Chapter 11 - Kishimojin
"Okay, Evan," Est said, not looking up from her meal.
She used his name due to her preference for intimacy.
Ring! Ring!
Pulling out the glowing obsidian badge Sona had given him, he saw a commission.
As lords of Kuoh Town, Rias and Sona bore responsibilities: protecting humans from supernatural threats and fulfilling their wishes.
These commissions counted toward their performance as high-class devils.
Combat-oriented tasks fell to Rias and Sona, while other wishes were handled by Underworld departments.
"Let's see what this is," Evan muttered, channeling magic power into the badge.
A virtual projection of a young girl appeared.
"It's an emergency, please help," she said, glancing around nervously before the projection vanished.
The room fell silent.
Evan recognized her—Yayoi Hozuki, character from the anime Dark Gathering.
He accepted the commission.
"Est," he called.
Est materialized before him.
"Time to work," Evan said.
The Sitri clan badge glowed, and a magic circle bearing their crest appeared beneath him.
A sensation of weightlessness enveloped him as space connected, teleporting Evan away.
***
Late at night, the moon was dim, stars sparse.
Moonlight failed to pierce the dense forest, casting silken shadows on the ground.
Silence gripped the woods, broken only by a chilling wind, like ghostly wails, creating an eerie atmosphere.
"Is my stamina drained?" Yayoi Hozuki muttered, eyeing the dimming flyer in her hand.
She'd barely spoken before the projection cut off, making her doubt the flyer's legitimacy.
Yet, she'd sensed a flicker of unusual.
"When it rains, it pours," she grumbled, glancing back cautiously.
Her eyes met a malevolent spirit's rotten face—a vengeful soul of a baby lost to abortion, miscarriage, or early death.
Individually weak, their numbers were vast, with tens of thousands in a single city over decades.
Their gathering stemmed from Kishimojin, once a guardian deity among Buddha's twenty protectors.
Originally a demon who devoured babies, she reformed after losing her own child, becoming a protector of them.
But as her temple fell into disrepair, abandoned without offerings, she couldn't guide them salvation.
Overwhelmed, she was consumed by their resentment, degenerating into a malevolent deity.
Yayoi had come to harness Kishimojin's power to lift a curse from her cousin, Eiko Hozuki.
Underestimating the deity and her malevolent infant spirits, unprepared, Yayoi found herself pursued.
Even her protective charm was destroyed, leaving her vulnerable.
Desperate, she'd used the flyer to summon devil aid.
Using devils against malevolent spirits seemed promising, but the flyer's brief activation left her without hope, unable to specify her location.
Retreating toward the main temple, Yayoi planned to break a piece of Kishimojin's statue—an arm or finger—as a fallback.
Wielding her crowbar, she knocked away a malevolent spirit and dashed into the main hall.
Her relief was short-lived.
The spirits had tracked her, their numbers swelling.
Surrounded, she faced death.
Though Kishimojin, even as a malevolent deity, couldn't harm children, the malevolent spirits held no such restraint.
Their innocence masked a cruel playfulness, seeking companions in death.
Rustling intensified outside.
Malevolent spirits crawled over the door, a dense, scalp-prickling mass.
A pale magic circle flared before Yayoi.
Evan stepped out.
Yayoi reflexively swung her crowbar.
He caught it with a raised hand.
"Attacking your ally voids the commission," he said, smiling.
Recognizing him, Yayoi stowed the crowbar.
"Sorry, I was too hasty."
"No worries. Your name?" Evan asked, scanning the temple's statues and surroundings.
The girl had dark purple hair, wore a dark purple coat with skull-patterned shoes.
Her double-pupiled eyes, paired with the eerie setting, hinted at occult rituals.
"Yayoi Hozuki," she said, eyeing him curiously.
"I issued the commission. Are you a devil?"
"No, just their partner," Evan replied.
He'd recognized her from the badge's projection.
In Dark Gathering, she fought and captured malevolent spirits, akin to a darker Pokémon trainer.
"Partner?"
Devil commissions could be outsourced?
Before she could ask more, the rustling outside surged, accompanied by howling winds and screams, like a hundred voices.
"Kishimojin and the malevolent spirits found us!" Yayoi tensed.
"No worries," Evan said calmly.
Kishimojin—rode the gale, bursting the temple doors.
Decorations rattled as countless malevolent spirits swarmed from all directions, drawn to the scent of living flesh.
Kishimojin fixed her eyes on Evan.