Back over Kuoh, Ren shook out his hand once, flexing his fingers.
"Not bad," he said casually. "Good warm-up."
He floated there in the torn remains of the sky, coat drifting in a wind that wasn't wind at all but lingering shockwaves. The Saint Kingdom ring still hung above Kuoh like a ghostly halo, bindings of white-gold power coiled around the three old Satans. Kokabiel's twisted mass of stolen light and shadow was nailed in place like a pinned insect.
Ren didn't look at any of them.
He looked past them.
Past the cracked clouds, past the shimmering edge of his domain, past the stained atmosphere of this small blue planet.
He looked at the world.
And for a heartbeat, the world understood that something was looking back.
It started as a weight in the air. Not demonic power, not holy light, not dragon aura or magic. It was quieter and deeper, like the pressure you feel when staring down from the edge of a cliff at an endless ocean.
Ren let his intent rise—not flaring out violently, but unfolding, layer by layer.
The universe was staring at him.
He stared right back.
Far below, Rias' breath caught in her throat. Sona's fingers trembled around her clipboard. Azazel leaned forward where he hovered over a glowing observation array, eyes blazing with hungry curiosity. Michael, watching from Heaven through a projected image of the scene, closed his eyes and bowed his head, feeling the honesty in what was coming even as it sat like ice in his chest.
Ren tilted his head, as if listening to a question only he could hear.
"You all saw that," he said quietly.
His voice wasn't loud. It slipped out into the broken air almost conversationally.
It didn't need to be loud.
Soundless shockwaves radiated from him anyway, carrying his words and his will. They rolled outward like invisible tides, slipping through barriers and wards, through Satans' offices and gods' shrines and shabby underground cult circles. Every camera pointed at Kuoh jittered. Every scrying spell shuddered and cleared, as if someone had wiped a hand across its surface to give a better view.
Even ordinary humans, the ones who'd only seen flashes of light and heard distant thunder, stiffened. In train cars and cramped apartments, in convenience stores and crowded crossings, people looked up from their phones and books with the faint, inexplicable sensation that someone had just made an announcement on the other side of a platform.
They couldn't quite make out the words.
They knew they wouldn't forget the feeling.
"I'm going to make this simple," Ren said.
He raised his hand and snapped his fingers.
The gesture was casual, almost lazy. The effect was anything but.
The sound didn't travel as normal sound. It folded into the wave of his intent, the "snap" becoming a pivot point for the world's attention. Power compressed around that point, a ring expanding through dimension after dimension.
"This world," Ren said, "is going to change."
He didn't shout, didn't adopt some grand heroic tone. The words came out like an observation, like a man pointing out that the sun was about to rise.
"This era won't be 'gods on top, everyone else scrambling underneath' forever," he continued. "I'm opening a road."
The word "road" hit differently.
In his mouth, it wasn't just a metaphor. The Dao he'd brought from a forgotten universe stirred, and for those who could sense such things, a phantom path appeared for a heartbeat—a corridor of possibilities stretching up from the mortal earth toward a sky crowded with divinities.
"Anyone who wants it," Ren said, "devil, angel, human, yokai, dragon—can walk it. You cultivate. You work. You bleed. And if you don't quit, one day you can stand up there with the so-called chief gods and look them in the eye."
"Anyone can become a 'god' by effort," Ren went on. "Anyone can chase their dream."
His eyes flicked toward Kuoh for a heartbeat—not at the buildings, but at the hearts gathered there.
"You want to protect someone? Fine. You want to see what's outside this universe? Fine. You want to sit on a throne and look cool?" His mouth curved slightly. "Sure, knock yourself out."
Rias' chest tightened. That lazy phrasing, that almost joking tone—it made it easy to forget the scale of what he was talking about, like he was inviting people to try a new restaurant instead of rewriting how existence worked.
Azazel exhaled through his teeth.
"He's serious," the Governor muttered, more to himself than the Fallen Angels crowded behind him. "He really intends to… no, he's already done it. Those Soul Palaces, Myriad Origin… he's building an alternate ladder."
On the other side of the sky, floating above white clouds in halls of light, Michael bowed his head deeper. His halo dimmed just a fraction as he weighed the implications.
