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The main courtyard of Kuoh Academy had become an improvised coliseum, illuminated by the violent crimson and golden flashes clashing at its center. The sound of metal against pure energy echoed through the night air, creating shockwaves that lifted clouds of dust and cracked the already shattered concrete even further.
Only a few meters from the fight, the scene bordered on surreal.
While the heiresses of the Gremory and Sitri clans watched the battle with their nerves stretched to the limit, ready to intervene if the situation got out of control, the self-proclaimed God of Kuoh had diametrically opposite priorities.
Kaiju let out a long, heavy sigh. The physical exhaustion Sylvie had caused him the night before still weighed on his shoulders like a slab of lead, and the spectacle of watching Issei exchange clumsy blows with the Fallen Angel was not helping him stay awake.
He turned his head and fixed his one healthy eye on Asia Argento. The young blonde nun stood beside Sylvie, trembling slightly. Even though she knew she was safe under the protection of the monsters that had just left, the sound of impacts and the sight of Raynare, the woman who had intended to murder her and extract her soul, kept her in a state of palpable anxiety.
Kaiju rubbed the back of his neck and walked lazily toward her, completely ignoring a deflected spear of light that crashed less than a meter from his boots.
"Asia, sit on the grass," Kaiju ordered in a calm, monotone voice.
The nun blinked, pulled out of her terror-induced trance. "E-Eh? Right here, Kaiju-san?"
"Listen to him. If he asks you to, it's for a reason," Sylvie whispered to her with a soft smile, sitting down herself on the intact grass of the rear garden to set the example.
Asia, obedient and still trembling, knelt on the grass, smoothing the skirt of her school uniform. Before she could ask what was happening, Kaiju dropped down beside her. Without asking permission, the teenager lay on his back on the grass and rested his head directly on the blonde nun's lap.
Asia's face instantly turned a crimson red so intense it rivaled Rias Gremory's aura. Her breath caught in her throat, and her hands remained suspended in the air, not knowing where to place them.
"K-K-Kaiju-san... T-This is very embarrassing! We're in the middle of a battle!" Asia stammered, glancing sideways at Sylvie, terrified that the boy's girlfriend would get upset.
But Sylvie simply let out a small giggle, settling down beside Kaiju and placing one hand on his shoulder.
"Your hands are trembling, Asia," Kaiju said, closing his eye and settling more comfortably against the girl's soft thighs. "Stroke my hair. Focus on that. It'll help anchor your mind in the present and stop listening to the noise of those two idiots fighting."
Asia swallowed. Slowly, with her heart pounding a thousand times per hour, she lowered her trembling hands and sank her delicate fingers into the young man's unruly jet-black hair. The touch was soft. As she began to comb through the dark strands, the irrational terror pressing down on her chest began to fade, replaced by a comforting warmth. He was right; focusing on the rhythm of his breathing and the texture of his hair isolated her from the chaos outside.
About ten meters away, Sona Sitri adjusted her glasses, which threatened to slip due to the cold sweat beading on her forehead.
"Tell me I'm not seeing this, Tsubaki," Sona murmured, a vein throbbing at her temple.
"He is using the Church servant's lap as a pillow while his own companion is risking his life, President," Tsubaki confirmed, maintaining a stoic expression, though internally she could not conceive of such a level of disrespect toward the tension of the moment.
Rias Gremory, for her part, forced herself to look away from the strange domestic scene and focused again on her Pawn. Issei was fighting the battle of his life.
In the center of the crater, the brown-haired boy blocked one of Raynare's thrusts with his left forearm, where his red gauntlet resided. The impact forced him back several meters, his boots skidding across the loose dirt.
Raynare was desperate. She was not fighting with the arrogance of a hunter, but with the cornered fury of an animal that knows it has one foot in the slaughterhouse. Her bloodshot black eyes constantly shifted toward Kaiju's figure resting in the distance. She knew that if she did not defeat Issei in a way that satisfied the scarred monster, the absolute nothingness that had devoured Dohnaseek would be her only fate.
"You damn brat!" Raynare screamed, materializing two additional spears of light and throwing them in rapid succession. "Why won't you just die already?! You were just a pathetic human!"
