It was white outside the window. Pure, unbroken white. The blizzard disgorged by the leaden skies overwhelmed everything—the exposed black soil, the cracked asphalt, the withered stalks of grass battered by the wind. The snow blanketed the city with untainted white. It seemed like the heavens were trying to erase the flawed world and return it to a blank slate.
No matter how deep the snow got, Aki knew, his memories would never be buried. He had lost his entire family in an instant, and the dull ache in his chest would never go away.
Aki let out a faint sigh. His eyes drifted from the window to his room in the old-fashioned inn. Denji lay spread-eagled across the antique futon, tangled in blankets. Power had draped herself over Denji’s legs, which stuck out from under the covers.
Somehow they’d managed to survive the relentless parade of international assassins who had come after Denji. Now Aki was in Hokkaido to pay his annual respects at his family’s graves. The two traveling companions he’d been saddled with had made it a livelier trip than usual. Shouting on the bullet train, puking on the boat, swinging on the hand straps on the bus … they’d even helped themselves to the food Aki had brought as a grave offering. He felt like a babysitter. He couldn’t take his eyes off them for a second. Hardly the ideal situation for a sober memorial outing.
He raised an eyebrow at their snoring—the sounds weirdly sort of harmonized—then looked back out the window. “Another year, another visit …”
Visiting his family’s graves brought nothing but bad memories and depression, but with Denji and Power along, he’d barely had time for dark ruminations. Now that he finally had a second to himself, he found his thoughts drifting back to another loss.
They’d met in a graveyard, hadn’t they?
Looking out at the world gone white, Aki remembered the day of his very first assignment as a Public Safety Devil Hunter.
When Aki completed his training, the first place his mentor Kishibe took him was a graveyard. Crosses stretched in every direction. The cawing of crows pierced the sky.
“Hey, Himeno,” said Kishibe. “Meet your new partner.”
Flowers lay before one of the many tombstones, and the woman who was to be his partner stood in front of them. The woman—Himeno, apparently—was in a badly battered state. A bandage was wrapped around her head, covering her right eye, and her right arm was in a sling. She gazed down at the tombstone, ignoring the two men.
What Aki felt at that moment, to be completely honest, was disappointment. If she’d been roughed up this badly in a fight with a devil, maybe she wasn’t so tough. He’d joined Public Safety to kill the Gun Devil. How could he do that with a weakling at his side?
“Name’s Aki. ’Sup,” he said. He offered a quick nod as he stepped up to her, not feeling enough enthusiasm for a friendlier greeting. She continued to stare down as if dazed. Well, fine. He’d kill the Gun Devil on his own. He didn’t like to get close to new people anyway. It was his personal code.
“The kid’s rude, but we’ve trained him to be at least a little useful,” said Kishibe. “Try to make it work.”
Himeno didn’t lift her eyes from the grave. “Are you useful?”
“Dunno. Guess so.” Normally Aki had total confidence in his abilities, but the question took him by surprise.
Himeno answered with equal ambivalence. “You’re my sixth partner. The others are dead. They were useless.”
Aki didn’t know what to say to that. Himeno’s soft, cold voice seemed drained of all emotion.
He was scrutinizing her profile, trying to decide what to make of her, when the distant eyes finally turned on him. “Don’t you die, Aki.”
Their first job together came exactly two weeks later.
“Where are we going?” Aki asked.
The moment he’d arrived for work, she’d grabbed him and said, “We’re off!” She’d hustled him into the passenger seat of her car, then clammed up. Aki had no idea what was going on, and it was starting to get to him.
Himeno kept her hand on the steering wheel and her eyes on the road. “Hmm. Scene of the crime.”
“Scene? Crime? Has there been a devil attack?” Aki asked.
“Eh, not exactly. More of a fiend.”
“I didn’t hear anything about this.”
“Didn’t I tell you?”
“Not a word.”
“That’s okay. You’re still new, Aki. I know what’s up.”
“Maybe I’d like to know too.”
“Ah … that ramen place we just passed is really good.”
“Are you listening to me?”
“But you don’t want to go for the ramen,” Himeno continued. “It’s all about the fried rice. Their ramen is crap. Everyone just orders the rice. They really ought to ditch the noodles and focus on fried rice, but old habits die hard.”
She sounded relaxed. Calm. She wore a patch over her right eye now, but her left eye was clear and untroubled.
For two weeks she’d been like this. The woman Aki had met at the graveyard, the grim specter whose soul seemed to have left her body, had vanished. Instead, she chattered endlessly about frivolous, trivial subjects. She’d tell him what she’d eaten yesterday, or which restaurant had the best waffles. When she wasn’t talking, she was furiously doing paperwork.
It left Aki feeling unmoored; it still didn’t seem like he was a devil hunter. Now they were finally off on a devil extermination mission, and she wouldn’t even tell him what it was. What was she thinking?
Aki sat back in the passenger seat. The truth was, he could guess what was going through her mind. She didn’t think of him as her partner, not yet. She’d lost five partners before he came along. She didn’t need any more dead weight.
That was fine by him. Her injuries had healed, but he didn’t need a partner who would let herself be caught unawares by a devil. He’d almost said as much to her, but he knew he was still a greenhorn and couldn’t pick and choose his partners. In Public Safety, the “partner system” was the basis of everything. If he really wanted to find and destroy the Gun Devil, he had to win this woman’s trust, whether she deserved him or not.
He gave Himeno a sidelong glance. “I’m more than another round of cannon fodder, you know.”
“Hmm? Did you say something?”
“Nothing. I’m going to open the window.”
“No, don’t! It’s cold outside!”
“Your cigarette stinks.”
Himeno’s left hand was on the steering wheel while her right clutched a cigarette. The car was choked with the smell of tar.