Ren clapped his hands once.
The sound cut cleanly through the murmur of the courtyard.
"Okay, ducklings," he said, voice easy, mouth curved in that lazy half-smile that somehow made even dragons listen. "Today's special. We're taking a detour from 'hit things harder' and 'don't die to your own tribulation' and talking about something more annoying."
He lifted his hand, fingers sketching absent lines in the air.
"Curses. Seals. Suppressions. All the little tricks gods and creeps like to use when they don't want to fight fair."
The shift in mood was instant.
Griselda's fingers tightened subtly around her rosary, knuckles paling. Sairaorg's jaw set, lion's pride refusing to flinch but eyes narrowing all the same. Rossweisse's mind went straight to old Norse battlefields and Valkyrie reports, calculation already spinning behind her gaze. Sona adjusted her glasses, storing the word "suppression" like a new formula she would dissect later.
Even the air changed—Soul Palaces dimming a fraction, instincts remembering old scars.
"Why now?" Azazel called from the edge of the formation, sunglasses pushed up into his hair, curiosity bright. "You planning to pick a fight with someone specific?"
Ren rolled one shoulder, relaxed.
"Angra Mainyu," he said. "Evil God of Zoroastrianism. 'Evil of this world.' The guy who joined Hades' little Alliance of Hell to wipe out Longinus users and top gods because he hates how the board looks."
His tone stayed casual, but the name crawled over skin like cold oil.
"He's not the flashy 'throw a sun at you and scream about justice' type," Ren went on. "He's the 'you don't even realize you've been rotting from the inside for three days' type. Guys like that don't control battlefields with beams and swords. They control them with rules. With stains. They twist how things are supposed to work and then watch people drown."
A subtle shiver moved through the gathered crowd.
Sacred Gears pulsed uneasily. Holy artifacts hummed. Even the seasoned veterans among the devils and angels shifted their weight, as if something sticky had brushed against their souls.
"Now, in a perfect world," Ren said, "he'd get all offended, march right up to me, and we'd have a nice, clean conversation with fists. I punch him, he curses me, somebody loses, end of story."
He snorted softly.
"But he's not that kind of guy. He's a rat. He'll go for what he thinks I can't live without."
He let his gaze drift slowly across them.
Rias, Akeno, Asia, Koneko. Issei, Kiba. Sona and her peerage. Sairaorg's team. Azazel's Fallen. Griselda's exorcists. The Slash Dog team. Tiamat lounging overhead. Serafall's projection flickering near the back. Penemue, Rossweisse, Ravel, the Kyoto youkai envoys…
"My women," Ren said calmly. "My students. My friends."
Asia swallowed, fingers curling around her rosary.
Akeno's smile thinned.
Koneko's tail bristled.
"Which means," Ren concluded, "we're going to make that a really bad idea."
He lifted his hand.
The Immortal Soul Bone woke.
Light didn't flash outward—it folded inward, like reality was taking a breath around his spine. For an instant, the manor courtyard wasn't just a courtyard anymore. Every cultivator in range felt it: that sense of standing at the lip of something vaster.
Between one heartbeat and the next, a strand of Dao-script unfolded above his palm—alien to devil magic, to angelic miracles, to youkai arts. It was a script that didn't belong to this cosmology at all. Even Ajuka's Demonic Code, watching through distant devices, would have twitched away from that logic on instinct; it was a language written for Fate Palaces and Life Wheels, not magic circles and formulas.
Ren's voice shifted—still relaxed, but edged with that patient, clinical tone he used when he was teaching something dangerous.
"This is a sub-art of my Grand Dao," he said. "Myriad Epoch True Self Canon, branch technique: Calamity-Shearing Veil."
Seekvaira's glasses flashed. "You… condensed an anti-curse routine into a discrete law fragment…" she whispered, half to herself, Treater Scholar brain trying to map what she was seeing to anything she knew.
"Yup," Ren said.
He snapped his fingers.
Light fell.
Not beams. Lines.
Thin, clean strokes of Dao-script descended from the air like silent rain. Each line carried a flavor of his Dao—Nine Worlds solidity, Tenth World flexibility, Three Immortals introspection, Eight Desolates ferocity—folded into a single principle.
They passed through foreheads, chest, wings, Sacred Gears, rosaries, touki flows. They didn't burn. They didn't tear. They simply… inscribed themselves.
Rias gasped, hand flying to her sternum.
