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The silence that fell over the bloodstained living room was so dense it almost drowned out the electric hum of the light sword.
Freed Sellzen, his maniacal smile still frozen on his face, blinked a couple of times. He looked at the newcomer, scrutinizing his appearance. Kaiju was barefoot, wearing only and exclusively a pair of sleeping shorts, with messy hair and a gaze that promised total annihilation.
"Huh? And who are you supposed to be, pajama backup?" Freed let out a shrill laugh, pointing his gun at Kaiju. "Hahaha! How touching! The Devil has a human friend who comes to save him in underwear! Hey, kid, you came to the wrong party! We only serve minced meat here!"
Kaiju did not move a single muscle. His eyes, dark and unfathomable, remained fixed on the priest with a coldness that froze the atmosphere. The irritation of having been torn away from the warmth of his home and Sylvie's arms boiled inside him.
"You talk too much," Kaiju murmured, his voice sounding mortally bored.
"And you die very fast!" Freed roared, losing patience.
With an explosive impulse, the exorcist lunged forward. He raised his light saber and brought down a slash with all his strength, aiming directly at the teenager's bare neck.
Asia let out a terrified scream and closed her eyes. Issei extended his hand, uselessly.
CLAAANG!
The sound was not that of flesh being cut. It was the deafening echo of metal striking something infinitely harder.
The divine light sword violently bounced off when it struck Kaiju's shoulder. There was no cut. No blood. Not even a burn mark on his skin. The passive aura of his physical Ki and his divine resistance made his body harder than any material on Earth.
Freed's eyes opened wide, his psychotic smile collapsing.
"What...?!" the priest stammered, taking a step back by instinct. "Impossible! That's a weapon of pure light!"
Wasting no time, Freed raised his exorcist gun. He pulled the trigger repeatedly, emptying the magazine in desperation.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The bullets of light shot point-blank toward Kaiju's chest. However, upon touching the boy's skin, the sacred projectiles simply flattened and bounced off harmlessly, falling onto the wooden floor with a dull clink, as if they were simple plastic marbles.
Kaiju did not even blink. He looked at the bullets on the floor and then at the exorcist.
"Are you done?" Kaiju sighed, running a hand through his hair with deep heaviness. "Sylvie is waiting for me."
Before Freed could reload his weapon or articulate a single curse, Kaiju's figure simply disappeared from his sight. There was no trail, no sound.
In the next instant, the exorcist felt a crushing presence right in front of his nose.
Kaiju had reappeared face-to-face with him. The purest and most primitive terror seized the priest as he looked into that single brown eye that reflected no mercy whatsoever. Freed tried to retreat, but his legs did not respond.
Kaiju took a breath, puffed his cheeks slightly, and in a way that was almost comical yet loaded with colossal physical strength, blew.
FUUUUUSH!
It was not a magical attack. It was pure, raw compressed air pressure born from the superhuman strength of his lungs.
The gust of air struck Freed as if it were the direct impact of a category-five hurricane concentrated into a single point. The exorcist's body was lifted off the ground instantly. He shot upward at supersonic speed, destroying the roof of the two-story house with a brutal crash. Wood, roof tiles, and plaster rained all over the living room as Freed's figure vanished into the immensity of the night sky, leaving behind a distant echo of his terrified screams.
Kaiju looked at the huge hole in the ceiling through which the moon could be seen, brushing dust off his shoulders.
"Team Rocket was defeated again..." he murmured to himself, remembering that old anime from his original world.
No longer paying attention to the hole in the ceiling, Kaiju reached into the pocket of his shorts, took out a Pokéball, and threw it onto the floor.
A flash of white light illuminated the destroyed room. With a deep metallic roar, a colossal Aggron, covered in thick steel plates, materialized in the living room. The Pokémon's weight made the floorboards creak.
Asia let out a small choked scream and stepped back, frightened by the immense monster.
"Tank, calm down," Kaiju ordered, pointing at the blonde nun. "Protect the girl. Don't let anything get near her."
The Aggron nodded with an obedient growl. He turned toward Asia and, despite his terrifying appearance, sat heavily in front of her, lowering his head to let the girl look him in the eyes, adopting a defensive but surprisingly gentle posture.
Satisfied with the nun's safety, Kaiju turned toward where Issei was still lying on the floor, bleeding and groaning from the light bullet wounds in his legs.
