Chapter 45:
– Saji –
Saji Genshirou glared at Harry Sitri with every ounce of hatred his broken heart could muster.
This guy.
This fucking guy who had waltzed into Sona's life out of nowhere—some half-devil bastard with a Maou for a mother and a face that looked like it belonged on a magazine cover. This smug, arrogant piece of shit who had stolen everything Saji had worked for. Everything he'd deserved.
The memories were crystal clear now, sharper than they'd ever been before the seal. He remembered every single moment of his time in Sona's peerage. The day she'd found him—a nobody human with a dormant Sacred Gear—and offered him a chance at something greater. The way her violet eyes had assessed him, cool and calculating, and found him worthy. The flutter in his chest when she'd pressed that Pawn piece against his skin and he'd felt the rush of demonic power flooding through his veins for the first time.
He remembered the training sessions. The strategy meetings. The quiet moments when he'd catch her adjusting her glasses or tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, and his heart would ache with how badly he wanted to reach out and touch her. He remembered building his plans, brick by careful brick—how he would prove himself indispensable, how he would rise through the Rating Games and earn his promotion to High-Class devil, how Sona would finally see him as more than just a useful piece on her chessboard.
He'd had it all worked out.
Sona would be his King, his lover, his wife. And the other girls in her peerage—Tsubaki with her elegant beauty, Momo with her shy sweetness, the others who served alongside him—they would naturally become part of their household too. That was how devil nobility worked, wasn't it? Powerful devils collected harems. Saji had done his research. He'd prepared himself mentally for the reality of sharing Sona with sister-wives, and had even started to appreciate the other girls' charms in anticipation of that future.
It was going to be perfect.
And then Harry Sitri happened.
Saji's jaw clenched so hard his teeth ached. He could feel the Absorption Line thrumming with his rage, could feel his Sacred Gear responding to the tsunami of negative emotion crashing through his soul. The memories of his downfall played like a horror movie behind his eyes—
Harry showing up at the Sitri estate in the Underworld. Harry training with Sona, their bodies close as she corrected his stance and guided his movements. Harry making Sona smile in ways she'd never smiled at Saji. Harry earning her respect, her attention, her affection with an ease that made Saji want to scream!
And then—the confrontation. Saji had tried to put Harry in his place, tried to show everyone that this newcomer wasn't worthy of their precious heiress's time. He'd wrapped his Absorption Line around the bastard's wrist and drained his magic, certain that victory was assured.
Harry had beaten him with his bare fists.
No magic. No Sacred Gear of his own. Just brutal violence that had left Saji bloody and humiliated on the training ground floor while everyone watched. While Sona watched, her expression not angry or concerned but... disappointed. Like Saji had confirmed something she'd already suspected about him.
After that, everything had fallen apart. Sona had dissolved her peerage—dissolved him—and removed his Evil Piece like she was excising a tumor. She'd sealed his memories, locked away his Sacred Gear, and sent him back to his mundane human life as if the months he'd spent devoted to her meant nothing!
As if he meant nothing to her!
Saji had spent weeks in a fog after that, going through the motions of his ordinary existence without understanding why everything felt so hollow. Why he'd wake up in the middle of the night with tears on his face and an aching emptiness in his chest. Why he'd sometimes catch himself staring at chess pieces or the color violet and feel like he was forgetting something important.
Something vital.
And then his benefactors had found him.
They'd broken the seal on his memories, had unlocked his Sacred Gear, and had given him something even more precious—the means to take back what was rightfully his.
The black snake had slithered into his soul that night, coiling around the core of his being like a second heartbeat. Saji didn't fully understand what it was, but he could feel it pulsing beneath his skin, waiting to be unleashed.
And now, standing in this park with Harry Sitri's smug face staring at him, that power was screaming to be set free!
This is it, Saji thought, his heart hammering against his ribs. This is the moment where everything changes.
Harry was saying something about subduing him, about sealing his memories again, about protecting Sona from Saji's "obsession"—as if loving someone with every fiber of your being was something shameful, something that needed to be cured.
Saji felt the black snake stir.
It uncurled from around his soul with lazy, predatory grace, its presence flooding through his veins like liquid shadow. The sensation was—wrong. Alien. Like something that shouldn't exist inside a human body was making itself at home anyway. But it was also powerful, more powerful than anything Saji had ever felt before, and right now power was all that mattered!
"Balance Breaker," Saji declared! The words tore from his throat with a resonance that didn't sound entirely like his own voice. Something deeper lurked beneath the familiar syllables. Something ancient and hungry and other.
Harry's demeaning expression shifted, replaced by genuine surprise as Saji's body began to transform.
Yes, Saji thought with vicious satisfaction. That's right. Be surprised. Be afraid. See what I've become for her!
Black armor erupted from his skin. It wasn't the standard Scale Mail that a Longinus-class Sacred Gear would produce—this was something darker, something twisted. The metal was the color of a starless void, drinking in the afternoon sunlight and returning nothing. Sharp ridges traced along his shoulders and forearms like the spines of some prehistoric predator. A helm materialized around his head, leaving only his eyes visible through narrow slits that glowed with sickly purple light!
And beneath the armor, coiled around his torso like a second skeleton, Saji felt the black snake tighten its grip.
More, it seemed to whisper. Take more. Become more!
The Absorption Line burst from his gauntlet—not a single tendril this time, but a dozen, writhing and snapping like the heads of a hydra. They lashed toward Harry, seeking to wrap around him and drain every drop of magic from his body.