Inside her first Soul Palace, the Throne of Ruin pulsed. That throne—her crystallized authority over destruction, sitting at the heart of a ninety-percent-condensed inner world—shivered as a new pattern coiled around it. A translucent veil of Dao-script wrapped the throne's base and back, threads sinking into the palace walls. It tasted of Ren's Dao: stubborn, domineering, utterly uninterested in outside judgment.
Foreign laws that tried to reach for her core would find a razor-fine barrier waiting, ready to shear them off before they even touched her "self."
Akeno's lightning flickered.
Her demonic and fallen auras twisted once, then smoothed, currents re-routing themselves through subtle, newly-drawn paths. The Heavenbreaker Circuit etched along her meridians accepted the veil like an upgrade patch. From now on, anything that tried to ride her lightning inward—curses hitchhiking on her thunder, seals woven into hostile divine bolts—would be scraped clean before they reached anything vital.
Asia's Twilight Saturation shivered.
Her Sacred Gear's light, already reshaped into something broader and gentler by Myriad Origin and the Twilight arts, felt a new layer forming under it: a quiet, stubborn refusal. Any command that tried to flip "healing" into "poison," "blessing" into "plague," would meet a rule that said no. You stay what you are. You heal. You save. You don't twist.
Koneko's Immutable Core thumped once in the depths of her inner world.
Within her Soul Palace, that white stone at the center of everything—her chosen "monster" self, her acceptance of what she was—grew denser. Gravity curled around it, a deeper inward drag. Curses that tried to take root in her senjutsu, in her body, in her emotions would find no cracks to slip into. Only solid rock.
Even Tiamat stiffened on her rooftop perch, pupils slitting. She'd spent ages watching gods of various hells throw curses and seals at dragons, trying to bind them, erode them, turn them into weapons. Some old, buried instinct recognized the pattern of Ren's art as predator—not of dragons, but of the parasites that liked to chew on dragons.
Around the courtyard, other reactions rippled.
Issei felt the Boosted Gear flex, red scales on his gauntlet pulsing in time with the new script that had joined the existing Myriad Origin circulation and the Dragon Recycle Drive. Some part of Ddraig's ancient battle instincts hummed; this was a layer that would grab foreign rules like debris and drag them into a furnace.
Kiba's sword intent twined with the veil, Heavy Earth Severing sharpening in a new way—a promise that any curse solidified enough to have "weight" could be cut along with the body that carried it.
Sona felt formulas trying to assemble themselves in her mind around the principle of "shearing"—arrays that would factor in hostile rules as variables to be canceled out instead of constants to obey.
Griselda's breath caught when she felt something cool and firm settle over the old, half-healed scars in her soul—remnants of past exorcisms, failed missions, children she hadn't been able to protect. It didn't erase those scars. It simply… lay over them, like a hand between them and any new harm.
Ren let them breathe through it for a few heartbeats.
Then he spoke.
"This doesn't make you invincible," he said. "It doesn't mean you can go around licking cursed artifacts to see what happens. What it does is give you a buffer. A chance."
He tapped his chest once.
"If a god of curses tries to hijack your body through a mark or a seal, this art will try to cut that connection. If some ancient suppression field tells your Soul Palace to sit down and shut up, this will argue. Loudly."
His gaze settled on Asia.
"If something like Angra Mainyu tries to turn your healing into poison," he said quietly, "this will fight like hell to keep you you."
Asia's eyes filled. Her head bowed, shoulders trembling, but her Twilight Saturation brightened underneath the veil like a small, stubborn sun.
"Now," Ren went on, voice firming, "here's the rule. If you ever feel this veil activate—if your skin crawls, your power stutters, and your instincts scream that something's trying to sit on you—you do not play hero. You do not grit your teeth and see how long you can endure. You disengage. You get out. You call me."
Issei raised a hand hesitantly. "Even me?"
Ren nodded without hesitation. "Indeed. You've already got enough weird stuff fused into your soul. Don't let some god of hate use you as a testbed."
Inside his Sacred Gear, Ddraig snorted in rough approval. Albion, watching through a distant talisman from Vali's side, hummed agreement. If there was one thing Heavenly Dragons understood, it was that you never let an enemy rewrite your rules.
Griselda cleared her throat softly.
"Ren," she said. "Are you… truly planning to seek this Angra out?"
Ren shrugged, the motion loose.
