—6 years ago—

  “No, I don’t want it.”

  Ten-year-old Yui Hoshino held a boxed toy out with both hands, arms fully extended like she was offering something sacred.

  It was a limited-edition figurine of the first HAS direcor, the kind displayed behind glass in Akihabara hobby shops. Glossy pink packaging. Gold trim. A collector’s dream.

  She had won it at the school festival raffle.

  Across from her stood a boy who looked about her age, temmy okusu, hands shoved awkwardly into the pockets of his too-big shorts. His sneakers were worn at the toes. His bangs fell into his eyes as he shook his head.

  “You won it,” he muttered. “Sensei even said your name twice. It’s yours.”

  Yui pushed it closer to his chest.

  “But you wanted it.”

  “That doesn’t matter.”

  “It does!” she insisted, eyebrows knitting together. “You’ve been saving your allowance for months.”

  He looked away. “Yeah, but I didn’t win.”

  Yui frowned as if that answer physically hurt her.

  “I only got it because I got a perfect score on the math test. They only gave me extra raffle tickets because of that.” She shoved the box forward again until it pressed against him. “You tried really hard too. You deserve it more.”

  Temmy took a step back.

  “That’s not how it works,” he said quietly. “You studied. You got 100. You earned it.”

  Yui’s grip tightened. Her small fingers trembled, not from reluctance, but determination.

  “But you looked happier when you talked about it than I did,” she argued. “So that means it should be yours.”

  “That’s not fair,” he said, voice cracking just slightly. “You’re being weird.”

  “I’m not being weird!” she shot back. “I just-”

  She stopped.

  She didn’t know how to explain it. The feeling in her chest. The discomfort of holding something someone else wanted more.

  Temmy stepped forward and gently pushed the box back toward her.

  “If you keep trying to give it to me,” he said, managing a small smile, “I’ll get mad.”

  Yui blinked.

  “…You would?”

  “Yeah.”

  She hesitated.

  Then, slowly, she lowered the toy to her chest.

  “…Fine,” she muttered. “But only because you said you’d get mad.”

  Temmy grinned. “Good.”

  She watched him walk away, still unconvinced.

  —

  That evening, the Hoshino household smelled of simmering soy sauce and grilled fish.

  Yui slid open the front door.

  “Tadaima.”

  “Okaeri,” her mother called from the kitchen.

  Yui stepped inside and carefully placed her schoolbag down. The toy box was still in her hands.

  Her mother noticed immediately.

  “Oh?” she said, drying her hands on a towel and walking over. “Is that the raffle prize?”

  Yui nodded.

  “I heard you got a perfect score again,” her mother said with gentle pride. “One hundred in mathematics. That’s wonderful.”

  Yui looked down at her socks.

  “…I tried to give it away.”

  Her mother paused.

  “To who?”

  “A boy in my class. He wanted it more than me.” She swallowed. “He doesn’t have as much money.”

  “And?”

  “He wouldn’t take it.”

  Her mother knelt to her level, expression soft but attentive.

  “Why did you want to give it away?”

  Yui thought carefully.

  “Because I’m already good at tests,” she said slowly. “It’s easy for me. It’s not easy for everyone. So if I get rewards for something that’s easy, isn’t that unfair?”

  Her mother’s eyes warmed, but there was firmness behind them.

  “Yui,” she said gently, “listen to me carefully.”

  Yui straightened instinctively.

  “You received this reward thanks to that incredible mind of yours. They didn't give it to you out of favoritism or nepotism or anything of the sort. It was given to you because you did well”

  Yui hesitated. “…But it didn’t feel that hard.”

  “That doesn’t mean it wasn’t deserved. For instance, at work I've gotten significantly better since starting. Does that mean I deserve less pay now than I did before since it's less difficult?.” the woman asked her daughter who shook her head.

  “No, of course not.” The girl said.

  “Then why wouldn't the same thing apply for you?” Her mother tapped the box lightly.

  “This toy is not a symbol of being ‘better’ than someone. It is a symbol of your sincerity.”

  Yui blinked.

  “If you give away everything you earn because someone else wants it more,” her mother continued, “you aren't being kind. You are feeding their envy and disrespecting your own effort.”

  Yui’s small hands tightened around the box.

  “But what if they deserve it more?”

  Her mother smiled softly.

  “What you deserve is not measured by who wants something more. It is measured by what you put into it. If someone puts in nothing but garbage, then they deserve nothing but garbage. But if they put a diamond in, then they deserve something worth a diamond.”

  She brushed Yui’s bangs aside.

