True to Ren Ming's words, the weeks went on seemingly at ease.
Kuoh breathed.
The town slipped back into its rhythms—school bells chiming, trains rattling past, shop doors swinging open and shut. Students in uniforms laughed on sidewalks, old ladies gossiped over vegetables, café windows glowed warm in the evenings. Cars still bumped fenders now and then, a worker still twisted an ankle on a stair, a kid still got caught in the rain without an umbrella.
But the spike in inexplicable disasters… stalled.
The air felt lighter. The sky looked clearer, a little too consistently blue for a town standing on the fault line of so many mythologies.
To the people walking to school or work, it just felt like good weather and a lucky streak.
On the surface, everyone was just… living.
...
Penemue noticed the pattern first.
Not the curse pattern—that was Ren's territory, something only he seemed able to see properly. She caught the human pattern. The spaces between crises. The way he carved out little pockets of time and pretended they were nothing, slipping them in between training sessions, emergency meetings, and world-shaking pronouncements.
"Again?" she said, watching him drop a small stack of paperwork onto Azazel's desk with a casual thump.
The sound made the entire pile of already-neglected documents shiver.
Azazel stared at the completed forms like they were a personal betrayal. "You're a menace," he muttered. "An extremely helpful menace. I don't know how to process this."
Ren hooked his hands in his pockets and smiled, loose and bright.
"If you can't keep up with your own memos, old man, at least enjoy the free help," he said. His tone was light, lazy even, but there was that usual steady line underneath—like he'd already decided this was how things were going to be.
Penemue, perched on the corner of a nearby table with her legs crossed, snorted.
"You're enabling him," she told Ren. "If he thinks the universe will keep sending over hardworking cultivators to clean up his backlog, he'll never change."
Azazel pointed at her with wounded dignity. "Says the woman who used to do this all alone."
"Used to," she replied smoothly. "Now I delegate."
Her purple eyes slid back to Ren, amusement curling slow and lazy at the edges.
"And apparently," she added, "so do you."
Ren took the jab with an easy grin. "Delegation is a powerful art," he said. "So's taking breaks."
He let the words hang for a beat, then tipped his chin at her.
"You been getting any?" he asked.
She blinked, caught off guard. "…Breaks?"
"Yeah."
Penemue leaned back on her hands, wings shifting slightly behind her. "I was under the impression," she said dryly, "that Fallen angels exist to pick up after idiots. Rest is what happens when we pass out on top of our own notes."
Ren huffed a soft laugh. "That's grim," he said. "We're fixing that."
"Oh?" she drawled. "And what, exactly, is your grand plan, Mister Daoist Fix-It?"
"Simple," he said. "Go out with me."
Azazel choked on his coffee so violently that papers rattled.
Penemue didn't choke—she was too old and too composed for that—but her eyebrows did climb. "…That was blunt."
Ren shrugged, shoulders loose. "I don't like pretending," he said. "You've been looking at my Canon like it's the first interesting thing you've seen in a century. I like how your brain moves. I like how you smack Azazel when he deserves it. I'd like to see you somewhere that doesn't smell like stale ink and stress."
Penemue's lips curled. "You realize," she said, "that telling a woman you admire her ability to file reports and conduct research is… not standard."
"I'm not standard," Ren replied. "And neither are you."
His eyes met hers, warm but steady. No push, no pull, no charm spell or pressure—just that ridiculous confidence he wore like another layer of clothes.
"Call it whatever makes you comfortable," he went on. "Field trip. Casual interrogation. You complaining about your boss while I buy you sweets." His smile softened, losing some of its edge. "Or you can just call it a date."
Penemue studied him, trying to decide if this was another layer of some unreadable long-term scheme.
His aura didn't waver. Calm, deep, not reaching for her. That, more than anything, made her heart give the slightest, traitorous lurch.
"Hypothetically," she said, voice light, "if I agreed to this 'field trip'… where would you take me?"
"Anywhere that doesn't sound like a copy room," he said instantly. "Somewhere you can talk without wondering who's eavesdropping. Somewhere you can laugh and not have it show up in anyone's report."
A faint color touched the edges of her ears.
"You're very good at this," she murmured. "It's annoying."
He smiled, crooked. "I'll take 'annoying' over 'boring' any day."
Penemue held his gaze a moment longer. Then she looked away, exhaling slowly.
"…Fine," she said at last. "One date. For research. I'll need to evaluate whether your company is as beneficial as advertised."
Ren's smile brightened. "I'll make sure the results are worth publishing," he said.