"Yeah," he said. "That's the plan. I need the Alliance of Hell and Khaos Brigade to hate me so much they can't think straight. I want them all in one place, screaming about how arrogant I am, convinced their schemes will finally work."
His smile sharpened, fearless.
"Then we meet in the Gap with Ophis and Great Red, and we see whose chaos wins."
The words dropped into the courtyard like stones.
Even people who didn't fully grasp what the Dimensional Gap meant felt the air tighten. The image—gods of hell, chaos dragons, a man whose Dao didn't belong to this reality—was too vivid.
A murmur rippled through the crowd.
Sona's voice cut through it, calmer than she felt. "Why?" she asked quietly. "Why go that far? Why make yourself the lightning rod?"
He looked at her for a long moment.
"Didn't I already say it?" he replied. "Nobody touches my wives. Or my future wives. Or my students. Or any other person I like."
The casual way he said "wives" sent a flush up Rias' neck, made Akeno's fingers twitch, made Asia's heart trip over itself, made Koneko's tail puff. Serafall's projection flickered at the back, eyes fixed on him.
"I've got all this power," Ren continued lightly. "I'd be a special kind of idiot if I held back and watched one of you get crippled for someone else's 'balance'."
Rias' chest tightened at that word.
Akeno's lips pressed together. Asia bit her lip. Koneko's fingers curled.
Serafall, watching through a small projection circle in a corner of the courtyard, felt her own chest tighten again, remembering his declaration over Kuoh and the quiet promise he'd whispered to her on the rooftop.
Griselda lowered her gaze for a moment, thoughts dragging back to the children she'd failed in the Church's harsher days. Her eyes were suspiciously bright.
Up on the railing, Tiamat scoffed and looked away—just in time to hide the small, grudging curve of her lips.
"And," Ren added, tone lightening suddenly, "I don't want to hear any of you overthinking how to 'repay' me or getting wound up about gratitude."
He snapped his fingers, pointing at them like an exasperated PE coach.
"You want to thank me? Make this art yours. Train. Cultivate. Live. Don't die in some stupid way that makes me mad. That's it."
A chorus of complicated reactions followed.
Rias pressed a hand over her heart, equal parts annoyed and moved. "He really…" she muttered.
Akeno exhaled, smile tilting soft and exasperated. "Honestly…"
Asia looked like she wanted to hug him and lightly hit his arm at the same time. Koneko's expression stayed flat, but her eyes burned.
Sona pushed her glasses up, hiding the way her lips had quirked. "He really is like Ajuka-sama," she thought. "Except worse. Or better."
Serafall, back in her Leviathan office, had to turn away from her scrying circle to hide the ridiculous grin on her face from Grayfia.
Griselda bowed her head just slightly. "You're asking us," she thought, "to simply… live. And you'll handle the rest."
Up on the railing, Tiamat snorted again.
"Idiot," she murmured. "You're going to make half the gods of hell fixate on you."
Her tail flicked once.
"…Good."
...
The morning dissolved into a low roar of cultivation.
Ren drifted through the courtyard like a lazy storm front, hands in his pockets, aura banked. Formation lines hidden in the stone thrummed with Myriad Origin circulation, amplifying every student's breath, recycling every bit of leaked energy back into their Soul Palaces.
He stopped behind Rias first.
"Okay," he said, voice softening. "Let's make your throne picky."
Inside her Soul Palace, the Throne of Ruin sat at the center of a crimson world, surrounded by slowly orbiting demonic stars. Ren's Dao-script veil wrapped around it like a translucent cloak. Under his guidance, Rias focused—not on power, but on judgment.
"Destruction is… what?" he asked.
"An answer," she said slowly. "A verdict."
"Good," he said. "Then make sure you're the only judge that counts."
With his help, she set a rule into the veil: any curse, seal, or suppression that tried to overwrite her concept of self would have to be "accepted" by her Throne before it did anything. Foreign rules without permission would be marked as heretics and burned.
She felt the difference immediately. Where once curses might have slipped into her demonic power, now there was a silent courtroom waiting.
He moved to Akeno.
"Your lightning's a highway," he said. "If you're not careful, you'll let every hitchhiker in the world ride it."
Her lips curved wryly. "So I need toll gates, then."
"Something like that."
