@starlightstriver ;
The roots receded, the tree fell, the city was at last allowed to lick its wounds. Some begun healing, others were left open and bleeding---demons infected the sores left raw, a good number of them still active and threatening to infect the rest. Nothing had changed in that regard: to slay demons was a business, a valuable service, and V had once again taken up the job following the crisis to have ravaged the only city he’d ever known. The difference was in the circumstances. Everything else had changed, and... it all felt odd to him, really. Not troubling, just odd. Through the debris and largely vacant streets he went, meaning to scavenge metaphorically as he’d initially decided just days ago. Lightweight stragglers were the easiest pickings and he’d found solely himself there for the reaping. How quiet the city, even in daylight, still so devoid of life. People were fearful, he understood: he did not blame them for keeping at bay. Few had returned, poking their heads in places they shouldn’t. V could not be everywhere at once; he could not save them all.
At the very least, he could save one. A reckless fool on the brink of having their life cut down just ahead of him: were it not for the speedy intervention of a feline born of shadow, they’d have surely met their end. It was the demon that fell prey, allowing the fool to sprint off in a panic with their life barely intact. No thanks for that? Well, gratitude was only a small reward. “What an eyesore,” he remarked listlessly, wholly unimpressed with a dying-breath’s struggle for life. With his cane plucked free from the body, it was then left to decompose---and Shadow had remembered she’d an appetite. She need only lick her chops for her master to know what she sought, and he was furthest from reluctant to allow her the opportunity to nourish herself. She set about the task, and among the munching and squelching of flesh a noise brushed V’s ear: the sound of another human, instantly followed by the appearance of one. Such unfortunate timing what with himself caught standing idly beside a demon (though at first glance, nothing but a black jaguar) in the act of feeding rather gruesomely.
“...Ah.”
