This was a barren graveyard.
It had no name, no cemetery gate, no caretaker.
It simply lay here, alone under the sky and above the wilderness, letting people come and go, come and stay.
It was where nameless Public Safety officers who died to devils were buried.
Those who came here, besides their families and colleagues, were only the next batch of new residents.
But today, there were a few unfamiliar faces.
Su Tang watched the wind sweep over the grass as sand and dust pattered against the stone markers.
Standing in the blowing grit was a middle-aged man with his back to them, gray already showing on his crown.
That had to be the Captain Kishibe Makima had mentioned.
Su Tang stepped forward. "Excuse me, you are—"
"Shh."
The man lifted the hand holding his flask and exhaled a boozy breath.
The upwind reek of alcohol made Su Tang wrinkle his nose despite himself.
"I know why you're here," the man said. "But if you want to start training, those two have to answer a few of my questions first."
He raised his first finger.
His voice was weathered, scattered by the wind, full of middle-aged rasp.
"Tell me. Your teammate died—what do you think?"
Su Tang raised an eyebrow.
No wonder he was called "the strongest devil hunter." Even the way he posed questions was different.
Fortunately, he wasn't the only one who was different.
Thinking of Arai Hirokazu, who had died in the shooting.
Uh… Denji scratched her head; she didn't seem to have much impression of him either.
But colleagues were colleagues. After a beat of hesitation Denji answered, "Thoughts… um, probably that the shooters are super awful, or something."
"Humans should die and devils should die—except for this great me," Power said with arms folded. "A world with only me and Meowy… hm, add the brat and Su Tang, would be the best."
After hearing them, the man tipped back a swallow of liquor.
He didn't comment, just raised a second finger and asked in a deep voice, "Have you thought about getting revenge on the enemy?"
"Anyone who hurt Mr. Su Tang is unforgivable!" Denji blurted. Then she darted a cautious look at Su Tang and added with a blink, "But since we can't find the culprits now, I think studying is more important."
"I… I'm the same," Power said, realizing she couldn't think of anything to say and just following Denji's line. "Anyway, revenge or whatever is whatever—but whatever the human brat has, this great me must have too! Pecs, clothes, two Sus—"
"Ahem."
Su Tang cleared his throat twice.
He looked at the man's back and said, "That's two questions. That's about enough, right?"
"One last one."
The man raised a third finger, took another slug, and said, "Between devils and humans, which side are you on? Su Tang, you can answer too."
"I'm on whatever side Mr. Su Tang is on," Denji said.
"I'm on the winning side," Power said.
"This question… doesn't mean much," Su Tang said, brows knitting, not answering directly.
Side with humans? He was currently working for one of the top bosses among devils, and he himself wielded devil powers.
Side with devils? He was also a part-time devil hunter, officially registered. More than two or three devils had died by his hand.
"What are you hesitating about for a question like that?"
The man finally turned around. His scar-seamed, weathered face was expressionless.
He fixed Su Tang with dead-fish eyes and said in a flat voice, "I've seen footage of your fights. That form you change into… Su Tang, are you already planning to betray humanity?"
…Hm?
Su Tang's heart gave a thump.
What did that mean… Had this secretive Kyoto guy recognized his half-dragon form and connected it to the Holy Lord?
Before he could speak, he saw the man—Kishibe—twitch his nose.
With a trace of puzzlement and a trace of excitement, his unruffled tone finally rippled: "Su Tang, you've met Guangxi?"
Guangxi?
The two syllables sounded familiar. Su Tang recalled that night in the flower shop.
But that had been a while… and he could still smell it?
In this regard, the strongest devil hunter really was formidable.
He nodded. "We've met. She should still… be in Tokyo, right now."
He remembered Guangxi had brought the dragon fiend looking for the "Black-Cloaked Man" on purpose, but he hadn't heard any stir from her in days.
She couldn't be holed up in a hotel, role-playing and exercising with her fiend the whole time, could she.
"In Tokyo…"
Kishibe muttered, then tipped his head back and drank a long pull.
His gaze slid past Su Tang to Denji and Power behind him.
"You two… your answers just now both get full marks."
"Brains as thoroughly rotten as this really are rare," Kishibe said with feeling. "Good. After training humans for so many years I thought I'd gone numb, but you two have piqued my interest again."
He fished out packet after packet of… blood bags from his pocket.
Power's eyes lit up at once.
"When Makima gave me this job, I thought a long time about how to train you. Then this rusted brain of mine suddenly had a bright idea." Kishibe squinted, pointing to himself. "If you can hurt me, your special training is done."
"For example—by a sneak attack."
As he spoke, he already had a hand on Power's arm just as she reached toward the blood bags.
A crisp crack.
The brittle snap of bone.
Su Tang shut his eyes on reflex.
He'd known that training to boost combat strength and survivability would come with injury and pain, but when he actually saw it, he still felt a pang of regret.
Reason told him that to make them grow quickly in a short time, this was inevitable, but…
In the end, he was a psychiatrist, not a perfectly rational being.
So he could only pretend not to see and fool himself.
"Then I'll leave them to you for now," he said to Kishibe.
"Ah-ha, Mr. Su Tang, don't worry! I'll get a great grade in this training and show you!" Denji waved and shouted to him.
Su Tang was silent for a second.
He saw Kishibe's figure already behind Denji. If he weren't giving face to her "guardian," Denji would probably have gone the way of Power already, dropped on the ground.