He guided her Heavenbreaker Circuit to interweave with the Calamity-Shearing Veil, carving in "scrubbing nodes" along the routes her power took. Where the Circuit inverted holy and demonic energies to her will, the veil now added a mandate: anything extra, anything whispering kill her allies or rewrite her commands, got shredded on entry.
On the other side of the courtyard, Asia sat cross-legged, Ren's hands light on her shoulders.
"Feel for the moment your power starts listening to someone else's voice," he murmured.
She shut her eyes.
Twilight Saturation spread out in her soul like a sunrise, touching every part of her Sacred Gear. Underneath it, the veil waited, quiet. Together, she and Ren searched for that subtle tilt where "heal" became "harm" when pushed by an outside will.
"There," he said, as a faint, imagined command brushed against her—turn this blessing into decay.
She flinched.
"Breathe," he said softly. "Then tell it who you are."
Asia inhaled, exhaled.
"…I'm Asia," she whispered. "I heal."
The Twilight and the veil moved in tandem, smothering the foreign instruction without touching the core.
He smiled.
"That's it," he said. "Remember that feeling. If it ever happens for real, stomp on it."
He sparred briefly with Sona's peerage, letting Tsubaki raise Mirror Alice between them.
"Try reflecting my Dao-script," he said, amused.
Mirror Alice trembled, surface rippling as it tried to show his reflection.
Nothing appeared.
"…It's refusing to display you," Tsubaki murmured, eyes narrowing. "I can record fragments of the script, but not the whole of it."
"Then it's being sensible," Ren said cheerfully. "Some things you don't stare at head-on without a safety net."
He walked her through using the veil as a buffer between Mirror Alice and hostile rules—turning her Sacred Gear into a safer recorder of cursed environments.
All the while, the women closest to him watched.
Rias saw the way he bent down to speak with Asia, voice soft, hand steady on her shoulder, and thought, 'He really is going to carry all of us if we let him.'
Akeno watched him patiently explain a complex art to a nervous Valkyrie, breaking it down into simple images and jokes until she laughed through her anxiety, and thought, 'He really doesn't understand how intoxicating that kindness is.'
Asia watched him laugh with Sairaorg over some small adjustment to the Bael heir's Soul Palace rotation and thought, 'I have to become someone who can stand next to that and not feel like dead weight.'
Koneko watched everything, tail flicking, and quietly decided that if any god did manage to hurt him, she'd find a way to punch them in the face, cultivation gap be damned.
Above them, Tiamat lay on her side along the manor's roofline, chin in one hand, watching Ren thread an alien anti-curse law into a world that had never seen Fate Palaces before. Old dragon instincts, honed from watching eras rise and fall, whispered that something fundamental was changing.
...
By early afternoon, he finally let them drift into independent practice.
The courtyard buzzed with focused effort. Lightning cracked softly as Akeno refined her new scrubbing nodes. Rias sat with eyes closed, Throne of Ruin half-manifested behind her like a transparent crown. Sona's glasses gleamed as she scribbled new arrays in a notebook. Issei and Saji argued over who had the worse "curse bait" soul.
Ren stretched once, joints popping.
That was when he felt her.
Small. Hesitant. Wrapped in fox-fire and Kyoto night.
He turned.
A young youkai girl stood at the edge of the training grounds, dressed in a simple kimono. Two fluffy tails curled tight around her legs. Her fox ears flicked nervously, and she clutched a folded letter like it might bite her.
The pressure of Soul Palaces and divine presences made her want to bolt, but she held her ground.
Ren met her gaze and gave her a mild smile.
She squeaked.
"Um!" she blurted, bowing so fast her hair almost hit the dirt. "E-Excuse me! Are you… Ren Ming?"
"That's what they keep telling me," he said.
She peeked up, cheeks pink.
"Leader Yasaka sent me," she said, voice small but steady. "She… would like to know if you are free to speak. She said to tell you she is very grateful for the protection you declared over Kyoto, and she wishes to… discuss matters."
Ren chuckled.
"Ah. So the nine-tailed fox finally calls."
The girl blinked. "You… know of her?"
"Leader of the Kyoto youkai, nine tails, very strong, very pretty, very overworked mom," Ren said easily. "Of course I know."
The messenger's ears went bright red. "Y-Yes, that's… that's her…"
Ren tipped his head toward a quieter corner of the courtyard.
"Yeah, I'm free," he said. "Let's not make your boss wait."
