The mist had settled thicker around the boat, turning the world into nothing but gray and the soft sound of water lapping against wood. She didn't know how anyone could be oriented in a place like this.
Juno sat on a crate near the edge of the deck, knees pulled up, arms wrapped around them. She'd been sitting like that for a while now, watching the mist, trying not to think about Yves trapped in hell because of her.
It wasn't working.
Inside the cabin, she could hear Gin moving around. She noticed the scrape of metal, the hiss of something cooking. He'd been in there for maybe twenty minutes, not saying a word.
That seemed to be his default state. Silence. Not that she minds, though. She wasn't a talkative person herself.
The smell of cooked fish drifted out from the cabin, and her stomach twisted with hunger she'd been ignoring since she woke up. When was the last time she'd eaten? Before the party? That felt like a lifetime ago.
Eventually, Gin emerged, holding a plate. Steam rose from it in thin wisps. He walked toward her with his usual measured gait and set it down on the crate beside her.
Mackerel, from the look of it, cooked with herbs she didn't recognize. The aroma wound itself around her, making her mouth water despite everything.
"You need to eat," he said flatly, already turning to leave.
"Thank you," Juno said quietly.
Gin paused for just a second, then disappeared back into the cabin without another word.
Juno looked down at the plate. For a moment, she just stared at it. It felt… strange, having someone care whether she ate or not. Nobody ever had before. Besides Yves, anyway, but he wasn't here anymore.
She picked up the fork.
The first bite was... perfect. The fish flaked apart on her tongue, seasoned with a care that felt strange coming from someone so cold. She took another bite, then another, the complex flavors blooming across her palate; salt, smoke, something almost sweet beneath it all.
"This is amazing," she murmured to herself, the words escaping before she could catch them.
She was halfway through the plate when she heard it. A pleased hum, cutting through the quiet.
"Enjoying yourself already?"
Juno's hand stilled, fork halfway to her mouth. She turned slowly.
The Time Devil was perched on a crate, violet eyes gleaming with the kind of amusement that came at someone else's expense. The oil lamp above him cast warm, flickering light across his fur, each strand shimmering amber and gold.
"Didn't think you'd take to it so quickly," the cat purred.
Something about his tone made her skin prickle. "Take to what?"
The Time Devil's grin widened. "Oh, you really don't know, do you?"
Juno set the fork down carefully. "Know what?"
"That's not fish, sweetheart." The cat's tail flicked with barely contained glee. "That's Jerry, or was it James? Hard to tell once they've been properly prepared."
The words didn't land at first. They floated there, meaningless, like sounds without context.
Then they clicked.
The fork slipped from her fingers, clattering against the plate. Her stomach lurched violently. The fish, no, not fish, still tasted perfectly normal in her mouth. It was flaky and tender. Delicious, even.
Somehow that made it worse.
"What?" The word came out strangled.
"Human soul," the Time Devil said conversationally. "Seasoned with a bit of sea salt and wild herbs. Gin's quite the cook, actually. Most people here just eat them raw."
Juno's hand flew to her mouth. She stumbled toward the railing, her legs barely holding her up. She made it just in time, doubling over the side of the boat as her stomach violently rejected everything she'd just eaten.
She retched until there was nothing left, until her throat burned and her eyes watered and her whole body shook.
A person. You ate a person.
Behind her, she heard movement. Gin had followed, though he kept his distance. For a moment, she thought she felt him step closer, but when she glanced back through her tears, he was standing several feet away, arms crossed.
When she finally straightened, wiping her mouth with shaking hands, his expression had shifted into something that might have been sympathy. Or maybe just familiarity with this exact reaction.
"First time's always rough," he said, his voice gentler than she'd heard it before. "But that's how food works here. Souls wash up in the sea, we fish them out. It's just..." He paused, like he was searching for the right word. "Dinner."
"You're–" Juno's voice cracked. "You're all–"
She couldn't finish, and couldn't wrap her mind around what she'd just consumed. Someone who'd had a name, a life, memories, fears, hopes–
"Monsters?" The Time Devil supplied helpfully. "Well, yes. Though I prefer 'demons.'" His tail flicked casually. "You can starve if you like, but Jerry was already dead when he hit the water. We just made use of what was available. Waste not, want not."
Juno stared at them both. The cat with his gleaming, satisfied eyes. Gin with his careful neutrality.