  “If that boy studies and earns his own reward, you celebrate him. But you do not shrink yourself to make others comfortable. Do you understand?”

  Yui stared at the figurine through the plastic window.

  “…So it’s okay to keep it?”

  “It is not only okay,” her mother said gently. “It is correct.”

  There was a long silence.

  Then Yui nodded.

  That night, she placed the figurine carefully on her shelf.

  But she couldn’t quite shake the feeling that she had taken something that belonged to someone else.

  —present—

  “Pardon me, but would you, by any chance, be named… yui hoshino?”

  “Um, yes. How do you know me?” The girl asked backing away slowly, clutching something behind her back

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  “you don't know me. But my name is Hiroshi Shinkou. And I… want to eat you” the boy said, staring her dead in the eye.

  He rushed her, trying to attack the girl, but was stabbed in the head by a butterfly knife.

  The boy hadn't expected her to do that, so he was caught off guard.

  But he didn't take too long to knock himself out of his funk, and he punched her in the gut, causing her to spit up blood.

  The punch folded her in half.

  Air left Yui’s lungs in a broken gasp. The world tilted sideways. She tasted iron before she even felt the warmth spill over her tongue.

  Hiroshi’s fist withdrew slowly from her stomach.

  “…You’re stronger than you look,” he said, touching the handle of the butterfly knife protruding from his skull.

  There was a wet sound as he pulled it free.

  No blood sprayed.

  The wound sealed itself with a sickening ripple beneath his skin.

  Yui staggered back, one hand pressed to her abdomen, the other trembling at her side.

  Meanwhile, konchuu jumped back as the man tried attacking him, Konchuu landed lightly, shoes skidding across blood-slick dirt as the older sin’s crimson spear carved through the space where his throat had been a heartbeat earlier.

  The spear shattered against a tree.

  Reformed midair.

  Came again.

  Konchuu’s segmented blade snapped open with a clacking sound, steel spiraling outward as he deflected the second thrust. The impact sent sparks and red droplets bursting like fireworks.

  The man smiled thinly.

  “you damn sin hunters are annoying yknow that?.”

  Another spear formed from his forearm, this one splitting into three prongs mid-lunge.

  Konchuu didn't block at all, he simply let it slip right past him.

  “Why can't you ever just let a man do whatever he wants.”

  The man saw konchuu' rushing towards him, and the sight reminded him of something that happened a long time ago.

  –3 years ago–

  The old man stood over the lifeless body of a woman, a knife in his hand as he stabbed her body relentlessly.

  “You shouldn't a looked at me like that you bitch! I was just trying to drink my night away, but you gave me that look across the bar, like you were disgusted looking at me. Now ya gotta deal with the consequences” the man stabbed away, and he would've kept stabbing, had he not gotten his arm grabbed, and gripped tightly.

  The man turned around to see who was stopping him, and it looked like just some random teenage boy. Maybe 16? 17 at most, the boy had licorice black eyes, dark hair and more scarily than anything, he had a smile on his face.

  “We humans shouldn't be killing off our fellow man like this” the boy said, though

  this pissed the man off.

  “Who the fuck do you think yo-” the man was cut off when the boy palmed his face and slammed him into the ground, knocking him out.

  –

  The man sat in a jail cell, metal cuffs on his wrists. He was in prison, and he hated it. That damn brat got him put in there. But now he knew his name, thanks to the trial. Ash.

  Before long, he found himself floating inside an inky black expanse, no feeling, no hearing, nothing.

  You're a very angry man, I like that about you.

  “Hmph, finally. I was wondering when one of you damn demons would come for me.”

  Before anything else. A contract must be formed, what are your two greatest desires?

  “I wanna kill that damn kid, I wanna kill em dead!”

  “And for the second one?”

  “huh, there's not really anything else I wanna do. Can't you just fulfill the one thing?”

  The contract cannot be made unless you give me two directives

  “Alright then, I guess. Grant me the power to live unchained!”

  That can be arranged.

  —

  “Fight me you bastard!” The man attacked ash, who seemed to just be walking the streets, probably on a patrol or something, the man didn't give enough of a shit about the HAS to research them. Tho he was holding a chocolate bar so it was more likely he was leaving some kinda convenience store.

  The man rushed at the seemingly unaware teen, intending to finish the boy off. He ignored his instincts telling him to run away. He ignored his instincts telling him that this boy was a predator.

  He went in for a kill shot, aiming to stab the neck, but as soon as he got too close, the boy's fist whipped out. Totally removing the upper half of his body.

  The boy didn't turn to him, in fact had he not just been turned into paste he would've thought the boy didn't even notice him.