He followed her to a small side building where a temporary communication circle had been set up—a low stone basin filled with perfectly still water, talismans floating around it like lazy leaves. With the manor's new status as something like a sect hub, such ad hoc channels had become common.
The girl knelt and pressed the letter to one of the talismans.
The water rippled.
Yasaka's face formed on the surface—golden eyes, long blonde hair tied into an elegant ponytail, a few loose strands framing her fox ears. She wore a formal kimono, but faint shadows under her eyes spoke of long nights spent maintaining Kyoto's leylines and negotiating with gods and devils who all wanted a piece of her city.
Ren lifted a hand and waved like he was greeting a neighbor across the street.
"Yo. First time actually talking," he said. "Sorry I didn't drop by Kyoto sooner. Been a bit of a week."
Yasaka blinked once.
Then, to her own surprise, she laughed—a soft, genuine sound that eased some of the tension in her shoulders.
"I can imagine," she replied. Her voice carried the refined politeness of a long-time leader, but warmth flickered beneath it. "You erase an Evil Dragon, challenge half the villains in the world, and invite them to the Dimensional Gap… Your schedule must be quite full."
"Yeah, I had to push my dentist appointment," Ren said solemnly.
The fox messenger made a strangled noise.
Yasaka's lips quirked despite herself.
"I wished to thank you," she said more formally, bowing slightly even through the water's surface. "For including Kyoto in your… declaration. We have had our share of troubles. To know that someone like you is watching over the city as well is… comforting."
Ren shrugged.
"I like Kyoto," he said. "Nice leylines, good food, pretty shrines. Would be a shame if some god of hell turned it into a cursed theme park."
Her eyes softened at that.
"And," she admitted, "I was… curious. About the man who can broadcast the sins of gods and crush an Evil Dragon with one punch."
He grinned. "Just a guy who got lost on the way home and decided to fix your world while he was here."
She tilted her head, studying him.
"That is quite the detour," she said. "May I invite you to Kyoto properly? Not as a battlefield, but as a guest. There are things I would discuss in person. About your cultivation method. About how it might… interact with our youkai."
Ren thought briefly of Amaterasu's priestess watching in the courtyard, of kitsune fox-fire flowing along Soul Palace meridians, of chaos energy threading into Kyoto's hidden Urakyoto dimension.
"Yeah," he said. "That sounds fun. Later this week? I've got a date with a Maou tomorrow and some gods to irritate after that, but I can make time."
Yasaka blinked again, then smiled—this time openly.
"Very well," she said. "I will have a proper welcome ready." A pause. "And… Ren Ming."
"Mm?"
"Thank you," she said quietly. "For making it very clear to certain… beings… that Kyoto is under your umbrella."
He shrugged again, smile crooked. "Like I said: I'd be a failure of a man if I let my future favorite cities burn."
She laughed, low and pleased.
"Then I look forward to our meeting," she said.
The water stilled, her face dissolving back into reflected ceiling beams.
Ren straightened, shoving his hands back into his pockets. A small smile tugged at his lips.
"Looks like life's about to get a little foxier," he murmured.
The messenger turned red again.
...
The next day, he met his Maou.
Serafall teleported into Kuoh in a flash of light and glitter that probably violated several noise ordinances.
Today, though, she'd gone out of her way.
No magical girl costume. No frills and capes. Instead, she wore a white summer dress that caught the light when she moved, a denim jacket over her shoulders, and simple shoes. Her hair was half-up with a plain ribbon. The only obviously "not normal" thing about her were her eyes—bright, nervous, full of a Maou's power and a girl's anticipation.
Ren whistled softly as he walked up.
"Look at you," he said, grin easy. "Blending in."
She twirled before she could stop herself. "You think so?"
"You look fantastic," he said, utterly sincere. "Ready to be kidnapped for a day?"
She huffed, cheeks coloring. "You make it sound like a crime."
"Only crime here is how cute you are," he shot back. "Come on."
He didn't take her to the Underworld.
He didn't take her to some grand devil resort, or a high-profile restaurant where everyone would stare and whisper "Leviathan-sama."
He took her to the human world.
A single step carried them through a folded layer of his Dao, space bending around them like a curtain. One moment they stood in Kuoh; the next, they emerged in a busier, brighter city a train ride away. Neon signs buzzed overhead. People flowed past in thick currents, laughing, arguing, staring at their phones.