Horror and disgust churned in her empty stomach. The rules here weren't the rules of the world she'd left behind. She was an outsider now. The living human in a realm where demons saw souls as just another kind of fish to catch.
Gin's voice cut through her spiraling thoughts. "I wasn't going to tell you." He wasn't looking at her, his gaze was fixed on something beyond the mist. "What they used to be… Figured it was kinder that way."
She realized then, that he'd known. He'd cooked it for her, seasoned it perfectly, made sure she'd actually enjoy it. But he'd also kept her in the dark about what it really was.
A demon showing mercy in the only way he knew how, maybe.
The strange thing wasn't that he'd fed her souls. It was that he'd tried to spare her the knowledge for as long as possible.
The boat rocked beneath her feet more violently than it should have, though the water remained calm.
Juno gripped the railing harder, trying to steady herself, and the silence stretched uncomfortably.
She kept swallowing, trying to rid herself of the aftertaste that now seemed to carry the weight of someone's entire existence. Her stomach was empty but somehow still rebelling, still trying to reject what it had contained. Or maybe she was just hungry.
The Time Devil stretched and his never left her face. "Now that we've gone and given Jerry a proper name," he purred, "I suppose it's only fair you know mine. Properly, I mean."
Juno looked at him warily.
"It's Ain."
She blinked. "Ain," she repeated, her voice still shaky. "That's... simpler than I expected."
She wasn't mocking. Just trying to focus on anything normal after everything she'd learned.
"What were you expecting?" Ain's grin widened. "Something with more syllables? More dramatic flair? Beelzebub? Mephistopheles?" He tilted his head, amused. "Trust me, darling. Ain suits me perfectly."
"It does." Gin's voice cut through their exchange.
Juno glanced between them, still trying to process the casual way they moved past the fact that she'd just performed some kind of soul cannibalism.
"How thoughtful of you to approve, Gin." Ain's purr carried mockery, though something warmer passed through his eyes.
"Doesn't change anything," Gin said flatly. "I still don't trust you."
The cat's grin somehow widened further. "Smart man. But tell me, who exactly do you trust? You seem like the type who'd be suspicious of his own shadow."
Juno wiped her mouth again, the metallic taste still lingering. "Is this really the time for... whatever this is?" Her voice cracked slightly. "I just found out I ate someone's soul and you two are having some kind of philosophical debate about trust."
The silence that followed felt loaded. Gin's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly, his single visible eye narrowing. For a second, she thought he might actually respond. The air between him and Ain crackled with history she didn't understand.
Then the boat lurched.
It wasn't the gentle roll of natural waves. A violent, purposeful jolt that sent Juno's stomach plummeting toward her boots. Her hands slammed against the railing, knuckles going white as the world tilted at an impossible angle.
The temperature dropped ten degrees in an instant. The mist began to writhe, pulling back from the water's surface like it was fleeing something.
Gin was already moving before Juno's mind had even processed the threat. His hands found the twin katanas mounted against the cabin wall. The blades sang as he drew them.
"Something's wrong," he said, and his voice carried the kind of certainty that came from experience with very specific kinds of wrong.
The water at the port side bulged outward until the surface shattered.
What came out of the water wasn't a creature. This was a writhing mass of shadow and instinct.
Memory slammed into Juno. Yves. The helplessness. The moment she'd watched him disappear into something just like this, swallowed by darkness that moved like living tar.
Her breath caught, strangled by terror and guilt in equal measure.
But Gin didn't freeze. His blade caught the grey light as it carved a silver arc through the air, meeting the demon's first strike. Tentacles whipped toward him like spears, but he was already somewhere else.
Black ichor sprayed across the deck as Gin cut, hissing where it touched wood, eating holes through the boat's hull like acid.
The demon screamed, a sound that bypassed Juno's ears and went straight for her bones. Her breath came in sharp, panicked gasps. Her knuckles went white against the railing as terror clawed up her throat. No, no, no… not again she thought.
It struck again, faster this time, but Gin dodged. His second katana joined the first, cutting through flesh, severing limbs that reformed even as they fell. There was no fear in him, only a kind of terrible, inhuman control.
Juno found herself transfixed, caught between horror and something dangerously close to awe.
Both blades moved as one, carving through the monster's heart. For a moment, time seemed suspended, Gin frozen in the follow-through, the demon's form wavering.
Then it collapsed.
The shadow-thing dissolved into mist that smelled awful, coiling once before vanishing into the water's depths.