Kaiju's face hardened. He walked toward the brown-haired boy and crossed his arms, looking down at him.
"You're a disaster, Issei," Kaiju began, his voice devoid of any sympathy. "You told me on the school rooftop that you wanted to become the strongest devil. You promised you would protect your president and your clan. And here you are, lying on the floor, being used as a mop by a fourth-rate priest."
"T-The light bullets... are poison to us!" Issei complained, grimacing in pain as he tried to sit up. "Besides, he was insane!"
"Excuses," Kaiju cut him off dryly. "Weaknesses are overcome with training, not whining. If you're going to enter this world, you'd better stop being pathetic. I'm not going to appear every time someone decides to point a weapon at you. Next time, stand up and fight, or better yet, quit already."
Issei lowered his gaze, biting his lip, humiliated but knowing that the boy in shorts was absolutely right.
Before Kaiju could continue his sermon, soft footsteps approached. Asia had overcome her fear of the imposing Tank and ran toward the injured brown-haired boy, kneeling beside him.
"Ise-san... please, let me help you," Asia said, her voice full of concern and sweetness.
The young nun clasped her hands and closed her eyes. A beautiful and warm emerald-green glow, the power of Twilight Healing, emanated from her palms and enveloped Issei's bloodied legs.
Kaiju watched the scene in silence. He noticed how the light bullets were expelled and how the devil's flesh instantly regenerated under the girl's sacred power. It was pure healing, a total paradox: a servant of light healing a being of darkness without causing him pain.
Issei sighed in relief, the pain disappearing completely from his body. He looked at the blonde girl with immense gratitude, then raised his gaze toward his "Master," expecting another scolding.
But Kaiju simply looked away, with an inscrutable expression on his face, waiting for them to finish so he could consider that stupid nighttime interruption over.
In the center of the destroyed living room, an immense and complex crimson magic circle lit up over the splintered wooden boards. From the scarlet light emerged the unmistakable figures of the Gremory peerage: Rias at the front, flanked by Akeno, Kiba, and Koneko, all with expressions of maximum alert and weapons ready for a lethal confrontation.
They had tracked Issei's signature and that of the Fallen Angels, expecting to find a massacre.
But what their eyes registered left them absolutely petrified.
There was no trace of Freed Sellzen. Instead, the roof of the house had a colossal hole that revealed the full moon. Issei was sitting on the floor, completely healed, beside a blonde nun. And a few meters away from them...
Kiba tightened his grip on his demonic sword. Koneko adopted an instinctive combat stance, her feline pupils dilating to the maximum. Akeno lost her usual sadistic smile, and Rias felt a chill run down her spine.
Before them stood a colossal beast, an armored monster of steel plates that stared at them with cold and instinctive eyes. And beside it, with his hands in his pockets, messy hair, and wearing only sleeping shorts, stood the scarred boy.
"Kaiju Hano..." Rias whispered, her blue eyes opening wide.
The Gremory heiress swallowed. The metallic beast standing before them matched perfectly with the descriptions of the chaos in the warehouses. Issei had not lied. The "Ghost," the destructive monster who had annihilated renegades and disintegrated a Fallen Angel, was not an ancient god or a supreme devil... he was the transfer student from their own academy. And in that instant, the boy looked at her with such absolute indifference that it made her feel tiny.
"Buchou..." Issei murmured from the floor, breaking the tension. "Freed attacked us, but Kaiju sent him flying through the roof. Literally."
Rias tried to recover her composure, straightening her posture and taking a step forward to address Kaiju. However, before she could utter a word, the atmosphere changed again. A dense, dark, and numerous amount of hostile energies began manifesting at the edges of the area.
Akeno closed her eyes for a second. "President. Multiple Fallen Angels are rapidly approaching our position."
Rias gritted her teeth. She looked at Kaiju, then at the blonde nun, and finally at her Pawn. The tactical situation was a disaster. They were not prepared for open war with a faction of the Fallen that very night, and the presence of the unpredictable "God" in shorts only added an uncontrollable variable to the board.
"We retreat. Now," Rias ordered firmly. "Kiba, help Issei."
The blond knight nodded, approaching to lift the brown-haired boy from the floor.
"Wait, Buchou!" Issei protested, struggling weakly. "We can't leave like this! We have to take Asia with us! The Fallen Angels are coming for her!"