Harry dodged the first wave, his body blurring with devil-enhanced speed. But Saji was faster now—the armor didn't just protect him, it enhanced him, flooding his muscles with power that felt like it could crack the earth.
He rocketed forward.
The distance between them vanished in a heartbeat. Saji's armored fist connected with Harry's face—that handsome, hateful face—with a crack that echoed across the park like thunder. The impact traveled up Saji's arm in a wave of visceral satisfaction.
Harry Sitri went flying.
His body tore through the first tree like it was made of paper, the trunk exploding into a shower of splinters and bark. The second tree fared no better. The third. The fourth. He carved a path of destruction through the park's carefully maintained greenery before finally crashing to a stop somewhere in the distance, a cloud of dust and debris marking his landing site.
"HAHAHA!" The laugh that ripped from Saji's throat was wild, unhinged, bordering on hysterical. "THIS IS IT! This is the power that will allow me to win back Sona's love! Do you understand now, Harry Sitri?" Saji advanced toward the dust cloud, his armored boots leaving cracks in the concrete pathway. "Do you see what you've driven me to? All I wanted was to love her. To serve her. To be worthy of her. But you took that chance away from me!"
– Harry –
Fucking ow.
I picked myself up out of the crater my body had carved into the earth, spitting dirt and grass and what I was pretty sure was a chunk of tree bark. My cheek throbbed where Saji's armored fist had connected.
I rubbed my jaw and took stock of the damage. Nothing broken, nothing bleeding, just bruised pride and a growing irritation at myself for letting my guard down so completely.
In my defense, the last time I'd fought Saji, he'd been a barely-competent low-class devil whose entire strategy had consisted of "wrap things in glowy rope and hope for the best." Forgive me for not expecting the sad little stalker to suddenly bust out a Balance Breaker and rocket all the way to high-class territory in one dramatic transformation.
That was... unexpected.
Speaking of dramatic, Saji was still monologuing in the distance. I could hear his voice carrying across the destroyed section of the park, ranting about love and destiny and how I'd stolen everything from him. The words blurred together into a wall of cringe that reminded me uncomfortably of the villains on my mother's magical girl show. Even his delivery had that theatrical, over-the-top quality—like he was performing for an audience that existed only in his fractured mind.
"Do you see what you've driven me to?!" he was shouting. "All I wanted was to love her! To serve her! To be WORTHY of her!"
I brushed debris off my shoulders and studied him properly for the first time since his transformation.
Okay. Credit where it was due. The armor was kind of badass.
The black metal plates covered him head to toe in a design that screamed "evil knight from a dark fantasy epic." Sharp scaled ridges traced along his shoulders and forearms and the helm that encased his head left only his eyes visible through narrow slits that glowed with that unsettling purple light.
It was the kind of aesthetic that would make any British bloke appreciate the craftsmanship, even if the person wearing it was an unhinged psychopath.
But the power radiating off him...
That was wrong.
Not wrong like "this guy is stronger than expected" wrong. Wrong like "something fundamentally broken exists inside that armor" wrong. The energy he was putting out felt cold in a way that had nothing to do with temperature. It wasn't the crisp, clean cold like Sitri ice magic. This was emptiness. The absence of something that should have been there, like a wound in the fabric of reality itself.
Void.
Whatever had given Saji this power, it wasn't natural. And it definitely wasn't just his Sacred Gear evolving on its own.
I'd have to figure out who later. Right now, I had a fight to win.
Water gathered in my right hand, responding to my will with an ease that still sometimes surprised me. The liquid condensed, compressed, and then crystallized—not into the pressurized blade I usually favored, but into something more solid. A sword of pure Sitri ice, its edge so sharp it seemed to cut the light around it.
In my left hand, flames ignited. Pink-gold Veela passion flames. The flames I'd inherited from Fleur and Gabrielle and, more recently, enhanced by also sleeping with their mother Apolline. They danced across my knuckles, warm and bright and practically vibrating with the emotional resonance that made Veela fire so devastating against creatures of darkness.
My devil wings burst from my back, unfurling to their full span as I rose slightly off the ground.
Ice in one hand. Fire in the other.
Kind of poetic, really.
"—and you TOOK that chance away from me!" Saji was still ranting, advancing toward my landing site with heavy, cracking footsteps. His armored boots left fractures in the concrete pathway with each step. "You waltz in with your Maou mother and your perfect face and your—"
I launched myself at him.
The distance between us—maybe fifty meters of destroyed parkland—vanished in a heartbeat as I poured demonic energy into my wings. The air screamed past my ears, trees blurring into green-brown streaks on either side, and I saw Saji's glowing eyes widen behind his helmet as he registered that I was already on top of him.
Dozens of Absorption Lines erupted from his gauntlets in response. They writhed through the air like the tentacles of some eldritch horror, each one seeking to wrap around me and drain my power dry. More than he'd ever manifested before—the corrupted Balance Breaker had clearly enhanced his Sacred Gear's output along with everything else.
I didn't slow down.
The ice sword sang as I brought it around in a sweeping arc, severing the first wave of tendrils before they could touch me. The frozen blade cut through the magical constructs like they were made of tissue paper, leaving dissolving wisps of purple energy in its wake.
"Up and across," I heard Lilja's voice in my head, a memory of countless training sessions in the Forbidden Forest. "Don't wind up for big swings—they leave you open. Quick cuts. Efficient movements. Let the blade's edge do the work."
Two more lines came at me from the left. I pivoted, bringing the sword around in a tight horizontal slash that bisected them both. Another lunged for my legs. I dropped my weight and let it pass overhead before continuing my charge.
