Days slipped by.
On one of them, in a training annex lined with holy symbols and formation lines, Ren stood in front of three very different women in church attire.
Griselda—composed and dignified, blue eyes calm but sharp beneath her veil.
Irina—bright and earnest, almost quivering with nerves and enthusiasm.
Xenovia—blunt and stoic, Durandal propped against her shoulder like a promise.
The air smelled faintly of incense and chalk dust. Light filtered through the high windows and caught on drawn circles and Dao-script lines etched into the floor.
"…So," Xenovia said at last, eyeing the diagrams on the board, "this art will prevent seals like the ones used by… that thing from taking hold?"
"'This art,'" Ren echoed dryly, "is the anti-seal overlay of the Myriad Epoch Canon, yeah."
He tapped the board with a knuckle. Intricate loops of Soul Palaces, Anima sparks and tiny Primordial Trees gleamed faintly where his energy had sunk into the chalk.
"It'll make it a lot harder for anything to hijack your Sacred Gears or holy power," he went on. "Especially curses that try to piggyback on your own faith. Angra Mainyu likes that trick."
Irina shivered. "That… sounds incredibly useful," she said, voice small but sincere.
Griselda's expression softened as she glanced at her subordinate's nervous expression.
"That's why we asked him for this lesson," she said. Then, to Ren, "Thank you again for agreeing. I know your time is… in demand."
Ren waved a hand, the motion loose and easy.
"I like seeing people who wouldn't normally get this kind of protection finally get their due," he said. "You three were standing on the front lines long before my Saint Kingdom showed up. This is overdue."
He stepped closer, stopping at comfortable distance. He didn't reach for them immediately; he let them feel his presence first, his aura low and calm.
Then his Immortal Soul Bone flared.
To the eye, nothing changed. To his senses, Griselda, Irina and Xenovia opened like books—holy circuits, Scripture-shaped pathways, Sacred Gears humming with latent potential, faith and habit woven into their souls like calligraphy.
"Alright," he said quietly. "Griselda first."
She nodded once, steady, and extended her hand. The faint glow on the back of it—Gabriel's Queen mark—caught the light.
Ren traced a pattern in the air.
Small Dao-script nodes formed around his fingertips, pale and precise. They sank into the glow around her hand, then followed that connection inward, slipping into her Soul Palace where Gabriel's authority touched her.
"Your main vulnerability," he said, voice calm as he worked, "is that you carry too much for other people."
Griselda's brows drew together.
"You're used to being a conduit," he continued. "Orders from above, blessings for below. You take, you pass on. Efficient, disciplined… and open. If a curse rides that chain, it hits you first."
Griselda's lips thinned, just slightly. "…Not the most comforting observation," she murmured.
"Good thing I'm not here to comfort," he said. "I'm here to fix."
The anti-seal lattice threaded itself through her Soul Palace, coiling around the line between her and Heaven's authority. It didn't sever anything. It refined.
Foreign rules that tried to run down that channel would now hit a filter of Ren's making: tiny blades of Dao-script and a thin layer of chaos-refined energy. Anything that didn't match Griselda's True Self, her Anima, would be scraped off and burned.
Griselda inhaled softly.
"It feels… more solid," she said. "Like a door with a proper lock instead of just a curtain."
"Exactly," he said, stepping back. "You still answer prayers. You still carry orders. Someone just finally bothered to give you a deadbolt."
Irina was next.
She stepped forward almost too quickly, then flushed at her own eagerness, fingers knotting together.
"With you," Ren said, looking her over, "the risk is different."
He tapped lightly at the air in front of her chest, where her Sacred Gear slept. The space there rang with bright, uncomplicated faith.
"Your faith is strong," he went on. "That's a shield. But shields can be turned if someone twists the image of what you worship. If something ugly puts on a mask that looks like God and whispers in your ear… that's the kind of thing Angra lives for."
Irina's eyes darkened. Her body trembled, just once.
Ren lifted his hand and touched two fingers gently to her forehead.
"Close your eyes," he said.
She obeyed.
Inside her Soul Palace, his Dao moved like a fine needle. The anti-seal pattern unfolded as a halo-like ring that settled just above her Anima—small, bright, stubborn. He tuned it carefully, weaving in the feel of her prayers, the rhythm of her own faith.
If something that wasn't God tried to talk like God through her Gear, the Veil would taste the mismatch, shear the lie apart and dump it into Myriad Origin's recycling loops as fuel.
Irina's breath hitched.