Rias looked at him sternly, though a flash of compassion crossed her eyes.
"We cannot, Issei. She is a servant of the Church, a sacred nun. The laws of our factions strictly forbid us from interfering with their members or bringing them into our territory. If we protect her, it will be an official declaration of war. Our side cannot afford that fight tonight."
"But they're going to kill her!" Issei shouted, extending his hand toward the blonde girl.
Asia lowered her gaze, clasping her hands at chest level. A sad and resigned smile appeared on her lips.
"It's all right, Ise-san..." Asia whispered, her eyes damp. "Please, go. I don't want you to get hurt because of me. May God protect you."
The magic circle beneath the Gremory peerage's feet began to shine more intensely, preparing for teleportation.
Rias gave Kaiju one last, deep look. The teenager did not even make a move to stop them or intervene; he simply let out a lazy yawn, as if all the supernatural politics and the imminent arrival of the Fallen Angels mattered to him less than the dust on the floor.
"We're leaving," Rias declared.
With a blinding flash of crimson light, the devils disappeared from the place. The echo of Issei's screams calling out for Asia faded into nothing, leaving the destroyed house sunk in sepulchral silence.
The wind blew coldly through the hole in the ceiling.
Asia Argento remained kneeling on the wooden floor, clutching the cross on her habit. She knew what awaited her. The Fallen Angels would use her, discard her, and her life would come to an end. She was alone.
Or so she believed.
A dull metallic roar pulled her out of her tragic thoughts.
Tank, the colossal Aggron, let out a snort and stood up. Kaiju took the small red-and-white sphere from his pocket and aimed it at the armored beast.
"Good job, Tank. Rest," Kaiju murmured.
A beam of red light enveloped the steel beast, absorbing it into the Pokéball with a soft beep, leaving the living room even emptier.
Asia blinked, surprised that the fearsome scarred boy was still there. He had not left with the devils. He had not fled despite the aura of the Fallen Angels already surrounding the perimeter of the house.
Kaiju crossed his arms, feeling the cold night air strike his bare torso and mentally cursing the fact that he had been forced to leave bed in sleepwear. His girlfriend was waiting for him at home, probably worried sick.
Slowly, Kaiju lowered his gaze and fixed his one healthy eye on the young blonde nun, who looked at him with a mixture of wonder and reverent fear.
Immense divine power pulsed within him. He could disintegrate the approaching Fallen Angels with a simple movement of his hand, or open a portal and take Asia far beyond the reach of any faction in a microsecond. The tactical and combat options in his mind were infinite.
But Kaiju tilted his head, his stoic expression softening by barely a millimeter, and asked the nun the most out-of-place and mundane question anyone could ask on the edge of an imminent apocalypse.
"Hey, Asia..." Kaiju called, breaking the nighttime silence.
The nun raised her face, emerald eyes wide, expecting an evacuation order, a miracle, or a battle strategy.
"Y-Yes, Kaiju-san?"
The reincarnated God scratched the back of his neck lazily.
"Do you like Kinako bread?"
The question hung in the cold air entering through the huge hole in the ceiling.
Asia Argento blinked. Her immense emerald eyes opened wide, her brain desperately trying to process the situation. Just a few meters from the house, dozens of lethal Fallen Angel energy signatures were closing the encirclement, thirsty for blood and ready to execute or kidnap her. And the boy who had just sent a psychopathic exorcist flying into the stratosphere, standing in sleeping underwear, was asking her about traditional Japanese pastries.
"K-Kinako... bread?" the nun stammered, her voice trembling from confusion and residual fear. "I... I don't think I have ever tried it, Kaiju-san."
Kaiju nodded slowly, scratching his cheek with an expression of genuine pity, as if the fact that she did not know that sweet was an infinitely greater tragedy than the supernatural siege unfolding outside.
"That's a shame. It's sweet, soft, and the toasted soybean powder gives it the perfect touch," Kaiju commented in a casual tone, relaxing his shoulders. "My girlfriend loves it. In fact, she's become quite an expert at baking it. Today she prepared a fresh batch for dinner."
The sound of flapping feathers and heavy footsteps began to be heard in the front yard. The shadows of the Fallen Angels were projected through the broken windows. They were about to burst in.
Asia hunched her shoulders, terror taking hold of her again. "K-Kaiju-san... they're already here. You have to run! If they find you with me, they'll kill you!"