Issei rolled across the ground to dodge the first projectile, which pierced the concrete as if it were butter, and deflected the second with a swipe of his gauntlet.
[BOOST!]
The robotic voice echoed again from the green gem, and the brown-haired boy felt his muscular strength and demonic energy double in an instant. The power burned in his veins, but it was still crude, uncontrolled.
Issei stood, breathing heavily. The accumulated wounds and blows hurt, but when he looked at Raynare, he did not feel the paralyzing terror that had suffocated him on his first date. He saw a pathetic, frightened creature.
"You killed me..." Issei growled, clenching his left fist until the gears of the gauntlet screeched. "You played with my feelings, mocked me, and left me bleeding out in the cold. But President Rias gave me a new life. And Master Kaiju taught me that I must not be pitiful!"
Raynare let out a hysterical laugh, rising a couple of meters into the air with a strong beat of her black wings.
"Your 'Master' is using you as entertainment! And that redhead only wants you for your Sacred Gear! You're nothing, Issei! Just a replaceable Pawn!"
"Maybe I am a Pawn!" Issei planted his feet firmly on the ground, bending his knees. His mind connected with the immense latent power in his soul. He thought of Rias. He thought of Asia's fear. And he thought of the humiliation of being weak. "But this Pawn is going to break your wings!"
The brown-haired boy closed his eyes and concentrated on the deep voice he had been hearing in his dreams since his reincarnation. He did not try to force it; he simply accepted it.
The green gem on his arm began to pulse with a blinding glow. Issei's red aura erupted, rising in a column of energy that forced Kiba and Koneko back through the sheer density of the power released.
[BOOST!] [BOOST!] [BOOST!] [BOOST!]
Four consecutive boosts. The armor of the crimson gauntlet expanded, covering not only his hand, but his entire left arm up to the shoulder, with sharp spikes and metallic scales that resembled the skin of a mythological dragon.
Rias opened her eyes wide, her heart pounding with pride. "The Boosted Gear... the Sacred Gear of the Red Dragon Emperor."
Raynare felt the air become scarce. The energy emanating from the boy in front of her was no longer that of a newborn devil; it was that of a beast threatening to devour her whole. Seized by panic, she concentrated all her light into a single gigantic spear, as large as her own body, and threw it with a tearing scream.
"DISAPPEAR!"
Issei did not dodge. He did not retreat.
He planted his feet firmly and raised his left arm. The gigantic spear of light collided directly with the Red Dragon Emperor's gauntlet. The impact generated an explosion of burning sparks and a deafening noise, but Issei did not give even a single millimeter. He clenched his teeth, his muscles standing out beneath his torn school uniform, and with a powerful roar, deflected the spear into the sky, shattering it into harmless pieces of light.
Raynare froze in the air, her arms extended, weaponless and defenseless.
That was her fatal mistake.
Using the momentum, Issei channeled all the accumulated power into his legs and jumped. The speed he reached thanks to the multiple "Boosts" was overwhelming. In a fraction of a second, he closed the distance and appeared directly above the Fallen Angel.
"This is for my first date!" Issei roared.
The brown-haired boy's left fist, wrapped in the blazing crimson light of his artifact, cut through the wind with the force of a ballistic missile and slammed directly into Raynare's stomach.
The sound of the impact was nauseating. Raynare spat a mouthful of blood, her eyes rolling white from pure agony. The force of the blow shot her toward the ground at dizzying speed.
KRAAAK!
The Fallen Angel crashed into the courtyard concrete, opening a crater three meters deep. A dense cloud of dust and dirt rose into the air, hiding the magnitude of the destruction.
Issei landed heavily a couple of meters from the crater's edge. His left arm smoked and the gauntlet vanished into particles of red light, exhausted by the massive effort. The brown-haired boy fell to his knees, gasping for oxygen, but an immense smile of victory spread across his sweaty face.
The closure was complete. He had faced his murderer and defeated her with his own hands.
The dust slowly began to disperse.
Rias and her peerage approached Issei, looking at him with obvious pride. Sona and Tsubaki remained silent, processing the abnormal growth of the Red Dragon Emperor's host.
But everyone's attention quickly shifted toward the figure finally standing up in the distance.