Saji was trying to back up now, clearly not expecting me to close the distance so quickly, but he clearly wasn't used to moving with armor on. His first strike had been fast and straightforward, but that was it.
The Veela flames in my left hand roared as I hurled them forward in a concentrated burst, aiming for the center of his chest plate. Pink fire streaked across the gap between us like a comet, trailing sparks of gold and crimson.
"YOUR PATHETIC FIRE WON'T HURT MY—"
The flames hit him dead center.
For a moment, nothing happened. Saji actually started to laugh, that unhinged cackle I'd heard before, certain that his dark armor had shrugged off my attack like it was nothing.
Then the metal started to melt.
The black plate over his chest bubbled and warped, glowing cherry-red at the point of impact as the Veela fire ate through it like acid. Saji's laugh cut off in a strangled sound of shock and pain, his armored hands coming up to clutch at the spreading damage.
"What—that's impossible—my armor is—"
Huh, I thought, watching the pink flames continue to devour the corrupted metal. The power of love really is beating out the power of... whatever the fuck he's drawing on. Loneliness? Void bullshit?
"THIS ISN'T OVER!" Saji screamed, his voice cracking with desperation as he charged at me again.
This time, I was ready.
His armored fist came at my face, the same attack that had caught me off guard before, and I stepped inside his reach rather than trying to dodge away. His arm sailed past my head, overextended, and I brought my ice sword up in a vicious diagonal slash that carved through the corrupted metal of his forearm guard like it was made of butter.
Saji howled.
Black blood—black, not red, what the fuck had they done to him?—sprayed from the wound as I danced back out of range. The Absorption Lines lashed at me wildly, lacking the coordination they'd had before, and I cut through them with almost casual efficiency.
"You want to know the difference between us?" I asked, my voice cold as I circled him. The ice in my hand pulsed in agreement, resonating with the Sitri power flowing through my veins. "It's not the magic. It's not the Sacred Gear or the bloodline or any of that."
Another wild swing. I ducked under it, then drove my elbow into the melted section of his chest plate. The weakened metal caved inward, and I felt ribs crack under the impact.
"The difference," I continued as he staggered, "is that the people in my life actually chose to be there. Sona didn't choose you, Saji. She gave you a chance, and you wasted it by being a creepy, possessive asshole who couldn't handle rejection!"
"SHUT UP!" More Absorption Lines, more desperate swings, more openings for me to exploit. "You don't know anything about what we had! She was going to love me! She was going to—"
I hit him with another burst of Veela fire, this time aiming for his helmet.
The metal warped and bubbled around his face, and he screamed—a raw, animalistic sound of agony that echoed across the destroyed park. His hands came up to claw at the melting helm, and I used the distraction to close the distance one final time.
My ice sword punched through the gap in his armor where the chest plate had partially melted away.
Not deep enough to kill him—I wasn't trying to kill him, despite everything—but deep enough to hit something important. Saji's scream cut off into a wet gurgle, his glowing eyes going wide behind what remained of his helmet.
The corrupted Balance Breaker flickered—
And then it shattered, the black armor dissolving into wisps of shadow that dissipated in the afternoon sunlight. Saji collapsed to his knees, returned to his normal human form, blood seeping from the wound in his chest and the slash on his arm.
He looked up at me with eyes that were no longer glowing, just brown and human and filled with a pain that went beyond the physical.
"Why?" he whispered. "Why does she love you and not me?"
I stared down at him for a long moment, my ice sword still in hand, Veela flames still flickering around my other fist.
"Because love isn't something you can earn through devotion or steal through force," I said finally. "It's something that happens—or doesn't. And no amount of obsessing over someone will change which one it is."
Saji's face crumpled, and he started to cry.
It should have been satisfying. This was the guy who'd stalked the woman I loved, who'd listened outside her window while I made her scream in pleasure, who'd attacked me with corrupted power in a public park with civilians nearby.
Instead, I just felt tired.
"Someone did this to you," I said, crouching down to his level. "Someone broke your memory seal. Unlocked your Sacred Gear. Gave you that... thing that was inside the armor." I met his tear-filled eyes. "Who?"
"I don't... I can't..." He was shaking, whether from blood loss or emotional collapse I couldn't tell. "They said... they said I could have her back. That they'd help me become worthy. I just had to..."
"Had to what?"
His eyes started to roll back in his head.
"Saji. Saji." I grabbed his shoulder, but he was already going limp, unconsciousness claiming him before he could finish his sentence. "Damn it."
I let him slump to the ground, then pulled out my phone to call for cleanup.
– Cao Cao –
From the rooftop of an abandoned office building nearly two kilometers away, Cao Cao watched the conclusion of the fight with a mixture of contempt and clinical disappointment.
The True Longinus rested across his shoulders, its weight as familiar as breathing. The holy spear hummed with quiet power against his palms—power that had toppled civilizations, ended the life of Christ himself.
In his hands, it was less a weapon and more an extension of his will. A promise of what humanity could achieve when it stopped groveling before supernatural beings and started taking what was rightfully theirs.
Beside him, Georg stood in silence, his bespectacled face betraying nothing as they observed Saji Genshirou collapse to his knees in the distant park. The corrupted Balance Breaker had shattered like cheap glass, leaving nothing but a bleeding, weeping wreck of a boy who'd been given every advantage and still managed to fail spectacularly.
"Pathetic," Cao Cao said, the word dripping with disdain. "We went to considerable trouble for that foolish human. Located him after the Sitri heiress discarded him like refuse. Broke the memory seal those devils placed on his mind. Unlocked his Sacred Gear." His fingers tightened around the Longinus's shaft. "We even gifted him a fragment of Ophis's power and this is the result?"
