Mint-green. A devil in disguise.

What Kaito was doing—fiddling with a fork and sweating crickets—inside a shopping mall would have been anyone’s question. At least, it was one that he wondered himself. Every nanosecond spent moseying about the interior of the godforsaken complex, with his even ghastlier companion, was a step closer to the failure of each of his organs, and finally death.

The way he saw it, his sweat glands would shrivel up firs—

“—t? Is something the matter, trophied defender of justice?”

The tanuki bench between Kaito and the one who’d spoken rattled at the impact of her elbows propping on the surface. The napkin folds became square again. Before him, the she-devil drawled over the titular embellishment, her tail ticking in amusement.

Snap—the middle-school boy emptied his thoughts. Curses be to demons and their mind-reading abilities!  He held onto nothing, and stifled an eye-twitch.

Clearly, part of him wished he was anywhere else—but when he remembered the means of demise that could fall upon him if either party turned tail, he could safely say that yes, he would prefer this. But only barely.

The kitchen reptilians must hate me. Why else would they bestow this barbaric, this tasteless, knowledge in my mind?

Poking a few prongs into the napkin, rather delightfully woodland-themed and scented, by the way, Kaito resolved this: he would be paying no attention to the rhythmic flapping of membrane, nor the pockmarks on her cheeks. Instead, he would breathe as casually as possible and found himself intensely interested in every other curio in view. Anything, really, so he might avoid the glowering face of death—that piercing, red-rimmed stare.

Laughing self-assuredly, he dabbed at the layer of sweat that had been forming on his upper lip.

If I hadn’t failed… I wouldn’t be having waffles with Haruka in the first place!

***

Clutching at stucco, Kaito inched closer to the edge of the manmade precipice—known to students and staff alike as the school arts building. Today was the day.

Giddiness and pep wouldn’t stop bubbling.

In, he breathed. And out. Aand—

Kaito squeezed a deep breath in the same time the neo-TARDIS beeped awake: his brilliant, old-but-gold capturing device. Bits of rubber fell away from the frame as two bars slotted together. This, anyone would agree, also marked the time to pull away from his sleuth pose.

He exhaled. Showed his teeth.

Life was good—how exactly he had known? Simply today was a grand three days from the arrival of the entity. And soon, she would fall into his scheme!

The seeker of truth, Kaito, had passed over just enough time to observe her timetable, interests and habits at the educational institute, where she would be and when. He understood her movements, and could also predict how she could work in the following days.

And that meant it was time.

The opportune moment to strike, the middle-schooler theorist surmised with mirth, the insidious overlord-in-hiding, Haruka.

…

See this, there she is now!

Brought to reality by the pitter-patter of footsteps, his gaze trained on the building exit. What passed through was an ominous thing, dark, jagged sling and all, her obnoxious frame twisting along the paths that were empty of students. His eyes stuck to her like gum. He next broke from the safety of the wall, tailing Haruka just as he had done for the past weekdays—only this time, he made sure the distance between them came to be progressively shorter.

Before long, the dense layout of buildings opened up.

Sector-B8 on the Documented School Map for Seekers of Truth, he took note with glowing satisfaction. Based on the forecast for the day, this is one of two areas holding the most secluded hiding spots, and darkest.

The pair of wings belonging to his target spasmed involuntarily, and Kaito stopped. He watched as the fiend disappeared into the narrow space between Main Building A and a flight of nearby steps. A pleased smile wound its way to his face.

Bingo!

Heart rate quickening, Kaito approached the gap as he opened the ‘Camera’ app and raised his device over the corner. This was a place no passerby would notice in normal conditions—unless they chose to enter the darkness.

Perfect for all sorts of concoctions no one should ever bear witness to.

The truth about the demon, Haruka, will be revealed to the world soon. A wake, a realisation, will arise. Then…  justice will be served!

Kaito peered at the stand-by screen on his phone, watching as his classmate took a glistening, crimson box from a bag; he recognised it as a bento box. It was distastefully drenched in the timeless blood of her enemies—exactly what he’d come for.

As Haruka pried at the lid with some labour, the spy’s conjectures—what’s inside?—leaped to all sorts of monstrosities. Human fingers stuffed into a kebab? Rotted skeletons? Legumes?

The lid popped open in shock.

Haha the camera and its gimbal yoinked from his hands. He tripped and fell forward, gracelessly, on the concrete and—Haruka!—on her pancake-flipping—

“Murder! This is murder,” he cried, throwing his hands over himself.

Creaking in a chancy kind of way, the dark slew of exo-scapula bones whipped back—he saw a shoeless Haruka on the opposite side of the manmade burrow. At least that was what he could see, near the ground.

He looked up.

Amplified by darkness of the tunnel, and with terrifying clarity, the sight of a demon flooded Kaito’s vision. Their unmoving pairs of eyes became locked in a dance—villain and civilian, seeker of truth. Coldness and fire swept over him.

Hel—

Before a stream of devilish incantations could be loosed from Haruka, the middle-schooler retaliated with a scream:

“Hell is comi—not! I mean, yes, it is! HELP!”

His throat tightened rapidly for an extraordinary loudspeaker effect.