If anyone could become strong enough to stand beside the current "chief gods"…
It was both terrifying and… strangely hopeful.
Ren smiled.
Warm. Real. Almost boyish.
"But there's a condition."
The warmth didn't vanish.
It sharpened.
His gaze focused, like a friendly man who'd been laughing with you suddenly letting you see the steel in his eyes.
"If you fuck with my women or my students," he said calmly, "you disappear."
The curse wasn't shouted.
It slid out of his mouth like it belonged there, heavy and cold, made all the more jarring precisely because he almost never swore.
"No theatrics," he continued. "No second chances. No dramatic speeches. You just stop being a problem. Like Loki. Like that so-called Evil Dragon."
The memory rose as one.
The way the God of Mischief's aura had vanished, not sealed, not scattered, but erased, leaving behind only a hollow where a threat had once stood. The way Aži Dahāka had roared into existence as a nightmare of fanged chaos…
…and then gone silent.
Asia shivered, fingers twisting in the fabric of her skirt. The word he'd used—fuck—should have felt harsh, crude. Instead it felt like a sharp line drawn in the sand, a border between safety and oblivion.
Koneko's ears twitched. Her tail wrapped tightly around her leg, Touki stirring unconsciously in response to his possessiveness. There was fear there—but also an odd, warm weight in her chest.
In the Underworld, half hiding behind a couch as she watched through a Leviathan-sized glamour screen, Serafall swallowed hard.
"Uu… that's kinda hot but also super scary…" she muttered, squeezing her magical-girl cushion until its seams protested.
"…He talks," Tiamat murmured, "like an old dragon who got bored and decided to play mortal."
"Understand something," Ren went on. "I like this world."
His tone shifted. It wasn't the reverence of a protector or the pride of a king. It was almost casual affection.
"There are a lot of beautiful people in it. A lot of good food. Nice places. Weird shows. Noisy cities. Quiet shrines."
Images flickered in the hearts of those listening—Kuoh's streets at dusk, ramen stalls in back alleys, crowded festivals under strings of lanterns, lonely mountain shrines dusted with snow.
"You all did a decent job building it," Ren said. "Considering how much you've screwed up."
Ddraig rumbled in Issei's chest, a deep, amused vibration only his host could truly feel.
[Heh. He talks big,] the Heavenly Dragon said, [but it smells like truth, partner.]
Albion did not answer out loud to his host.
Inside Vali, the White Dragon simply watched, silent…and did not disagree.
"So I'm going to protect what I like," Ren said simply. "Not because I'm some 'chosen hero,' not because your systems picked me—just because I decided to. That's all."
There was something almost selfish in that declaration. Something nakedly human.
Michael's hand tightened around his staff.
Choosing to protect without being chosen.
He took a quiet breath and let it out.
Then Ren's smile turned brighter.
"Now," he said, "for the fun part."
Every god, every devil, every hidden monster pricked up their ears at the next words.
"All of you prideful idiots chasing 'chaos' and 'returning to the old era'," Ren said.
The air in certain secret rooms went very still.
"Khaos Brigade, Alliance of Hell, every god who doesn't like the way I do things." He lifted his hand and pointed into the distance—not toward some particular direction, but toward a place that wasn't really a "place" at all.
The Dimensional Gap rippled as his finger aligned with it.
Reality thinned like a curtain brushed aside by a lazy hand. For a moment, the sky over Kuoh seemed to open onto an endless sea of color and emptiness, an ocean where Great Red swam and Ophis's quiet presence lingered like a forgotten note.
"Come to the Gap," Ren invited. "Bring your best. Let's have a party with Ophis, Great Red…"
His smile widened, faintly wicked.
"…and if you're dumb enough to unleash it early, Trihexa too."
In the Hindu heaven, Shiva's hand froze halfway to his chin.
"…He did not just say that," he muttered.
In the Grigori base, Azazel choked on his drink.
"He did," he croaked, pounding his chest once. "He definitely did."
In a cavernous hall cloaked in deep shadows, Rizevim Livan Lucifer's eye twitched so hard it hurt. Around him, members of Khaos Brigade's Qlippoth faction shifted uneasily.
Ren's smile turned sharp.
"Only three of us walk away," he said. "The rest disappear. Permanently."
