Denji yanked one final time, successfully extracting a limb from beneath the trees he had dropped on the fire-breathing fiend. He hadn't caught her name, but then again, he hadn't cared to engage in conversation while they fought. He did feel a twinge of guilt about crushing her with two massive oak trees, but then again, she had set him ablaze.
Despite his initial reluctance to harm humans, he was reminded that, due to her powers, she wasn't really a human. At least, not anymore, according to Kishibe. He felt guilty saying it, reminding himself that Angel was technically a fiend as well, just like Reze. However, a human being couldn't be resurrected by merely pouring a bit of blood in their mouth.
As he finally managed to bite into a piece of meat from the woman's leg, he was thankful he had something other than rotten zombie meat to chew on for regeneration. Yet, he still felt a twinge of guilt that he had to take a life to satiate his hunger.
One month ago, when he was living with Pochita, he remembered that, after the little devil dog went to sleep, Denji would sneak open a Hustler magazine and gaze at the models on the cover. He bit down into the soft meat, feeling that his hunger wasn't exactly the same as it was back then. But he couldn't deny that if you had told his past self that he would be taking a nibble of a lady's thigh in exchange for death and government service, he would have accepted that deal without a second thought.
Denji looked up at the moon, placing his left hand out towards the ocean. Using his index finger, he traced an invisible line from the water all the way up to the moon's current spot.
"It's about 1 am," he guesstimated. He took a moment to collect himself, his thoughts racing.
"I can't keep going like this. This girl was easy to take out, sure, she was easier than the katana guy at least. But if there were yakuza waiting for him in town, maybe he should just go find Reze and Kobeni, then locate Angel and hightail it out of town."
"Kobeni!" Denji dropped his meal, his face filled with distress. "I let the Zombie Devil get away!"
In a panic, he moved his hands to his head, stomping the ground and rustling his own hair. "I left Angel to deal with that guy, but I never told him he would have to face humans too!" An image of Angel caught off guard by Yakuza flashed through his mind.
Sprinting to the beach, he cracked several branches, managing to rush by a small group of zombies, reserving them for later. He sped back to the sandy area where he had met the two of them.
Reze found herself perplexed by Kobeni's actions. Most of the time, she appeared as a squeamish young lady who seemed out of her element when it came to fighting devils or even confronting large dogs. Yet, the girl now displayed an unusual determination as she made her way towards the beach, the purpose of her journey unknown to Reze.
Surprise overtook Reze when Kobeni leaped into the air, landing on a rock with remarkable speed. She tossed a knife into the air, catching it and reversing her grip. It was at this moment that Reze detected something amiss, a foul scent in the air. Her attention shifted to a small area concealed by a wall of sharp rocks. "Maybe something washed ashore and died?" she pondered.
A low groan emanated from behind the rocks, prompting Reze to reach for her pin, but Kobeni intervened, putting a hand out and declaring, "He's mine." As if under a spell, Reze released her grip on the weapon, watching as Kobeni moved swiftly around the rock.
There, she noticed something unusual in Kobeni's gaze. One eye reflected the usual fear of the young girl, but the other exhibited an eerie combination of blue and orange, resembling stars in the pupil. "A devil contract?" Reze guessed.
Kobeni rose to her feet, and Reze turned her attention back to the source of the stench. A massive, hulking mass of rotting green flesh began to ooze over the rocks, like a slime seeping through cracks, reminiscent of spoiled milk. Repulsed by the sight and smell, Reze had to turn away. "The Zombie Devil," Kobeni declared, and Reze retreated behind her.
Taking that as her signal, Kobeni leaped down onto the sandy shore and charged forward. Several massive tentacles, composed of rotting flesh, shot out from the central mass toward Kobeni. One attempted to ensnare her leg, but she swiftly sliced it off. The other two went for her arms, but her quick slashes severed their tips like slices of ham.
Kobeni grabbed hold of the remaining tentacle on her left, using her momentum to swing around until she was perched atop it. As she moved toward the center of the mass, a grotesque cluster of heads, akin to a tumor, protruded from its core.
