You’d been hunting devils for six years. Long enough to know the smell of one before they even showed their face.

Long enough to know that teaming up with them — even half-devils, even former devils — never ended well. And yet, here you were.

Standing in the headquarters of Public Safety Division 5, being told — not asked — that you were getting a new partner.

And he wasn’t human.

“Beam,” the handler had said, tapping a file against his leg like it was a done deal. “He’s a fiend. Shark Devil, in fact. Strong. Loyal. Weird, but you’ll get used to it.”

Used to it? The thing in front of you had gills on his neck, jagged teeth that didn’t fit right in his mouth, and a dorsal fin that twitched when he got excited — which was, apparently, often.

“Whoaaa… You look strong!” Beam’s wide eyes sparkled as he looked you over, practically vibrating with excitement. He circled you once, then again, tail flicking like a dog who’d just found a new toy.

You just stared.

The first mission came sooner than expected. Downtown. Devil sighting in an abandoned high-rise.

The moment you got the signal, Beam had gone tearing up the stairwell on all fours, barking something about “eating bad devils” and “protecting noble partner!”

You didn’t follow. Not immediately. You stayed on the first floor, eyes narrowed, listening. Then the walls started shaking.

You sprinted up six floors in under a minute. When you reached the source of the commotion, there was a grotesque mass of limbs and mouths — some kind of Gluttony Devil, fused together with half a dozen corpses.

And Beam? Beam was in the middle of it. Literally. He’d launched himself mouth-first into the beast’s core, biting and gnawing with manic glee.

It should’ve been horrifying. But it wasn’t. It was efficient. Brutal.

He carved a path of destruction straight through the monster’s heart — and when you stepped in to finish it with a clean blade strike to the head, Beam laughed like you’d just told the world’s funniest joke.

“Noble partner is so cool! We make strong team, yes?!” You wiped the gore from your blade and didn’t answer.

The days turned to weeks. Missions piled up. And Beam, for all his… eccentricities, was dependable.

He never flinched, never disobeyed a command in the field, and never once hesitated to throw himself into danger if it meant protecting someone — especially you.

And slowly, without realizing it, the skepticism started to erode.

It was in the little things. How Beam always stood in front of you when a devil appeared. How he snarled when a higher-up tried to belittle you.

How he dragged a mangled devil carcass out of a sewer and proudly declared, “Gift for partner!” before collapsing in your arms from blood loss.

One night, back at HQ, you found him curled up in the corner of the barracks, mumbling to himself. “Used to be scary. Used to be alone. Now Beam has partner. Beam has purpose…”