The fluorescent lights of Dr. Arata’s office hummed, a sharp contrast to the muted gray of the Tokyo skyline outside the window.  

Yuji sat on the plush leather couch, his fingers tightly interlaced. At twenty-one, he looked utterly exhausted, carrying the crushing weight of two entirely separate lifetimes.  

"How have the blackouts been this week, Yuji?" Dr. Arata asked gently, clicking his pen as he leaned back in his chair.  

"Worse," Yuji murmured, staring intently at the polished wooden floor. "I wake up in places I don't remember. My knuckles are constantly bruised. This morning, I found a blood-stained jacket in my closet. It’s not mine. I don't own anything like that."  

"We’ve talked about this," Dr. Arata said, softening his tone. "Your mind created a shield to protect you from the severe trauma of your past. But you are the one in control now. The 'other' you—"  

He is weak, Arata. He knows nothing.

  

The voice didn't come from the room. It echoed directly inside Yuji’s skull—deep, guttural, and dripping with absolute certainty. Yuji flinched violently, his eyes darting to the far corner of the room.  

There, standing just behind Dr. Arata’s shoulder, was a figure. To Dr. Arata, the space was completely empty. But to Yuji, Akuma was as real as the air he breathed, wearing a dark, hooded tactical coat and an Oni-inspired half-mask. His eyes burned with a cold, predatory light.  

Stop it, Yuji thought back desperately, screaming inside his own mind. Not here. Leave me alone.  

I am always here, Yuji, Akuma mocked, stepping closer. While you sit here whining to this old man, the filth of Tokyo breeds. Last night, a man intended to torch an apartment complex for insurance money. I stopped his heart before he could strike the match. I saved lives. What has your therapy done?  

"Yuji? You drifted off there for a moment," Dr. Arata’s voice suddenly broke through the intense internal noise. He was watching Yuji intently, noting the sudden, rigid tension in the young man's jaw. "Are you hearing him right now?"  

Yuji swallowed hard, his throat completely dry. He looked at Dr. Arata, then shifted his gaze directly to Akuma, who was now leaning over the therapist's shoulder, mimicking the doctor's posture with a twisted, unseen grin.  

"He's angry," Yuji whispered to the doctor, his hands trembling.  

I am not angry. I am justice, Akuma corrected, his phantom hand resting near Dr. Arata’s neck. This doctor wants to cure me. To kill me. If I die, who protects the innocent from the monsters? If I die, the evil wins. Tell him, Yuji. Tell him I am the cure.  

You're a murderer! Yuji screamed in his mind, tears pricking the corners of his eyes. You're taking lives! That's not justice, that's just evil dressed up as a savior!  

Evil requires intent, Akuma hissed, his voice growing deafeningly loud. My intent is pure. I purge the rot so the world can breathe. Look at me, Yuji. You know I am necessary.  

"Yuji, squeeze my hand," Dr. Arata said firmly, extending his arm across the space between them. "Ground yourself. You are Yuji. You are in Tokyo, in my office. You are safe."  

Yuji reached out, his hand shaking violently as he gripped the doctor's hand. He squeezed tightly, using the raw physical sensation to anchor himself back to reality.  

But instead of grounding him, a low, bubbling chuckle escaped Yuji’s lips.

Dr. Arata blinked, a flicker of confusion crossing his face. "Yuji?"

The chuckle grew louder, deeper, losing its youthful, anxious edge. Yuji’s shoulders relaxed, shedding the posture of an exhausted victim and hardening into something rigid and imposing. He slowly lifted his head. The frantic, tear-filled eyes Dr. Arata had been treating for months were gone. In their place was a gaze of chilling, predatory absolute certainty.

"Safe?" Yuji asked, but the voice was a dual-toned resonance, slipping between his own and the guttural rasp of Akuma. "Is that what you call this room, Doctor? Safe?"

Dr. Arata tried to pull his hand back, but Yuji’s grip was like a steel vice. The knuckles, raw and scraped, tightened until the doctor’s bones groaned.

"Yuji, let go. You're having an episode," Dr. Arata commanded, his professional facade slipping as cold sweat broke across his neck.

"The wall isn't thinning, Arata. It’s open. We are talking to you together now," Yuji said, a dark smile spreading across his face that mirrored the invisible Oni mask perfectly. "You see, while you were so busy looking at my bruised knuckles, you forgot to ask whose blood was on that jacket in my closet."  

Dr. Arata froze.

"We both noticed it the second we walked in here three months ago," Yuji continued, his eyes locking onto the heavy crystal paperweight on the desk. "You have a habit of clicking your pen when you're lying. And you have a habit of keeping your private safe hidden behind the painting of the Kyoto temple—the same safe containing the ledger of a human trafficking ring operating out of Shinjuku."  

The therapist's face went completely pale.

"You thought you were treating a broken boy," Akuma’s voice fully bled through Yuji's lips now, dominant and terrifying. "You thought by keeping me locked away with your pills, your own little 'evil intent' would stay safe in the dark. But Yuji knows what you did to those girls. And I know what must be done to you."

The phantom image of Akuma behind the chair didn't fade. Instead, it stepped forward, overlapping perfectly into Yuji’s physical body.  

"Enjoy your peace while it lasts, Doctor," Yuji whispered, his grip tightening to a lethal threshold. "Tonight, the city bleeds. And we are starting right here

Yuji:A DEMONS TRUE INTENTION.