"It's… warm," she whispered. "Like… like someone is standing behind me. Watching my back."
Ren smiled, softer. "Maybe they are," he said. "Or maybe that's just your True Self finally getting a proper say."
Her lashes fluttered, tears threatening. She gave a tiny nod, shoulders easing.
Finally, Xenovia.
She had watched everything in silence, arms crossed, expression serious. Durandal rested against the wall nearby, its presence a weight in the room.
When Ren turned to her, she straightened.
"You," he said, "are easy."
She frowned. "…Is that an insult?"
"Compliment," he replied. "You're straightforward. You like missions. Your biggest weakness is you'll throw yourself at anything as long as it's labeled 'mission.' That makes you predictable."
She thought about it for a second, then nodded. "…Fair," she admitted.
Ren reached out, hovering his hand over her heart.
The lattice that formed around Xenovia wasn't a tidy ring or a focused lock. It rose like invisible guardrails along her demonic and holy channels, weaving around Durandal's bond, stitching warning tripwires into her Anima.
Any attempt to hijack her sword, her body, or her orders would now slam into both her stubborn will and those built-in alarms. The moment something foreign tried to tell her "this is God's will," her Soul Palace would flare and shove back.
Xenovia watched him work with unblinking focus.
"You're very… gentle," she observed suddenly.
Ren blinked. "That's not usually the adjective people pick," he said, amused.
Xenovia shook her head slowly.
"You're strong enough to crush us," she said, voice blunt as always. "You erased a god. You casually threaten to 'slap' Maous. And yet, you explain things so…" She frowned, searching. "…Kindly. Even when you're mocking us, it feels like you're trying to make us better, not belittle us."
Irina nodded vigorously. "Yes! Yes! It's like being scolded by a big brother, not judged by a superior."
Griselda watched him with a more complex look.
"…That sincerity is dangerous," she said quietly. "People might fall for you without realizing it."
Ren chuckled, something lazy and warm curling at the edge of his mouth.
"Already happening," he said lightly. "I'll handle it."
Xenovia's eyes narrowed, her decision snapping into place like a sword being drawn.
"In that case," she said, completely serious, "please add my name to the list."
The room froze.
Irina choked. "X-Xenovia?!"
Griselda nearly dropped her notes.
Ren only raised an eyebrow.
"List?" he echoed.
"Of candidates," Xenovia clarified, as if it were obvious. "For your harem. Or whatever you call it. You fit every criterion of a strong partner: power, reliability, willingness to protect, clear intentions about women. You… make me feel safe." She shrugged, almost awkward. "And I want strong children."
Irina made a strangled noise. "Y-You can't just say that!"
"Why not?" Xenovia asked, genuinely puzzled. "It's true."
Ren stepped closer.
He didn't loom. He just entered her space enough that she had to look up, his tone shifting, edges smoothing out the way they always did around women he cared about.
"Xenovia," he said. "Thank you for being that honest. That takes guts."
Her cheeks flushed faintly. "I don't… see the point of lying in such matters," she muttered.
"Good," he said. "Because I don't either."
He laid a hand lightly on her shoulder. His grip wasn't possessive. It was steady.
"I'm not going to throw some cheap promise at you just because you're blunt," he went on. "But I'm not going to dismiss what you said, either. You matter to me. All three of you do. Whether things shift to romance or we stay like this, I'll treat your feelings seriously."
Griselda and Irina both went very still.
"I don't play games with hearts," Ren said quietly. "If we cross that line, it's with full awareness. No one here is a consolation prize."
The sincerity hit like a physical impact.
Irina's eyes grew suspiciously wet. Griselda's guard slipped for a heartbeat—relief and something like longing flickering across her face before she smoothed it away. Xenovia's grip on her invisible sword tightened, then slowly loosened.
"…Understood," Xenovia said, voice steady. "That is… enough. For now."
Hours later, when the lesson finally ended and holy light dimmed across the training hall, Ren walked them to the door.
"It was good being with you three," he said, hands in his pockets, smile easy. "Don't hesitate to contact me. For training, emergencies—"
He flicked his gaze over their faces, letting his smile tilt just a little more teasing.
"—or just because you want to talk. You're under my umbrella now. That doesn't come with an expiration date."
Griselda met his gaze and inclined her head, something soft in her eyes. "We won't forget that," she said quietly.
Irina beamed. Xenovia gave a short, firm nod, as if sealing a pact.
Outside the annex, the world felt a little less hostile.
...
Not every session was so heavy.