  Thankfully his blood manipulation made regeneration way easier for him than any other sin, allowing him to regenerate from just his blood.

  —2 years ago—

  The man lay on the floor of a makeshift warehouse, his base of operations.

  The man lay there, still awake, still thinking of ash. That was what he'd been reduced to. Every single day, for the past year, he'd been trying everything to kill that kid.

  He tried sneaking up on him, he tried attacking directly, he tried terrorism, he tried kidnapping. He tried it all. But no matter what, he always failed.

  The boy always defeated him in one punch, and he never even got the boy to truly acknowledge his existence a single time.

  The boy didn't even have the decency to check if he was truly dead, one punch and that's how it would always go.

  He couldn't stop, he wanted to cut him, he wanted stab him he wanted to wound him. Anything to wipe that stupid smile off his face.

  “So. You're the sin who keeps coming back.”

  The man turned around to look at the person who had said that. In front of him, stood a man in a suit and tie. Weird attire to come to this type of place in.

  “Who the fuck are you? And gimme a reason why I shouldn't skin you alive?” The man looked up at the purple haired man.

  “Oh wow. You really do have tunnel vision. My name is nagul corveau. And I can help you get vengeance on ash. That is… as long as you follow my orders”

  The man was about to say no, about to tell the man off and say that he was nobody's lapdog. But if there truly was a way to get his vengeance…

  “Fine”

  —present—

  The katana fragmented completely, cable screaming under tension as the blade became a cyclone of serrated steel. The triple spear was shredded into mist before it fully solidified.

  But the mist didn’t fall. No It stayed in the air. Then it moved in on him from every direction.

  A trap.

  Blood needles condensed from vapor, launching like a storm of red hail.

  Konchuu snapped the blade shut, returning it to blade form, and spun it in tight arcs, cutting away at least 3 dozen blood projectiles.

  The man looked at the boy in anger, he was nowhere near ash in terms of strength. But the way he completely invalidated his every attack? That reminded him abit of ash.

  This new generation was goddamn insane.

  Konchuu vanished again. No. He didn't vanish, he simply started moving too fast for the sin to track.

  “Damnit all!” The sin slammed both palms down and a tidal wave of blood erupted from the floor, forming a dome thick as a riot shield.

  The man had left injuries all over his body, allowing his blood to pool out.

  He had hoped to keep the boy out with this wall, however unfortunately for him, that was much easier said than done, since the boy was already inside the dome.

  The man hadn't expected to be cut down inside his own barrier. And yet that's exactly what happened.

  The boy released a slash across the man's back, surprising the man and leaving him split right down the middle.

  It didn't kill him tho, just pissed him off.

  “Why you little shit!” The man collapsed the domain the dome onto them, and konchuu would have had absolutely no way to escape it, had he been anyone weaker.

  But he was not anyone weaker.

  He extended his sword once again, swinging it around so fast that the quickly incoming hardened blood, simply clanged against it as he cut his way out.

  All that blood collapsed onto the man's body, and slipped right off. He was panting and breathing heavily, unable to lift his blood anymore.

  Before the man could say anything further, konchuu cut the man's head clean off his body.

  And for a brief moment, konchuu waited for the man to regenerate, but he never did.

  Looks like it worked. Aoi had taught him that a sure fire way to tell if a sin was too exhausted to regenerate, was to wait for them to start panting.

  The boy exhaled a sigh of relief. This guy caused him way too much trouble for someone so weak. He sat down for a second to catch his breath, completely unaware of the man's blood slipping away.

  Meanwhile

  Hiroshi tilted his head slightly, examining the knife in his hand before letting it clatter to the floor.

  “what exactly are you, yui hoshino? Because all my instincts are telling me to run, but you're clearly no threat, so what gives?” the boy thought for a second, before coming to a conclusion, “is this some new brand of genius? Now I really wanna devour you”

  Yui forced herself upright, even as her knees threatened to buckle. Her instincts screamed at her, blast him down, end him, kill him. But she stifled that feeling down.

  “Why?” she asked, breath uneven. “Why are you doing this?” She wanted to understand the boy, she wanted to understand why he became this way. Partly as a way to figure out how to fight him, and partly because.. maybe this didn't need to be resolved with violence. Maybe she talk him down.

  He stepped forward, closer to her. His close proximity, and her not expecting it, led her to instinctually throwing her fist at it.

  A desperate hook aimed at his jaw.

  He caught her wrist mid-arc.

  Still smiling.

  “Do you know what a genius is?” he asked calmly.

  He twisted.

