"Why?!" Hiyori shouted, quickly jumping out of Everlong's lap. The detective simply backed up, not even thinking about interfering. This was her time to deal with her past. As he took a step back, his figure even slowly merged into the darkness of the night, disappearing completely.
"..." In front of Hiyori, Yukari did not answer; she just looked at her, watching her eyes without speaking. Where Hiyori's were filled with tears and anger, her tormentor's were almost lightless. Dead.
"If you don't want to answer me, I'll beat it out of you, you bitch!" Hiyori screamed, and there was no fear in her at that moment.
"You had it all." Yukari suddenly opened her mouth, speaking with a cold, uncaring, and unfeeling voice, not blinking even once since she looked into Hiyori's eyes. "Yet you threw it away."
"What the hell are you talking about?!"
"You look like me," she replied, moving her eyes down to Hiyori's body for the first time and then back up to her face. "Thin, frail, no sex appeal, no style… bland. A background character at most."
"And?" she asked, even stepping closer to her. She took deep breaths and smelled the decay, the iron-filled odor of blood oozing from Yukari's direction as a hellish stench.
"Yet you still had it… friends. Parents who loved you…" Yukari continued, and for a brief moment, Hiyori could feel some type of emotions coming through, straight from Yukari's heart, carried along by her voice and the wind. Yet all of those emotions were laced with deep-seething envy and resentment. "Even HE asked you out! Confessed to you! Yet you refused?!" Yukari growled, howling just like the wind gathering around them, blowing Hiyori's black hair backward as Yukari's empty eyes lit up in a dark green color. "On what basis?!"
"You…!" Hiyori opened her mouth, realizing the simple, sad, and plain truth of everything. All the things she went through, why her parents had to die, why Yukari ruined not just her life but two others' too... it was so simple. So laughable. Just because she was having it better than her..? Just because Yukari saw similarities in their outward appearance? Just because she… refused a boy she didn't even know?! Everything just because of that?! "You are… insane…" Hiyori whispered as tears rolled down her cheeks. She was unable to hold back, feeling like she was about to cry and laugh at the same time. "All of this torment… because you were jealous? This is a joke… this must be… a very dark joke! Ahahaha…" she held her face, feeling like she was about to collapse.
"Why should I care…?" Yukari asked, watching her with a slight smirk. "You people only know what it means to be at the bottom if you experience it… your kind especially. You don't even thank God for how good you have it! You're squandering it!"
"God…?" Hiyori raised her head, looking at her through her fingers, holding her head with one hand.
"My… God!" Yukari heaved as her body started to melt and transform back into a black, smudge-like being. "You are going to be like me... The moment you die––" she began to speak, but then both of them felt a strong gust of wind hitting them.
While Yukari stumbled backward, Hiyori also wobbled, taking a step in her opposite direction, falling to her butt as an extreme headache assaulted her. Looking up, she was back in reality, once again, seeing the fences around the roof, the pentagram below them, and the still-smoking little mortar in the middle of it. Sheby was standing close by, gasping for air, blowing out white smoke through her nostrils, gasping for air.
"My turn~!" The goat-demon grinned, transforming completely, growing larger and larger, ripping her clothes apart in the process. Only a second later, a three-meter-tall, minotaur-like creature was standing there with hair covering its body, saggy tits swinging in the wind as her goat-like head was salivating, watching the confused Yukari, who barely knew where she was or what even happened.
"Sorry, Sheby, things have changed!" Everlong's voice cut through it all, appearing right behind the spirit of Yukari, pressing the barrel of his revolver into the hole in the back of her head.
"NO! THIS WAS NOT OUR AGREEMENT!" Sheby screamed, her voice echoing far away as a goat's cry.
Everlong did not hesitate at all, pulling the trigger just as he finished speaking, and with a bright flash, the spirit of Yukari was instantly blasted apart, blowing into thousands of pieces. The little that remained of it fell forward and started to melt, turning into nothing but a nasty, foul-smelling pool of tar.
"EVERLONG!" Sheby roared again, almost jumping on him, but he just aimed his gun at her, making her stop in her tracks at once.
Through it all, Hiyori was just sitting there, barely able to process what even happened, looking at the two, almost forgetting to breathe.
"She was groomed," Everlong replied, still aiming at Sheby's head, looking at her with eyes that made the demon shudder involuntarily. She had seen those types of eyes many times before. The same look, the same tone of voice she was hearing now… all of the most savage and cruel demons in Hell had it in abundance. The same beings she escaped from… the ones she betrayed, just so she could earn asylum in the human world in the end.
"By… who?" she gulped as she slowly, gradually turned back into a human-like form, pulling the destroyed strands of clothes around her body up, somewhat covering her naked torso. Her voice quickly returned to that of a girl's but with tangible resentment baked into it.
"Dunno. But her whole family was owned by someone. The moment you eat her, it would have probably marked you. Asylum or not, you would be fucked... Demons that groom humans to be pets hate Asylum Seekers even more."
