03

The boat floated serenely upon the tranquil sea, the mist hanging like a mysterious shroud, obscuring any sense of direction.

Gin's movements cut through the stillness with practiced efficiency. The plate he handed Juno still steamed, carrying the rich, oily scent of mackerel mingled with something else; wild herbs he’d gathered from shores she’d never seen. The aroma wound itself around the boat's natural perfume of damp wood and rust.

"This is amazing," Juno murmured, the words escaping before she could catch them. The fish flaked perfectly against her fork, tender and smoky, seasoned with a care that seemed almost foreign coming from someone so distant. She took another bite, savoring the complex flavor, something almost familiar, comforting in a way.

Gin’s eye flickered slightly, but he said nothing. His expression remained unreadable. “Better than nothing, I guess,” he replied, his voice devoid of emotion.

The Time Devil was perched comfortably on the boat's table, violet eyes gleaming with the kind of amusement that came at someone else's expense. His fur caught the warm, flickering light from the oil lamp hanging above, each strand seeming to shimmer with amber and gold highlights.

"Enjoying yourself already? Huh. Didn't think you'd take things so quickly."

Juno set her fork down, suddenly wary. There was something about this creature that made her skin prickle.

"Oh, you really don't know, do you?" The Time Devil purred, his tail flicking with barely contained glee. "That's not fish, sweetheart. That's Jerry—or was it James? Hard to tell once they've been properly prepared."

The fork slipped from Juno's fingers, clattering against the plate. Her stomach lurched, though the fish still tasted perfectly normal; tender, flaky, well-seasoned. Somehow that made it worse. "What?"

"Human soul, seasoned with a bit of sea salt and wild herbs." The cat's tone was conversational. "Gin's quite the cook, actually. Most people here just eat them raw."

Juno's hand flew to her mouth as bile rose in her throat. She stumbled toward the cabin door, desperate for air, for space. She made it to the deck railing just in time, doubling over the side of the boat and retching until her stomach was empty, though she could still taste the perfectly prepared meal on her tongue.

She sensed movement behind her. 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, he was watching her with something that might have been sympathy.

"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... dinner."

"You—you're all—" Juno couldn't finish the sentence, couldn't wrap her mind around what she'd just consumed. A person. Someone who'd had a name, a life, fears and hopes and—

"Monsters?" The Time Devil supplied helpfully. "Well, yes. Though I prefer 'demons.' You can starve if you like, but Jerry was already dead when he hit the water. We just made use of what was available."

Juno stared at them both, horror and disgust warring with a terrible, practical understanding. The rules here weren't the rules of the world she'd left behind. She was the outsider here, the living human among demons who saw souls as simply another kind of fish to catch.

Gin's voice was quiet, almost reluctant. "I wasn't going to tell you. What they used to be." He didn't look at her, his gaze fixed on something beyond the mist. "Figured it was kinder that way."

She realized then. He'd seasoned it for her, wanted her to enjoy eating someone's soul, but he'd also kept her in the dark about what it was.

A demon showing mercy in the only way he knew how, maybe. The strange thing wasn't that he fed her souls, but that he'd tried to spare her the knowledge for as long as possible.

The boat seemed to rock more violently beneath her feet, though the water remained calm.

The silence stretched uncomfortably as Juno tried to process what she'd learned. Her stomach still churned, empty but somehow still rebelling against what it had contained. She kept swallowing, trying to rid herself of the aftertaste that now seemed to carry the weight of someone's entire existence.

The Time Devil stretched with feline grace, his violet eyes never leaving her face. "Now that we've given Jerry a name, I suppose it's only fair you know mine properly, right?" His tail flicked with amusement. "It's Ain."

"Ain," Juno repeated quietly, her voice still shaky. "That's... simpler than I expected." She wasn't mocking, just trying to focus on something normal after everything she'd learned.

"What were you expecting? Something with more syllables? More dramatic flair?" He tilted his head. "Trust me, it suits me perfectly."

