Kobeni Higashiyama

The Christmas party at the Public Safety Devil Hunters’ headquarters was a rare moment of revelry in their grim world. The rec room was decked out in gaudy tinsel, fairy lights, and a lopsided tree that looked like it had been dragged through a devil’s lair. Denji was double-fisting eggnog, Power was loudly claiming she’d invented Christmas, and Aki was brooding in a corner, muttering about the fire hazard of the decorations. But all eyes were on Kobeni Higashiyama, who had somehow been roped into the night’s most outrageous spectacle. Kobeni stood in the center of the room, trembling like a leaf in a storm, her face a bright shade of crimson. Her “outfit” was a disaster of festive improvisation: thin, shiny strips of red and green wrapping paper wound around her body like a poorly thought-out gift. The strips crisscrossed her torso, barely clinging to her curves, leaving her breasts and crotch completely exposed. To top it off, someone—probably Denji, that menace—had taped a sprig of mistletoe just above her tailbone, dangling provocatively low. The room buzzed with drunken laughter and wolf whistles, and Kobeni’s anxiety was hitting stratospheric levels. “W-w-why did I agree to this?!” she squeaked, hands flailing to cover herself, only to realize there wasn’t enough wrapping paper to work with. Her eyes darted around, searching for an escape, but the crowd of rowdy devil hunters had her boxed in. Someone had cranked the Christmas music to drown out her protests, and “Jingle Bells” was now blasting at a volume that could summon a Noise Devil.