She clicked her tongue, fighting a smile and almost losing. "Don't get ahead of yourself," she said. But her eyes were already distant in that particular way that meant she was mentally rearranging her schedule.
Azazel watched them leave his office, shoulders sagging further with every step.
"I feel betrayed," he muttered to the empty room. "My secretary and my problem child, both poached by a smug cultivator."
The only answer was sunlight through the open window and the echo of Penemue's laugh fading down the hall.
...
On another afternoon, Ravel Phenex realized too late that she'd been cornered.
Not politically. Physically.
She sat in the manor's sunroom, wrapped in warm light that made her blonde hair shimmer like flame. A porcelain cup of tea cooled at her elbow, a notebook full of allocations and training schedules laid open before her. Lines of names, time slots, and arrows filled the page in neat, tidy handwriting.
She was very proud of those arrows.
Ren simply pulled out the chair across from her and sat down.
"You adjusted the timetable again," he said, eyes flicking over the page.
Ravel stiffened. "…Of course I did," she said, a little sharply. "Your sudden sessions with the Church trio changed the annex's availability. It would be irresponsible not to recalibrate."
He smiled at that. "I wasn't complaining."
She huffed, turning her face away slightly, feathers of pride bristling. "Someone has to keep things in order," she muttered. "Your approach is… effective, but chaotic."
"That's one of the reasons I like having you around," he said.
Her fingers stopped mid-note.
"…You 'like' having me around?" she repeated, wary.
"Ravel," he said, amused. "You've been quietly rearranging my entire life to make it more efficient without making anyone feel pushed. You catch problems before I'd even call them 'problems.' You're thinking three steps ahead before most people finish their first. Of course I like having you around."
Heat crept up her neck in spite of herself. She tried to gather her dignity like a cloak.
"Flattery is unbecoming," she said primly. "Especially from someone already surrounded by… so many women."
"Who said I was flattering you?" he replied. "I meant it."
He leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees, gaze steady but soft.
"You know you're lovely, right?" he added, as if commenting on the weather. "Not just the 'underworld princess' thing. The way your face changes when you solve something. The way your eyes light up when you start talking strategy. That's beautiful."
Ravel's composure wobbled.
"Y-you can't just say things like that," she protested, voice jumping. "So suddenly."
"Sure I can," he said. "It'd be weird to pretend I don't see it."
Her heart hammered. Phenex flame flickered under her skin, reacting to his warmth on instinct.
Ren watched the way her aura rippled, eyes glinting.
"So," he said. "Come out with me."
The world in the sunroom went very, very quiet.
"…Out," Ravel echoed. "You mean—"
"A date," he said easily. "Real one. No battle plans, no emergency calls, no people barging in with crisis reports. Just you and me. I'll show you something fun. Promise it'll rock your world."
The casual certainty in his tone made her breath catch.
"You say that," she managed, "as if it's already decided I would enjoy it."
"It is," he said. "You haven't seen half of this world when you're not carrying everyone else's expectations on your shoulders."
His gaze dropped to her hands—ink-smudged fingers clutching the pen a little too tightly.
"You deserve a day that's just yours," he said quietly. "Not the Phenex family's. Not 'Gremory ally.' Not 'logistics genius.' Just Ravel."
Something in her chest squeezed.
No one ever said it like that. Not as a devil heiress, not as Rias' ally, not as a carefully raised daughter of House Phenex.
"…You're infuriating," she whispered.
"That a no?" he asked lightly.
She swallowed, Phenex pride warring with a young woman's heart.
"…One date," she conceded at last. "I will… judge for myself."
His grin flashed, bright and satisfied. "I'll take it."
Before she could retreat, he stood and walked around the table. She turned toward him, startled—and found herself pulled gently into his arms.
It wasn't a dramatic, sweeping embrace. His hold was firm but careful, one hand between her shoulder blades, the other at the back of her head, as if he were bracing something precious.
Heat rolled off him. Not demonic fire, not magic, but the thick, steady warmth of blood and Dao from a body that had waded through disasters and survived.
Her own Phenex flames surged automatically, then… settled. Like a restless bird finding a thermal and choosing to glide.
"…Warm," she breathed without meaning to. "Warmer than…"
Than my own fire.
She bit the rest back.
He chuckled against her hair. "Told you," he murmured. "I keep my people warm."
Her fingers closed, just a little, in the fabric of his shirt.
"I… will hold you to that," she said quietly.
"I know," he replied, drawing back just enough to meet her eyes. "That's one of the things I like about you."
