The world flipped.
One moment, Ren was on the viewing platform—gods, devils, and a very confused global broadcast staring at him like he'd just rewritten the rules of reality. The next, the stone under his feet blurred into polished wood. Open air and high-altitude chill folded into the warm, familiar atmosphere of Kuoh's manor—tea and old books, faint ozone from recent training, and under it all the metallic aftertaste of vast Dao slowly fading from the room.
His art released them in a single smooth ripple.
One lazy twist of his universal travel technique, and Rias, Akeno, Koneko, Asia, Sona, Serafall, Kuroka, Griselda, Xenovia, Irina, Le Fay, Penemue, Seekvaira, Ravel, Shigune, Natsume, Tsubaki—and Ophis—were suddenly standing in his living room instead of on the edge of an apocalypse.
The air shivered once, then stilled.
His twelve Fate Palaces—twelve completed heavens of an Ancient Saint, the kind of thing that in his home system meant a Primordial Saint who could contend for an Immortal Emperor's throne—slowly dimmed behind his eyes.
The oppressive pressure of his manifested Heaven withdrew from the group, folding back into him so space stopped feeling like it might crack if anyone breathed too hard.
For a heartbeat, the only sound was the faint ticking of the antique clock on the wall.
The last echoes of collapsing universes and devoured curses faded.
This time, when the silence broke, he didn't get tackled.
They'd already done that—on the platform, the instant his Heaven retracted and they realized he was whole. That first impact had been all instinct, bodies slamming into him, hands clawing at his coat, faces shoved against his chest just to confirm he wasn't an illusion.
Now came the part that always hurt more.
This time, he got yelled at.
"Okay," Ren said, holding up both hands as if surrendering to an arrest. His smile was soft, unhurried, completely at odds with the things he'd just done in the Dimensional Gap. "We're home. No cameras. No pantheons watching. You can say whatever you want. Cry, scream, hit my chest, throw things. I'll take it."
He leaned back against the broad arm of the largest couch, still standing, posture lazy—like he'd just come back from picking up groceries instead of wrestling Trihexa into his own Heaven and sealing ExE's tunnel shut by rewriting the underlying laws.
His gaze moved slowly across the room, warm and steady.
"I couldn't be happier to hear it," he added, chuckling under his breath. "So go ahead."
For a long moment, no one moved.
Then Asia exploded.
"Ren!" she wailed.
Her small body surged forward, golden hair bouncing, green eyes already filling with tears. Whatever composure she'd managed in front of gods and cameras shattered the second they were back in familiar walls.
"You—you kept smiling while everything was eating you and you didn't even look scared and that made it worse and—and—!"
She shoved at his chest with both hands.
For anyone else, it would have been like punching a mountain with a pillow. With his Hell Suppressing Immortal Physique half-completed and chaos energy still coiled inside him, her strength couldn't move him at all. But his body rocked back a little anyway, letting the impact land as if she'd actually forced him a step.
He caught her wrists gently.
"Sorry," he said, voice dropping, humor vanishing from his eyes. "I know it looked bad."
"It was bad!" Asia cried. "You broke, Ren! You shattered, and then there was just light and we couldn't see you and—"
Her voice crumpled into soundless sobs.
For an instant, the room blurred for her—the memory of his figure dissolving inside a sphere of maddened curses and collapsing realities, Trihexa's heads tearing at him, the Dimensional Gap screaming as his Fate Palaces unfolded like stacked heavens over the void. A sun of Dao essence detonating outward. Space itself freezing and then falling apart.
She'd watched his outline vanish in that impossible light.
Watched the image feed scramble, the barrier sigils flicker, the gods on the platform tense like they were about to intervene and die trying.
And he'd smiled through all of it.
Ren pulled her in without another word, arms wrapping around her shoulders, letting her bury her face in his chest. Her tears soaked into his shirt, holy power shivering faintly around her as her healing instinct tried and failed to "fix" something that wasn't actually broken.
"Yeah," he murmured, dipping his head to rest his chin lightly on her hair. "You're right. It was bad."
Her fingers twisted in his coat.
"But it's over now," he added. "I'm here. You did great."
Her shoulders hitched. She didn't answer, just clung harder.
Rias stepped in next.
She moved like she always did when she'd faced down something unbearable and survived it—shoulders square, spine straight, arms folded under her chest as if sheer force of will could keep her from shaking. The crimson of her hair flared against the manor's softer colors, eyes a clear, piercing blue that right now burned with anger and relief in equal measure.
"I agree with Asia," she said, voice tight despite how hard she was trying to keep it level. "You scared us half to death. Again. Do you know how many times I thought I'd lost you today?"