On another afternoon, the manor's main classroom buzzed with younger, more chaotic energy.
Desks had been pushed aside. Whiteboard and chalkboard were both covered in overlapping notes: circulation diagrams, Sacred Gear schematics, crude doodles of dragons, and tiny Ren faces someone, probably Issei, had drawn in the corner.
Le Fay sat at the front with a notebook big enough to smother a dragon, eyes sparkling, pencil flying. Shigune stood near the back, shoulders slightly hunched, Taotie's presence flickering like a hungry shadow behind her eyes. Natsume leaned against a desk, casual but alert, Qiongqi's feral wind coiled tight in her veins. Ravel sat primly in the middle row, fingers interlaced, Phenex eyes sharp and watchful.
Ren stood at the front, marker in one hand, tapping it lightly against the board.
"It's simple," he said.
Every student in the room had learned that those words meant the next thing out of his mouth would be ridiculous.
"Most of your systems leak," he continued, gesturing at a diagram of overlapping loops. "You pour energy in, your Gear does something cool, half that power evaporates as waste. Heat, recoil, stray aura, all the little inefficiencies."
He drew a smooth spiral.
"Myriad Origin changes that. It turns your body into a closed loop. You reuse your own trash. Waste becomes fuel."
Le Fay's hand shot up. "So it's like… a perpetual motion machine for magic?" she asked, eyes shining.
"Not perpetual," he corrected. "You're still bound by your own capacity. But it stretches that capacity. Like a spiral instead of a straight line."
Le Fay scribbled furiously, muttering about matrix adjustments and overlay compatibility, cheeks pink with excitement.
Ren smiled. Out of this little group, her mind shone the brightest around theory, sparkling like a Dao Fruit already half-formed.
"Alright," he said. "Shigune, you're first."
She flinched. "M-Me?" she squeaked.
"Yep." He beckoned her forward with a curl of his fingers. "Taotie is gluttony incarnate. It wants to devour everything—including you. We're going to flip that."
Shigune swallowed hard but stepped up, hands twisting in her sleeves.
Ren's gaze softened.
"Close your eyes," he said. "Breathe."
She obeyed.
The Immortal Soul Bone lit again, subtle white-gold lines of insight threading through her being. In her Soul Palace, Taotie loomed—a massive, indistinct maw of hunger, gnawing endlessly at everything in reach. Its connection to her was a tangle of lines, some healthy, some dangerously frayed.
"Your biggest problem," he said gently, "is you've been treating it like a monster in a cage. That just makes it rage. We're going to give it a job instead."
He wove Myriad Origin loops around Taotie's core. The art slid in like a harness, not a chain. Its devouring function was re-routed, tuned to target foreign curses, stray malice, waste energy—anything toxic trying to seep into her.
Taotie's hunger hit that new pattern, flared—
—and settled.
Shigune gasped.
"I-It's… quieter," she whispered. "Like it's… full? Or… content?"
"Good," Ren said. "You and it are partners now. Not jailer and prisoner."
She opened her eyes. One black, one light blue—both shining with unshed tears.
"…Thank you," she said, the word thick with relief. "I… haven't felt this… in control since I first awakened it."
"If it gives you trouble," Ren said, smiling, "come find me. I'll help you smack it back into line."
Next was Natsume.
She walked up with more confidence, ponytail swaying, but even she had that tightness around her eyes that came from living with something wild inside your veins.
Qiongqi's presence hummed beneath her skin—a storm barely leashed.
"Your issue's different," Ren said. "You and your Gear share the same bad habit: you like chaos. That's fine when you're trying to wreck someone. Not so fine when your friends are in the blast zone."
Natsume grimaced. "You heard about the 'last training incident' then."
"Everyone did," Ravel said softly from her desk, lips twitching.
Natsume groaned. "Remind me to die of embarrassment later…"
Ren chuckled.
"We're not here to shame you," he said. "We're here to give that chaos somewhere to run without blowing your team up."
He laid the Veil along Qiongqi's wind channels, installing deflection paths and pressure-release nodes. Every time her power spiked too sharply, the system would siphon it, compress it, and divert it into tiny balls of energy forming in her Soul Palace.
Natsume exhaled sharply as the constant buzzing under her skin dimmed.
"Wow," she breathed. "It's like someone opened a window in a stuffy room."
"Exactly," he said. "Storm's still there. You just have better weather control now."
She looked up, eyes burning with a determined light.
"If you ever need someone to hit something hard and fast," she said, half joking, half deadly serious, "call me."
