Inside an abandoned warehouse on the western outskirts of the town, the air was thick with the smell of decay and damp wood.
A woman with two sharp horns protruding from her forehead and a strangely voluptuous figure cradled a two-month-old infant. She paced in small, frantic circles, her voice a low, rhythmic hum of madness.
"My sweet child... drink from mama now. Fill your belly until you're plump and heavy. Then, when night falls, mama will eat you all up. Wouldn't that be wonderful?"
As she spoke, thick, ropey strands of saliva escaped the corners of her mouth and dripped onto the infant's swaddling clothes.
"I must endure... I must hold back. You eat mine, and then I eat yours. That's only fair. That's balance..."
The baby, however, wasn't feeling the "balance." It began to wail, its tiny face scrunching into a mask of hunger and distress. It was nursing, but obtaining nothing—like sucking on an empty bottle. The lack of milk only fueled its cries. The woman ignored the distress, repeating her crazed mantra over and over.
"Hey, lady. That baby doesn't belong to you, does it?"
A clear, youthful voice cut through the silence of the warehouse, instantly snapping the woman out of her trance. She turned her head toward the source of the sound with jerky, bird-like movements. Standing there was a boy wearing a strange, flowing robe.
"Did you... call me 'lady'?"
Though she was confused about how the boy had entered the warehouse without making a sound, she was clearly more offended by his choice of words.
"If you aren't a lady, are you a mister?" Goku paused, looking genuinely perplexed as he tilted his head. "But your backside is clearly growing on your chest. And you have two of them."
Goku frowned. Had he gotten it wrong again? After spending a year at Hogwarts with so many different students, he thought he had finally learned to distinguish between men and women without having to fight them first.
'Man, telling the difference is really hard!' he thought.
"You are looking for death!" the woman hissed, her face contorting into a mask of frigid rage.
"Mister, are you a demon?" Goku asked, deciding to be thorough to avoid hitting the wrong person. "Are you the one behind the missing kids in this town?"
He had learned that ki wasn't always a perfect measure of danger. When he first met Grandpa Dumbledore, the old man's ki didn't feel overwhelmingly explosive, yet Goku hadn't been able to land a single hit on him back then. However, generally speaking, those with strong ki weren't weak.
The person before him had a ki far greater than a normal human's, and it felt cold—drenched in a sense of absolute malice. This was almost certainly a demon.
"Little brat, you have sharp eyes. Yes, I am a demon," the woman sneered, her tongue flickering over her lips. "Those missing children are already part of me. They are in my belly, fused with my flesh. Soon, you'll join them. Your body is a bit old for my taste, but you'll make a fine appetizer before the main course."
"If that's how it is, then I have to beat you to death," Goku said simply. He dropped into the Turtle School fighting stance.
Normally, Goku wouldn't kill. His Grandpa Gohan and Master Roshi had taught him that they were martial artists, not assassins. But for a demon that stole and ate babies, his heart was filled with a rare, cold intent to kill.
"Hahaha! You? Kill me?" The demon laughed, a cruel, jagged sound. "Since you're so brave, I'll eat you alive. I'll start with your feet and work my way up to your head so you can watch every bite."
She scanned him for a Nichirin Sword. If he had been a member of the Demon Slayer Corps, she might have been cautious. A Nichirin blade to the neck was the only thing she feared. But this boy was unarmed. He didn't even have a stick, let alone a sword.
With a powerful spring, she leaped onto the warehouse rafters, using the momentum to swing behind Goku. Her left hand clutched the baby while her right hand, now tipped with elongated, obsidian claws, lunged for his neck.
"What?!"
Her hand passed through Goku's neck as if it were smoke. She had caught nothing but air.
*CRACK!*
A split second later, a blood-curdling scream echoed through the warehouse. The demon scrambled backward, her face pale with shock. When she came to a halt, she looked down to find her entire left arm was missing.
Goku tossed the severed arm aside like a piece of trash and gently adjusted the crying infant in his arms. He had used the Afterimage Technique to leave a phantom behind while his true self circled her. To ensure the baby wasn't hurt, he had prioritized disarming her—literally.
"Damn you! Give it back!" the demon shrieked, her hunger replaced by a berserker rage. She lunged again.
"Whoa, you grow back fast, don't you?" Goku remarked.
He wasn't worried about the attack. In terms of raw speed and power, this woman was roughly on par with Yamcha when they first met in the desert. What actually surprised him was her regenerative ability. The arm he had just torn off was already beginning to sprout new muscle and bone. Within ten seconds, it was fully formed.
It reminded him of Mita's description. Demons had incredible strength, but their true terror was their immortality. Even if cut into pieces or reduced to a head, they wouldn't die.
There were only two ways to kill them: a Nichirin Sword to the neck, or sunlight.
*WHAM!*
Goku stepped aside from her clawed swipe and brought his hand down in a sharp, overhead slap. The demon was hammered into the floor like a fly, the sound of snapping bones echoing through the room.
"You're too weak," Goku said.
"Are you... from the Corps?" The demon scrambled back in a spider-like crawl, her eyes wide with terror. If the first time was a fluke, this time she had used her full strength, yet she had been swatted like a nuisance. If she weren't a demon, she would have been paralyzed.
Her strength wasn't negligible. While she was nowhere near the Twelve Kizuki, she was a predator among common demons. Yet this boy's speed and power were beyond anything humanly possible.
"I'm not with any Corps. My name is Son Goku, and I'm the one who's going to kill you."
"Brat, don't be so arrogant!" the demon snarled. Her pride was wounded, but she wasn't finished. He had no Nichirin Sword; he couldn't kill her. And she still had her ultimate technique.
"Blood Demon Art: Fog Shadow Assassination!"
Thick, unnatural grey mist began to pour from her pores, rapidly filling the warehouse and obscuring everything from sight.
***
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