The statement fell on the world like a meteor.
Fear.
Hatred.
Greed.
Desperation.
They flared in different corners of the supernatural map.
In the Realm of the Dead, on a throne carved from the concept of the Underworld itself, Hades closed his eyes, skeletal fingers tapping lightly against the armrest in a rhythm that only he understood. Beside him, Nyx's delicate hand drummed against her knee in irritation, shadows coiling tighter around her ankles. Somewhere deeper, in a place that was more concept than location, Tartarus' laughter rolled like stones tumbling down an endless pit. Angra Mainyu's invisible presence, dark and foul, condensed into something more focused.
In Khaos Brigade's scattered lairs, arguments broke out.
"We can't fight that yet!"
"We have Trihexa—"
"Trihexa isn't a tool, you fool, it's an extinction event!"
In the Hero Faction's camp, Cao Cao leaned back and laughed, shoulders shaking, Spear of Longinus resting across his lap.
"He's insane," he said, eyes shining in the dimness. "Completely insane. I like him."
Georg pinched the bridge of his nose, temples throbbing. "Of course you do."
Rizevim clenched his teeth hard enough that a faint crack sounded. Humiliation burned through him like acid.
He hadn't even stepped onto the stage yet.
And already, this man had exposed his plans, stolen one of his Evil Dragon trump cards, and thrown out a challenge that treated his ultimate weapon like just another board piece.
"…you've painted a target on your own back, brat," Rizevim muttered, nails digging into his palm. "Fine. Let's see whose chaos wins."
Ren wasn't finished.
"Oh, right—one more thing," he added, voice light.
The lightness did not reach his eyes.
"If you ignore the invitation and try to take cheap shots instead—attack Kuoh, Kyoto, the Norse, the Shinto, Heaven, Grigori, or the Underworld to get at me…"
He smiled.
This time there was no warmth at all.
Only teeth.
"…then I come find you," he said. "And I make you wish you'd taken my kind offer."
He gestured vaguely toward the ground, toward the shattered battlefield that still remembered Aži Dahāka's fury.
"You already saw what I did to these old bags and that so-called Evil Dragon," he went on. "Imagine what I'll do when I'm actually annoyed."
Katerea Leviathan trembled inside her binding, eyes burning with a cocktail of outrage and fear. Shalba Beelzebub's lips peeled back in a snarl, the pride of his bloodline straining against terror like cracked armor. Creuserey Asmodeus stared up at Ren, disbelief and hatred warring in his gaze.
"Y–you… devil…!" he rasped. "You set us up—"
Ren tilted his head.
"I'm pretty sure I'm a cultivator," he said mildly. "And yes. I did."
His tone didn't shift.
"You were useful. Now you're not."
He lifted his hand.
Five points of light bloomed in his palm.
They were not bright in the usual sense. No blinding radiance, no holy glow, no demonic flare. They were points of definition—tiny anchors of law, each one a shard of Petrifying Immortal Light refined through his Dao.
He flicked his fingers.
The lights dropped.
Slow.
Inevitable.
One for Katerea.
One for Shalba.
One for Creuserey.
One for Kokabiel.
One for the man who thought he could hide in the background and crawl away to repeat his sins—Valper Galilei.
Ren's eyes didn't harden.
They didn't need to.
"I can't have you crawling back out of some Graal or dragon resurrection trick," he said. "So…"
The lights touched their foreheads.
For Katerea, the first sensation was wrongness.
It wasn't pain. Pain she understood. Pain she could twist, turn into hatred to keep herself upright. This was like someone reaching into the roots of her existence and erasing labels.
This wasn't demonic power or holy fire. It wasn't a curse of the gods or some elaborate sealing technique.
This was law.
His law.
Shalba felt his lineage—the proud, poisonous thread that tied him to Beelzebub—snuff out like a candle in a gust of cold wind. The heavy, ancient weight of that name evaporated, leaving a hollow ache where his identity had once rested.
Creuserey felt the authority of "Asmodeus" crumble into dust. The centuries of inherited fear and respect that came with the title blinked out. For a heartbeat, he tried to scream, to call upon the echo of his ancestor.
Nothing answered.