"..." Sheby slowly lowered her eyes, looking at the still bubbling, smoking pool of tar that was what was left of Yukari.
"Here." Everlong lowered his gun and took out a shining golden coin from his coat's pocket, flicking it towards Sheby.
"...!" she caught it with surprise and a visible glint in her eyes. Sheby took only one look before covering it with both hands, watching Everlong to see if this was a joke or not.
"Are we good?" he smiled a little, dispersing his cold appearance before the demon, making her flinch.
"Yeah!" Sheby nodded, gulping, before glancing at Hiyori, committing her face to memory, and just jumped, leaving the rooftop in a hurry, not even looking back. Her departure was so sudden, as if she just remembered she had left the stove on back home.
"Are you okay?" Everlong walked up to Hiyori, crouching down, holding her still trembling hands, and rubbing them together between his.
"I… I think…" she said with a weak voice, gulping down her heart that was stuck in her throat. "Everything happened… so fast."
"Sorry. Opportunities rarely come in cases like this!" The detective said as he smiled, watching Hiyori's expression change. Her mind constantly switched between relief, pain, and confusion as it tried to process everything.
"Is it… dead? Dead, dead?" she stood up with Everlong's help, only taking one glance at the puddle, afraid it would rise up again and jump at her.
"Deleted from existence." he nodded.
"Deleted…?" she licked her parched lips. "You mean… she won't come back anymore?"
"She can't. She does not exist anymore. There are three ways to deal with demons: one is to banish them back to their own realm. Two is to trap them in something and seal it away. Three is to delete their whole existence." he chuckled. "Why? You wanted to give her a chance at redemption?"
"No!" she answered immediately, furrowing her brows. "I'm not… that kind of a girl. She chose to do those things to me, so I wanted her gone!" she groaned, gulping back tears, fixing her clothing, closing her eyes, whispering in a softer voice, "Probably if I had killed myself, I would have turned out like her in the end… huh?"
"..."
"Everlong?" She opened her eyes a little later, as he did not answer. She looked up at him, waiting for her answer, telling him that she wanted to know.
"Yes." He sighed, "You may have been a second Yukari in the making because of your family's death. I am 90% sure of it, especially because of the light in your eyes. How it looked when I met you..."
"Yeah… I guessed so…" she sighed. "Especially because I feel happy now… knowing that the beach is gone!" She smiled weakly, rubbing her face and shaking her head, trying to expel all the weird feelings from inside her brain.
"It's a human thing; you just have to balance it out." he patted her back. "'What comes out of a person is what defiles them. For it is from within, out of a person's heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance, and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile a person.' Mark 7:20-23”
"Are you religious?" Hiyori blinked her eyes, surprised at the sudden quote.
"I don't know myself," Everlong answered with a chuckle. "Because I deal with this kind of shit regularly, I should be. But I am also not because I DEAL with this shit regularly. Plus, the previous quote, I think it ignores the other side of the coin." he continued, pointing at Hiyori's chest. "All the positive things, love, joy, happiness, compassion, all the opposites of negativity also originate from here. Not from God, not from any of the Gods. But from us. You just have to balance it out, and you are going to be fine~!" he patted her face gently with a smile.
"Thanks… I… feel a little better!" she answered, returning his smile before letting him hold his hand as they walked towards the door leading into the school building. "Ah… wait… what about this…?" she looked back at the mess, but the moment she did, it was gone entirely, and the whole place looked as if nothing had happened at all, surprising her.
"Convenient, huh~?" Everlong chuckled, not explaining, just pulling her into the building.
"Yeah… damn!" she clicked her tongue. "Oh, and… what was that about Gods? Plural?" she shook her head, deciding to not question where everything had gone at all if she wanted to keep her sanity intact.
"It is what it is!" Everlong laughed as they descended the stairs. "All religions are the truth." He explained with a nonchalant grin.
"You are pulling my legs…" she rolled her eyes, finding it hard to believe, but Everlong refused to explain further.
"No, I'm pulling your hands!" he joked, squeezing her frail fingers. "Come, let me treat you to something tasty."
"Ahhh… that sounds good…" she sighed, nodding in the end, giving up to gain more out of him.
As they arrived at the car and sat down, Everlong picked up a newspaper from the backseat and flipped through it. Hiyori wanted to ask why, but then she realized the answer to her own question, which made her also lean closer and read the different articles.
"Okay, we are truly out!" Everlong sighed again, closing it and throwing it at the back seat. "Always remember to check on it after every job."
"Noted…" she murmured, nodding and then watching her school getting smaller in the rearview mirror as they drove out from the parking lot, feeling weird at watching the changing scenery. Everything… changed. She could not point a finger at it at that moment, but she knew it. Her life was changed into something she would be unable to run away from anymore.
As for how it would be from now on... That was a different story.
One that she would have the freedom to write for herself... one day.
thanks for the story, it was good.
It was a good story. Thanks.
Sorry it never gained traction. Now if you had her isekai into Naruto you would probably have a 1,000 readers.