Shelby

Passing as a human, Shelby looks like a thickset young man topped with dense, curly hair and heavy brows, dressed in a pale shirt whose colored sleeves carry the letters NO9 VJP across the chest, finished with jeans and sneakers. What lurks under that guise is a huge, dark, snake-bodied Dragon: rows of little arms tipped in white claws, a pair of ragged wings, tentacles where legs ought to be, and a long neck crowned by a screw-shaped head set with two big eyes.

The child whose body it stole was, while alive, brave and giving to a fault, laying down his life to fling Balgo clear of a rushing train. The Disguiser wearing his shape plays the skeptic, waving off the claim that Noel Niihashi slipped away to Reverse London as pure fairy tale, yet it keeps up a loyal friendship with Balgo and dotes on his dog, Osushi. Once the mask drops, it turns vicious and single-minded in chasing immortality by eating a witch, even though that outcome may be nothing but legend, and it takes pride in ten unbroken years spent hidden among people. A thread of fondness for Balgo lingers, so it would rather not kill him and even offers to spare Noel should swallowing Ninny Spangcole make it deathless; that mercy has a ceiling, though, and when Balgo refuses to flee and argues against the killing, it resolves to eat him too for not listening.

The genuine Shelby is just seven when an onrushing train kills him in the act of shoving Balgo to safety, and almost at once a Disguiser seizes the corpse, takes on his name, and passes among people for the next decade. The tale opens with the impostor idling beside Balgo in London and being walked to the phone booth where Noel vanished, at which point Osushi twists into a colossal Dark Dragon. As Noel and Ninny spill out of the Coin Gate, Shelby strikes at Ninny, snaps her arm, and reveals what he really is, announcing that he will consume the witches and turn immortal. Balgo hurls himself in the way, cramming his arms into the Dragon's jaws because he still holds Shelby to be a friend, before Noel boots the creature back and ends it with Absolute Dragon Shatter. In a brawl he can unscrew and spread his mouth wide to engulf and crush prey, hits hard enough to punch Ninny straight through a building, waves off an explosive shot by catching it bare-handed, and flies quickly despite his tattered wings.