"I will," Ren replied, and she believed him.
Ravel's turn came last.
Her Phenex flame wasn't as overwhelming as her brother's, but her mind… her mind was a knife.
She had been quietly dissecting his teaching patterns since she walked in.
"With you," Ren said, looking straight at her, "I'm not worried about your fire. I'm interested in your planning."
She blinked, genuinely surprised. "…My planning?" she repeated.
"You see systems," he said. "Instinctively. You organize, optimize, predict. I need that. My Canon can handle the Dao and the math, but someone has to help route people, schedule sessions, predict where resources should go."
Her cheeks colored, just slightly.
"You… want my help?" she asked.
"I'm fascinated by your mind," he said bluntly. "Same with Le Fay's. You two look at the world in ways I don't. That's valuable."
Le Fay made a small squeaking noise behind them.
"I'm not putting collars on you," he added. "This isn't indentured servitude. You don't owe me anything. But if you ever want to build something bigger than just surviving the next crisis, come talk to me. We can plan."
Ravel studied him for a long, measured moment, balancing everything she knew about devils and politics against the man who casually rewrote the rules of souls.
"…Very well," she said at last. "I will… consider this partnership."
Le Fay nearly vibrated out of her chair.
"Um! Ren!" she burst out. "I—I would also like to… talk more. About the theoretical underpinnings. Your 'closed loop' reminds me of some principles in Grimoires but… more elegant."
Ren smiled at her enthusiasm.
"Any time," he said. "Bring your notes. Bring too many. I'll sort through them with you."
Her entire face lit up.
By the end of the session, all four girls walked out feeling lighter.
Not just because their powers were more stable.
Because they'd been seen.
Not as tools.
As people.
...
While Ren satisfied promises and deepened bonds, Kuoh Town quietly started to go wrong.
It began with small things.
A delivery truck's brakes failed on a clear, dry morning, sending it crashing into a storefront. No one should have been there that early. The owner's teenage son had decided, on a whim, to check stock before school.
He survived. Barely.
A high school girl slipped down a flight of stairs when the lights flickered. She hit her head at just the wrong angle. Coma. The bulb had been inspected a week before. No wiring fault found.
A minor stray devil, already weakened and on the run, suddenly lost control mid-fight with a local exorcist. He detonated in a burst of corrupted energy that shouldn't have been possible at his level. The exorcist survived—with burns and nights full of screaming dreams.
Each incident, on its own, looked like bad luck.
Taken together, they smelled like something else.
Ren noticed the pattern first.
His Saint Kingdom wrapped Kuoh not as a cage but as a second sky, a thin layer of his Dao stretched across streets and rooftops, threading through leylines and shadows. Every ripple of fear, every spike of twisted intent, every sour tang of curse energy brushed against his awareness.
Only he could feel it.
But when he reached, all he caught were scraps. Faint traces that dissolved the moment he tried to pin them. Curses like dust—so thin they broke apart if you touched them too hard. Threads that snapped the moment he followed them too far.
He knew the flavor.
Angra Mainyu.
...
On one of those days—after a quiet, almost philosophical talk with Gabriel about the nature of prayer, and a loud, almost comedic argument with Penemue over whose students were more trouble—Ren stood alone on the manor balcony.
Sunset washed Kuoh in copper and rose.
From here, the town looked peaceful. School roofs. Thin columns of smoke from small restaurants. Laundry hanging from shared balconies. The kind of ordinary evening humans thought of as "normal life."
His Saint Kingdom hummed above it all like invisible circuitry.
Behind him, the door opened.
"Ren."
Rias' voice. Tight.
He turned.
She and Sona stood in the doorway, their usual composure laced with something sharper. Worry. Anger. A protective tension that didn't have anywhere to go yet.
Ren held a hand out, inviting them in.
"What's up?" he asked.
Sona's mouth pressed into a line as she stepped forward and handed him a file. "In the past week, accident rates in Kuoh have increased by thirty percent," she said. "Most of them… strange. No clear cause. The numbers for minor supernatural beings are worse."
Her tone was clinical. Her eyes were not.
Rias folded her arms, crimson hair catching the dying light, eyes hard.
"The Underworld liaison tried to dismiss it as coincidence," she said. "I don't believe in coincidence. Not this much. Not here."
Ren flipped through the pages.
Printed reports. Photos. Names.
The paper only confirmed what his Dao had already told him.
His brows dipped, just slightly. To him, most of the town was noise. Outside his circle, strangers were… distant. But this?
