Outside of a warehouse in the center of the city Phoba, the downpour continues on top of the people that had gathered at its door. This warehouse, in particular, is used by the Town Hall for large town meetings between the people. Typically the town meetings are not held often, as they are generally on the whims of the City Council. However when they are held the Council sends out invitations at random for votes to be held. It was a simple system with a lot of flaws, but it was generally fair with most major decisions that concerned the citizens here.

The large doors of the warehouse slid open with a groan to allow the people inside and out of the rain. The topic of the meeting is never spoken beforehand, yet everyone’s faces shared the same emotion knowing what was brought to attention today. As the warehouse had been redesigned to hold a lot of people in a visible manner, they filed in row by row in a raised platform pattern with lower seats near the center that raise the further from the center you get. These seats were arranged looking towards the center in a hexagonal fashion with breaks in between so that each face of the hexagon is separated. The center platform is also slightly raised, though not to the extent of the seats, and shaped in the same fashion as the stands. On it there was a ring of desks with mics and chairs to accompany it, with each chair positioned to look towards the crowd. Everyone in the raised seats also has mics, this is to promote actual discussion between everyone present. Out of the crowd, six individuals walked to the center platform. The ones walking there included the Mayor, Mayor’s Assistant, Treasurer, Planner, Representative, and the Defense Chief. This makes up the City Council members as they take a seat in the chairs to face the crowd around them.

Mere moments and everyone finally settles down with most seats filled save the few from late or no-shows. The murmurs slowly died as the mayor cleared his throat.

“I hope everyone has settled calmly for today’s meeting.” He pans the room with his eyes, hidden by small circular glasses. “Judging by everyone’s looks we all have the same mind on today’s current agenda. That’s good as this will take less time to explain. A current visitor of our town has many qualities of what we believe to be, as is written by the tradition of our town, a potential Demon. The one is known to us as Maya Nephim, who is here on a trip with her friend and daughter of the Nen scientist. I would like everyone to discuss the possibilities of what we may have here.”

The room erupts in conversation. Most are ramblings about how inhuman and different the person mentioned is.

“Have you seen her hair?! How is that color even possible?” A sea of brown and black haired citizens nod in agreement.

“I can’t even stand watching her sip soup. Blasphemy! Who raised her?”

The Defense Chief clears his throat and sits upright, gathering the crowds' attention. “This discussion is a serious matter, so please calm yourself. We need to discuss things about her in nature and go over what we feel is a reason to even believe that she could be a demon at all, not her eating habits!”

“There’s no way she’s human at all!” A member of the crowd is standing up, attracting attention. “She has no known family that exists with her name! Hair that defies what we know as human biology. Even her eyes are unnatural when she looks at you!”

Once again the room is in chaos throwing out different trivialities that make her different than the general public in Phoba. The Council all sit quietly and attentively, listening in detail to the crowd’s displeasure and opinions. Through the voices it could be heard a lot of differences on how to deal with the situation, the ‘what-ifs’, and if she was a demon or human, to begin with. They were united, however, on one thing. Maya felt like a threat to their way of life somehow.

The Mayor’s Assistant straightens herself up and is next to clear her throat, brushing back sun-kissed blonde hair.

“We’ve heard concerns on what makes her not human, however what about the opposite? Any human positive comments on her?”

The room is filled only with low cowardly murmuring, not one soul wanting to reveal even the smallest good.

“Well... she’s friendly and responds to everyone in a kind, formal manner.” A young boy finally speaks up to stop the crowds' mumbles.

“Too friendly I’d say,” A middle-aged woman sneers at the boy with honest disgust, ” especially towards the Nen families daughter! Close friend? HAH! Seems the girl wants more out of a pure, honest woman like Megumi.”

“Yeah who else but a Demon would seek out the heart of another young maiden in open public as she does?”

The situation erupts into a moral argument on what’s deemed friendly or immoral to a pure girls heart. A few members of the Council show annoyance to where the discussion has gone. The Planner stands up abruptly.

“SILENCE! Do you people seriously hear yourselves right now?”

The crowd around him dimmed in noise till silent. Mixed reactions of concern towards fellows around them and looking down in guilt.

“Now I want everyone to calmly tell me why she is too friendly and why that deems her as a Demon ’cause I find that as a worthless reason to pin them as some horrible person for being friendly." He slowly sits back down with a scowl as the room fills with a buzz of conversation. One old lady stands up, supporters nearby helping her.

“Alright, youngins settle down. Maya has come into this town with not one grudge against anyone here and is nothing but outright helpful. Yet all of you are wanting to focus on her relationship with her only actual friend in the place?” The lady slowly turns her head around the room and softly whispers, “Shame on you all. I can’t count how many times she has helped me out and was always just happening by on an errand for someone else. Out of her way for me! Sure her looks are abnormal but I've lived a long... long time and have met many kinds of demons, none of which even look remotely close to that! How baseless are you people?”

She sits back down with some assistance giving a quick “harrumph” towards the crowd. The air gets heavy in the silence that follows, thick with guilty anger and resentment. The planner perks up after the old lady's quick speech.

“Now there are some really good points there. I personally also can’t see how her kindness can be seen as anything but pure, Naive even! Personally, without her, I wouldn’t have been able to get certain errands done for the festival last month. I can’t mention how pressured I was until she offered help, really a lifesaver in this town.” Another council member catches his eyes, and he turns to her. “Something wrong Treasurer?”

The Treasurer looked downright furious, shooting a gaze at the Planner to make him flinch. The bobs of her hair bob as she stands up.

“Valid points yes, especially the part based on her looks. However, I have an infuriating problem rattling my old head. That is to say, looks don’t really matter too much if one was either the mythical Human variety of those Demons or a Chaos Demon.”