Ren looked straight at her, one arm still around Asia.
"How many?" he asked calmly.
She glared. "That's not the point!"
"It is to me," he replied. "I need to know how many debts I owe you."
She opened her mouth to snap back—
—and hesitated.
Because he wasn't deflecting. He wasn't dodging with his usual teasing. He just watched her with that same calm, unshakable confidence he'd had while facing Trihexa, but now there was something else under it—quiet gratitude. A sincere acknowledgement that her fear mattered.
Her anger cracked.
"You…" She exhaled slowly, shoulders sagging, the fight leaking out of her. "Why do you say things like that so honestly? It's cheating."
He smiled, small and genuine.
"Because you deserve to hear them," he said simply.
Color bloomed across her cheeks. Her eyes went shinier, lashes trembling.
"…Idiot," she muttered, looking away for a heartbeat. "You absolute… charming idiot."
A soft chuckle drifted from the side.
Akeno slid into the space between them with that smooth, unhurried grace that always made it seem like she was gliding rather than walking. Long black hair swayed behind her, violet eyes still shaded with the remnants of fear even though her lips wore their usual elegant, playful curve.
"You know," she said lightly, "if you die on me after all this work, I'll chase your soul across universes and drag you back by the ear."
Ren laughed, a low, amused sound that chased some of the heaviness from the room.
"I believe you," he said.
"You should." She stepped close enough to jab a finger into his chest.
A tiny spark of lightning flickered at the tip, skittering uselessly across his shirt and over skin that had just tanked attacks meant to erase worlds. She wasn't trying to hurt him; it was more like she just needed the contact, something concrete to ground the words.
"So," she continued, smile turning sharp, "be more careful when you decide to tank universal curses, alright? I'm greedy. I want you for a long time."
Ren's smile went lazy, eyes softening.
"Greedy women are my favorite kind," he said, tone half teasing, half heartfelt.
She giggled, covering her mouth with the back of her hand, shoulders finally relaxing as some tension she'd been strangling since the first alarm klaxons had gone off finally released.
Koneko approached without a word.
If Asia was an open book and Rias a storm barely contained behind noble manners, Koneko was a closed door with a small "go away" sign pinned to it. White-haired, her expression was as blank as ever—a flat line of a mouth, golden eyes steady. But her twitching cat ears and flicking tail betrayed her.
She stopped right in front of him and stared at his chest like it personally offended her existence.
Then she punched him.
Not with her full strength—if she'd put even a fraction of her Rook power and senjutsu-enhanced Touki into it, she would've put a crater in the floor behind him. But by normal standards, it was still a blow that could have shattered a mid-class devil's ribs.
On him, it landed like a knock on a door.
"Stupid," she said quietly, voice tighter than usual, a faint tremor threading through the monotone. "You said you'd come back. If you ever break that promise, I'll… I'll…"
The words choked, her small fists trembling against him.
Ren let Asia shift to his side, freeing one hand. He reached out and placed it gently on Koneko's head, fingers threading through soft white hair in slow, steady strokes.
"I know," he said softly. "So I won't."
Her ears twitched under his hand.
"Good," she muttered, leaning in just enough that her forehead bumped his chest.
She stayed there, unmoving, like she was listening to the steady, unshattered beat of his heart.
He chuckled quietly, looking over the rest of the room.
Sona was next.
If Rias was a storm and Akeno a smiling thundercloud, Sona was all straight lines and carefully stacked paperwork given human form. Her glasses glinted, short dark hair neat, Kuoh's Student Council President composure wrapped around her like armor. But the way her hands clenched told the true story.
"Your risk assessment was unacceptable," she said sharply. "Charging into that situation alone, taking on an unknown-level threat, letting your structure be broken down to recompile the curses—Ren, do you have any idea how impossible it is to make long-term plans when you treat your own survival like a negotiable point?"
Her voice didn't tremble.
Her fingers did. The knuckles were white.
Ren listened without interrupting.
He didn't argue. He didn't try to soften it with a joke. He just nodded once, serious.
"You're right," he said. "I'll factor you in more next time."
She opened her mouth to retort something about "This isn't about factoring me in—"
Then paused, because she understood what he'd just admitted underneath those easy words: I know you're thinking about ten, twenty, fifty years from now. I'm not going to dismiss that.
The lines of her shoulders eased, just a little.
Serafall crashed into him a heartbeat later.
"Ren-chaaaan!" Serafall bawled, clinging hard enough that if he were anyone else, his spine would've snapped. Her usual bright, magical-girl sparkle was still there—but it was running underneath red-rimmed eyes and a voice gone hoarse from screaming orders and spells through a war she'd barely been able to track.
She alternated between sobbing and ranting.