When he left, the sunroom felt different. The cushions still held his warmth. The light through the windows seemed a shade softer.
Ravel sat back down, looked at her perfectly organized columns of numbers and realized, with a faint flush, that she'd absentmindedly drawn three little spirals in the margins.
...
Days slid by, stitched together with small, seemingly ordinary moments.
Kuroka sprawled across Ren on the couch one late night, half-asleep, purring more than speaking while some dumb variety show played in the background. Koneko curled at their feet with a book, expression flat but tail flicking every time Ren's hand drifted up to absently stroke her hair.
Sona and Tsubaki argued in low voices over new club rules at the coffee table, papers spread like a battlefield between them. Ren sat sideways in his chair, offering lazy-sounding comments that forced both of them to stop, adjust their logic, and grudgingly admit he had a point.
Serafall appeared like a technicolor storm, dragging Sona off on "date-café reconnaissance" with Ren in tow. She shoved entire lists of dessert shops at them, insisting he taste every parfait as "quality control." Sona protested. Sona also finished her entire parfait, cheeks faintly pink while Serafall grinned like a cat.
Rias stole him for rooftop talks, some ending in kisses under the wind, some ending in quiet, the town's soft night sounds filling the spaces between their words.
Rossweisse commandeered him for rune experiments, scribbling diagrams faster than any normal human could read them. She still turned flustered and stammered when he offhandedly called her cute mid-equation, but she no longer panicked and changed the subject; she just huffed and drew more circles.
Irina "dropped by to check on everyone," as she put it, and always somehow left with a new exercise to stabilize her Anima and keep her Sacred Gear from being hijacked. Xenovia's training got harsher, her swings heavier; the quiet looks she gave Ren when she thought he wasn't watching grew longer, more thoughtful.
Gasper poked his head out of his room more often, shadows no longer clinging around him like chains. Ren had forced his Vampiric Sacred Gear into new patterns, and now the boy's power flowed more like a river than a clogged drain.
Tiamat, when she did swing through Kuoh, acted as if she was only there to "make sure the idiot dragons didn't break anything important." Ren always greeted her with that same relaxed little smile that said he was perfectly aware she was evaluating him and didn't mind in the slightest.
Under it all, the Veils spun.
Ren smiled. He laughed. He listened. He teased and comforted with equal ease, his tone soft with his girls and casually sharp with his enemies.
But behind his eyes, the light never quite lost that thin, cold edge of killing intent.
Angra Mainyu was still out there. So was Nyx. So was Hades, and the mess of gods and monsters that made up the Alliance of Hell.
They were watching.
So was he.
....
The break in the game came on a sunny afternoon.
Asia was the one who suggested going out.
"E-everyone has been working so hard," she said, fingers twisting in the strap of her small shoulder bag. "I thought… it might be nice to walk. Just a little."
Le Fay perked up immediately, eyes sparkling. "There's a new bookstore in town," she said. "They carry translated grimoires and local folklore collections—I want to see how they describe magic theory."
Natsume stretched lazily on the couch, ponytail flicking. "I don't mind," she said. "Taotie's getting restless too." She nudged Shigune with her foot.
Shigune fidgeted, half behind Le Fay as usual. "…If you all go," she murmured, "then… I'd like to go too."
Ren, leaning against the doorway with a mug of coffee, watched them with a faint smile.
"Take the talismans," he said. "All of you."
They already carried Calamity-Shearing Veils woven into their Soul Palaces now—Ren had installed them himself, an art designed to unhook foreign "rules," weaken seals, and make curses slide off instead of stick.
The extra slips of paper he handed them weren't meant to be shields so much as threads—thin lines of Dao tying them to his awareness, bells on the edge of his domain.
Asia cupped hers in both hands like a rosary.
"We'll be careful," she promised.
"I know you will," he said. "That's not why I'm giving them."
"Then why—?" Le Fay started.
"So I can cut in if someone gets stupid," Ren said, as if he were talking about going out to buy groceries.
Asia's eyes widened. Shigune swallowed. Natsume's lips quirked, a tiny sharp smile.
"…We'll leave some stupidity for you, then," Natsume said.
"Good girl," he said, approving.
Asia's heart did a weird little flip at the warmth in his tone. "We'll be back before dinner," she said.
"Take your time," he replied. "Have fun."
They left in high spirits—four girls in casual clothes, a little over-armed by normal standards, laughing and chatting as they walked down the street like any other group of friends.
The town watched them pass.