Kaiju did not even deign to look toward the windows. With an exasperated sigh, he closed his one healthy eye for a fraction of a second and released an invisible wave of his Ki. It was not a destructive attack, but a pure manifestation of concentrated spiritual pressure, similar to a mountain falling onto the shoulders of every living being within a fifty-meter radius.
Outside, the noises of the Fallen Angels stopped dead. Several bodies could be heard falling heavily onto the grass, paralyzed by primitive terror and a spiritual gravity that prevented them from moving a single muscle.
Kaiju opened his eye again, as if he had simply scared away a couple of mosquitoes.
"As I was saying..." the boy continued, returning to his conversational tone. "The Church excommunicated you, right? And those black-winged guys with crow complexes only want to use you for that healing miracle you carry inside. Basically, you have nowhere to go."
Asia lowered her gaze to her hands, gripping the fabric of her habit. Kaiju's words were harsh, but true. She had been expelled from the only home she knew for the simple act of healing a devil out of compassion. Now she was a fugitive in a foreign country, hunted by monsters.
"It is... my punishment," Asia whispered, warm tears slipping down her pale cheeks. "I suppose this is the fate the Lord has chosen for me."
Kaiju frowned slightly. He took a couple of steps, closing the distance between them, and stopped right in front of the kneeling nun. The light of the full moon illuminated his face, highlighting the scar over his right eye, but his expression showed neither forced pity nor cheap sympathy; it showed deep understanding.
"Fate is an excuse invented by cowards so they don't have to take control of their own lives, Asia," Kaiju said, his voice losing its lazy tone and becoming firm and comforting. "The God you believe in gave you that power to save lives, not so you could let yourself be used by a group of feathered scum. And he certainly didn't give you that metal button so you would give up."
Asia raised her face, her green eyes meeting the teenager's stoic but warm gaze.
Kaiju slipped a hand into the pocket of his shorts and gave her a crooked, almost resigned smile.
"I have a problem, Asia. It seems I've developed a certain weakness for taking care of homeless girls," Kaiju confessed, letting out a small nasal laugh as he thought of Sylvie. "I live in a fairly large place. It's invisible to the rest of the world, noisy sometimes because it's full of giant monsters that act like lapdogs, but it's safe. And there's always hot food."
Asia's heart skipped a beat. The tears in her eyes were no longer from sadness, but from incredulous wonder.
Slowly, Kaiju leaned forward and extended his right hand toward her. His palm was open, firm, offering exactly the same miracle he had promised her hours earlier.
"Would you like to live with us?" Kaiju asked, with absolute softness. "Sylvie will be very happy to have someone else to talk to... and I'm sure you'll love her Kinako bread."
The young nun looked at the extended hand. The world around her, the terror of persecution, the cold of the night, and the crushing loneliness seemed to fade away. Despite his rough appearance and terrifying powers, the boy in front of her radiated the warmest light she had ever felt.
With a choked sob of pure gratitude, Asia raised her own trembling arm and placed her delicate fingers over Kaiju's hand.
The boy's grip was strong and protective. He pulled her gently, helping her to her feet.
"Welcome to the family," Kaiju declared.
Without directing a single glance toward the windows where the Fallen Angels remained immobilized by panic, Kaiju brought his fingers to his forehead. With a soft, dry POP!, both of them disappeared from the place, leaving the ruined house completely empty and an unsurpassable mystery for Kuoh's supernatural world.
With another sharp, dry POP!, space readjusted around them.
The icy breeze of the night and the distant echo of Kuoh City traffic welcomed them. Asia blinked, still dizzy from the sudden spatial translocation. When her vision focused, she realized they were in the middle of a silent park, standing before an immense and ancient oak tree whose branches disappeared into the darkness of the night sky.
At first glance, there was absolutely nothing else. No buildings, no shelters, only the city's wild nature.
Kaiju gently released the nun's hand and raised his gaze toward the colossal tree. Channeling a minuscule fraction of his energy, he adjusted the frequency of the Divine Concealment barrier protecting his sanctuary, allowing Asia's spiritual signature to be registered as a "guest."
As if a veil of water had been drawn aside before her eyes, the illusion vanished. Asia choked back a cry of surprise. Among the thick and imposing branches of the oak rested a beautiful and sturdy cabin of dark wood, perfectly integrated with nature, warm lights shining through its windows.