Kokabiel, already pinned and sealed, had just enough awareness left to understand that this wasn't merely death. He'd survived a Great War. He'd bathed in the blood of angels and devils alike. He knew what a corpse felt like.
This was different.
He felt his existence being edited.
Not just his body—his place in the story.
Valper, cowering in the shadow of his own cowardice, didn't even have time to beg. The last thing he felt was a thin, cold disgust that wasn't his own.
Across the world, in hidden libraries and corrupted shrines, spells and contracts that had their names woven into them shuddered. Lines of text blurred. Spaces where "Katerea Leviathan," "Shalba Beelzebub," "Creuserey Asmodeus," "Kokabiel," and "Valper Galilei" had once been inscribed simply…emptied.
The lights sank in.
Reality adjusted.
"Goodbye," Ren said.
They vanished.
No bodies.
No souls.
No lingering curses, no sealed husks to dredge up later, no fragments to graft onto new vessels.
Just empty spaces in Saint Kingdom where, moments earlier, five high-tier threats had been.
In distant corners of the supernatural world, people who had clung to those names as banners or nightmares, who had built plans assuming those pieces on the board, felt a sudden, sick lurch. As if a pillar had been quietly kicked out from under their world and only now were they realizing how much of their weight had rested on it.
Silence crashed down over Kuoh.
No one spoke.
For a heartbeat, the only sound was the faint, static crackle at the edges of Saint Kingdom.
Then Ren exhaled.
"Alright," he said cheerfully. "That's done."
...
He folded Saint Kingdom back down without ceremony.
The vast domain compressed like a breath being let out. Its towering walls of law shrank, layer after layer collapsing until only a thin, invisible film remained, wrapped around the manor like a second skin.
The shattered sky knit itself together.
Cracks closed. Clouds drifted back into place as if the last ten minutes had been a fever dream—or a nasty glitch in a game someone had quietly patched.
Kokabiel's absence was louder than any scream.
Ren drifted down.
The battlefield—if the term still applied—was a wreck of gouged earth and broken concrete, scorched air and lingering magic. Wards lay shattered. Craters yawned where attacks had landed. The faint smell of ozone, ash, and something older than any of them clung to the wind.
Rias, Sona, their peerages, Xenovia and Irina, the exorcists, Griselda's party…they all stood there, dazed, their battle formations half-forgotten.
Griselda held her sword lowered but not sheathed, fingers white around the hilt. Her expression remained composed, but tension lined the corners of her mouth.
Sairaorg's fists were clenched so hard his nails had broken skin. Drops of blood fell unnoticed to the dirt as he stared at the man who had just casually erased threats that had haunted briefing rooms for years.
Vali's eyes blazed, not with hatred but with raw, hungry frustration and excitement.
Issei shook, not from terror but from the sheer, overwhelming scale of what he'd just witnessed. Inside his chest, his Soul Palace hummed uneasily, his newly condensed inner world struggling to digest everything it had just seen.
Akeno's second Soul Palace thrummed quietly inside her, lightning coiled around its structures with a mix of joy and awe and something like dread.
Asia's eyes were glassy. She kept checking Ren's silhouette, as if expecting him to suddenly crack and fall apart.
Koneko realized she was already moving before she consciously decided to. Her feet carried her a few steps forward, toward him, ears straining for his heartbeat, her body obeying a simple, stubborn need to confirm that he was there.
Ren touched down lightly in front of them, boots sinking a fraction into the cracked ground.
"Hey," he said, smile easy. "You all did good."
"Good?" Rias repeated weakly.
Her hand, still faintly trembling, gestured helplessly at the sky that had just been rewritten.
"Ren, you just—just—"
The words wouldn't line up. Aži Dahāka was gone. The three old Satans were gone. Kokabiel and his rebellion were gone. Half the world had just watched him stand alone against everything they feared and then declare open season on every top-tier threat in existence.
Ren's smile didn't crack.
"Yeah," he said. "I made things convenient."
Sona's glasses flashed as she pushed them up. Her lips pressed into a tight line.
"Convenient," she echoed. "For who?"
"For everyone who isn't trying to burn the world down," Ren replied without missing a beat. "Look at it this way: now they can't hide what they're doing."
He jerked his chin toward the empty sky.
