"Oh..." Rin lamented, realizing, as Shirade wavered through his response, that feeding was a sensitive subject for him. She couldn't say the same for herself, because while the ghosts of the past haunted her, the way she presently survived didn't. She'd gotten used to the Suicide Squad and had no qualms about devouring people. Their unwanted lives served a better purpose, sustaining demons like her who only wanted to exist, she reasoned.
Saito had probably told him something similar, so if Shira was still unconvinced, his hesitation might've been visceral. Even if he thought the way Rin did, the feeling of wrongdoing was still there. Instead of moralizing, she smiled in understanding and added on a positive note. "I think Brother Saito was just looking out for you. If a little blood is all you need, he probably figured you wouldn't get hungry as quickly if you had proper meals. Or he assumed your situation forced you to eat less than you wanted all this time and was telling you not to worry, since you can eat your fill here without ever blowing your cover."
She'd gone from trying to kill him to cheering him up at his most vulnerable.
"He may be our leader, but he doesn't control every aspect of our lives. We have the freedom of stray demons, but we're close like a family, since many of us forgot our actual ones," the girl reflected. Her troubled eyes were already peering into her history, so Shirade's next question wasn't inappropriate. "The last thing I remember... is finding my brother with his clothes removed and his face eaten around the eyes, preserving the suffering he'd felt in death. I returned home one evening and followed the sounds of a feasting animal into the basement, where I saw a demon who looked exactly like you but with tanner skin and a colored ribbon. The only person I had in this world was..."
Rin was suddenly unable to continue, the graphic recollection seizing her throat and the girl seizing back the tears that nearly spilled from her eyes. Though she ate and slept like a demon, her human emotions were all there and more complex than the winding forest trail they followed. When she and the boy finally reached the stone idol tucked away in a thicket, Rin looked less like someone delivering salvation and more in need of it. She knelt and picked up an old doll with an address affixed to the head, a relic from the tenderest and happiest years of the victim's life.
"Do you have any memories of your past, Shira?" she asked, swallowing her sentiments and blinking the gloss from her eyes.
~~~
"Oh dear. The cursed vase strikes again!"
Phyra and Kazu were no longer the only ones in Pesok Manor. Though this was
their mission, officials from the auction house had arrived to intervene. They didn't know that demon slayers had been called here, but even if they had, they would've treated it like every other crime scene involving expensive artifacts—showing up and repossessing the item.
"Please excuse us. We'll be taking this urn now!" the head auctioneer informed the two. "Countless people who've owned it turned up dead, but that doesn't stop the price from shooting up!"
His plastic smile revealed a disturbing truth about Hokori. If the slayers had been ordinary investigators, the rich would've intruded on the site and muscled them out of here. Even as fellow members of the upper echelons dropped like flies, the survivors thought only of reclaiming property and redistributing assets. In a deeply corrupt society where law enforcers were paid off, they walked around like they owned the place.
"We bid you adieu!" the trespasser chimed with the cheeky assuredness of someone who indeed ruled the neighborhood and had never been challenged.
~~~
"That painting we won at the auction today is simply gorgeous, isn't it?"
Night had fallen, and the wealthy woman who'd asked the question was wrapped in the covers of a regal bed.
"Of course it is," her husband agreed. "When one has enough money, he develops an eye for true beauty, not the common things the peasantry finds attractive."
Though the affluent couple admired her, the female subject wasn't flattered, scowling at the two in the darkness and stepping from the picture. Basano gingerly dipped her toe back into the real world and drew closer to their bed, killing intent peaking within her as her next victims waned out of consciousness. A levitating fire poker accompanied her, turning over in the air and studying its targets before it'd plunge into them.
But what Basano instead released were her joined fingers, snapping and flicking on the lights. The wife squinted through the brightness, vaguely discerning the demon's shape but not realizing the danger she was in.
"Huh...? Who are you... and what are you doing in my house?" she questioned groggily, then noticed her silky, loose-fitting kimono and shook her husband awake. "Did you seriously bring a prostitute here?! Have you been seeing this woman behind my back?!"
"Hmm...? What are you talking about? Like I said, I have an eye for true beauty, not common whores the peasantry finds attractive," the man responded, not knowing whom she was referring to.
"Then who is this woman standing at the foot of our bed?!"
He looked ahead and finally acknowledged Basano, his adjusting eyes colored with surprise.
"I don't know! I've never seen her in my life!" he yelled. "What are you doing in my house, wench?!"
The calmly observing demon simply smirked, finding as much beauty in the picture of their startled faces as they had in her disguise. The art had lost its alluring quality the second she'd slipped out, and soon, the life would similarly leave her victims' bodies. Their words were cheapened with fear, but Basano's were rich, husky, and sadistic.
"I'm a hungry demon... and your greed is vast enough to fill me right up~"
"Oh. You're one of those people," the capitalist said with an awkward laugh, dismissing her as some crazy poor lady who'd broken in. To the well-off, demons were nothing more than myths, and honestly, he'd have been more scared if she'd introduced herself as a prostitute and his wife found out that he'd indeed been romping with random women. "Look, if you want money or something, I'll give you a few bucks and you'll be on your way. How does that-"
He was cut short when blood splattered his face and a steel rod extended into his peripheral vision. When the pain didn't come, a grim realization kicked in, and his neck creaked slowly to the side. His eyes instantly froze at the fire poker lodged in his wife's neck, horrified not by the death of a woman on whom he'd cheated many times, but by the thought of meeting the same fate.
"N-no! Not a few bucks! I'll... I'll give you my whole fortune if you spare me! Is that better?!" he shouted in despair.
To an immortal who no longer lived in the human world, money held no value. If Basano killed for a nobler cause than sating her appetite, it was to teach humans that wealth made them no better than others. So when blood splashed the walls and screams filled the room, she was accepting his offer and taking what she considered a man's true worth—his life.
"Demons are real..." she cooed, consuming the corpses and disappearing anew.