All he could say was: a fiend and a weapon-human—both were indeed far too lacking in combat experience and reaction.
He nodded to Kishibe and turned to go.
He certainly couldn't stay here with them the whole time. The road ahead was theirs to walk.
Ten meters, twenty…
He stopped and took one last look at the graveyard swallowed by wild grass.
The wind stirred his clothes. His figure had already vanished, leaving only a soft sigh drifting with the breeze.
Faint and far.
Thirteenth Street.
Shielding his eyes from the sun, Su Tang looked up at the number on the house before him.
Mm… same as the file said. This should be the place.
You couldn't blame him for being unsure. He'd gone in assuming Kobeni's family was poor—that her home would be out in the suburbs or the mountains… He hadn't expected it to be in the city.
It was in a fairly out-of-the-way spot, but still better than he'd imagined.
Knock, knock, knock.
He stepped up and rapped lightly.
Inside came one slightly hurried set of footsteps, one light, skipping set, and one unhurried set.
Three people.
With about a ten-year spread in age.
As Su Tang idly analyzed this, the door opened—and sure enough, it matched his guess.
A woman of about thirty or forty, a girl who looked like a new college student, and a little girl craning her head out the door in curiosity.
All shared a resemblance to Higashiyama Kobeni.
"Who are you looking for?" the woman asked, giving Su Tang a once-over, her gaze lingering a few seconds on his casualwear.
Unruffled, Su Tang said, "Is Higashiyama Kobeni home? Could you call her, please? Tell her a friend is here."
Because this was a counseling visit, he'd deliberately avoided wearing a Public Safety uniform that might trigger the patient—and had put on a designer piece he'd bought to celebrate the clinic's reopening.
As it turned out, that was a happy accident.
"Looking for Kobeni?"
The woman—probably Kobeni's mother—blinked. Reluctantly tearing her gaze from Su Tang's clothes, she turned and shouted into the house: "Hey! Someone's here for you!"
A flurry of hurrying steps.
Mm… and the sound of something crashing.
Su Tang's expression went a little odd—the owner of the sound seemed to trip twice in a row.
Then he saw the girl in an apron with mid-length bangs stumble and stagger her way over.
"Look at you… like that." Disgust flickered over the woman's face; she opened her mouth to say something, but with Su Tang present she swallowed the words.
Su Tang ignored her, looking instead at the girl before him with her head down and a tense face.
Dusty skin, an apron smudged with grease, hair a little disheveled—signs she'd been working.
A sharp contrast to the three at the door.
Thinking that, Su Tang blinked and spoke first. "Kobeni."
"Eh—eh?!" Higashiyama Kobeni looked up at the sound and finally saw it was Su Tang. Flustered, she stammered, "Su… Su Tang-senpai."
"I already told you I didn't actually join earlier than you," Su Tang said wryly with a small smile. "But if you want to call me senpai, go ahead. I'm mainly here to invite you to stroll the shopping street."
"Eh?" Kobeni's eyes went wide. She clearly hadn't expected him to open with "let's go shopping," and it wrong-footed her.
Su Tang smiled without answering and glanced at the woman, who seemed lost in thought.
Kobeni caught the look.
Swallowing hard, she said nervously, "Ah… right. Yes, I… I had an appointment with Su Tang-senpai… to go shopping."
"Then what are you standing there for? Go on." The woman scolded her, then turned her head back to Su Tang with a full smile. "Oh, I'm so sorry—Kobeni can be a bit slow sometimes."
Su Tang smiled—neither nodding nor speaking.
It left the woman unsure what he was thinking. When the two of them had walked off to the end of the street, she finally snapped to and belatedly replayed the price of that outfit in her head.
At least four hundred thousand yen!
"Th… thank you."
Walking along the street, Higashiyama Kobeni kept her head down, mumbling thanks.
"Mm." Su Tang nodded, paused, and still asked, "At home… is it always like that?"
"Yes. I'm clumsy… I always trip when I'm doing things." Kobeni drooped, glancing at her apron. "Mom and my sisters don't like me much. I usually wear my sisters' hand-me-downs and do the housework and jobs."
As she spoke, her lashes trembled, moisture beading on them.
Su Tang walked quietly and didn't cut in.
So that was it: her timid, nervous temperament wasn't purely innate—home life had a big share of the blame.
Parents, as a child's first teachers, are crucial.
Sadly, not every family gives a child a happy childhood.
There are many factors—subjective and objective…
"Se… senpai," Kobeni's voice came.
"What is it?" Su Tang turned.
Kobeni had stopped. Pinching the corner of her apron, she said in a small voice, "Um… we can stop here. They won't be able to see anymore. Thank you for giving me an excuse to get away from my parents for a bit…"
"But that's not an excuse."
"Eh?" Kobeni blinked and looked up at Su Tang—right into his smiling eyes.
"I really did invite you to walk the shopping street. Remember? I owe you a phone." Su Tang said apologetically, "I'm sorry it's been so long—I couldn't find the time before. Now that I can, you won't make me carry the bad name of breaking a promise, will you?"
"I… I hadn't even thought…" She'd been blushing, ready to refuse, but when she heard his last line she swallowed the words back, flustered, and waved her hands. "No, no, senpai, I didn't mean that. I just… thank you."
"Why thank me?" Su Tang looked at her and said softly, "You're the one who was wronged. I'm the one who never made good and replaced your phone, but you never came to me—and now you're still thanking me…"
"Kobeni, have you ever read Chekhov's 'A Helpless Creature'?"
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