So did something else.
...
Angra Mainyu tasted them before he ever bothered to look.
Four distinct threads in Kuoh's spiritual flow. One pure, startling line of faith and kindness. One bright, spiraling curiosity wrapped in intricate magic. One deep, hungry well tied around a devouring beast. One restless wind, impatient and sharp.
"Ah," he murmured in the darkness between worlds. "There you are."
The Evil God of Zoroastrianism did not walk the human world cheaply. He required footholds. Sacrifices. Proper preparation. He was patient. He was very good at preparation.
Thin wisps of curse-light slipped through tiny cracks in reality, drifting down over Kuoh like invisible dust. They brushed lampposts, vending machines, shrines, gutters and shop doors. No one saw them. Almost no one felt them.
Until they found what they were looking for.
Asia stopped in front of a small roadside shrine she'd never noticed before.
"Oh…" she murmured. "How cute…"
It sat wedged between two buildings, half-hidden behind an old fence—a small wooden structure with a slightly battered offering box, a stone fox statue darkened by time, and a bowl for coins and sweets. Someone had nailed a wooden plaque above it in a child's clumsy handwriting:
PLEASE WATCH OVER MOM.
Something in Asia's chest tugged so hard it hurt.
"Can we… stop?" she asked. "Just for a moment?"
Le Fay smiled. "Of course."
They stepped closer.
Across the street, Natsume halted mid-step, eyes narrowing. The hair on the back of her neck stood up; Qiongqi stirred inside her, the four-fiend's wind tasting something sour.
"…You feel that?" she asked quietly.
Shigune did. Taotie twitched in the pit of her soul, not with its usual hungry excitement, but with a low, unsettled growl.
"I don't like it," she whispered.
Further down the sidewalk, a hand-lettered sign taped to the window of a cramped bookstore flashed in the corner of Le Fay's eye:
OLD MAGIC TEXTS – FINAL DAY – 90% OFF!
Le Fay's steps faltered. "Ah…"
Her fingers twitched toward the door, then she flushed and forced herself to turn back to the shrine. "L-later," she told herself. "After we pray."
Threads.
Asia's empathy. Le Fay's hunger for knowledge. Shigune's fear and gentleness. Natsume's quiet craving for a good fight.
Angra plucked each like strings on an instrument.
The afternoon light dimmed, just a fraction. Not enough for normal eyes to notice. Enough for Ren's talismans to flare faintly against their skin, sigils warming like warning bells.
Asia knelt by the shrine, hands clasped.
"Please," she prayed silently, words instinctive, old habits refusing to die. "Let everyone stay safe. Let Ren's burden be a little lighter. Let… let the people who are hurting find peace…"
The fox statue's carved eyes glowed.
Something answered.
'What a kind wish, little saint…'
The voice brushed across her mind like oil poured over water—smooth, cold, wrong.
Asia's eyes flew open.
The world warped.
The street stretched. Perspective bent subtly out of true. Shadows lengthened, deepening to ink that pooled along the edges of buildings. The sounds of cars, birds, distant conversation—all faded, drowned beneath a slow, heavy thrum like a heartbeat buried too far underground.
Le Fay's fingers snapped up to clutch her talisman. Strange sigils flickered at the edge of her vision, patterns that didn't match any magic system she knew—no Western circles, no Norse runes, nothing that made sense.
"C-curse lattice," she breathed, horrified. "This is…!"
Natsume set her feet, Qiongqi's wind wrapping around her like invisible fur.
"Show yourself!" she barked.
Shigune grabbed Asia's shoulder, trying to haul her back from the shrine. Taotie snarled inside her, hunger surging—not at Asia, not at the girls.
At the rotten sweetness now seeping from the fox statue.
Angra laughed softly.
"No need to shout," he said. "I'm very close already."
The shrine melted.
Wood, stone, offering bowl—all dissolved into a seething mass of writhing sigils, black and red and chalk white. Faces bubbled across the surface: crying children, praying mothers, dying soldiers, all mouthed the same word without sound.
Why?
The curse came down like a collapsing ceiling.
It tried to twist Asia's faith, taking each prayer and turning it into a chain that wrapped back around her own heart—binding her purity into a weapon against her. It lunged at Le Fay's understanding of magic, trying to overwrite her equations, swapping stable axioms for self-destruct routines. It whispered to Taotie and Qiongqi, promising them endless feasts, endless battles, if they just looked away while it ate their wielders.
Calamity-Shearing Veil met it with a soft, terrifying rip.