The distant figure of Saji was barely visible now, slumped on the ground while Harry Sitri crouched over him. Even from this distance, Cao Cao could make out the half-breed's black devil wings, still extended from his back like a mockery of everything pure and human.
"The void enhancement should have put him solidly in the high-class range," Georg observed, his tone as measured and analytical as always. The mist of Dimension Lost swirled lazily around his feet, ready to transport them at a moment's notice. "His physical parameters exceeded projections. The armor manifestation was stable. By all metrics, he should have been capable of—"
"Of what? Defeating a half-devil who's been training for less than a year?" Cao Cao's lip curled. "Saji Genshirou had every advantage. Superior power. The element of surprise. A Sacred Gear specifically designed to drain demonic energy from his opponent." He shook his head slowly. "And he lost because he's weak. Not in body—in spirit. In conviction. He wasn't fighting for humanity's glory or for any cause greater than himself. He was fighting for a woman who never wanted him."
Georg adjusted his glasses. "Love makes fools of men."
"Love makes fools of weak men," Cao Cao corrected sharply. "A true hero would have channeled that passion into something greater. Would have recognized that the rejection of one devil woman means nothing compared to the liberation of an entire species." He gestured dismissively toward the distant park. "Instead, he wasted Ophis's gift on a petty grudge match and now lies bleeding in the dirt, crying about why his precious Sona-sama doesn't love him back." The contempt in his voice was even clearer than before as he rolled his eyes.
Below them, in the ruined section of the park, Harry Sitri appeared to be questioning the fallen Saji. Cao Cao watched with narrowed eyes as the half-breed crouched beside his defeated opponent, probably extracting whatever information the fool was stupid enough to give up.
Not that it mattered. Saji didn't know anything truly valuable. They'd been careful about that. They wore masks when they approached him and Ophis's snakes were single use power ups. It would have burned out of Saji's system by now.
"Should we approach Harry Sitri now?" Georg asked, his hand rising slightly as mist gathered around his fingers. "He is strong, could make a good recruit."
Cao Cao considered it. "No…" Cao Cao said finally. "There's no point in approaching the half-breed."
Georg's eyebrow rose slightly behind his glasses. "You don't believe we could turn him to our cause?"
"Consider what we know about him," Cao Cao continued. "Harry Sitri is the son of Serafall Leviathan—one of the Four Great Satans. His engagement to Rias Gremory ties him to the Gremory clan as well. He has somehow acquired a Valkyrie as his Queen piece, giving him connections to the Norse pantheon. And his recent activities in Britain have drawn the attention of multiple factions, including the Fallen Angels."
Georg nodded slowly, following the logic. "He's too ensnared in the devil's evil clutches."
"Precisely." Cao Cao's eyes glowed with cold intelligence. "Harry Sitri is not a human who happens to have devil blood. He is a devil who happens to have human blood. The distinction matters. He has fully embraced his demonic heritage—the harems, the peerages. He will never embrace his noble human half," Cao Cao concluded. "He will never join our sacred mission to reclaim Earth for humanity and purge the supernatural filth that has infected our world for millennia. To him, we would be the enemy—not the liberators we truly are."
"Then he dies eventually regardless," Georg observed.
"Eventually, yes. When the time is right. When his death serves our greater purpose rather than merely satisfying the Longinus's hunger." Cao Cao allowed himself a thin smile. "Patience is a virtue, Georg. One that separates true heroes from the Saji Genshirous of the world."
Georg's expression shifted slightly into a flicker of something that might have been anticipation. "Are you sure we want to risk him getting even stronger? Why not kill him now, then? While his guard is down? The fight with Saji clearly taxed him somewhat."
Cao Cao paused in his pacing. It was tempting. With Dimension Lost, Georg could open a portal directly behind the half-breed—close enough that the True Longinus could pierce his heart before he even registered their presence. The holy spear would bypass any demonic defense, any protective magic, any desperate countermeasure.
One thrust, and Harry Sitri would be nothing but a corpse.
Serafall Leviathan would be devastated. The Sitri clan would lose their newly discovered heir. The Gremory engagement would collapse. And the supernatural world would learn, once again, that humanity was not to be underestimated!
Cao Cao's grip tightened on the Longinus. He could feel the spear's eagerness. It wanted to kill unholy beings. The weapon craved it.
"Maybe you're right, Georg" he said slowly. "Yes, I think we shall kill him now before he grows stronger. Open a portal—"
Two figures materialized in the destroyed park below.
Cao Cao's words died in his throat.
Even from this distance, even without enhanced supernatural senses, he recognized them immediately. A young man with silver-white hair. And beside him, a woman with black hair and golden eyes, her twin cat tails swishing behind her.
"What are they doing here?" Cao Cao hissed, genuine annoyance breaking through his usual composure.
Vali Lucifer and Kuroka had just appeared next to Harry Sitri, interrupting what should have been an execution.
Georg's mist swirled with agitation, responding to his master's mood. "The White Dragon Emperor and the black Nekoshou…"
"Damn it," Cao Cao muttered, more to himself than to Georg. "That bitch Katerea is going to be disappointed that her little revenge scheme failed. She was so certain that Saji would be the perfect weapon against the boy who embarrassed her and I thought this could have been a good opportunity for us as well… Oh well, there's always next time. We will meet soon enough, Harry Sitri…"
Cao Cao wasn't one to dwell in disappointment when the whole of humanity was counting on him to succeed in his sacred mission. Also, he wasn't exactly shocked about a devil's plans falling apart. Especially that unhinged bitch Leviathan.