"You saw their war rooms. Their alliances. Their toys. There'll be no more surprises."
Sona's mouth opened, closed. For a second she looked like she wanted to throw her clipboard at him.
Then she let out a short, disbelieving snort.
"…I feel like my father complaining about Ajuka-sama," she muttered. "He calls things like this 'help' too."
Ren chuckled.
Akeno stepped closer, dark eyes narrowed, her usual teasing smile dimmed.
"Ren," she said softly. "Do you have any idea what you've just done?"
"Sure," he said.
He spread his hands, as if presenting a simple, mundane truth.
"I declared myself public enemy number one to every stubborn god and terrorist in the setting."
Azazel, watching through a linked talisman from above, groaned and scrubbed a hand over his face.
"He knows," the Governor muttered.
Ren shrugged.
"It's fine," he went on. "They'll come for me first. That's safer for you."
Asia's hands clenched together at her chest.
"That's… that's not 'fine'," she whispered. "If they attack you, you could—"
He reached out and ruffled her hair.
"Hey," he said, voice softening, teasing the edge of a smile. "You think I'd leave you behind that easy?"
Asia's eyes filled with tears. The knot in her chest loosened just a little.
Koneko stepped fully into his reach and lightly bumped her forehead against his arm, tail curling around his waist like a tense, low-hanging question.
"You're reckless," she said quietly. "And dumb. And too strong."
"Harsh," he said, amused.
He smoothed a hand over her hair, fingers lingering just long enough to ground her, to let her feel the solid warmth of his presence.
Rias stepped forward, fingers fisting in the front of his shirt. She yanked him down until their foreheads nearly touched, crimson hair falling around them like a curtain.
"Next time you decide to challenge every top-tier enemy in existence," she muttered, "tell me first."
He met her eyes.
"I thought you'd yell at me," he said.
"I am yelling," she snapped. "Internally."
He laughed, low and warm.
"Alright," he said. "Next time, we'll make it a couple planning session. I'll bring snacks."
Akeno sighed, somewhere between exasperated and fond.
"Really," she murmured. "You're impossible."
"But you're ours," Rias added.
The word ours settled over the group like a quiet claim.
Ren squeezed her hand once.
"Exactly," he said.
Behind them, a projection shimmered into existence, sparkling like a magical girl transformation sequence.
Serafall popped into view, twin-tails bobbing, eyes wide and a little wild.
"Ren!" she wailed. "You can't just say 'only three of us walk away' with Trihexa like it's a fan event! Do you know how many people just had heart attacks?!"
"Probably fewer than you think," he said. "Most top-tiers have good hearts."
"Ren," Griselda's voice cut in, cool and composed despite the strain. "You used holy swords as bait. You exposed Headquarters' internal security breaches. You made Heaven look…"
She paused, searching for the right word.
"…incompetent," she settled on.
Ren glanced at her, expression lazy but eyes attentive.
"And then," she continued more quietly, "you erased one of our greatest external threats in less than a minute and forced the enemies hiding behind him into the open."
She exhaled, shoulders easing a fraction.
"I will be explaining this for years," she said. "But…thank you."
Ren's smile gentled, losing some of its sharpness.
"You're welcome," he said. "For what it's worth, I meant what I said. I won't let them touch your people at all."
Her gaze softened by a hair.
"…I know," she said.
Vali dropped down from the sky, dust swirling around his boots as he landed.
"Hey," he called. "Next time you drag out a Heavenly Dragon-class, let me throw a punch or two."
Ren grinned.
"Train faster," he said. "Catch up. Then we'll talk."
"Tch." Vali clicked his tongue, but his eyes burned. The fight he'd just watched was stuck in his head like a pattern he couldn't wait to tear apart.
Sairaorg stepped forward, battle aura simmering low but intense.
"I will not embarrass this era," he said simply.
Ren's eyes glinted.
"I don't think you could, even if you tried," he replied.
Around them, peerages, exorcists, and guests slowly began to breathe again. Fear didn't vanish. It wouldn't. But looking at the man laughing with them, the same man who had just erased a cluster of nightmares like bad paperwork, they felt something else coil around their fear.
Hope.
He didn't sigh.
Didn't grimace.
Didn't play the tragic martyr.
He was just…Ren.
...