Asia's Soul Palace blazed to life inside her—small but sturdy, a cathedral of light built over weeks of cultivation. The curse crashed against it and fractured, half its fangs breaking on Ren's invisible net. Her art, Twilight Suppression, flared instinctively, dimming hostile force before it could pierce too deep.
Le Fay's inner Canon loops spun in panicked overdrive. Myriad Origin Scripture rejected foreign laws the way a healthy body spat out poison; her Anima, shy but stubborn, pushed back against each hostile formula trying to latch onto her.
Shigune's Veil snapped tight around Taotie's core. Ren had re-tuned the glutton's devouring function to target foreign malice and toxic energy instead of everything indiscriminately; when the curse tried to feed it, Taotie's hunger hit the new pattern, flared—and turned, snarling at the intruder instead of Shigune's own power.
Qiongqi's wild wind whipped up around Natsume, deflecting tendrils just far enough that they skated along her skin instead of burrowing in.
The curse didn't shatter.
But it didn't take cleanly either.
Angra's amusement thinned.
"…Annoying," he said. "That man's hands really are everywhere."
His power surged, callous and eager.
"Fine. Let's see how much stress these little toys can handle before they snap."
Pressure fell like a second sky.
Asia's knees hit the ground. Invisible weights crashed down on her shoulders, trying to crush her into the stone. Her lungs clenched like someone had wrapped iron bands around her ribs. The edges of her vision darkened.
Le Fay's eyes filled with meaningless sigils. Her thoughts, usually neat and orderly, scattered. Equations she knew by heart twisted into jagged, nonsense strings.
Shigune's arms shook as she pulled Asia back from the roiling shrine, every muscle burning. Taotie shoved against the restraint of Myriad Origin's harness, not to escape—but because the poison flooding this space tasted so rich, so dark, so tempting.
Natsume's teeth ground together. Each breath came in short bursts. The wind around her howled, not outward, but in, straining against the curse pressing from every side.
The Veils held.
Barely.
Hairline fractures spiderwebbed across Asia's inner cathedral. Le Fay's loops sparked and smoked, absorbing more backlash than they'd been designed to. Shigune's Taotie harness groaned at the edges. Natsume's Qiongqi channels flared in warning, extended stress threatening to tear them.
Angra leaned in, invisible, his voice curling around their ears.
"Just a little more," he crooned. "Just a little more pressure… and something will break."
...
Across town, on a perfectly ordinary street, the sky simply… went out.
Irina and Xenovia were walking back from a patrol, swords at their hips, paper shopping bags swinging from their hands. They'd stopped for ice cream on the way.
"I'm telling you," Irina insisted, her wings rustling. "Vanilla is the perfect base. You can taste everything else you put on top. It's like a pure blessing. Simple is justice."
Xenovia frowned, spoon in her mouth. "Chocolate has more… weight," she said seriously. "It reminds you that life is difficult, yet enjoyable. It's closer to reality."
"You can't just turn dessert into theology," Irina protested.
"Why not?" Xenovia looked genuinely puzzled. "Food is important. The Church's teachings cover daily life as well."
Irina opened her mouth to argue—then choked as darkness slammed down over them like a physical curtain.
Every streetlight died at once. The warm, late-afternoon glow vanished. For a split second, the world became pure night—no stars, no moon, just velvet black thick enough to touch.
A woman's voice slid through the dark, low and amused.
"How noisy."
Irina's feathers puffed. "…W-who—?"
"Nyx," Xenovia said flatly, eyes narrowing. She reached for the hilt at her side on instinct. "Primordial Goddess of the Night."
The shadows ahead condensed.
Darkness flowed inward like ink poured into water, gathering itself into the shape of a woman. Long, black hair fell around a face that would have been beautiful if not for the void-deep eyes that swallowed light. A gown of shadow trailed behind her, edges dissolving into the darkness that made up her domain.
The air around her pressed in, cold and unpleasant in a way that made even devils and Fallen uneasy. In the distance, thunder muttered inside the sealed night, like something big rolling over in its sleep.
"And here you are," Nyx murmured, gaze drifting over Irina's white wings and Xenovia's holy sword. "Two little toys the Church dotes on. Holy Gear and holy blade. How convenient."
Irina swallowed.
"…God—" she started on instinct, then flinched as the name caught in her throat like a fishbone. The air around Nyx did not like that word.
Nyx's lips curved in a not-smile.
"You'll make excellent hostages," she said lightly. "If you survive."
The darkness stirred at her back like a living thing.