He turned away from the edge of the rooftop, the True Longinus settling against his back as he prepared to depart with the mist Georg summoned.
– Harry –
A beam of magic suddenly whizzed past my head—close enough that I felt the heat of it brush my ear—and struck the phone in my hand with pinpoint precision. The device exploded.
"What the—" I spun toward the source of the attack, ice already crystallizing around my free hand as combat instincts kicked into overdrive. The Veela flames in my other palm roared back to life, pink and gold fire dancing between my fingers as I prepared to face whatever new threat had decided to interrupt my day.
Then I actually saw who had shot my phone, and my brain short-circuited for an entirely different reason.
"Nya Haha, sorry about that!" A woman's voice called out, the words carrying a strange, almost musical lilt that made them sound like a cat's purr given human form. "We just want to talk, nya. No need for all that scary fire"
She was... fuck.
The woman sauntering toward me looked like she'd stepped directly out of one of those Japanese doujins. Tall, with an hourglass figure that defied the laws of physics, and a face that combined beauty with an almost playful innocence. Her hair was black as midnight, flowing past her shoulders in waves that seemed to move with a life of their own. And her eyes—golden, slitted like a cat's, gleaming with intelligence and mischief and something darker lurking beneath the surface. Two black cat ears poked up through her hair, twitching and swiveling as they tracked the sounds around us. Behind her, twin tails—actual cat tails, black and very real—swayed lazily back and forth in a hypnotic rhythm that drew my eye whether I wanted it to or not. And then there was her outfit. Or rather, the loose collection of fabric that was technically functioning as an outfit.
She wore a black kimono that had clearly given up any pretense of modesty somewhere around the second bottle of sake. The garment hung open at the front, revealing a canyon of cleavage that made even Serafall's considerable assets look modest by comparison. Her breasts were massive—easily the largest I'd ever seen on a humanoid being—and the kimono was doing absolutely nothing to contain them. The fabric had slipped so far that I could see the curve of her areolas, the material covering her nipples and nothing else.
One wrong move—one slight shift of her shoulders—and she'd be fully exposed.
Focus, Harry. She just destroyed your phone. That had pictures on it. Important pictures!
The reminder of what I'd lost helped clear my head slightly. I had months of carefully curated content on that device—intimate photos that Hermione had shyly let me take after our first time together, artistic shots of Fleur and Gabrielle that would have made professional photographers weep with envy, that one video Tonks had recorded of herself using her Metamorphmagus abilities in creative ways...
All of it. Gone. Vaporized by a magical cat girl in a slutty kimono.
"That phone," I said, my voice coming out flatter than I intended, "had a lot of very important data on it."
"Did it, nya?" The cat woman tilted her head, one ear flicking in what might have been amusement. "How tragic~ I'm sure whatever was on there can be replaced, though. Pictures of family? Embarrassing ones of friends? Ooh, or maybe..." Her golden eyes glittered knowingly. "Naughty pictures of pretty girls?"
My jaw tightened.
Her grin widened, showing teeth that were just slightly too sharp to be human. "I'll take that as a yes, nya~ Don't worry, I'm sure your harem will be happy to pose for new ones. Young male devils always have such... extensive collections."
"Kuroka." A male voice cut through her teasing, cool and commanding. "We're not here to antagonize him."
I'd been so focused on the cat woman—Kuroka, apparently—that I'd almost missed her companion entirely. Which was a testament to just how distracting she was, because the young man standing beside her radiated power in a way that was impossible to ignore once you actually noticed him.
He was tall—a few inches over six feet—with silver-white hair that fell past his shoulders and eyes the color of frozen steel. His features were sharp, aristocratic, the kind of face that belonged on classical statues or royal portraits. He wore modern clothing—dark jeans, a fitted jacket, boots that looked expensive, but carried himself with the casual arrogance of someone who knew they were the most dangerous person in any room they entered. Although we were currently outside.
And he was dangerous.
The power rolling off him was immense—easily matching what the upper echelons of devils considered "ultimate class." But there was something else beneath the surface, something that felt distinctly not demonic. A secondary presence, vast and ancient and somehow separate from the young man's own aura.
A Sacred Gear. A powerful one. Maybe even—
"The name is Vali Lucifer," he said, confirming my suspicions in the worst possible way. "I assume you know what that surname means."
I did.
Lucifer. The original. The Morning Star. The first and greatest of the Four Great Satans who had ruled the Underworld before the civil war that nearly destroyed devilkind. He'd died in that war, along with the original Beelzebub, Leviathan, and Asmodeus. Their titles had been taken up by new devils—powerful ones like my mother Serafall—and the bloodlines of the originals had supposedly been scattered or extinct.
Supposedly.
"You're a descendant," I said slowly, studying Vali with new eyes. "A direct one, from the feel of it. Great-grandson? Great-great?"
Something flickered in those steel-grey eyes—surprise, maybe, or grudging respect that I'd figured it out so quickly. "Great-grandson, technically. Though the exact lineage is complicated…" he almost sounded bitter and I understood why.
He was a half-devil, then. Like me.
Though from a very different bloodline and apparently with a very different upbringing, given that no one in the Underworld had ever mentioned a Lucifer descendant running around with ultimate-class power levels.
"And you're here because...?"
"We have questions," Vali said simply. "About recent events. Specifically about what happened in Britain during the Fallen Angel attack on that wizard school."
Hogwarts. They were asking about the attack on Hogwarts? Ok, that was not what I was expecting.