Later, the formal debriefs began.
In the Underworld, in a private chamber, Sirzechs listened to report after report. Every time someone said "he erased them" or "he invited Trihexa" his eyebrows climbed a little higher. By the end, they had reached territory no one had seen before.
"So," he said at last, fingers laced in front of his mouth. "He declared war on every major terrorist organization and half the pantheon-level problems we know about."
"Yes," Grayfia replied.
"And he did it while standing over Kuoh, with all recording devices active."
"…Yes."
Sirzechs closed his eyes for a moment.
Then he sighed very quietly.
"As expected of Rias' man," he said.
In Heaven, Michael massaged the bridge of his nose while luminous reports floated around him.
"That human," one of the Seraph muttered, not quite able to keep the awe out of his voice.
"Not human anymore," another corrected softly.
Michael shook his head.
"Titles aside," he said, "he moved to protect what he loves. That much, at least, is simple."
In a Grigori conference room, Azazel filled entire whiteboards.
He drew loops and circles and arrows, scribbled "DAO?" in three different colors, underlined "Soul Palaces" and "Myriad Origin Scripture" until his markers squeaked.
Beside "Loki erased" and "Aži Dahāka gone," he wrote, in smaller letters: Foundation of the world is being rewritten from the outside.
He underlined that twice.
In the Realm of the Dead, the Alliance of Hell argued until their voices grew hoarse and their aura warped the walls. Hades tapped his fingers, Nyx's shadows spread and retracted with her mood, Tartarus' laughter came and went like distant thunder, and Angra Mainyu's malice pressed against the edges of his prison.
In Khaos Brigade's hidden halls, Rizevim, Cao Cao, and their subordinates recalibrated their plans. Schedules shifted. Targets changed. Contingencies bloomed. For the first time in a long while, the old monsters felt something they had almost forgotten.
Pressure.
In small corners, in quiet shrines and cramped rooms, other gods and monsters whispered. Some cursed him. Some admired him. Some, very quietly, wondered whether they should be betting on him instead.
Trihexa's name, once an abstract apocalypse reserved for distant discussions and closed-door panic, now sat next to a new one on every clandestine agenda.
Ren Ming.
...
That night, back at the manor, the house felt strangely small.
Ren padded barefoot down the hallway, shirt loose over his shoulders, hair still damp from a quick shower. The echoes of his declaration hung around him like ghost-light, but on his face there was no extra weight.
If anything, his shoulders looked looser now than they had before the battle.
He could feel it, of course.
Every eye.
Every scrying spell.
Every god's attention.
His Immortal Soul Bone had already reached out during the confrontation, calmly dissecting the snarled web of hatred, alliances, and contingency plans that linked today's enemies to tomorrow's disasters. Complexity had collapsed into simplicity in his mind. Lines of cause and effect had been reduced to threads.
Now those threads ran through him.
At the very least, if any of the idiots he'd called out tried to move on Kuoh, Kyoto, the Norse, the Shinto, Heaven, Grigori, or the Underworld, the tug on those threads would feel like someone yanking his sleeve.
He smiled to himself.
"Convenient," he murmured.
He pushed open the door to the main living room.
Conversation died instantly.
Most of his girls were there.
Rias sat on one couch, arms folded, a book open in her lap. She wasn't reading it. Crimson eyes watched him steadily over the top of the page.
Akeno lounged beside her, hair down around her shoulders, a cup of tea cradled in her hands. Lightning lay coiled low and calm inside her, like a tamed serpent resting on warm stone.
Asia sat cross-legged on the floor with a cushion under her knees, hands folded in prayer. Her head turned the second he entered, eyes locking onto him with the intensity of a parishioner spotting a miracle in human form.
Koneko perched on the arm of a chair, tail flicking slowly, golden eyes steady, ears tilted toward the door before it even opened.
Serafall had somehow squeezed onto the couch next to Rias, hugging a cushion shaped like a magical girl version of herself. Her glittery socks dangled off the armrest.
Sona occupied a corner chair, a stack of documents in her lap. Her expression tried very hard to be impartial and analytical. The faint crease between her brows betrayed her.
Griselda sat with her legs together and back straight, cup of tea cooling in her hands. Her usual calm bore a tightness at the edges tonight.