Gin stood motionless, swords lowered, dark ichor dripping from the blades. His breathing was controlled, steady, but Juno caught the slight tremor in his hands before he sheathed the weapons.
He's not untouchable after all.
Juno remained frozen at the railing. Her hands were still locked around the metal. She couldn't let go, her body wouldn't move. The fight had lasted maybe minutes, but it felt like she'd been holding her breath for hours.
She couldn't shake the image. Those writhing shadows. The way they'd moved like the thing that swallowed Yves. The sound it made. That scream. Her breathing was too fast. Too shallow.
The deck swayed beneath her feet, or maybe that was just her legs giving out. She gripped the railing harder, trying to anchor herself, but her hands were shaking now.
"You alright there, sweetheart?"
Ain's voice cut through the fog in her head, but it sounded muffled, like he was in another room.
She tried to answer but nothing came out.
"Hey." he padded closer now, more serious. "Look at me."
But she couldn't. Her eyes were fixed on the water where the thing had been. Where it had dissolved like it was never there.
Like Yves had never been there.
"She's in shock." Gin's voice behind her back made her flinch.
"Yeah, I can see that."
"I'm fine." The unconvincing words finally forced themselves out.
"You're really not," Ain said flatly.
Her legs buckled, but she didn't fall. Gin caught her before she hit the deck, one hand gripping her arm, steadying her without pulling her too close.
"Sit down," it wasn't a suggestion.
He guided her to a crate, and she collapsed onto it, head spinning. Her hands were still shaking and she pressed them against her knees, trying to stop it, but that just made her realize her whole body was trembling.
Gin crouched in front of her, not quite at eye level but close.
"Look at me," he said quietly.
She did but her vision was blurry at the edges.
"You're safe. It's gone." His voice felt grounding. "Nothing's going to hurt you right now."
She wanted to believe that. But the image kept replaying. The shadows. The way Yves had looked at her before–
"I couldn't do anything," she whispered and her voice cracked. "I just stood there. Again. Just like–"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Ain cut in quickly, hopping onto the crate beside her. "No need to relive traumatic memories right now, yeah? Let's focus on staying conscious first."
Juno blinked at him, confused by the interruption.
Gin's eye narrowed slightly, flicking toward Ain with something that looked like suspicion.
"What?" Ain said innocently. "She's spiraling. That's bad for everyone."
"Uh-huh." Gin didn't sound convinced, but he turned his attention back to Juno. "First real fight's always rough. Especially when you're not the one doing the fighting."
Juno pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes, trying to stop the tears threatening to spill. She wasn't going to cry. She wasn't.
"You did fine," Gin continued, his tone surprisingly gentle. "Stayed out of the way. Didn't panic mid-fight. That's more than most people manage."
"I'm panicking now," she muttered into her hands.
"Yeah, but after is better than during. Means you kept your head when it mattered."
She lowered her hands slowly, looking at him. He was still crouched there, watching her with that unreadable expression that was starting to feel less cold and more... cautious.
Silence stretched between them. The boat rocked gently now, safe from any demons that wanted to kill them.
Finally, Juno's breathing started to even out. The shaking in her hands lessened, though they still felt cold and numb.
Ain tilted his head at her. "Better?"
"...Yeah."
Gin stood, stepping back to give her space. His eye lingered on her for another moment, then shifted to the water where the demon had been.
"I've never seen something like that in Limbo before," he said. "They don't usually come this far into neutral territory."
Juno's mind reeled, fragments of memory clicking together. "Before I came here," she said, "I saw things on the news. Reports of demons. In the human world."
Ain's ears perked up immediately, his eyes widening with what looked like surprise. "Now that's interesting." He sat up straighter, tail flicking. "Demons breaking through to the human realm? That shouldn't be happening."
But there was something off about his reaction, like he was playing a part.
Juno caught it immediately, the slight delay before the surprise registered, the way his tail had already been twitching before she'd even finished speaking. He's faking it. Of course he knows more than he lets on.
But she'd learned how much Ain liked his little secrets, and how he liked keeping them with her. So she didn't say anything. He probably would've interrupted or deflected anyway.
"It's not supposed to be possible," Gin said flatly, looking more tense now. "The barriers between worlds–"
"Are apparently having some issues," Ain finished smoothly. "And if what our little human saw is true, then what we just fought might not be an isolated incident."