This wasn't just about them.
It was a rat testing the walls of his territory.
"Angra Mainyu is acting," he said, voice flat. "The rat stopped nibbling and started gnawing."
Rias frowned. "Can you track him through these?"
He shook his head.
"Barely any trace," he said. "He's clever. Sends curses like dust—thin, diffuse, not tied to his main body. Even if I spend the time to dissect one trail, all I get is some avatar, some disposable scrap. Useless."
Sona's hands tightened on her clipboard.
"We can't just… watch," she said, anger leaking through the cracks in her calm. "These are our students. Our town."
Ren looked at her, then back out over Kuoh.
"I understand," he said.
Silence stretched for a breath.
He had some plans for himself that could potentially work.
But it would be far slower and with useless risks.
And he'd already told them this world wasn't going to stay "gods on top, everyone else scrambling underneath" forever.
"Then," he said slowly, "we make him come to us."
...
The manor's main hall filled quickly.
Chairs were dragged in. Wards adjusted. The Saint Kingdom folded down, sealing the building from prying divine senses.
Rias and her peerage.
Sona and hers.
Tiamat, lounging near the back with arms crossed, bored on the surface, eyes sharp as knives.
Serafall, sitting cross-legged on the table like a kid at story time, twintails bouncing.
Kuroka and Koneko side by side, tails flicking in opposite rhythms.
Asia, Akeno, Issei, Kiba.
Griselda and her two swordswomen.
Le Fay, Shigune, Natsume, Ravel.
Azazel, Penemue, Rossweisse.
Others, too—faces from Heaven, Underworld, Kyoto.
Ren stood at the front, hands casually in his pockets, gaze sweeping the room.
When the murmurs finally died down, he spoke.
"You've all seen the news," he said. "Heard the rumors. Random accidents. Sudden outbursts. People getting hurt seemingly at random."
His eyes hardened.
"That's not random," he went on. "That's Angra Mainyu testing the waters. Curses spread across the town like mold spores—seeing where they stick, watching who panics, mapping reactions."
Anger flickered across faces.
Issei clenched his fists. "That bastard!" he spat. "He's hurting normal people who don't even know any of this exists!"
"He's a coward," Koneko said flatly, Touki pulsing, tail lashing. "Attacking from shadows."
"He's also not stupid," Ren said. "He knows if he hits you directly, he risks me tracing it back. So he skims. Thin curses. Fast. Just enough to cause pain, not enough to leave a trail."
Sona's glasses caught the light as she pushed them up, eyes sharp. "You want to change that," she said.
"Exactly." Ren's mouth tilted in a small, humorless smile. "I've been waiting for this. I want him to commit. To put so much of himself into one move he can't hide when I grab it."
"How?" Tiamat drawled, raising a brow. "You going to stand in the town square and yell insults at the sky until he snaps?"
Ren huffed a quiet laugh. "Tempting," he admitted. "But it would be useless."
His expression smoothed out, voice flattening into something serious.
"That's why I called you all here," he said. "I'm going to ask for something I don't like asking."
The air tightened.
He let his gaze move over them—over Rias' steady determination, Akeno's quiet flame, Asia's nervous courage, Koneko's stubborn loyalty. Over Sona's iron resolve, Serafall's fierce protectiveness, Tiamat's cold curiosity. Over Kuroka's narrowed eyes, Xenovia's straightforward stare, Irina's worried fidgeting, Griselda's measured calm. Over Le Fay's nervous excitement, Shigune and Natsume's wary focus, Ravel's calculating attention.
"I want your help," he said. "To bait him."
A ripple ran through the room.
Asia's eyes widened. "B-Bait… us?" she echoed.
"Not as sacrificial lambs," he said immediately. "As lightning rods."
He straightened, shoulders loose, voice picking up a slow rhythm.
"Right now, you're already targets," he said. "You're under my umbrella. You're learning my arts. You're changing the way this world works. He hates that. Resents it. He'll be drawn to you whether you like it or not."
He spread his hands.
"So we use that," he continued. "We make ourselves look even more relaxed. More vulnerable. Like we don't consider any of them a threat."
He nodded toward the world outside.
"We go out into town," he said. "We live. We take walks. We go on dates. We shop. We laugh. We act like this is the calm after the last storm." A small, sharp smile tugged at his mouth. "All while my Veils and my Canon are coiled around your souls like blades, waiting."
Rias straightened, eyes blazing.
