The hospital that night was brightly lit. Police tape cordoned off the scene as the rescue operation wound down, but the main entrances were still tightly guarded.
It was better than the third loop—back then, most of the cops had been ice replicas, and the night watch was even stricter.
Hoshino found the guy with the stun baton, planning to have a little fun again, but this time the man was meek and jittery. Hoshino lost interest fast.
"Moshi moshi, Devil Hunters? I'm Hoshino, from Tokyo Public Safety Headquarters."
"They're gone already?"
From the depths of the medicine storeroom came a faint reply.
A corner of the empty room lifted like a curtain, revealing four people hiding behind it.
Two had Fox Devils, one was petrified, and one had a Scapegoat Contract.
That last one was the most troublesome. The ability to make someone else take your blame was half about framing others—and half about hiding your own secrets.
Thinking that, Hoshino spoke up. "They've already headed to the central square. You must've gotten the message, right?"
"Wasn't that supposed to be at midnight?"
"Better to gather early. What if you get ambushed on the way? If you're not all together, how are you gonna fight the Blizzard Fiend?"
The four of them found that logic hard to argue with. Soon, they agreed and followed Hoshino toward the warehouse exit.
Along the way, Hoshino crouched down, pretending to tie his snow boots. None of them noticed as he fell behind.
The scapegoat and the petrified hunter walked up front; the two Fox Devil contractors followed shoulder to shoulder, chatting quietly.
Neither had time to react before two threads of muscle fiber pierced through their hearts.
The two in front turned in confusion, only to face a pair of black gun barrels.
Bang.
[Current Amplification: 37%]
The whole thing was over in less than a minute.
Compared to Naoto Kobayashi and Go Fujiwara, Hoshino couldn't help but feel reflective.
In TV dramas, villains were always dumb as hell—one blunder after another—while the heroes stayed cautious and somehow always survived.
But in reality, it was the opposite. Kobayashi and Fujiwara had both been far more careful than these four.
It made sense when you thought about it. In the real world, the good guys outnumber everyone else, while people like Kobayashi—those whose ideals ran against the survival of mankind—were rare.
They had enemies everywhere. To stay alive and pursue their goals, they had to tread carefully at every step.
Meanwhile, big organizations full of heroes inevitably grew bloated with halfwits and freeloaders.
By contrast, Hoshino was satisfied.
He considered himself cautious enough.
"Hoshino, a guy like you can succeed at anything!" he praised himself dutifully.
---
At the central square, beneath the statue of Okura-kun IV—
"Yo," Hoshino said, lifting a bag. Inside were four severed heads.
The Blizzard Fiend waved a hand, motioning him to toss it aside.
"You're not gonna check?"
"No need."
"What if they're fakes?"
"Doesn't matter."
"Then why send me at all?"
"…"
"A loyalty test? Or just your kink?"
"Shut up."
"I want the Authority. Yours," Hoshino reminded.
The Blizzard Fiend went quiet for a moment. "We're part of a special organization, you know. If you—"
"I'm in," Hoshino said instantly.
The Fiend pulled out a sheet of paper from nowhere. "Read this out loud."
The paper was crammed with hundreds of lines of text—so many it made his scalp tingle.
After skimming through carefully, Hoshino frowned. "What's this string of numbers mean?"
"You'll find out once you're out."
The Fiend wasn't offering details, and Hoshino didn't press.
Aside from that number, everything else looked standard. Seeing no traps, he read the entire Contract aloud.
A strange pulse rippled through his body. Contract complete.
"I want the Authority. Yours."
The Fiend ignored him and handed over two more papers. "Also sign the Asian Branch Contract and the Squad Contract."
Each had a different set of numbers.
Hoshino finished reading and said again, "I want the Authority. Yours."
"Alright, alright, stop yelling. There's one job I need you to do first. That'll be the price for my Authority."
"Another one?" He took the paper, glanced at it, and his pupils widened sharply.
"What?"
"Nothing."
He kept his expression calm, read the document, and signed another Contract with the Fiend.
Once he completed the mission, he'd receive fifty percent of the Fiend's Authority.
Finally, the Fiend handed Hoshino something small—
A pale severed fingertip, with a human face squashed into it.
"Go tomorrow morning. Tonight, make two hundred ice mirrors. We'll discuss the rest when you're back."
"Got it." Hoshino sounded distracted.
"Go."
"Got it."
The Blizzard Fiend watched him disappear into the distance, shadows swallowing half its face.
"Makima's dog, huh. Ruthless as ever. Doesn't even flinch killing his own."
"You're really letting him go?" Naoto Kobayashi frowned deeply, the lines on his forehead creasing into a canyon. His eyes glinted with cold malice.
"I can't shake the feeling he's tied to the time resets."
"He definitely is."
The Fiend's tone was flat. "This past year, we've spent so much time searching for the Mirror Devil, and it never once appeared. That alone's fine—but the weird part is, we never tried to find a replacement.
And then, just as we're stuck, a substitute conveniently shows up."
For reasons only they partly understood, "that being" required a perfect descent—something even greater than any Primal Fear.
The ritual lasted eight days, and the barrier had to remain filled with joy and celebration the entire time. That was one of the conditions for its perfect arrival.
The Mirror Devil could replicate ice-people to keep the other sacrifices calm, which made it extremely useful.
So failing to find the Mirror Devil wasn't strange. What was strange was—
They'd never gone looking for a replacement Mirror Devil contractor, as if they'd simply forgotten.
But how could anyone forget something so crucial?
Now, forced to move cautiously, they targeted only isolated villagers who had little contact with others.
And right then, a Mirror Devil contractor just happened to appear before them.
A contractor tied to the government, hiding his identity, killing half their members, making their mission exponentially harder—
And yet, they still had to rely on his power.
He killed his comrades without hesitation and dove headfirst into their ranks.
If they didn't suspect him, who else could they suspect?
Recalling his utterly insincere act, a flash of killing intent passed through the Fiend's eyes, then faded.
"Then why give him the finger?" Naoto Kobayashi asked, baffled.
"It was that one's order." The Fiend paused, then corrected itself. "Actually, no… just my guess."
It clasped its hands behind its back and looked toward Lord Okura IV's statue, the high priest's white robe fluttering in the wind.
"Even we inside the barrier can tell something's off. That means It already knows. But all It sent was a finger and a Contract template, as if all It cared about was filling the missing five hundred sacrifices."
"Maybe that's exactly it?"
The Fiend shook its head. "The Contract says, 'I and the designated one shall deliver five hundred sacrifices into the barrier.' 'I and the designated one' clearly doesn't mean… is… letting…"
Its voice stuttered and fell silent, like a jammed gear grinding to a stop. Then it suddenly changed the subject.
"I don't even know which loop this is anymore. If I lose in the end, I'll probably leave something behind for the next one."
It paused again.
"Like… maybe a lie or two hidden among a mountain of truths."