Gin's eye narrowed, his gaze fixed on Ain with an intensity that could cut glass. The silence stretched uncomfortably for a long moment.
"You already knew," Gin said.
Ain's expression didn't change, but his tail gave the smallest twitch. "Knew what?"
"About the breach." Gin's voice was cold. "You weren't surprised at all."
For a moment, Ain just looked at him with those gleaming violet eyes. Then his grin returned, sharper this time. "Well. Can't get anything past you, can I?"
"No." Gin's hand hadn't moved far from his katanas. "You can't."
Ain sighed dramatically, hopping down from the crate. "Fine. I knew something was happening. Didn't know the specifics–" He glanced at Juno. "–until just now. Rumors, whispers, the usual chaos. You know how it is."
"No, I don't." Gin's tone didn't change. "Tell me."
Ain's playfulness dimmed slightly. "The barriers have been... thinning. For a while now. Demons slipping through, humans ending up in places they shouldn't." His gaze flicked meaningfully to Juno for just a second. "It's all very messy and complicated and honestly, tedious to explain."
"Try," Gin said.
"The short version? Reality's got cracks in it. Things are bleeding through. That shadow bastard we just fought? Probably squeezed through one of them." Ain stretched, clearly trying to end the conversation. "Point is, things are getting weird. That's all."
Juno wanted to ask more, how long has this been happening? Is that why I'm here?, but Ain's secretive nature. There was a reason he didn't want her saying too much in front of Gin.
"How long?" Gin asked.
Ain's grin widened, but didn't reach his eyes. "Long enough that you should probably worry less about the 'how long' and more about the 'what comes next.'"
"Which is?"
"Well," Ain said slowly, his tail swishing, "if demons are breaking into the human world, and humans are ending up here..." He tilted his head. "I think things are about to get very messy indeed… possibly related to… you know who."
There were layers to this conversation she didn't understand, pieces she was missing. Still… he's not telling me everything either.
But she knew enough to keep her mouth shut.
Juno just stared at them both, lost. The encounter had left something lodged in her chest; dread, maybe, or the kind of anxiety that came with realizing the ground beneath your feet was less solid than you'd thought.
Plus, she was pretty sure she could still taste Jerry. Or James. Whatever his name was.
She wanted to go home. But even as the thought formed, she questioned it. Home to what? To that empty apartment? To acquaintances who tolerated her without actually enjoying her presence? To the crushing weight of being fundamentally, irredeemably alone?
At least here, she wasn't invisible, someone had cooked for her, even fought for her. At least her sickness wasn't catching up with her now that Ain stopped it.
Maybe being there wasn't that bad. And she still needed to find Yves.
She exhaled slowly, her grip on her knees finally loosening.
She turned to study Gin, really look at him for the first time since the fight ended. Not the untouchable warrior who'd carved through shadow like it was mist, but the man beneath the blade.
His shoulders carried a tension that spoke of too many battles. The single green eye that caught what little light filtered through the fog wasn't watching her now, but she could still see it; the exhaustion he wore like armor, the careful way he held himself apart from everything and everyone.
What made him like this?
As if sensing her scrutiny, his gaze shifted to meet hers. For a moment, he simply watched her, not with his usual detachment, but with something quiet and more focused
Juno didn't look away. Whatever he was seeing, she let him look.
His expression shifted, just barely. A flicker of something she couldn't read crossing his features before settling into something that might have been... recognition? Understanding?
It was gone too quickly to be sure, but it left something changed in the space between them.
The moment stretched, neither of them speaking. Something in the way he looked at her now suggested he'd found whatever answer he'd been searching for.
"Thank you," she said finally. Her voice was still rough, but steady enough.
His jaw worked for a second, like he was about to say something. Her name, maybe. But it caught in his throat, and what came out instead was just: "Don't mention it."
He turned back toward the cabin, and she caught the slight tension in his shoulders again, almost like discomfort this time.
"I'll get us to Devil Town faster." he added, already moving to restart the engine.
Juno didn't argue. She watched him for a moment longer, then turned back to the water herself. The mist curled in lazy swirls along the sea's surface, hiding what lay ahead. And what lay beneath.
The engine hummed to life. The boat began to move again, cutting through the gray.
Wind swept through Juno's hair, lifting the white strands. And for the first time since waking here, she realized how much she still didn't understand about this world.
But maybe she was starting to figure out how to survive in it.