"What... what are you talking about?" The woman panicked. She was sweating bullets, beads of sweat rolling down her cheeks to the tip of her chin.
"Because I think you're the devil."
"She's a devil!" Denji was startled and jumped back to a safe distance.
But the woman laughed, sounding completely confident. "You're a Devil Hunter, right?"
"Yeah, I am."
"Whether I'm a devil or not, you should be able to tell, shouldn't you?"
"When a person's desires become too intense, they can also become a devil." Arata said.
"Are you... implying you suspect I killed Eiko?"
"Not suspect. I'm certain of it."
"Impossible. Why would I kill Eiko? We've been friends for ten years."
"Friends for ten years!!" Denji could feel the bond between him and Pochita, and they hadn't even been together a month. A ten-year friendship was undoubtedly rooted much deeper. "They've been friends for ten years, there's no way she'd do something like kill her friend."
"You're still too green, Denji. You've never been to school, never had a real job, and spent your whole life trapped in that wooden shack. Getting out more with your master will open your eyes to a lot of things."
"I'm not your apprentice," Denji shot back.
"You say I killed Eiko. Where's the proof?" The woman still sounded full of confidence.
"No rush on the proof. Let's talk about the suspicious points first." Arata stood up, putting his hands in his pockets. He was no longer treating the woman sitting on the floor as a victim.
"Fine." The woman raised an eyebrow.
"First, when the head was thrown over to our side, I looked at the cut. It was jagged and uneven. It was obvious it took several chops to sever the head. No matter how weak a devil is, it wouldn't be that pathetic."
"Second, after killing someone with a witness right there, the devil just left? It didn't suck any blood or eat anyone. So what was its goal? If its goal was just to kill, you definitely wouldn't be alive. If it was for blood and meat, the corpse wouldn't still be here. So this devil had no motive. Just popping out to kill one person and vanishing completely contradicts how devils operate."
"Third. 'Did it succeed?' That was the first subconscious thing you said when you woke up. You obviously weren't saying it to us, you were saying it to someone else. And it's exactly because of that sentence that I knew something was wrong with you."
Listening from the side, Denji felt his mind blown. He just wanted to come over and kill a devil. But then the genre suddenly shifted. The unconscious victim turned out to be the devil.
"Hahahaha..." After hearing all this, the woman didn't look surprised. Instead, she burst out laughing.
Slap!!!! Arata delivered a backhand slap, instantly dragging the woman from her laughter into shock.
"What are you doing!!" The woman covered her face, stunned by Arata's move.
"Your laugh is just to cover up your anxiety."
"If you insist I killed Eiko, why would I scream and draw attention to myself? Why wouldn't I just run away?"
"Yeah, if she killed someone, why didn't she run?" Denji was just as confused.
"That's the brilliant part of your little frame-up job. Your original plan was to kill her and run. But you definitely heard us talking about devils and guessed we were Devil Hunters. So you hatched a scheme to make a devil take the fall."
"You threw the head at us and screamed 'devil' to make us think one had appeared. By then, you had already put your clothes on and were ready to run. Even if you were questioned later, you could just say you ran away right then because you were scared."
"But what you didn't expect was the head you threw flying right back at you. It ruined your escape and ended up scaring you into fainting."
"Your theory sounds nice, but if I killed her, why isn't there any blood on me?" The woman continued to argue.
"You're lying, there's clearly blood on your clothes." Denji suddenly spoke up, as if he'd discovered a detail no one else noticed.
"That's from when I caught the head, okay?! And it's barely anything." The woman practically roared.
"It's simple. You weren't wearing clothes when you killed her, so your clothes wouldn't have blood on them. You obviously washed the blood off your body using the cold water bucket. That also explains why the bucket was knocked over—you didn't want anyone seeing the bloodstains inside it."
The woman's expression instantly froze. It took her a long time to finally speak. "Who the hell are you?"
"I told you, I'm a Devil Hunter. Whether they're devils from earth or hell, I hunt them all."
