with the eye in it. There wasn't much description on the meaning of the symbols, but in the notebook it said that the eye with the vertical line was the symbol of the chosen ones that help guide the soul. And the circle and the eye symbolized the Goddess of Creations.
Throughout centuries ghosts and demons started to appear. Some humans had abilities. The ones with abilities, known as Exorcists, fought the demons that ranked themselves from lower demons to upper demons to chosen ones. It was an all out war for centuries."
The sensei remembered getting told this story by his own sensei.
Mamushi slipped into the abandoned church, her steps echoing. Jack stood before a cracked Jesus statue. He turned around.
"Where's my beautiful angel?" Jack asked furiously.
"Does it look like I have her," she replied sarcastically and annoyed.
"But the boy is dead?"
"No.
"You're useless."
She snarled. "I couldn't exactly kill him with an Exorcist breathing down my neck."
He slid the knives free, blades glinting in the dim light. "You're an upper demon. You can handle one."
Her body rippled, shifting into her snake form. "Screw you. You don't get to order me around anymore."
They lunged at the same time. Jack slashed in quick arcs, forcing her to coil and uncoil across the floor. Her tail whipped toward him, sending a pew crashing over, but he ducked under, stabbing upward. She hissed and struck, fangs bared, forcing him to retreat.
A stained-glass window shattered as she swung her tail like a battering ram. He used the distraction to hurl one of his knives—embedding it into her side. She retaliated by wrapping around him, squeezing, but he slashed at her scales until she let go.
They circled each other, blood dripping onto the cracked tiles.
"My, my. Two upper demons fighting like children," a voice said lazily.
They froze, looking up to see a woman in a red-white kimono perched on a pillar, legs swinging. The eye-and-line mark sat just below her chin.
"It's Doppelganger, the chosen one," Mamushi said nervously. "What are you doing here?"
"I'm here because somebody isn't doing their job," Doppelganger said. "So, the Goddess of Creations has assigned me that…" She turned her towards Jack. "You should start killing more people before I get the green light to kill you."
"Look. I can't kill anyone until I find my darling," Jack said upset. "Killing somebody else without getting to play around with love would break my heart."
A Doppelganger clone appeared from behind. Placing a kitchen close to his throat. "I don't care about your feelings," it said. "You do as the Goddess says. Or do you want to feel the Goddess's wrath? Do you want to look at the Goddess's eye and tell her you disagree with the Goddess's will?"
Jack remembered meeting the Goddess once. He looked directly at the Goddess's face. Her hair was white, pale skin and her eyes were covered with a black cloth. He couldn't see her eyes but he could tell she was staring at him with pure evil. She made the atmosphere feel dark and eerie. "No," he replied, shaking.
"However, you're in luck," said a second clone, appearing beside Mamushi. Mamushi jumped a bit, as she didn't notice its presence. "The Goddess has decided to help you get your stupid Ellie. As she understands your obsession. However, as soon as you have your darling. You'll be continuing your killing spree. Got it! The Goddess has assigned me to help you. And she wants it to be done now."
Jack couldn't help but to look up at the Jesus statue. "My prayers have been answered. Ellie and I can finally be reunited."
Mamushi sighed. "How are we going to find her?"
"Oh you don't need to worry about that," Doppelganger said with a wide smile. "I have a clone tracking her whereabouts right now."
Outside the shrine, the sky was streaked crimson.
From the shadows, Doppelganger's clone emerged, her smile sharp as a blade as she gazed at the shrine's doors.