My guard, which had started to lower slightly, immediately went back up. The ice around my hand thickened, and I let the Veela flames in my other palm burn a little brighter—not an attack, but a clear signal that I wasn't going to be caught off-guard again. "A lot of things happened during that attack," I said carefully. "You'll need to be more specific."
Kuroka opened her mouth—probably to make another teasing comment—but before she could speak, her expression shifted. The playful, flirtatious mask she'd been wearing slipped, replaced by something rawer. A vulnerability that looked almost painful on her beautiful face. "Shirone," she said, the nya~ affectation dropping from her voice entirely. "Was Shirone okay during the attack? Is she safe?"
I blinked, thrown by the sudden change in her demeanor. "Who?"
"She changed her name," Kuroka said, and there was old grief in those golden eyes now. "She goes by Koneko now. The white-haired girl in Rias Gremory's peerage. The only other living Nekoshou." Her cat ears flattened against her skull. "She's my little sister."
Oh.
Oh!
Suddenly a lot of things clicked into place. The cat features. The familiar name that I couldn't quite place. The way Kuroka had specifically targeted my phone to stop me from calling my peerage.
Koneko had a sister. An older sister who was, apparently, a wanted criminal in the Underworld for some reason I couldn't quite remember. Something about going stray, maybe? Killing her previous master? The details were fuzzy, but I knew Rias had mentioned it once in passing, had talked about how Koneko's early life had been traumatic and how she didn't like discussing her family.
"Koneko's fine," I said, and watched the tension drain from Kuroka's shoulders. "More than fine, actually. She kicked a lot of ass during the attack. Took down at least a dozen Fallen Angels by herself, from what I heard. And she's been doing well at Hogwarts in general—she's made friends, she's eating well, she seems... happy."
"Happy," Kuroka repeated, and her voice cracked slightly on the word. "She's happy, nya?"
"Yeah." I thought about what I knew of the small, stoic girl who served as Rias's Rook. Koneko was quiet, sure. Reserved. But I'd seen her with Gasper—the way she'd gently bullied him into being more social. I'd seen her around the other Hufflepuffs at Hogwarts.
"She has friends," I continued. "A couple of girls from Hufflepuff house basically adopted her. They think she's adorable—which she is, objectively—and they're always trying to feed her snacks and do her hair. Koneko pretends to hate it, but she secretly loves the attention." I paused, then added, "She's also discovered she really likes the food at Hogwarts. The house elves make these little pastries that she's apparently obsessed with. I've seen her eat like twelve of them in one sitting."
Kuroka made a sound that was half-laugh, half-sob. "That sounds like Shirone. She always did have a sweet tooth, nya" The nya was back, but it sounded different now. Softer. Like a verbal tic that she used to comfort herself rather than to flirt or tease. "Thank you," she said, meeting my eyes directly for the first time since the conversation had turned serious. "For telling me. I know you didn't have to, and I know I probably don't deserve to know after... after everything." Her tail drooped. "I'm just glad she's okay. That she's happy. Even if she hates me."
I didn't know what to say to that. I didn't know the full story between these two sisters, didn't know what had driven them apart or what Kuroka had done to earn her criminal status, but I recognized the look in her eyes. The same look Narcissa had when she talked about losing Draco. The same look Lilja sometimes got when old memories of her previous life surfaced.
The look of someone who had lost family and would give anything to get them back.
"If it helps," I said quietly, "I'll tell her you asked about her. That you were worried."
Kuroka's eyes went wide. "You'd do that, nya? Even though I destroyed your phone and all those naughty pictures?"
"I can take new pictures." I shrugged. "Sisters are harder to replace."
For a moment, she just stared at me. Then a genuine smile spread across her face, not the predatory, flirtatious grin she'd worn before, but something warmer and more real. "You're alright, Harry Sitri," she said softly. "Shirone's lucky to have someone like you looking out for her, even from a distance."
"I'm her King's fiancé," I pointed out. "It's basically a family obligation at this point."
"Still counts, nya~"
Vali, who had been watching this exchange with an expression of barely concealed impatience, finally cleared his throat. "As touching as this reunion is," he said dryly, "I believe we came here for a specific purpose. Kuroka?"
"Right, right." The cat woman waved a hand dismissively, her playful mask sliding back into place—though it fit a little differently now, a little more loosely. Like armor she was wearing by choice rather than necessity. "You had questions too, Vali. Something about your precious rival, nya~?"
Vali's expression tightened almost imperceptibly at the teasing, but he didn't rise to the bait. Instead, he turned those steel-grey eyes back to me, and I felt the weight of his attention like a physical pressure against my skin.
"The Boosted Gear," he said flatly. "I know that the Fallen Angel Kokabiel possessed it when he attacked your school. I know that you and your mother defeated him. What I want to know is what happened to the Sacred Gear itself—and to its previous host?"
Ah. So that's what this was about.
I thought about what I knew of Sacred Gears. The top-tier ones—the Longinus-class weapons capable of killing gods—were rare enough that each one was tracked carefully by every major faction in the supernatural world. The Boosted Gear and Divine Dividing were particularly famous, not just for their individual power, but for the ancient rivalry between the dragons sealed within them.
Ddraig, the Red Dragon Emperor. Albion, the White Dragon Emperor. Two Heavenly Dragons who had battled since the dawn of time, their conflict so fierce that even the forces of Heaven, Hell, and the Fallen had united temporarily to seal them away into human-compatible Sacred Gears.
And now I was standing in front of the current White Dragon Emperor, who was asking about his rival.
