Chapter Text
They were supposed to be gone.
That was how it usually ended—hunters strike, demons fall, and the story wraps up with a bang and a moral. But when the Saja Boys found themselves blinking awake in the underworld after their final clash with Huntrix, distinctly unvaporized and very much still existing, it threw the usual narrative off course.
Instead of holy smiting or some flashy disintegration into hell particles, they were simply… back. A little scorched, a little dazed, but intact. The underworld hadn’t changed locations, but it had changed character. Without Gui-Ma’s malevolent grip choking the air, the place felt quieter. Lighter. Brighter, even. The constant whispers, the gnawing madness, the compulsions that once made demons little more than rage puppets—they were gone. The silence was unnerving. Healing, maybe, but definitely unsettling.
Gui-Ma’s defeat had torn something loose. For the first time in centuries, the underworld wasn’t pressing in on itself with malice. It was just… there. And Jinu was dying in the middle of it. Well, not dying exactly—demons were a bit more complicated than that—but his body, once reinforced by four hundred years of misery-forged cultivation, was coming apart at the seams.
He had handed over his soul to Rumi to end Gui-Ma, and the hellfire that had burned through him during the fight had finished the job of unraveling what little protection he had left. Demons were made of ineffable substance, but even the strongest weave frays without a soul holding it together.
His body looked like it was trying to remember how to be solid. Not a great look.
And without Jinu—their leader, the one who always had the plan, the voice, the direction—the rest of the Saja Boys were entirely out of their depth. They weren’t built for this kind of crisis. They had charisma, great hair, synchronized choreography, and, once upon a time, a fair amount of raw power, fueled by each of their own angst. Bedside vigil, emotional vulnerability, or even basic manners? Not so much. So they did what any demon boy band with no soul and no plan would do: they gathered around Jinu’s smoldering body and stared at it like it might sit up and sing them a solution.
“His leg twitched,” Romance said, staring at Jinu’s body.
“That was the tiger,” Abby replied, arms crossed, glaring down like he could intimidate Jinu back to life.“He’s not getting better.”
This prompted Baby to poke Jinu’s shoulder with two fingers and add, “No shit,” as if perhaps tactile harassment might jumpstart something vital.
The tiger in question—a fluffy, blue thing the size of a small car—nudged Jinu’s foot with its nose and whined softly. On top of his head, the six-eyed magpie flapped her wings, clicking anxiously.
Mystery crouched beside the tiger and laid a hand on its back, petting gently. He said nothing, just watching Jinu’s chest rise and fall in too-shallow breaths. Mystery was not known for verbosity.
Romance paced nearby, arms gesturing wildly as if grief could be banished through interpretive dance. “There’s nothing we can do here,” he declared, voice tight. “No souls. No power. And with Gui-Ma reduced to a candle flicker, we’ve got nothing.”
Abby gave Jinu’s foot a nudge with the toe of his boot. “So much for getting your soul back, buddy,” he muttered, trying for gentle but mostly sounding like a man who’d never done feelings on purpose. “What good is it if it’s not even in your body, huh?”
Mystery didn’t look up. “Um,” he started, voice even. “But what if we could still get it back in his body?”
There was a beat of silence.
Then Baby, perched lazily on the edge of a broken pillar, pointed upward with one black-nailed finger. “Minor problem,” he said dryly. “His soul’s up there, and we’re very much down here.”
Mystery opened his mouth to reply, but was cut off by the sudden shift beside him.
The tiger, previously draped across the floor like a furry blue rug of despair, suddenly sat upright. Alert. Poised. Like he’d just received a cosmic notification. His ears flicked. His irises were thinning in that deliberate, knowing way cats had when they were about to do something incomprehensible yet inevitable.
Then, without a single sound, a glowing portal bloomed to life directly beneath him—soft rings of light expanding outward in lazy, concentric waves. He didn’t flinch. Didn’t brace. He just… sat there. Like he was waiting for an elevator to arrive and take him to his next appointment. The magpie, ever the picture of composure, remained perfectly balanced on the tiger’s head, grooming a wing.
Abby blinked. “Did… that just open under him?”
Baby crossed his arms. “Huh.”
Romance took a dramatic step back, eyes wide. “Does anyone else see that, or am I trauma hallucinating?”
They all stared as the tiger slowly began to sink, graceful and completely unbothered, as if slipping into an unseen dimension was just part of his day job. Perched atop his head, the magpie ruffled her feathers and glanced around, calm and watchful. Then, just as the tiger sank past his shoulders and the rest of him began to vanish into the glow, she lifted one wing in a crisp, deliberate salute. All three pairs of her eyes locked onto the Saja Boys—steady, resolute, as if to say “we’ve got this.”
She was the last thing they saw.
The portal closed behind her without so much as a dramatic noise or puff of smoke.
Mystery stood, dusted off his palms, and exhaled once through his nose. “Well,” he said, tone dry, “that’s new.”