Fear sweeps through the crowd. Panic even as the discussion bounces around about what that means.

“What did she mean by Human or Chaos demon?”

“How should I know I thought there were only like 2 kinds!”

“I’ve never heard of these kinds either! They’re not in any books I have ever read!”

The treasurer slams her fist on the counter the council is sitting at. “LIBRARIAN. You of all people have a better answer on this here. I know those demons exist, so please educate these possibilities to us would you?”

Eyes drift quickly over to the town librarian, a small frail girl wearing a bun. Most of the surrounding crowd sighed in relief that she was lucky enough to be picked for the meeting.

“W-why is the pressure always on me when I make it to these meetings?” She was nervous and young. “I’ll t-try to answer the best I can.”

She clears her throat.

“For those who don’t remember our people’s history the Human Demons, or Human Kraeka, are our ancient ancestors. They are a breed that we look exactly like, and thus our people have named them after us, showing the connection between our lineage. Their name in their language is nowhere close to anything related to what we call them. Uh...” Glancing around she tugs on the collar of her blouse, “They uh helped us in the great war thousands of years ago, though most of them were driven to extinction by the other species of demons. Therefore they would be allied to us Humans so I don’t... see a reason why that’s...” Her voice trailing off she barely makes out the word “Bad” to be audible.

The air lightens, the mood not as stiff from fear with at least something trying not to harm a poor girls reputation.

“What about Chaos Demons? What’s special about them to be mentioned by the Treasurer?”

“Uh....” Nervous again, the librarian clears her throat. “Well to be completely honest.. Not too much is known about that species. I-I know only a few facts though I just have to remember..”

The crowd starts murmuring again, impatient to know anything.

“Ah.. ok I remember. There isn’t very much information on them as they normally don’t interact with either society. No one has ever seen one as...well… they can’t. Chaos Kraeka kind of have no actual...uh,” she seems scared to continue, “form?” The librarian flinches in preparation.

Immediate panic in the room. Some people stand up shouting at others, while another portion has started their own silent prayers balled up in fear. At this point, even the council has broken out of character and discussing in fear with the surrounding townsfolk.

“Uh... e-everyone..” She isn’t audible to the crowd, even with the mic. “EVERYONE I WASN’T F-FINISHED”

Abrupt silence.

“T-thank you...” Breathing deeper she continues. “There are not many of this kind of Kraeka around according to their Council's census and each of them is individually picky on what form they even take b-based on their psychological traits.”

A pause before someone stands up in the crowd.

“What do you mean by... psychological traits?”

“I mean that uh... each one has a mental illness and they choose their form based on that alone. They could have a human, Kraeka, or even a tree for a form. S-so I actually believe that... uh, Maya could be one of these... demons... and while her trait would mean she is friendly that means she also isn’t uh...” She gulps. “sane..mentally.” She couldn’t even add how that wasn’t a bad thing before the crowd was ignoring her through a mass hysterical discussion.

“So that time she helped me fix my bike?”

“She probably has abandonment issues and needs to be noticed.”

“What a sick reason to be friendly.”

“Yeah, now I pity her. I would hate to be insane and need to be friendly all the time.”

“I’m more disgusted. What an attention whore. The more I hear of this the more I’m hearing that she’s a demon that needs to go.”

The discussion is becoming heated and one-sided again. What was once peaceful niceties have now been turned around to negative disdain. Even the old woman was looking down, tears in her eyes in disbelief that Maya was being selfless. The librarian tries to settle the people down, saying to take what she said with a grain of salt, but it was far too late. The ignorant party took what little information she had given and have made a horrendous unanimous decision on their view of Maya Nephim.

During the state of the crowd, the inner circle of the City Council was also in a locked discussion. They were also in a unified decision, though it wasn’t anywhere near the same as the now rampant crowd. They couldn’t prove Maya to be a Demon or not, especially if the chance of the mythical Chaos Demon even existed it posed no real threat to the town.

“What do you suppose we do mayor?” The treasurer’s voice cracked. She’s showing obvious disdain towards her own curiosity, having no real problem with Maya to begin with.

The mayor clears his throat with the pressure on him.

“W-well we have to take a vote it would seem.” His eyes cast regrettably to the people around the council members. “I think we all know where this is going now.”

All council eyes are downcast, ears out listening to the rantings of a maddened hive. Sullenly the lone figure of the Mayor stands up, slowly followed by the council members around him.

“I need everyone’s attention,” spoken to the crowd around him, the Mayor stares them all down while the buzz dies down, “it is now time to make our decision.”

A pause, like-minded anticipation pushing to the center with their stares.

“Calmly I will offer a few options on what we will do.” He pulls out a device from his stack of papers brought in with him. “As per usual I will use this device to track the number of votes per option. I want you to be honest and answer correctly. If this is your first time here in the Town Meeting there is a button near your mic to press for your vote. You do not need to press it more than once, and to prevent miscalled votes the button has a safety mechanism to only track your vote once.” He puts the device down in front of him. “I will say the options once before voting, and then I will say them again. As I say them again that is when you will vote.”

He turns to see them all eye to eye with a heavy heart.

“First option; Maya is left alone. There is nothing wrong with her, therefore she lives happily within our borders.”

A few chuckles from the crowd. The mayor’s eyes start to water up.

“The second option,” He pauses, “We banish Maya for fear of a Demon in our midst. Our more… traditional method.” He sighs.

“Third option-..” You could clearly hear the mayor sniffling, tears rolling down his cheeks. “Third option; A Demon Hunt. Used only as traditional means of ridding a harmful being forever.”

He mouths the words no and please, inaudible as the crowd buzzes and prepares to cast their vote.

The entire council is crying.