"The previous host is dead," I said bluntly, seeing no point in sugar-coating it. "Has been for about a month, from what we can tell. Kokabiel killed him to steal the Boosted Gear—murdered a seventeen-year-old boy just to add another weapon to his arsenal."
Something flickered across Vali's face. Disappointment? Anger? It was hard to read, there and gone before I could identify it. "I suspected as much," he said quietly. "When the trail went cold in Kuoh Town, when I couldn't sense my rival's presence anywhere in the region... I knew something had happened. But I'd hoped..." He trailed off, shaking his head. "It doesn't matter what I hoped. The reality is that my fated opponent was cut down before he could grow into his potential. Before we could face each other as equals!"
There was genuine grief in his voice, I realized.
Not for the person who had died, Vali probably hadn't known Issei Hyoudou at all, but for the battle they would never have.
"What about the Boosted Gear itself?" Vali pressed. "Where is it now?"
"Still attached to Kokabiel, last I know. He's being held in the Underworld for interrogation." I paused, then added. "But the Gear itself rebelled against him during our fight. Ddraig apparently didn't appreciate being stolen by someone who murdered his host, and he refused to grant Kokabiel access to Balance Breaker. Made it pretty clear he'd never serve the bastard willingly."
Vali's eyebrows rose slightly. "Ddraig rebelled? Against a wielder?"
I shrugged. "Dragons have their pride, I guess."
"They do," Vali agreed, and there was something like respect in his voice now. "Ddraig and Albion both. They may be sealed within Sacred Gears, bound to serve whatever host fate chooses for them, but they're still Heavenly Dragons. They still have standards."
"So what happens now?" she asked. "With the Boosted Gear, I mean. You can't just leave a Longinus attached to a prisoner forever, nya~"
"We're still figuring that out," I admitted. "The obvious solution would be to find a new host…" There was no way the Devil Faction was giving up that kind of power after all.
Vali hummed thoughtfully. "You could take it."
I blinked. "What?"
"The Boosted Gear." He studied me with those steel-grey eyes, assessing, calculating. "You're strong. You're growing stronger rapidly, from what I've heard. And you clearly have the drive to push yourself—otherwise you wouldn't have survived this long with so many people trying to kill you." His lips quirked. "You might not be the rival I was promised, but you could be a worthy opponent nonetheless!"
"I already have a Sacred Gear," I pointed out. "And I'm not exactly looking to add a second voice to my head."
Vali's expression shifted into something that might have been amusement. "A voice?"
"Ddraig would be able to see everything I see. Hear everything I think. Experience everything I..." I gestured vaguely. "You know. Experience. For potentially the next ten thousand years."
Understanding dawned on Vali's face, followed by what looked suspiciously like a smirk. "Ah. You're concerned about privacy."
"I have a very active personal life," I said flatly. "I don't need a dragon commenting on it."
Kuroka burst out laughing. "He's worried about a voyeur dragon watching him have sex, nya~! That's adorable!"
"I fail to see how wanting privacy with my partners is adorable."
"It's adorable because you have so many partners that it's actually a concern!" She was practically cackling now, her whole body shaking with mirth. "Most boys would jump at the chance to wield a Longinus, but Harry Sitri over here is like 'no thanks, I don't want a dragon perving on my harem time'!"
Vali looked like he was fighting very hard not to laugh as well. The corner of his mouth kept twitching upward despite his best efforts to maintain his cool, composed demeanor. "It's a valid concern," he managed, though his voice was suspiciously unsteady. "Albion sees everything I do as well. The Heavenly Dragons are... surprisingly invested in their hosts' personal lives."
He says from experience, I thought grimly. Great. So it's not even paranoia—the dragons actually do watch.
Voyeur dragons…
"I'll pass," I said firmly.
Vali studied me for a long moment, that calculating look returning to his eyes. Then he reached into his jacket and produced a small card— a phone number printed in silver ink. "Keep this," he said, tossing the card to me. I caught it reflexively. "I want to know what happens with the Boosted Gear. Whether it finds a new host, whether Ddraig chooses someone worthy, whatever the outcome. Call me when you know more! I want to know who my future rival is."
This was something I'd have to talk with the girls about. I couldn't exactly keep the secret that I met the secret descendant of Lucifer—and he was also a half-devil white dragon emperor secret from them all. Not that I would even want to keep that a secret.
"...I'll let you know," I said finally, pocketing the card.
Vali nodded. He turned to leave, and Kuroka moved to follow him. But she paused at the last moment, glancing back over her shoulder with a smile that was equal parts mischief and genuine warmth.
"Tell Shirone I said hi, nya" she called. "And tell her that her big sister is watching over her. Always. Oh, and Harry Sitri?" Her golden eyes glittered with returning playfulness. "If you ever need someone to help you... replenish your photo collection... I'm always available for a sexy nude modeling session. I'm very photogenic, nya"
And then she was gone, following Vali into the shadows between the trees, leaving me standing alone in the ruined park with a bleeding stalker at my feet and the strangest sense that my life had just gotten significantly more complicated.
I looked down at Saji, who was still unconscious and very much in need of medical attention.
Then I looked at the scattered remains of my phone, searching for any sign that the memory card might have survived the magical blast.
Priorities, Harry, I told myself firmly. The creepy stalker probably needs a hospital. The nudes can wait.
But I still spent a good thirty seconds digging through the debris before giving up and pulling out the backup phone I kept for emergencies.
Some things were worth looking for…
– Ophis –
In the space between spaces, where reality folded upon itself like origami made of starlight and void, the Infinite Dragon God drifted.