The attention of the demon flitted back to Kaito; her mien which had been uncertain only a moment ago morphed into a tight, upwards grin. One hand arced to her belted, leather hip, and then she sneered. “Ha-haha! The foe of myself—the Great Ender—dares to throw its pitiful life on the floor and enter my lair.”

The sound of his screaming grew reedier: more panicked.

“To whom it may concern! Anyone! Someone with the strength to weather the might of a demon, if not for a fraction of a—”

My saviour! Yes!

The image was to say the only other human within the vicinity—a foot-shaking young man—traipsing towards the stairs. Except the sleuth’s spirits plummeted. Kaito recognised that matted hair, the distinct look of someone frazzled after extracting a permanently secured hat or beanie.

Not the Slacker!

Screeching from the insides, Kaito slapped both hands on his temples.

“My life is ruined, my death is imminent—”

A metallic flash barrelled into his retina—this was it, a bat for baseball, something the idle Slacker was incapable of grasping. With it must have been someone incredible—who could save his soul! His heart soared, the bon lit up the fire in his panic for survival.

“SPORTS!” he shrilled, without any dignity. “A defender of justice, one of your human brethren, will DIE if you do nothing! You have to help me!”

The baseball player turned at the peak in volume.

“Ah. What’s happe—”

Swiftly, and in panicked relief, Kaito’s legs swung to race towards his human net of safety… but In this rush, his splayed, bumbling feet snagged on a cloth, and every person at the scene witnessed a great tear of fabric.

A sharp whimper—the chilling sound of a creature baying, Kaito corrected properly—came from the demon, whose fangs stuck out in warning.

She’s preparing to attack! the spy judged in alarm. But my rescuer, Sports, will…

A brief quietness ensued.

…

…apprehension towards the demonic assault thickening in the air…

…

…during which the three individuals began to recompose themselves.

For Kaito, he looked down and saw pastel green. A synthetic sheet of fibre, stickers and badges sewn in all kinds of shapes, was gaping open. And his shoe was stuck inside one of the handles, its threads wrested angrily at one end. The deceiving appearance of normalcy—this was a bag for something, a thought he quickly attached to Haruka’s ‘bento’:

Which must be better described, really, as a gruesome meal.

Kaito saw Haruka’s eyes glimmering under the shadows of the staircase—darker, more insidious—like the demon she straightforwardly was. He wasted no time untangling himself from the bag to sprint to his liberator.

One of Haruka’s hands cupped her face for a diabolical, dramatic effect—

“Ahahahahha!”

The spy decelerated as he reached the arm radius of Sports, who’d also arrived a short distance beside them. The chortling noise swelled, reaching a crescendo, before it shushed to a stop. The demon stopped.

Haruka flicked her bundled hair to the side, red eyes shining darkly.

“You again. A human dares to rupture the tranquility of night, the Destroyer of Realms?”

Despite eyeballing the demon in fear, Kaito’s attention was distracted by a wave from the baseball player.

“Hey uhh, Kaito?” Sports said. “Is something up?”

No, no, the common masses—

“Up?” the spy snapped. He’d basically screeched back. “Before us is a monster—we might be killed in seconds! You have to go up first please, otherwise our flimsy homo-sapien bodies will be spliced apart and EATEN—"

The sports player looked at him, and then at his other classmate. “Oh, is that it? I can see you and Haruka,” Sports nodded, “but this place looks like normal.”

…

Alongside incredulous silence from the screamer, their demonic fiend swished back to her seat and started griping at the contents of her box.

Sports thought to add, too, “Lunch period is almost over, too?”

…

“Lunch, HER LUNCH,” Kaito freaked again, his frustration already brimming. ‘Can you not see the demon here, or are you simply dull? Look at her fangs—you can see what’s inside her box too!”

The baseball player’s brows raised vaguely, and he looked at the container. “Oh. Is she? And that looks like a fishy lunch, literally.”

A reedy peep escaped Kaito’s throat.

“How?! I mean! What kind of human…” The rescued-to-be spy trailed off, discerning his demonic foe to rotate between a myriad of body-lingual expressions at every sentence—mocking, proud, smug. “You know what. Never mind. I’m sorry I asked for your help.”

Undisturbed, Sports returned a cap to his head. “I see. I’m glad there was nothing serious, though.” There was a length of uncomfortable silence, save for the sound of flesh-chewing in the background, and then he added, “You should make it up to Haruka, you know. For the bag. Bad things happen if you don’t give back the things you’ve broken.”

***

“Thank you very much for your purchase. Have a wonderful day!”

Kaito and Haruka abandoned the counter, the formerly inconspicuous sleuth, who had failed that afternoon (in some respects), balancing a shiny, unused bag with its receipt. Quickly, he passed it onto the demon—“Based on my vaticination, there will be no mercuric worms facing anyone. So there!”—who pulled back her gums in delight.

I need to leave… as soon as I find an opportunity!

The new lunch implement had a similar fashion and textile to the one that had become mangled that day. That was a mint-green hell’s minion, he quickly remembered. In the dark concerning its purpose, he’d voiced his cynic at the time—but the misjudgment had quickly been proven otherwise.

Kaito had not been surprised then; he’d taken it in stride.

After all, she was truly a monster.

You fool! I conjure my own minions, Haruka, the her hours before now, had declared with conviction.