Hours after the mother demon and all its progeny had disintegrated into the Font, I was still wading through the colors, searching for Knell. It was getting dark, and I would soon be getting attacked by the other demons in the area, but I didn’t care.

He’d told me that I didn’t need to worry about him, and like a fool I’d believed him. Again. That was all I could think as I searched.

Before the mother demon had started up its morbid cheering, I had wanted to tell him that he could trust me. That I would never change my mind about him or learn to fear him just because of what he was. After all, I had been a demon hunter for 13 years; it would take a lot to terrify me at this point.

And besides…I felt like he deserved to have someone to trust. If not me, then someone else, but he deserved it. A human fused with a demon could have become so many awful things, especially after surviving such abuse from his former family. Emotional torment, vast knowledge and unimaginable power make a very dangerous combination.

But through it all, Knell had remained a child. A little boy who was so naïve and hopeful that he thought, if he could just destroy enough demons and save enough people, humanity might come to accept him. Maybe not as his true self, but at least as a mysterious angel with broken wings.

I sincerely hoped I hadn’t destroyed him.

Just then, something soft wrapped around my ankle. I reached down to pull it off, thinking it was the first of the demons’ nighttime attackers.

Then something popped out of the colors, right in front of my face, and shrieked: “BOO!”

I fell backwards with a splash. To my surprise, Knell himself rose from the colors, laughing his head off.

Relief turned straight to anger. “What the hell is wrong with you?!” I screamed.

Knell was in hysterics; he couldn’t even answer. He just flopped onto his back, floating and holding his sides.

I sloshed over to him, still furious. “Do you think this is funny?! I wasted three hours of my life wading through this slime just so you could play a stupid prank, and you think it’s funny?!”

“…It wasn’t a total prank,” he finally said. “I really was knocked out for most of that time…but when I finally woke up, I could tell you were worried about me, so I thought I would scare you. And it worked!”

He dissolved into another fit of giggles. Never before had I wanted to strangle a child so much.

Instead, I took a deep breath and sighed. “…Why aren’t you dead?” I asked him.

“Same reason I didn’t die when my parents tried to have me killed. I’m not really a demon, so the demon hunter technique doesn’t work on me.”

“Believe it or not, trash talk is more effective,” he continued. “When that mother demon attacked me, it sent me some really mean thoughts to break me up.”

I remembered the depressing words he’d uttered when he woke up afterwards…Then I remembered something else. “Wait, so what the mother demon said before it died-”

“Yeah, that was me,” Knell admitted. “It doesn’t hurt normal demons very much, but it does distract them. I just wanted to do everything I could to help you win.”

He stood up and wiped the colors off his clothes, absorbing them with his hands. So that’s how he’d done it before. I wished I could do the same: my hunting garb had turned from gray to reddish brown over the course of the journey.

Then, Knell turned to me. He wrung his hands shyly and said, “Well…I guess, since our big mission is done, we should go our separate ways…I can tell you’re a lone wolf type of guy, so I won’t bother you anymore. But I just wanted to say…”

He cleared his throat, and forced his best smile. “I wanted to thank you, Clarion. For being my friend. You’ll always be someone I trust, and I promise I’ll never forget you.”

Then he turned and started walking away. I stared after him in silence.

…Then, after about 10 seconds, I caved. “Wait,” I called out.

Knell immediately turned around, as if he’d been waiting for me to say just that.

“At least…help me survive this night. I don’t think I can handle another 28 demons by myself. I could use a battle partner.”

Knell grinned from ear to ear and ran right back to me. “It was 38 demons, not 28! I should know, since I killed most of them~.”

“Right, right.”

“Man, I can’t wait for you to see me in action! I mean, REALLY in action! With my demon powers, I’m even more amazing! You won’t even have to do anything, really. Just leave it to me; I’ll keep you safe.”

“Last time you said that, I ended up having to jump out of a 32-story building.”

“Oh yeah…well, nothing like that could happen this time.”

“Right.”