"I thought—hic—I thought my cute little world was going to get deleted like a bad TV show reboot! I am absolutely going to make an anime about this, do you hear me? An accurate one! One that shows exactly how scary you are so those idiots stop poking you like you're some kind of invincible cheat code—hic—!"
Ren patted her head, letting her vent.
"If you make it," he said mildly, "at least make sure I look handsome."
She laughed wetly against his shoulder.
"You always look handsome," she muttered, squeezing tighter for a second before finally dragging herself back, wiping her eyes with the heel of her palm.
Kuroka slid in close after that, the air around her warm with lazy youkai charm and a scent like sun-warmed fur and incense. She hooked her arms around one of his, cheek pressing against his bicep, tail lashing in restless irritation.
"Mou, you really went boom out there, nya," she complained, voice a half-purr, half-growl. "Shirone's heart can't take watching you explode like that, you know? Mine either."
He tilted his head toward her, amused.
"Sorry," he said. "I'll try to explode more aesthetically next time."
She snorted, then actually giggled, the knot between her brows loosening as she nestled in, clinging without shame.
The others followed, one after another.
Xenovia stood straight-backed, sword-user discipline evident even now, eyes harder than usual.
"I've fought a lot of things," she said bluntly. "But that was… I've never seen anything like it. If you died, I would be… very annoyed."
Her voice didn't quite catch on the last two words, but her grip on her sword hilt tightened enough to creak leather.
Irina burst into tears halfway through calling his last stand "super cool but super not okay," flapping her arms for emphasis like she wanted to smack him and hug him at the same time.
Le Fay all but vibrated in place, hands fluttering as she talked too fast about universal travel equations and how his art had taken aspects of biblical world-link wards, the Dimensional Gap's topology, and the Dragon God's dream trails and somehow made them obey a single, ruthless rule set. Her teeth chattered between excited words—part raw nerves, part the aftershocks of terror finally having somewhere to go.
Penemue smacked his shoulder with the flat of her hand, eyes sharp behind her glasses.
"You're the most infuriatingly efficient disaster prevention measure I've ever seen," she grumbled. "Do you have any idea what you've done to our risk projections? To my paperwork?"
"Ruined them, I hope," he said cheerfully.
"Completely," she snapped. Her lips twitched. "Don't do it like that again."
Seekvaira stepped forward, noble devil composure almost but not quite hiding the faint pink across her cheeks.
"…Thank you," she said, voice formal. "For your actions today. The Bael projection models for planetary destruction did not account for that beast breaking loose on our side, and yet you…"
Her words trailed off as she realized she was slipping into technical speech to hide her feelings. She pressed her lips together.
"…I will be submitting a formal request for joint research access on your travel methods," she muttered under her breath, almost too quietly to hear.
He smiled.
"Looking forward to it."
Ravel tried hard to hold herself together.
The young Phoenix heiress stood with perfect manners, shoulders straight, chin up, blonde twintails immaculate. Her eyes, though—bright gemstone red—kept flickering, unable to decide between fury, embarrassment, and raw, naked fear.
She launched into a scolding tirade, peppering him with sharp words about irresponsibility and insane risks and how absolutely obnoxious it was to make everyone watch him get torn apart and then stitched back together by his own Dao.
Halfway through, her voice cracked.
"…and I—I prayed," she blurted, flushing. "To every god I knew. Even you."
The last two words came out in a tiny voice.
The room stilled for a heartbeat.
Ren's expression softened.
"Then I'll add that to the debt column too," he said quietly. "I won't waste that."
Shigune clutched her necklace with both hands, eyes damp but steady.
"Watching you fight was… terrifying," she whispered. "But it also… it made me want to be stronger. So that next time, I won't just be watching."
Natsume said very little.
She walked over, bumped her forehead once—gently—against his shoulder, and stood there with fists clenched at her sides, jaw tight. She didn't have to say anything; her presence alone made her point clear.
Tsubaki adjusted her glasses three times in one sentence.
"As deputy president of the Student Council," she said crisply, "I will be lodging a formal complaint regarding your habit of personally confronting threats without sufficient support staff or advance notice."
Her eyes, normally cool, were warmer than usual.
He faintly smiled.
"I'll accept the paperwork," he said.
He took all of it.
Every shout.
Every tear.
Every shaky confession that slipped out now that no pantheon was watching and no battlefield demanded their attention.
Through it all, his smile never faded.
If anything, it changed—less of that sharp, arrogant curve he'd worn facing down gods and monsters, more of a gentle warmth that softened the hard lines of his face. The warmth of a man who had seen more than one world collapse, and still wanted this one to laugh.