  Pain shot up her arm and she dropped to one knee. He released her only to drive a

  sharp knee into her ribs, sending her skidding across the hallway into a classroom.

  “people born with a level of intelligence that baffles me. Prodigies in everything they do” he continued, walking toward her at an unhurried pace. “im not one of those geniuses, I could never be one. I have to work as hard as I possibly can, just to not even be half as good as you people.”

  Yui pushed herself up.

  He kicked her back down.

  “i couldn't withstand the stress. I just couldn't, I mean I'm not a genius, how could I possibly live in a world full of stressors,” he said. “so of course I tried to kill myself, but then a demon made a contract with me. And I got a stress free life.”

  She blinked through the haze. “ well with all that power you couldve live- a life without any stress while also not having to kill anyo-”

  “let ms finish,” he interrupted. “Because thats what I did. For the first day or two, all I did was relax and do whatever I wanted.”

  He grabbed her collar and hauled her up, slamming her against a desktop hard enough to splinter wood.

  “but then, after seeing a bunch of geniuses walking by, having friends, talking about how easy the test was?”

  Another punch.

  Her head snapped sideways.

  “I couldn't help it, I ate them. And it was like I could taste their genius. And it tasted wonderful. And then I started eating every genius I could get my hands on. But I've run into a problem.” the boy said. “You're a genius, so you should probably understand the problem”

  Another.

  The world rang like a struck bell.

  “My contract was supposed to make me free…so why.. do I feel more caged than ever before” He let her drop.”tell me doc, whats the diagnosis?”

  “Why do I feel like I'm trapped in a cage?”

  Yui hit the floor and rolled, barely avoiding the next stomp meant for her ribs. She scrambled backward, trying to create space.

  The girl thought back to Malik, and liun and rissa and konchuu. The boy's words struck a thought in her.

  What if one of them were to ever grow resentful? Resentful of her angel gear?

  She honestly wouldn't blame them, she wouldn't blame anyone for being jealous of her.

  She was born with a biological ability that gave her potential surpassing everyone around her, she was born to be an amazing sin hunter, but they weren't. Infact, there were a bunch of people who wanted to be sin hunters, but never could die to being untalented.

  So why did she deserve it anymore than them, who failed to do what she can do easily.

  “I don't know, I'm not a doctor. I can't understand why we feel anything… but tell me. Do you want to kill me.. because of jealousy?” The girl asked, looking the boy dead in the eye.

  He grabbed her by the throat. Squeezing, hard.

  “Yes.”

  Yui’s vision swam.

  “i am more than aware that my entire being, is filled by envy. That is how I got contracted after all”

  He threw her aside.

  She tumbled across the floor, barely catching herself on shaking arms.

  A single tear fell from her eye, as she thought back to ash’s words

  —

  “What exactly are you doing?” Ash asked the girl who was laying on the floor, sweaty and exhausted.

  Ash had said that he would be training everyone on the team before hand. Liun had apparently already been training with him, but this was her first time training with him.

  “why exactly are you holding back?” Ash asked her as he knelt down to her level. “By now you should've at least been able to adapt to my fighting style considering how easy I'm taking it. I mean you're an angel gear, it's only natural that you'd be able to adapt. So why aren't you?”

  “I- I don't want to.” The girl said, eyes on the floor.

  “Hm?”

  “I don't want to rely on that. Not anymore” she explained.

  “Rely? Rely on what?” her conductor asked, not understanding what she meant.

  “That instinct. Yesterday, on that Mission, when I lost, so decisively, I realized something. I haven't actually been capable of anything, against konchuu I let my instincts carry me to keep the fight going. Against that sin that attacked the building, my instinct was what kept me alive. And yesterday when I denied that instinct, I lost so badly, if not for luck I would've died. And that made me realize, I have actually accomplished anything” she explained," I don't wanna rely on it again. I wanna know how to fight, myself”

  Ash looked down at her, “that's possibly… the dumbest thing I've ever heard.”

  “Huh!?”

  “Would you say that Malik relies too much on his aim? Or that liun relies too much on his training?”

  “W-well.. no. But that's different, they trained for that stuff, they weren't born with it”

  “You wanna know something yui? I'm just like you. I'm also an angel gear”

  “Wait really?”

  “Yeah, my ability makes all my human abilities way stronger, like my strength and my speed and my senses and stuff. I've had that power for a long time, but I've never held it back. You wanna know why? It's because it's a part of me, it's one part of the whole that is me, and if I don't let one part grow, then the whole isn't gonna grow either.”

