1
"Hey!"
Galli shouted at Himeno while carrying Gongja, who was bleeding out and hanging by a thread.
Himeno answered, "I know!" and ran down the stairs.
The stairs in the shattered building were not only uneven, but broken in places, making them a real pain to use.
But there was no other way out besides those damn stairs, so Himeno and Galli had no choice but to use them.
After taking more than twice, maybe even three times, as long as usual to reach the bottom and finally set foot on solid ground, what awaited them was...
"Th-they left."
"...."
A pool of blood, a few guns, and an empty road where the car had already driven off.
"Where the hell was Kobeni?"
Galli muttered blankly at the deserted street.
It was a shame that Sawatari, who should have been alive and well, was dead, but even in the original story there had been a scene where Denji was almost kidnapped and loaded into a car.
But Denji hadn’t been kidnapped then. Makima’s support attack had been visible, and Kobeni had interfered too.
And yet he’d been taken. What the hell was this?
"Even now, Sawatari is gone, and Samurai Sword has burned through way more blood than in the original because of Gongja. So there’s no way Kobeni should have had any trouble protecting Denji... or rather, taking him away."
"F-first, let’s get to the hospital..."
Himeno, who had been staring blankly along with Galli, pointed at Aki, who was leaning on Gongja and Power farther back, and said, "...Which hospital is closest around here?"
Galli was full of questions, but Gongja’s life came first, so he answered Himeno.
Himeno told them to follow her, then started running along the road.
As Galli ran after Himeno, he kept thinking.
"What variable was there? Where did Kobeni go? ...Damn it. My head’s pretty damn thick too. ...Wait. What did Gongja say earlier?"
Gongja had definitely asked about Arai and muttered something about Arai’s trivia wiki.
Right. Arai. Kobeni’s buddy, and...
"...the guy who took the bullet for Kobeni in the 'Samurai Sword' arc."
Arai was, in his own way, a good person. And there weren’t many good people among Devil Hunters. Most of them had gone crazy or gotten selfish.
In other words, the chance that Kobeni’s current buddy would, like the original Arai, take the remaining bullet for her after getting shot himself was extremely slim.
"...Kobeni is probably dead."
"...."
Himeno answered Galli’s words with silence.
"It’s an emergency here!"
"What’s the patient’s blood type? Hurry!"
"Antiseptic... no, blood packs... ah, just bring everything!"
When Gongja arrived at the hospital, the place practically turned upside down.
It was only natural. A Devil Hunter had arrived with one arm brutally torn off, massive blood loss, half his guts chewed through from a bite taken out of his side, and even his eye gouged out.
The doctors were horrified that Gongja was still breathing in that state, but their hands and feet never stopped moving.
Maybe because of that, the medical devices tracking Gongja’s condition gradually lowered the pitch of their shrieking alarms.
Of course, only the volume had gone down a little; the numbers were still red, so he was still in danger. But at least they could breathe a little easier.
After confirming that, Galli let out a long breath and sat down on a chair in the hallway to rest.
But as if the hospital had no intention of letting him rest, a commotion suddenly broke out near the entrance. Had Aki arrived?
Galli headed for the entrance to check the source of the noise. What he saw shocked him.
"Kobeni?"
"Hic... it hurts..."
Kobeni was sitting on the floor and crying, with Denji beside her, reduced to just his head, heart, and one arm.
Himeno was sitting next to her, asking her several questions. She must have gone outside for a smoke and run into Kobeni on the way to the hospital entrance.
"Kobeni! What happened?"
"There was a person dead beside me, and then I... hic... turned my head... and a bullet came flying at me... hic... I knocked it away... killed the person... and ran, and then a car came and hit me... hic... Denji was there, so I stabbed the driver... hic... and brought Denji out... waaah...!!"
Himeno let out a stunned "Huh..." and tried to soothe her.
The doctors sighed and tapped their feet, at a loss for what to do with Denji, and equally at a loss for how to treat Kobeni, who was crying like that.
Their sighs only got heavier after Aki arrived, with a deep slash near his heart.
2
"Borrow me more than thirty criminals serving life sentences or worse, and rent out a nearby shrine on high ground."
Makima said, looking around blankly.
At her words, Tendo and Kurose quickly decided who would do what, then moved out to carry out her orders.
After confirming that, Makima went into a nearby cafe and resumed the thoughts she had been having earlier.
She ordered coffee, then remembered she hadn’t asked for a change of clothes, but that was nothing compared to solving this question, so she didn’t pay it much mind.
"...An equal relationship."
That was what she decided to focus on first.
What was needed to form an equal relationship with another person? No, what even was an equal relationship?
'I know the dictionary definition, but I don’t know what it means.'
Because she had never formed one.
Right. Then she just had to make one, didn’t she? Yes. She just had to form one. If she did, she would naturally understand the meaning too.
But... how?
"...I’m stuck here again."
Makima muttered after taking a sip of the coffee the waiter brought her.
She had reached this point countless times, even at dawn. But every time she did, the question of "So how do you form one?" coiled up and blocked the flow of her thoughts.
So she turned her thoughts another way. She knew very well that doing nothing would not solve anything, even though she was certain she’d get stuck the same way again, so she forced herself to think.
How had she formed relationships until now?
First, she made them owe her a debt. Then, based on that debt, she made them "love" her. Then the target followed her. And she repaid them according to the affection they showed her. ...That wasn’t equal at all. It was barely even a master-servant relationship.
"Huff..."
She let out an involuntary laugh. It was ridiculous enough that she was being led around by some insane bastard’s words, and now she was even doubting the method she had built up all this time. How could she not laugh?
'...Change the subject. Right, let’s change the subject.'
"Friend..."
"Makima, everything’s ready."
Kurose said to her, panting. She had lost track of time while thinking.
".... Right. Let’s go."
Makima was briefly dazed, then followed Kurose.
And at the shrine, she carried out the "contract."
Even while making the contract, she kept turning the problem over in her head,
and finally decided what to do three days later, three hours before Gongja woke up.
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