Ren had picked this place carefully. Anonymous. Loud. A city where even a Maou could vanish into the crowd if she wanted to.
Serafall's eyes widened as she took it all in—the noise, the smells from food stalls, the rows of arcades and anime shops.
"We're… just walking?" she asked.
"Yup."
"No VIP section? No security detail? No emergency portal on standby?"
He grinned. "I'm the emergency portal. You're off the clock. Today, you're just Serafall. A woman on a date with a guy who likes her."
Her cheeks went a shade redder.
He let her drag him wherever her attention snagged.
They ended up in a magical girl merchandise store almost immediately, because of course they did. A knock-off Miracle☆Levia-tan poster in the window caught her like a magnet. Inside, cheap keychains and bootleg plushies crowded the shelves.
Serafall argued earnestly with a clerk about transformation sequences, of all things, waving her hands as she explained how proper magical girl animation timing worked. A small girl in a discount Levi-tan outfit peeked at her from behind a display, watching an episode on a phone. When Serafall caught sight of her, their eyes met, and for a moment, the childlike Maou and the child who loved her show grinned at each other in perfect understanding.
Ren watched all of it with a small, indulgent smile, hands in his pockets, completely content to let her be ridiculous.
They ate street food from stalls—takoyaki, crepes, shaved ice. Ren let her pick everything. She got sauce on her cheek; he wiped it off with his thumb without thinking.
Her heart did another stupid flip.
Later, he took her up a hill to a quiet park overlooking the city. The noise fell away to a low murmur. The wind brushed past, cool and clean, carrying only distant traffic and the rustle of leaves.
They sat on a bench, side by side, watching the human world move.
For a while, they just existed.
No councils. No reports. No screaming gods. Just a Maou and a man on a bench.
"Do you know," Serafall said suddenly, voice soft, "how long it's been since I took a whole day for myself?"
Ren glanced at her. "How long?"
She hesitated.
"…I don't remember," she admitted.
He whistled under his breath.
"That bad, huh."
She looked down at her hands, fingers twisting in her skirt.
"When I became Maou Leviathan," she said quietly, "I told myself it was fine. I love devils. I love the Underworld. I love Sona. I thought, 'I'll just work hard, and everything will be okay.'"
Her hands tightened.
"I threw myself into it. Treaties. Talks. Yelling at old devils who wouldn't accept the new order. Smiling at gods who wanted to stab us but needed our help. Being the clown so everyone would underestimate me."
She laughed weakly.
"Being 'Serafall☆Levi-tan' because it made people less afraid. Because if I acted cute enough, maybe they wouldn't notice how much blood was still in the foundations."
Ren listened, quiet, gaze on the city lights.
"Sometimes," she went on, "I wondered if anyone would ever say… what you said." She swallowed. " 'I'll protect the Underworld.' Not because of a contract. Not because of politics. Just because they decided to."
She looked at him, eyes raw.
"And then you did," she said. "In front of everyone. You didn't ask our permission. You didn't negotiate terms. You just… declared it."
Ren held her gaze.
"It pissed some people off," she added wryly.
"Good," he said. "They needed a wake-up call."
She laughed for real, shoulders loosening.
Silence settled again, softer now.
"Ren," she said quietly. "I like you."
He didn't jump in. He just let her gather the words, warmth steady in his eyes.
She took a breath.
"I like you as a man," she said, words coming faster now, like she was afraid she'd lose her nerve. "Not just as the 'crazy cultivator' who saved us. Not just as a convenient weapon. I like the way you talk, the way you look at people, the way you don't flinch from anything. I like that you treat me like a woman even when I'm being ridiculous."
Her hands fisted in her skirt.
"I know I'm not the first," she went on. "I know Rias, Akeno, Asia, Koneko… and others. I know there will be more. I know I'm older and weirder and have way more baggage." She let out a bitter little laugh. "I know I'm… a handful."
She lifted her chin, eyes shining.
"But if you're serious," she said, "if you really meant what you said on that rooftop… I want to be your girlfriend. Not just the 'Maou you flirt with.'"
Ren didn't make her wait.
He raised his hands and gently took her face, thumbs resting just under her eyes.
"Serafall," he said softly. "I told you last night I wanted all of you. That hasn't changed."
He leaned a little closer.
"You're right," he said. "You're older. You're weird. You've got a terrifying sister complex and an even scarier work ethic. You dress like a magical girl and negotiate like a shark. You carry a whole realm on your shoulders and pretend it doesn't hurt."