Tiamat leaned against the far wall, arms folded, eyes half-lidded. Even in human form, the presence of the Chaos Karma Dragon filled the room like a storm waiting politely outside a window.
Ravel sat primly near the end of a couch, fan in hand, hair immaculate but shoulders a little tense. Penemue slouched beside her, glasses low on her nose, expression a mix of intellectual interest and the fatigue of someone whose schedule had just exploded.
Kuroka occupied a corner of the room, curled like a cat on a cushion, tails wrapped loosely around her hips. Kuroka's gaze slid to him with a lazy boldness that didn't quite hide the tightness in her shoulders.
Xenovia and Irina sat together, one swordswoman serious and straightforward, the other bright and anxious
Le Fay had somehow ended up near the coffee table, grimoire in her lap, eyes shining a little too much for this late at night.
Their auras filled the space—devil and dragon, angel and fallen, human and something utterly alien that had begun to seep into their cores thanks to him.
Ren glanced around at all of them.
He lifted both hands.
"Okay," he said. "Before you all take turns lecturing me: no one here is going to get hurt because of that declaration."
"That's not how war works," Sona snapped, sharper than usual. "You can't guarantee—"
"I can't guarantee everything," he agreed easily. "But I can sense if any of them tries something big. They're all tangled up with me now."
He tapped his chest lightly.
"If they pull on those threads, I feel it."
"And you'll just…go fight them," Ravel said, brows furrowed, fan forgotten in her lap.
He smiled at her, softer, teasing.
"I'll go stretch my legs," he said. "If one of them gets a cheap shot in, I'll come home after I clean up and steal your lap for a pillow."
Ravel's face went scarlet.
"T-that's not—! You can't—!"
Penemue pinched the bridge of her nose.
"You are infuriating," she said. "And entirely too smooth."
Tiamat narrowed her eyes.
"You invited them into the Gap with Ophis and Great Red like it was a barbecue," she said. "Dragons do not host like that."
"I'll bring meat," he said amiably. "They'll be fine."
She snorted despite herself, tail flicking in annoyance.
Asia scrambled to her feet, hands balling into fists.
"Ren," she said, voice shaking. "I… I know you're strong. I know you're careful. But… I'm still going to worry. Is that… okay?"
He crossed the room in a few steps.
Laid a hand gently on her head.
"That's normal," he said. "I like that you care."
Her eyes shone, breath catching.
Koneko hopped down from the armrest and pressed herself against his side, arms wrapping briefly around his waist.
"Don't die," she muttered into his shirt.
"I'm hard to kill," he reminded her, amusement shading his tone. "Ask the Heavenly Dragon-class I just erased."
"That's not funny," Rias and Sona said together.
He laughed.
"Alright," he said. "I'll be careful. I won't go looking for a fight just to show off. If they come, I'll handle it. If they don't…"
He let his gaze sweep the room again.
"We keep cultivating. We keep dating. We keep living."
Akeno's smile softened. The sharp edge of her usual sadism melted into something warmer.
"Always so relaxed," she murmured. "Even after provoking every major faction."
"Someone has to be," he said. "If I start panicking, you'll all think the sky's really falling."
"It is," Serafall said, flailing her arms dramatically, twin-tails bouncing. "Metaphorically!"
He grinned.
"Then we'll learn to dance on it," he said.
Silence fell.
Not the heavy, stunned silence from earlier in the day. This one was lighter. Fragile, yes, but with room to breathe.
One by one, shoulders eased. Not all the fear vanished. It wouldn't. The lines of worry on Griselda's face didn't completely smooth. Sona still looked like she was internally reworking contingency plans. Rias' fingers still twitched with the urge to grab his shirt again.
But they trusted him.
Not because he was invincible.
Because he was Ren.
The man who cooked breakfast because Asia's eyes lit up when he did. Who listened to Akeno's darkest confessions without flinching. Who sparred with Sairaorg until dawn, laughing even as his shirt was torn and his joints ached. Who taught knights and rookies and dragons the same cultivation art without condescension. Who smiled through everything and never once asked any of them to make themselves smaller to fit around his path.
He'd just declared war on the world.
He'd also promised, in his own simple, terrifying way, to keep coming home.