"You want us to act like we're at ease," she said slowly, "so he thinks we're complacent. And then, when he throws a stronger curse…"
"I catch it," Ren finished. "I follow it back along the connection. To him, to his allies, to whatever nest he's rotting in."
Sona frowned. "It's dangerous," she said. "If he overcommits, those curses could—"
"Which is why I'm not doing this blind," Ren cut in. "Everyone in this room already has the Calamity-Shearing Veil woven through their power. Your Soul Palaces will be filtering anything that tries to latch on. You'll feel it the moment something's off. And I'll be watching."
He tapped his temple.
"My Saint Kingdom covers Kuoh," he said. "Inside this manor, he can't touch or hear you. Outside, I keep my senses open. The second he tries something serious, I'll be on that curse before it finishes forming."
He didn't sugarcoat it.
"Guys like him don't stop," he said. "They're like flies that don't understand death. I'd rather draw his attention to people I can protect than do nothing."
Silence followed.
Then Rias stepped forward.
"I'll do it," she said, voice steady.
Akeno moved to stand beside her. "Of course," she added, smile small but fierce.
Asia's hands trembled on her skirt, but she lifted her chin.
"If… if it helps stop him," she said, "I… I don't want more people to suffer."
Koneko nodded once, expression flat, eyes burning. Xenovia, Irina, Le Fay, Shigune, Natsume, Ravel—one by one, they voiced their willingness, some loudly, some barely above a whisper. The thread of resolve was the same.
Even Tiamat rolled her eyes and shrugged.
"I suppose watching you smack another god around is entertainment enough," she said. "Fine. I'll play along."
Serafall puffed her cheeks.
"If anything touches So-tan," she said darkly, "I'll freeze the whole Alliance of Hell solid."
Sona sighed softly, but her gaze was warm. "I'm not sitting this out," she said. "This is our territory."
Ren watched them all.
Their fear.
Their courage.
Their trust.
"Alright," he said, voice dropping.
The lazy edges burned away, leaving something colder, older, terrifyingly steady.
"Then here's the key point."
He let his aura rise, just a little.
No flaring flames. No cracking ground. Just weight—a sense that the room had suddenly remembered gravity.
"No one outside this manor sees what happens in here," he said. "Angra can't sense my Saint Kingdom. He can't touch my Veils. He can only see what we show him outside."
He smiled—a calm, confident curve that still made devils shiver.
"That's our element of surprise," he said. "In here, we prepare. We refine your arts, sharpen your instincts, tighten your defenses. Out there… you play your roles. Students. Maous. Dragons. Church girls. Tourists. Lovers."
His gaze brushed across Rias and Akeno, lingered a heartbeat on Asia and Koneko, flicked briefly—softly—over Serafall and Kuroka, over Sona, Griselda, Xenovia, Irina, Le Fay, Ravel, Penemue, Rossweisse. The warmth in it was quiet, but it was there.
"You go out more," he said. "You look like you're relaxing after the last battle. Like you believe the gods and devils have things under control again."
He took a step forward.
His aura deepened.
"Let him think you're letting your guard down," he said. "Let him believe his curses are subtle and clever. And when he finally gets greedy enough to throw something serious at you…"
His eyes went ice-cold.
"…I'll be there," he finished. "And after this, all those idiots who think they can toy with my people from the shadows?"
He smiled.
It wasn't a wide grin. It wasn't theatrical.
It was quiet, and it promised ruin.
"They're going to learn what real fear feels like."
The way he said it—half vow, half comfort—sent a shiver through the hall. Even the older beings in the room, those who'd seen gods fall and empires crumble, felt their hearts beat just a bit faster.
Rias' breathing slowed. Her heart steadied.
Sona's hands uncurled on her clipboard.
Asia's fear didn't vanish. But it settled beside something stronger.
Trust.
They weren't walking into this alone.
They were walking with someone who treated fate like something to grab by the throat and bend.
Outside, Kuoh's lights flickered on as night settled in. Streetlamps hummed. Neon signs blinked to life. From above, the town looked like a cluster of tiny stars trapped in a web of shadows.
Somewhere in that dark, Angra Mainyu's scattered curses brushed against laughter, warmth, lowered guards—against devils holding hands under streetlights, angels sipping convenience store coffee, dragons glaring at arcade machines.
They tasted complacency.
They tasted opportunity.
They began to gather.
Inside the manor, under a sky held up by nine Fate Palaces and an Immortal Soul Bone, Ren Ming smiled.
The rat wanted to play.
Good.
He was done chasing shadows.
It was time to drag them into the light.