Don't Confuse the Food Chain

The girl with the katana and the glowing red eyes looked like she'd been through a meat grinder. Her left arm hung at an angle that made Rome's stomach turn, blood dripped from a gash above her eyebrow, and she was breathing like every inhale hurt. Her blade never wavered though. Not even a tremor.

"By the authority granted to me as a scion of the Valac Clan," she started, and wow, that formal speech really didn't match the whole 'actively dying' vibe she had going, "and in accordance with Shaman Regulations, Article Seven, Section Three..."

Rome felt something inside him shift. The purple light around his body pulsed brighter.

"I hereby classify you as a Demon-class threat."

Oh. Oh that's not good.

"And I will exercise my duty to exorcise you."

The laugh that came out of his mouth wasn't his.

It used his vocal cords and everything, the sound that echoed through the warehouse was cold though.

"Exorcise me?"

Rome took a step forward. His boot hit concrete and the floor just gave up, cratering inward with a crunch that sent cracks spiderwebbing across the room. The girl's eyes widened but her sword stayed up.

Stubborn. He could respect that. Or rather, whatever was currently wearing his face like a Halloween mask could respect that.

"Little girl," his mouth said, "you couldn't even handle my appetizer."

His hand gestured lazily toward the scorched circle where Mr. Nine-Foot-Nightmare used to exist. The purple energy around his fingers crackled, hungry for more. Always more. The demonic energy he'd absorbed from that thing was coursing through his veins like the world's most violent espresso shot, and some dark corner of his brain that definitely hadn't existed twenty minutes ago was already calculating how much more he could drain from the wounded girl in front of him.

"Your 'duty' is to die. My 'duty' is to eat. Don't confuse the food chain."

The pressure in the room intensified. Rome could feel it radiating from his body like heat from a furnace, pressing down on everything within a twenty-foot radius. The girl's knees buckled slightly before she locked them. Her breathing got harder.

Then something changed in her eyes.

She lowered the katana. Just an inch, enough that he noticed. Her gaze darted around the warehouse, scanning. Looking for something specific. They landed on a small black object near his feet.

The necklace.

"Listen to me," she said, her voice strained but somehow still firm. "This isn't you. The boy I met... the idiot who tackled a monster to save me... that's who's in there."

The purple light flickered.

"Put it back on. The necklace. We can talk this out."

Something inside Rome's skull started screaming.

Not in pain. More like someone had just kicked open a door that had been locked for seventeen years and now everything on the other side was trying to flood back in at once. His vision doubled. The warehouse superimposed itself over a memory of a woman's face he'd never seen before, beautiful and terrible, bending down to place a chain around a child's neck.

"This will keep you safe, my little shadow. Until you're strong enough."

His hand flew to his head. The purple aura around him flared violently, then contracted like someone had grabbed it and squeezed.

"He's... gone," his voice said, it came out strained though. Wrong. Like someone was forcing the words through a throat that didn't want to cooperate.

The black markings on his arms started writhing. They looked like they were trying to crawl off his skin.

Such a foolish hope... clinging to a memory of weakness...

Get... get out of my head!

That was him. The actual him. Rome Angelo, part-time construction worker, full-time disaster. He could feel himself in there somewhere, buried under layers of purple light and ancient hunger and this overwhelming need to consume everything around him until nothing remained.

This IS your head. This is the real you. The hungry you. The you that has been caged and suppressed and starved for seventeen years while you played at being human.

Rome's vision swam. He could see through his own eyes but he couldn't control what they looked at. His body moved without permission, taking another step toward the girl. Toward Ryoko. That was her name. She'd saved him. She'd cut down that first monster before it could rip his face off.

Ryoko... run...

He tried to force the words out loud but they died somewhere between his brain and his mouth. Instead, his hand reached out, purple energy crackling between his fingers. So close to her face. So close to that beautiful, terrified expression that he could almost taste her demonic energy from here.

Yes. Take it. She's wounded. Afraid. Her energy is pure, refined by years of training and trauma. So much better than that mindless beast we just devoured.

NO!

Rome's body convulsed. The hand reaching for Ryoko jerked backward like he'd touched a live wire. The purple aura flared again, brighter than before, so bright it burned afterimages into his retinas. The warehouse windows that had somehow survived this long finally gave up, exploding outward in a shower of glass.

He stumbled back, his own limbs fighting against each other. His right arm tried to lunge forward while his left pulled back. His legs locked up mid-step and he nearly faceplanted into the concrete.

It felt like being torn in half. Like two people were trying to drive the same car in opposite directions and the steering wheel was his soul.

STOP RESISTING! This is what you ARE!

I'm not a monster!

You consumed an ENTIRE B-RANK PHANTOM! You obliterated it so completely that not even ash remains! What part of that seems human to you?!

The worst part was, he had a point. Rome had eaten something's entire existence and gained its knowledge.

That was pretty solidly in the 'monster' category.

His knees hit concrete. The impact should have hurt but he barely felt it over the war raging in his skull. The purple aura that had been suffocating everything around him got sucked back into his body like water down a drain. The black markings on his arms faded, retreating beneath his skin where he couldn't see them.

Gone. All of it. Just... gone.

Rome looked down at his hands. They were shaking. Normal human hands with normal human skin and no glowing demonic energy turning him into a nightlight. His fingernails weren't claws anymore. His vision had lost that weird purple tint that made everything look like prey.

He was just him again.

"Holy shit," he whispered. His voice was raw, like he'd been screaming. Maybe he had been. "What... what the hell happened? Ryoko... are you okay?"

She stared at him. Her katana was still raised but her whole arm trembled from the effort. Blood had dripped down her face, pooling at her chin before falling to stain her shirt darker. She looked like she wanted to say something but couldn't decide if talking to him was safe or profoundly stupid.

Rome didn't blame her. He wasn't sure either.

Then he heard footsteps.

Not the shambling, dragging sounds of phantoms. Not the wet sliding of that hook monster or the thunderous impacts of the Tyrant. These were crisp. Rhythmic. The sharp click-clack of heels on concrete that had absolutely no business being in an abandoned slaughterhouse at whatever ungodly hour of the night it was.

They were coming from the main entrance.

Ryoko heard them too. Her head snapped toward the sound, katana shifting to point at this new threat. Her whole body tensed despite the obvious pain it caused her.

A woman stepped out of the shadows near the entrance.

Rome's brain sort of short-circuited trying to process what he was seeing.

She looked like she'd just stepped off a runway. Tailored blazer and a skirt that hugged curves in a way that should be illegal, heels that added another three inches to her already impressive height. Not a single speck of dust touched her clothes. Not a hair out of place on that long white ponytail. She carried a small designer handbag like she was heading to brunch rather than walking into a disaster zone.

Her eyes swept across the warehouse. They took in the broken machinery, the scorch marks, the crater where Rome had apparently tried to recreate the Grand Canyon on a budget. They lingered on Ryoko's injuries. Then they landed on him.

And they glowed.

Not figuratively. Not some trick of the light. Her eyes actually lit up with this soft purple radiance that made the hair on his neck stand up. Twelve glowing petals arranged in a perfect lotus pattern, rotating slowly like some kind of cosmic mandala.

"Oh my," she said. "It looks like someone made a terrible mess in here."

She took another step forward, heels clicking against concrete.

"Did I miss all the fun?"