His thumb brushed her cheek.
"I like every bit of that."
Her breath hitched.
"And yeah," he added, "I've already said yes to Rias, Akeno, Asia, Koneko. There will be more women who matter to me. I'm greedy. I'm not going to pretend otherwise."
Her heart clenched.
"But," he continued, voice dropping lower, "I don't do half-measures. If you're my girlfriend, you're not some side character in 'Ren's Big Harem Show.' You're Serafall. My Serafall. When we're together, it's us. When you're struggling, I'm there. When you're being a clown to hide you're scared, I'm there to call you on it. When you're proud, when you're jealous, when you're exhausted—I take all of it."
He smiled.
"And I meant what I said. I'll protect your world. I'll protect Sona. I'll even court her properly when we get there. If I ever screw up…" He tapped her forehead lightly. "Big Leviathan jaws. My neck. No hesitation."
She laughed, tears spilling over.
"You're insane," she whispered.
"Probably," he agreed.
He leaned in.
"Sera," he said softly. "Be my girlfriend."
She didn't answer with words.
She surged forward, closing the distance, and kissed him.
It wasn't practiced or coquettish. It wasn't for show. It was raw and messy and full of years of pent-up tension and unspoken hope.
Ren met her halfway, one hand sliding to the back of her head, the other settling at her waist, anchoring her.
For a moment, the city, the gods, the factions—all of it—fell away.
Under the surface of the kiss, Serafall felt something else: his Dao brushing against her, a glimpse of nine Fate Palaces like distant suns, his Soul World touching hers just enough to say: Here I am. Remember it.
For a Maou whose life had been battles and meetings and lonely offices, the sheer warmth of it nearly made her knees give out.
When they finally parted, she was breathing hard, eyes wide.
"That…" she whispered. "Wow."
Ren chuckled, thumb gently brushing the corner of her mouth.
"Good?" he asked.
She swallowed. "Very."
He rested his forehead against hers.
"Now," he murmured, tone soft but firm, "one more thing."
"Hm?" she managed.
"Your schedule," he said. "You're not going to be the only one stuck behind a desk while everyone else cultivates and fights and grows. I can't have my girlfriend falling behind."
She blinked. "Ren, I'm Maou Leviathan. I can't just—"
"Yes, you can," he cut in gently. "Shift things. Delegate. Make time. I'm not asking you to quit. I'm asking you to live."
He searched her eyes.
"This new era I'm opening?" he said. "You're part of it. I want you standing next to me when we punch gods in the face a hundred years from now, not buried under paperwork."
She stared at him.
"You're serious," she whispered.
"Always," he said. "When it matters."
She thought of long nights in her office, collapsing onto her couch with a headache, hugging a Sona pillow because that was all she had time for.
She thought of this stupid, wonderful day—of crepes and anime shops and a kiss that still made her lips tingle.
She thought of his declaration over Kuoh, the way his words had wrapped around the Underworld as if it was already something he had decided to protect.
Finally, she laughed—wet and bright.
"Alright," she said. "Fine. I'll talk to Sirzechs. To Ajuka. We can redistribute. I'll carve out time. But if my inbox explodes, I'm blaming you."
He grinned.
"I'll help you clean it up," he said. "Or we'll burn it."
"Ren!"
He kissed her again, softer this time, where the first had been wild.
By the time he walked her back to her teleportation point, her steps were lighter. The Maou mantle still rested on her shoulders—but for the first time in a long time, it didn't feel welded to her skin.
Just before she left, she turned back, eyes shining.
"Ren," she said. "Thank you. For today. For… everything. This day is… I won't forget it. Ever."
He smiled, calm and sure.
"Good," he said. "That's the point."
She vanished in a flare of magic, heart pounding, already mentally rearranging her schedule.
...
Ren stood there a moment longer, watching the last sparks fade.
Then he turned back toward Kuoh, hands in his pockets.
The world was still full of gods who wanted him dead.
The Alliance of Hell still plotted in the dark. Angra Mainyu still seethed. Khaos Brigade still argued over how best to break the current era.
But his girls were sleeping better.
His students were learning how to cut curses off at the knees.
A fox queen in Kyoto was waiting for him.
A Maou had a new calendar.
Ren Ming smiled, walking back to his manor like a man with all the time in the world.
"This era," he murmured, "is going to be fun."