"This is your new home, Asia," Kaiju announced, pointing at the structure with a calm gesture.
The young blonde stared at the treehouse in amazement, but before she could take a step toward the wooden stairs, Kaiju gently stood in her way. His gaze, usually cold or lazy, settled carefully on the girl's left cheek. There, an ugly violet bruise stained her pale skin, the brutal reminder of the blow with the gun that the exorcist Freed had dealt her minutes earlier.
"Before you go in and meet the family, let's get rid of that ugly memory," Kaiju said.
The young man raised his right hand and touched the nun's cheek with extreme delicacy. Asia trembled slightly at the contact, but immediately, the boy's brown eyes mutated. His iris lit up with an immaculate and deep Ocean Blue color.
The Healing ability of the Celestial Eyes activated. A warm, comforting light, soft as spring water, flowed from Kaiju's fingertips into the girl's injured skin. Asia closed her eyes, feeling instant relief. In barely a second, the bruise disappeared completely, leaving her complexion as perfect and free of pain as if the blow had never happened.
Kaiju blinked, returning his eyes to normal, and gave her a faint smile. "Much better. Let's go inside."
Asia nodded, her cheeks now flushed with a natural blush and her heart beating with pure gratitude. They climbed the stairs together, and Kaiju opened the simple wooden door.
Upon crossing the threshold, the young servant of the Church's mind experienced a monumental short circuit.
She had expected to find the rustic, narrow interior of a child's cabin. Instead, space expanded violently and majestically before her eyes. It was a gigantic complex, the size of a soccer field, with vaulted ceilings four stories high, crystal staircases, polished steel corridors, and a homely warmth that defied every law of physics and Euclidean architecture.
"M-My God...!" Asia whispered, bringing both hands to her mouth, turning in place to admire the immensity of the dimensional laboratory. "It's huge! It's a palace!"
Kaiju smiled with pride, about to explain how he had manipulated three-dimensional space-time, when his sharp ears—trained under extreme gravity and martial rigor—caught a familiar sound.
Light, hurried, excited footsteps approached from the hallway connecting to the main bedroom. It was Sylvie.
Kaiju's tactical brain, capable of processing combat at hypersonic speed, made a lightning-fast calculation of the situation. He had abruptly left the bed in the middle of the night, interrupting his alone time with his girlfriend. Knowing Sylvie's infinite devotion and eagerness to please him, Kaiju knew, with absolute and prophetic terror, exactly how she would be dressed to welcome him upon his return. Lingerie. And probably very, very daring.
Panic seized the God of Destruction. He had a pure and innocent nun at his side! If Asia saw Sylvie in that state, the psychological impact would be irreparable.
Barely a millisecond before his girlfriend's silhouette turned the hallway corner, Kaiju reacted.
His eyes opened wide, devoured by the intense and blinding White color of Absolute Transmutation. Kaiju did not move a finger; he simply projected his divine will directly toward the cotton and lace fibers covering the approaching girl.
At the subatomic level, Sylvie's daring and translucent nighttime lingerie restructured all at once. The atoms of silk and lace expanded, multiplied, and thickened in the span of a blink.
Just as Sylvie peeked her head out from the hallway, with a radiant smile and open arms ready to receive her beloved, her outfit was no longer a weapon of mass seduction. Instead, she was wearing a huge, fluffy, and ridiculously modest pastel-pink full-body pajama, bunny slippers included.
"Kaiju, you're back...!" Sylvie stopped dead. She blinked a couple of times, lowering her gaze toward her own body, touching the thick pink plush fabric with extreme confusion. "Huh? I-I was sure I had put on the black lace set... When did I change?"
Kaiju let out a long and heavy sigh of relief, deactivating the white glow in his eyes and wiping a drop of cold sweat from his forehead. His heart crisis had been successfully avoided.
Sylvie looked up, still confused by her sudden wardrobe change, and that was when she noticed the blonde girl in a nun's habit standing beside her boyfriend, looking at her with large curious and admiring eyes.
Kaiju cleared his throat, recovering his stoic and relaxed posture, and placed a hand gently on the nun's back to bring her a little forward.
"Sylvie, I'm sorry for tonight's interruption," Kaiju said, with a warm and familiar smile. "I want to introduce you to someone. This is Asia Argento. She is new in town, she likes miracles, and from today on, she is the newest member of our family."