Trees on the Mind

Sprinting through the woods, Asa fights down her panic and recognizes echoes of her earlier ordeal with the Eternity Devil. The trick then was to picture the realm as her own, but Yoru cuts in by miming a gunshot to her own head, proving their powers are gone, then failing to shape a bundle of twigs into a blade. When Asa asks for a strategy, Yoru only slams a fist into a tree. Mid-frustration, she notices a human body fused into the trunk she leans against, and a horrified Asa bolts back toward Denji, tumbling over him.

The trapped hunter, clearer-headed than before yet still confusing Asa for another woman, greets her return. He explains that the people lodged in the trees are victims who have endured here for a thousand years, destined to rot and sink back into the earth before they can finally leave. The grim truth enrages Yoru, who strikes Denji across the face and demands he wake, accusing him of dragging her into one bizarre devil mess after another. Bloodied and apologetic, Denji laments that everyone close to him ends up wretched, and announces he will let himself become a tree to reflect on his failures as a, in his words, horny empty-headed idiot. Yoru threatens to hit him if the crying continues, which only fuels more apologies, until, holding back her own tears, she kisses him instead.

Asa draws a parallel between this realm and her past encounter with the Eternity Devil. Yoru confirms their powers are useless by failing to forge a weapon. The hunter reveals that the embedded bodies are victims slowly decomposing into the soil over a millennium, the only path out of the prison. A self-loathing Denji vows to become a tree as penance, and Yoru, struggling with her emotions, kisses him rather than hitting him again.

Titled Trees on the Mind, the chapter sits in Volume 20 within the Aging Devil arc. A continuity oddity stands out: the hunter calls Asa by the name Sanae here, whereas the prior chapter had him use Ritsuko. The Eternity Devil, Gun Devil, and Aging Devil all appear only as mentions.