Gin's voice cut through their exchange with that familiar warning edge. "It does."

Juno glanced between them, still trying to process the casual way they moved past the fact that she'd just performed 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 widened. "Smart. 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. "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 as if he might actually answer. The air between them crackled with unspoken history.

Then the boat lurched.

Not the gentle roll of natural waves, but a violent, purposeful jolt that sent Juno's stomach plummeting toward her boots. Her hands slammed against the railing, knuckles 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 as if fleeing something unspeakable.

Gin was moving before Juno's mind had processed the threat. Fluid, lethal purpose as his hands found the twin katanas mounted against the cabin wall. "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, swelling unnaturally, until the surface shattered.

What came out of the water wasn't a creature. Creatures had logic, biology, rules they followed. This was wrongness given form, a writhing mass of shadow and hunger.

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.

Gin didn't hesitate.

He flowed, that was the only word for it. 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 whispered.

It struck again, faster this time, but Gin dodged. Each movement flowed into the next with terrifying beauty. His second katana joined the first, cutting through flesh that refused to hold its shape, severing limbs that reformed even as they fell. There was no fear in him, no uncertainty, only a kind of terrible, inhuman control.

Juno found herself transfixed, caught between horror and something dangerously close to awe.

Tendrils lashed out from every angle, a web of death closing around Gin's small form.

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 really bad, 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 still gripping the metal. The fight had lasted maybe minutes, but it felt like she'd been holding her breath for hours. Her legs felt unsteady, and she couldn't quite shake the image of those writhing shadows, the way they'd moved like—

"You alright there, sweetheart?" Ain's voice cut through her spiraling thoughts, surprisingly gentle for once. "You look like you've seen a ghost. Well, worse than a ghost, actually."

She blinked, popping out of her trance. "I—yeah. I think so." Her voice came out rougher than she'd expected.

Bootsteps creaked across the damp deck. Gin approached from her side. His eyes lingered on the water where the last ripples were fading.

"I’ve never seen a demon like that in Limbo," he said quietly.

Juno's mind reeled, fragments of memory clicking together like puzzle pieces. The boat still rocked gently from the aftermath, and she gripped the railing tighter. "Before I came here," she said, her voice barely steady, "I saw things on the news. Reports of demons. In the human world."

Ain's eyes sharpened, his usual playfulness dimming. "Now that's interesting." He sat up straighter, tail flicking with sudden attention. "Demons breaking through to the human realm... that shouldn't be happening."

"It's not supposed to be possible," Gin said flatly, but there was tension in his shoulders now. "The barriers between worlds—"

"Are apparently having some issues," Ain finished, his tone turning darker. "And if what our little human saw is true, then what we just fought might not be an isolated incident."

Juno felt a chill that had nothing to do with the mist. "You think there's a connection? Between what I saw back home and... whatever that thing was?"

"I think," Ain said slowly, "that things are about to get very messy indeed."

Juno just stared at them both, lost. The encounter had left something cold and sharp 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 get out of there, to go home. But even as the thought formed, she questioned it. Home to what? To that empty apartment? To the job that barely paid her bills, the acquaintances who tolerated her presence without actually enjoying it? 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 the boat's railing finally loosening. The air still reeked, but the immediate danger had passed.

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, too many close calls. The single green eye that caught what little light filtered through the fog wasn't watching her, but she saw it anyway; 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... surprise? 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, surprised by how steady her voice sounded despite everything.

His eye lingered on her face another second before he nodded. "Don't mention it."

He turned back to the water, but not before she caught the slight relaxation in his shoulders.

“I’ll get us to Devil Town faster.” he added.

Juno didn’t argue. She watched him for a bit more, then turned back to the water. The mist curled in swirls along the sea’s surface, hiding what lay ahead, and what lay beneath.

The fisherman moved to start the engine again. A low hum stirred the silence, and with it, the boat drifted forward once more.

Wind swept through her hair, lifting the white strands in the air. And for the first time since waking here, Juno realized how much she still didn’t understand of this world.