  “well, what if someone more deserving has it? I mean someone like liun, or Malik.”

  “Well yeah they'd be pretty strong with it. But wouldn't you be pretty strong if you got same opportunities that they got? I mean they had training under some great teachers, they were destined for something all right.”

  The girl huffed to herself.

  “Ask them yourself. I can promise that no matter what they say, the words ‘im jealous, won't come out of their mouths’” the man said. “You wanna know why?”

  “Ummm.”

  “Because you deserve to be you more than anyone else does. So even if someone's jealous of you. Don't shrink yourself down to please them.”

  —present—

  The boy grabbed her arm forcefully, ready to bite into it to see how it tasted. But before he could do that, a bright light shone from her arm.

  A light so bright it was blinding. It was her light. Her light that far outshone his own.

  Before the boy knew it, his whole body had been blasted away by what felt like a whole bunch of tiny fists punching him at the same time.

  He was blasted into the wall, sending him through, more than just that wall. But two other walls behind him.

  The boy stared at her with a rising anger. He'd long since learned about angel gears in his textbooks and history classes, but to think, that she was an angel gear as well? How much more of a genius could she be?

  This was just unfair, whatever God existed up there had to be mocking him, cause what the fuck was this?

  The boy jumped through the holes in the walls and tried to tackle her to the ground, but he couldn't pull that off as she dodged back with significantly more ease than before.

  He threw a jab, a left hook, a right hook, a kick, but she either dodged or blocked each of them. It seemed like a had adapted to his incredibly predictable fighting style.

  But how? She didn't even know how to properly throw a punch before, so how did she come about this skill?

  He threw one last punch, aiming for her eyes, attempting to pluck them out of their sockets when he got in range. However unfortunately for him, she stepped back, and her arm completely charged up with a blinding light. And then.

  KRAKAKAKOOM

  The blinding light from her ability did more than just hit him, it blasted a whole through the building, coming out the other side.

  The boy was still alive, tho barely, he was now missing a whole portion of his body.

  She didn't want to kill him. Contrary to what her instincts were telling her.

  He was after all, just a teenage boy controlled by his envy, that wasn't something he should die for.

  She heard footsteps behind her, it was konchuu who had made his way back up the stairs.

  “Oh, guess I didn't need to help after all.” Konchuu said stepping up behind her. “What changed your mind?”

  “I don't know, something about him reminded me of something my mom once told me. And what ash told me..” she said. Looking at the boy slowly growing his arm back as he was running out of energy.

  Konchuu could see her reluctance to actually kill the boy. He smiled before pulling out a butterfly knife.

  “Give me your hand” he asked to which yui listened, though she was confused.

  “The great thing about having angel gears on missions” He left a small cut on her hand “is that it means we don't have to kill every sin we come across”

  Yui winced as he cut her, but allowed him to close her hand into a fist. He forced the boys mouth open and placed her hand above it. Allowing blood to drip into the boys mouth.

  One. Two. Three. As the blood hit Hiroshi’s tongue, his entire body convulsed. A black, oily vapor began to seep out of his pores, hissing as it touched the air.

  He vomited up black ichor into the floor, grossing yui out.

  Before long, yui's Instincts stopped going off. She couldn't sense a demon in him anymore.

  An hour later, the HAS cleanup crews were swarming the school. Hiroshi had been carted off, not to a containment cell, but to a high-security hospital wing.

  “I didn't know that the blood of an angel gear could make someone human again,” Yui said softly. She and Konchuu were sitting on the edge of the school’s fountain, away from the noise. She was nursing a juice box, a bandage wrapped around her finger.

  Konchuu leaned back, looking at the stars. “Yeah, though it doesn't work for phase 3's.. we'll see you tomorrow I guess.”

  “Yeah see you tomorrow.” She said, turning to him, kneeling down and kissing him on the cheek. “And to answer your question from earlier. Yeah I think this counts as a date.” she turned and walked away, back to her dorm, ready to rest after everything that happened.

  Konchuu was shocked for a little bit, but he let off a small smile.

  After he was sure she was gone, he jumped for joy with his fist in the air. “Sweet”

  –meanwhile–

  Ash and corveau stared each other down, neither one yielding.

  “I think you know exactly why I left.” The man said, having finished his tea. “And I'm not the enemy. I'm simply showing the HAS the more efficient way to do things. It just so happens that it would lead to the HAS going out of business.”

  “What exactly happened?”

  “Huh?”

  “I want to know the exact reason why you left. From the beginning.” Ash said, looking at him and corveau could see a little bit of betrayal in his eyes

  “Alright then. Let me start from the top”