Kaiju let out a lazy yawn, lifting his head from Asia's lap. The nun looked at him with her hands still tangled in his hair, feeling an immediate emptiness when he stood.
"Good. That's enough entertainment for one night," Kaiju murmured, stretching his arms above his head and cracking his back. "Good punch, Issei. Your jump technique was lacking, but brute force compensated for your lack of brains."
Issei, still on his knees, let out an exhausted laugh. "T-Thank you... Master."
Kaiju ignored the demonic heiresses and walked with his usual calm steps toward the center of the courtyard. He stopped at the edge of the crater and looked down.
Raynare lay at the bottom, broken. Her leather clothes were in shreds, her black wings were bent at unnatural angles from the impact against the stone, and she coughed up thick blood, barely conscious. She knew this was the end. She had lost. The scarred monster would finish the job the brown-haired boy had started.
However, Kaiju did not raise his hand to execute Hakai.
He shifted his gaze to one side. About ten meters away, pathetically dragging themselves across the destroyed grass after being thrown by Rayquaza minutes earlier, were Kalawarner and Mittelt. Both were in equally miserable condition, bruised, bloodied, and broken.
Using a minuscule fraction of his telekinetic power, Kaiju lifted the three women at the same time. Raynare was pulled out of the crater, and the other two were dragged through the air until all three fell heavily at the teenager's feet, forming a pathetic pile of black feathers and choked laments.
Rias Gremory frowned. "What are you going to do with them, Kaiju? If you plan to execute them, I suggest you do it quickly. Their presence here could attract more of their faction if we don't cut off the energy trail."
Kaiju shoved his hands into his pants pockets, looking down from above at the three women trembling in pure terror beneath his shadow.
"Execute them?" Kaiju repeated, tilting his head with a bored grimace. "Death is far too merciful a gift for this trash, Rias. And erasing their existence is an expenditure of energy I'm too lazy to waste on recyclable garbage."
Kalawarner, coughing blood, managed to lift her gaze toward the scarred boy. "K-Kill us... end this, monster..."
Kaiju let out a small nasal laugh.
"No, I won't," he sentenced, his voice dropping into an icy tone that made even the devils present take a step back. "I have an enormous house. A house that gathers dust because I'm too lazy to clean it, and Sylvie already has enough work cooking for me and taking care of Asia. I need cleaning staff. I need maids. And you three... are perfect for the position."
Mittelt, the small Fallen in a gothic lolita outfit, widened her eyes in disbelief, spitting dirt. "M-Maids?! We are Fallen Angels! We belong to Grigori! W-We will never be the slaves of a filthy huma—!"
Kaiju did not even let her finish.
His brown eyes were devoured by the intense and dazzling glow of Ocean Blue.
Healing light burst from his pupils and swept over the three Fallen Angels. The process was instantaneous and visually miraculous. Raynare's broken bones fused back together with a dull snap. Kalawarner's bruises vanished, and the blood covering Mittelt evaporated as if it had never existed. Their shattered wings straightened, and their feathers recovered their dark shine. Their stamina, magic, and life force were restored to one hundred percent in less than two seconds.
The three women stood up, panting, staring at their own hands in absolute shock. They were healed. Completely unharmed.
Raynare looked up at Kaiju. A spark of malicious hope crossed her mind. He had healed them. He was insane! They were three Fallen Angels with their magical power restored against one boy who was not on guard.
"Idiot!" Raynare roared, materializing a spear of light in her hand and lunging toward Kaiju's neck. "No one enslaves Raynare!"
Kaiju did not dodge. He did not blink. He did not move his hands from his pockets.
He simply took one step forward.
At the exact instant Raynare entered his reach, Kaiju released an infinitesimal fraction of his Killing Intent and spatial pressure. The gravity around the three women multiplied a thousandfold exclusively on them.
The spear of light disintegrated before touching him. Raynare was crushed against the concrete ground, her face smashing into the stone with enough force to make her teeth crack. Kalawarner and Mittelt fell to their knees, unable to even breathe under the weight of the teenager's overwhelming presence.
"That was your only warning," Kaiju said, his voice empty of any emotion as he approached the three immobilized women. "You no longer answer to Grigori. You do not answer to Azazel, or Kokabiel, or the Church. From this precise second onward, you belong to me. Body and soul."