Ophis had existed before the concepts of "before" and "after" had meaning in language. She had seen civilizations rise from mud and return to dust so many times that the pattern had long since ceased to be interesting. She had been present when the Biblical God had shaped the first angels from divine light, had observed with detached curiosity as Lucifer's rebellion painted the heavens in fire and blood, had noted with mild annoyance when the Great Red had claimed the Dimensional Gap as his own and filled her perfect silence with his obnoxious presence.
Millions upon millions of years. An eternity of consciousness stretched across the infinite canvas of existence.
And yet.
Despite what the foolish humans, devils, and angels all believed, Ophis was not stupid.
Her form was that of a young girl today, because that shape required the least amount of effort to maintain. Black hair that seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it. Eyes like pools of absolute nothing, darker than the space between galaxies. A Gothic Lolita dress—that she had copied from a human magazine she'd taken from a male fallen angel—because the frills amused her in a way she couldn't quite articulate.
She looked like a child.
She was anything but.
Something used my power, she thought, the words forming slowly in a mind that operated on timescales most beings couldn't comprehend. Again. Without asking. Without permission.
The sensation was familiar by now—a tiny tug at the edge of her consciousness, like a single thread being pulled from an infinite tapestry. One of her snakes had been activated. The small fragments of her power that she had distributed to various members of that organization... what did they call themselves? The Khaos Brigade? Yes. That was the name they had chosen. A foolish name, in Ophis's opinion. Chaos was not something to be celebrated or organized into brigades. Chaos was simply the natural state of existence before order imposed itself, and order was merely a temporary aberration in the grand scheme of things.
But the Khaos Brigade had promised her something she wanted.
They had promised to help her defeat Great Red.
So she had given them snakes. Small portions of her infinite power, compressed into serpentine forms that could bond with hosts and elevate their abilities far beyond their natural limits. It was nothing to her—like a human giving away a single strand of hair. The power would regenerate almost instantly, and the snakes themselves were useful tools for those who wished to serve her purpose.
The problem was that lately, the tools had been... misused.
She could sense, distantly, the network of snakes she had distributed across the world. Most of them pulsed with the steady rhythm of their hosts' life forces. Cao Cao and his humans, various devils and fallen angels who had pledged themselves to her cause, others whose names she had never bothered to learn.
But this particular activation felt different.
Not one of my chosen, she realized, her consciousness expanding outward to trace the thread of power back to its source. Someone else. Someone I did not gift directly. The snake had been passed along. Given away. Transferred from one of her servants to an outsider without her knowledge or consent.
Annoyance flickered through Ophis's ancient mind. She did not like when her gifts were treated as commodities to be traded. She did not like when her power was used for purposes she had not sanctioned. She did not like...
Wait.
The sensation that washed over her in that moment was so unexpected, so utterly foreign, that Ophis actually stopped thinking. Her black eyes widened as she processed what she was feeling.
Warm.
Something had touched her snake. Something had made contact with the fragment of her power that was currently bonded to that unknown human, and the sensation that traveled back along their connection was...
Warm.
Ophis did not understand warmth. Not really. She understood the concept intellectually—the movement of particles, the transfer of energy, the physical processes that humans and other mortal beings associated with comfort and safety. But she had never felt it before. Not like this. Not as something that registered in whatever passed for her emotional center.
The Dimensional Gap was cold. The void between realities was cold. Her own infinite existence was cold in a way that had nothing to do with temperature and everything to do with the fundamental nature of what she was. She was emptiness given form, infinity compressed into a shape that could interact with the limited beings around her. Warmth was not something that should have been able to reach her.
And yet.
Nice, she thought, and the word felt strange in her mind. Inadequate. Like trying to describe an ocean using only the vocabulary for puddles. This is... nice?
Not nice like silence was nice. Silence was the absence of annoyance, the removal of Great Red's constant presence, the peace that came from having nothing intrude upon her consciousness. Silence was comfortable in the way that a perfectly fitted glove was comfortable—it simply was, without demanding anything in return.
This warmth was different.
This warmth was active. It made her feel something that she couldn't quite name, something that stirred in the depths of her infinite being.
IT WAS TOO BRIEF, SHE WANTED TO FEEL IT AGAIN…
Unfortunately, whoever was wielding that warm power had clearly won their fight against the human hosting her snake. The connection severed abruptly as the snake's host lost consciousness—or died, Ophis didn't particularly care which—and the thread of sensation snapped like a guitar string pulled too tight.
"NO!"
The word echoed through her base with more force than she had intended. For a being who prided herself on perfect control, the loss of composure was... concerning.
Also, she was pretty sure multiple of her "loyal followers" just heard her shout and they now soiled themselves…
She decided to ignore that…
I want to find it. The warm thing. I want to feel it again.
But the connection had been too brief. The snake had been destroyed or deactivated before Ophis could trace the location back to its source. All she knew was that somewhere on Earth—that small, crowded, noisy planet that she generally avoided whenever possible—there existed a being who possessed a power that could make the Infinite Dragon God feel warm.
She needed to find them.
She needed to understand why their power affected her this way.
Ophis paused. The logical solution was obvious, even if the execution would require effort she didn't usually bother expending.
More snakes, she decided. If I spread more of my power across the world, the chances of encountering that warmth again will increase. And next time, I will be paying attention. Next time, I will trace the connection before it breaks. Next time...
Next time, she would find the source of that impossible, wonderful, terrifying warmth.
And then?
Ophis wasn't sure. All she knew was that she wanted more.
XXX
Do you also want to read a few chapters ahead of my posts on this site? You can!
You can check me out on "Pat-reon.-com / Starwaves" to support me and read a few chapters ahead of everyone else!