"You're not human; what the hell are you?" one of the heads inquired through rotted vocal cords. It severed the connection to the tentacle Kobeni was running across just in time for her to execute a single, sweeping slash, cutting the 20-foot-long appendage, the size of a bullet train car, in half.
Another tentacle, this one large enough to fill a city street, shot out from the center of the mass, ascending like a skyscraper. Kobeni paused, landing on the sandbank, gazing up at the colossal tower of decaying flesh, which obscured the moon and cast a massive, cylindrical shadow over both Reze and Kobeni. The bomb girl reached for her pin.
"Stop!" Kobeni yelled to her.
Reze began to observe how Kobeni's skin was slowly transforming to a chalky white hue. "Was she a fiend?" Reze wondered aloud, her thoughts racing. The situation was spiraling into a bizarre and dangerous realm.
"We could have done this the easy way, little devil. No blood, just you joining us," the mass of rotten flesh taunted, its voice echoing eerily. Kobeni placed her knife in her mouth, gripping it with her teeth.
"I'm sending you back to hell!" Kobeni screamed, her determination unwavering. The massive tower of decaying corpses began to descend upon her, like a giant, collapsing slinky. Reze instinctively moved backward, distancing herself from the impending disaster.
It felt as though an entire building was coming down upon Kobeni, and Reze couldn't help but question her survival. "She's not going to..." Reze's voice trailed off as the colossal pile of corpses made contact with the girl. The massive, 40-foot-wide pillar descended upon Kobeni.
Reze cautiously moved forward, expecting to find her crushed beneath the grotesque mass. However, she soon realized that the sand beneath her feet remained undisturbed, challenging her understanding of the situation.
Kobeni strained with every fiber of her being, pushing the colossal pillar of decaying flesh upward. Her legs and body felt as if they were on fire, and the seams of her jacket were tearing apart one by one under the immense strain. She had been blinded by the helmet-like formation that had encapsulated her, known as "the Crown of the 4th Horseman."
Slowly, the massive hunk of flesh began to rise off the ground as Kobeni used her Herculean strength to lift it. The bodies within the grotesque mass cried out in agony as her arms sank into the writhing, twisted tangle, bones cracking under the pressure.
Reze watched in sheer astonishment as Kobeni hurled the colossal pillar into the air. Her jaw practically hit the ground as the grotesque mass ascended into the sky, soaring over the ocean like a tossed stick. The spot where Kobeni had been standing turned into a crater, and Reze was thrown back by the ensuing sonic boom.
As she got to her feet, her ears ringing, and her eyes barely open due to the sand, she managed to wipe them clear. Through squinted eyes, she witnessed Kobeni's breathtaking acrobatics. With fluid, lightning-fast motions, she sliced through the surrounding flesh with her knife.
Leaping into the air, she landed on the side of the pillar where the cluster of heads resided. "You're wrong about that first bit, Zombie," Kobeni declared in an inhuman, booming voice, her words echoing through the air. "There will be blood!"
In one seamless motion, the sky beneath Kobeni's feet cracked like thunder, and a massive hole in the clouds appeared. She was propelled downward, slicing through the heads, piercing through the pillar of decaying flesh, and emerging amidst a flurry of bones and viscera. The spectacle left Reze dumbfounded.
"Yes! Yes, split it wide open!" Reze screamed in disbelief, her excitement uncontainable.
Kobeni emerged from the other side of the colossal pillar, her knife gripped like a sword in both hands. She fell to the ground as the massive pillar cracked open in the air, releasing a deluge of blood, like rain from the sky. The two halves of the pillar crashed into the sea, creating a colossal tidal wave that splashed Reze with water.
Kobeni landed back on the rock where she had begun, her entire outfit now covered in a purple slush. Her chalk-white skin began to fade away, and a light vapor rose from her body. Kobeni opened her eyes, her usual brown ones peering at Reze, then down at herself.
"Eh? Eh AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH." She screamed, dropping her knife and using both hands to try to rub the viscous substance from her clothes. Tears streamed down her face as her efforts proved futile.
Reze, still stunned, could only utter, "What the fuck just happened?