"You... whatever you say, if I really killed Eiko, then where's the evidence? Everything you just said is pure deduction. If this really is a human homicide, it's not a Devil Hunter's business anyway. It should be handed over to Public Safety."
"Getting desperate, aren't we?"
"I'm not desperate. Can you find proof that I killed Eiko? If I really killed her, I'd at least need a knife or an axe, wouldn't I?"
The entire room was completely bare. There was nowhere to hide anything.
"It's definitely in the hot spring." After hearing all this, Denji felt Arata made a lot of sense and had started leaning toward the idea that the woman killed her friend.
"Then go look at the bottom of the pool." The woman looked full of contempt.
Arata spoke slowly, not in any rush. "We don't need to look in the pool. We need to look inside the corpse."
That single sentence made the woman scramble backward and quickly jump to her feet.
Her sudden reaction gave Denji a scare. Arata didn't react at all; he had already predicted her next move.
"Impressive. You figured it all out in just a few minutes. You guessed right. I'm the one who killed Eiko."
"What!! You actually killed your friend of ten years!!" Denji roared, clenching his fists. Even though he thought Arata's deduction was right, deep down he hadn't wanted it to end like this.
"Heh, what's a ten-year friendship? As long as I have power, I can get plenty of friends. I made a contract with the Headless Devil. As long as I cut off my friend Eiko's head, I get permanent power. I was desperate for that power! Once I have it, I can kill everyone who ever laughed at me and looked down on me!!"
"You bastard!!"
Denji couldn't take it anymore and charged at the woman, swinging his fist. But right then, the woman's body suddenly twisted and rapidly swelled. Her head violently snapped backward, hanging upside down behind her back. She threw a punch that sent Denji flying right into the bloody hot spring.
"I didn't want to get tangled up with Devil Hunters. I just wanted to go kill the people I want to kill. But since you had to expose me, I'll just have to chop your head off first."
The Headless Devil reached into the stump of its neck and pulled a massive broadsword right out of its own flesh.
"Want to kill me? Be my guest and try."
"Die!!"
The broadsword slashed straight down. A flash of catching the blade barehanded crossed Arata's mind. But he wasn't stupid enough to actually try it. He extended his bladed claws and forcefully blocked the Headless Devil's massive sword.
Locked in a standoff, Arata suddenly started laughing.
"What are you laughing at?"
"I'm laughing at how you went to all this trouble to get power, and the only ones who die are you and your best friend Eiko. Meanwhile, the people who mocked and bullied you are still alive and well."
"Impossible."
The Headless Devil roared. It pushed harder on the sword, but realized it couldn't budge Arata an inch.
"Didn't you two agree to go see a movie together tonight? She'd been looking forward to it for a long time, right? As her friend, the least you could do was let her finish watching the movie she'd been waiting for."
Arata's sudden words struck a nerve in the woman's heart. A wave of dizziness washed over her as memories flashed rapidly through her mind.
Thank you. Thank you for making time to come see the movie premiere with me tonight. As a reward, I'll treat you to the hot springs first. This movie is actually about the friendship between two people. I'm so lucky I get to watch it with my best friend. But the ending might be a little sad, so you better prepare yourself. Eiko had said, holding her hand with a playful smile.
"Ei... Eiko!!"
"You... shut up."
The Headless Devil's strength suddenly surged, pushing Arata backward step by step.
But Arata still stared at her with icy eyes. "If you had just watched that midnight movie with her, I guarantee you never would have run into me."
As he spoke, he vanished from in front of the Headless Devil and reappeared right behind it.
The Headless Devil's body was sliced into five pieces. The head that fell from its body rolled right next to Eiko's severed head. The two heads rested closely together, forehead to forehead.
The head of the woman who contracted the devil still retained a sliver of consciousness. Staring at the head pressed against hers, her lips trembled violently. "Ei... Eiko."
"I'm... I'm sorry."
"Save it for when you get to hell."
Crunch!!!
The next second, Arata stomped his foot down and completely crushed the woman's head.