The boy raised his right hand. The color of his eye changed, intertwining the White of Transmutation with the Pale Silver of Lunar Magic.
"And to make sure you're useful and don't die cleaning up my Charizard's messes... we're going to improve your factory stats."
Kaiju leaned down and, with two fingers, touched Raynare's forehead. Then Kalawarner's, and finally Mittelt's.
"Lunar Mark."
The silver flash engraved itself into the skin of their foreheads, leaving the subtle silhouette of a waning moon that disappeared a few seconds later.
Rias Gremory and Sona Sitri watched in silence, expecting the enchantment to simply increase their magic reserves, just as it had done with Sylvie the previous night. However, what happened before their eyes completely shattered any previous knowledge they had about spiritual biology.
Raynare, Kalawarner, and Mittelt screamed in unison. It was not a scream of agony, but a cry of pure and overwhelming power overload.
Their backs arched unnaturally. The dark energy emanating from their bodies condensed, swirled into a storm of feathers and violet light, and exploded outward.
The single pair of black wings each of them possessed began tearing from the base. With a wet and visceral sound, new limbs emerged from their flesh.
A second pair of wings sprouted, spreading with majestic wingspan. And before the devils could process the shock, a third pair of black wings tore through the skin, unfolding beneath the moonlight with a force that raised a gale in the school courtyard.
Issei fell backward onto his rear, unable to articulate a word. Kiba retreated, his breathing ragged. Akeno covered her mouth, her eyes dilated by the terror of what she was witnessing.
From one pair of wings to three pairs. Six wings total.
In the strict and absolute hierarchy of Fallen Angels, the number of wings dictated rank and power. Two wings represented low-class trash. Four wings belonged to veterans. Six wings... six wings were the unmistakable mark of the Upper-Middle Class, a level of power that would take a normal Fallen centuries of accumulated power and training to reach, if they ever managed it at all.
Kaiju Hano had just forced the divine evolution of three beings in less than ten seconds.
The light slowly dissipated. Raynare, Kalawarner, and Mittelt were on their knees. Their breaths were erratic, their bodies trembling from the overwhelming and glorious amount of magic now flowing through their veins. They could not believe it. The power they now possessed eclipsed any ambition they had ever had of rising by stealing Sacred Gears.
Raynare lifted her gaze toward Kaiju. Her arrogance was dead. Her hatred had been erased. Upon feeling the magnitude of the gift and the absoluteness of the being who had granted it, the Fallen's mind cracked, replaced by devoted and servile fanaticism.
Kalawarner and Mittelt followed her example. The three six-winged women, who now possessed enough power to decimate the Gremory peerage on their own, lowered their foreheads until they touched the shattered ground, prostrating themselves in absolute and trembling submission before the teenager.
"W-We will serve... Master..." Raynare whispered, tears of terror and gratitude sliding down her cheeks. "We will be yours. Forever."
Kaiju observed them from above. With a loud yawn that broke all the majesty and terror of the scene, he shoved his hands into his pockets and turned toward Sylvie and Asia.
"Good. Now we have someone to wash the dishes," Kaiju said casually, as if he had just bought an appliance. "Sylvie, Asia, let's go. It's starting to get cold, and I want to sleep in a real bed."
Sylvie quickly nodded, taking the hand of a marveling Asia, and both approached him.
Kaiju turned one last time toward Rias and Sona, who remained petrified, unable to process that Sitri's "Pawn" had just adopted three high-class monsters as his personal maids.
"Clean up this mess, Gremory. We have math class tomorrow, and the teacher is strict about craters in the courtyard," Kaiju said goodbye with a crooked smile.
Without waiting for an answer, he raised two fingers to his forehead. The three Fallen Angels were wrapped in his telekinetic energy, and with a sharp POP!, Kaiju, his two girlfriends, and his three new six-winged slaves disappeared from Kuoh Academy.
The wind blew over the ruins of the battlefield. Rias Gremory and Sona Sitri exchanged a long, heavy look, sharing the same chilling thought: the balance of the supernatural world had not only been broken; it was now washing dishes in Kaiju Hano's house.