Once the worst emotional storm had passed—once Asia's sobs had faded into soft hiccups against his side, once Rias' shoulders had stopped trembling, once even Sona's lectures ran out of words—Ren clapped his hands lightly.
The sound cut through the lingering tension like a small, clear bell.
"Alright," he said. "Enough crying."
A few pairs of eyes narrowed at him.
He held up his hands again, amused.
"The world's still here," he continued. "Some very annoying neighbors are behind a closed door. Trihexa's in chains. The annoying neighbor's tunnel is sealed. That means…"
He spread his arms a little, as if inviting them to imagine it with him.
"…we can actually celebrate without worrying something's going to kick down the wall mid-party."
The idea felt strange.
For weeks—months, really—the threat had always been there. First in whispers, then in plans, then in battle alarms screaming across dimensions. The Khaos Brigade and the Alliance of Hell, the looming shadow of an Apocalyptic Beast, gods forced into tense alliances… even with Ren there, the possibility of "something goes wrong" had hung over everyone like a blade.
Now, for the first time, there was space.
Ren saw it in their eyes—the way some of them flinched instinctively at the word "relax," like the universe would take it as an invitation to throw another catastrophe at them.
He let his voice soften.
"So let's take the win," he said. "Just for tonight. Tomorrow, we can talk about treaties, damage reports, and teaching a few pantheons what basic decency actually looks like. Right now?"
He tilted his head toward the open archway that led to the kitchen and dining area.
"I want to see this house loud and messy and alive. I want you laughing so hard you forget how scared you were, at least for a little while. That's my selfish request."
Rias' throat bobbed.
"Is… is it really okay?" she asked, quieter than before. "To relax? After all that?"
Ren looked at her, gaze steady.
"Especially after all that," he said. "You've earned it."
There was a beat of silence.
Then Akeno's eyes glinted.
The familiar playful spark came back, burning away the last layer of numbness.
"In that case," she murmured, lips curving, "I'll prepare something special."
Lightning flickered around her hands—not the vicious, battlefield kind, but the controlled current she'd honed for delicate work. The manor's carefully reinforced appliances shivered in anticipation. Somewhere in the basement, Azazel's "emergency party snacks" stash probably felt a distant sense of doom.
Serafall threw both hands up.
"Party time!" she crowed, twirling in place, her skirt flaring out like a spinning magic circle. "Magical girl victory party! I'm getting the costumes!"
Sona pinched the bridge of her nose hard enough that it might have counted as a minor exorcism.
"You are not making everyone wear those sparkly things again," she said flatly.
Serafall gasped. "But they were cute!"
"The sequins got into the wiring," Penemue muttered darkly from the corner.
Ren chuckled.
"We'll negotiate," he said, side-eyeing Serafall with an easy grin.
The room shifted, tension melting into motion.
Xenovia and Irina followed Akeno toward the kitchen, arguing loudly about which combination of snacks and meat counted as a "balanced meal." Asia hurried after them, tugging at an apron, insisting she wanted to help cook something normal this time.
Le Fay plopped down at the low table, scattering notes and small stones as she started sketching out a formation for safe indoor fireworks, muttering about blast radius and structural integrity and "no, this time we really shouldn't blow a hole in the ceiling."
Penemue and Griselda quietly commandeered a corner near the windows, setting up a more sober tea and coffee station for those who didn't want sugar and questionable alcohol. Their voices remained low and practical, but the brittle edge from before was gone.
Through it all, Ophis stayed anchored at Ren's side.
She had never let go of his sleeve.
Now she tugged on it lightly, black eyes as unreadable as ever, her expression that same muted calm the dragon god always wore.
"…Snacks?" she asked.
Just one word. But for her, it was practically a speech.
Ren laughed, warmth bubbling up in his chest.
"Yeah," he said. "We'll get you plenty of snacks."
Ophis' face barely changed.
But her fingers tightened in the fabric of his sleeve again, as if anchoring herself to this moment, this noisy, warm room, instead of the silent void she used to call home.
...
Later, with the house fully awake—voices spilling out of the kitchen, music humming softly in the background, Serafall and Sona engaged in a deadly-serious negotiation over acceptable levels of glitter in any post-war celebration—Ren finally let himself drop onto the big couch.
He stretched out with a quiet sigh through his nose, long legs taking up most of the space, coat loosened, tie shoved into a pocket somewhere along the way. The residual weight of his Heavenly-style Dao still made the air feel a little thicker around him, like gravity remembered what he'd just done and refused to completely forget.
"Hey, Ravel," he said mildly, as if asking someone to pass the salt. "I need something from you."
Conversations around the room dipped in volume, just a little.
Ravel, perched stiffly on the edge of a nearby cushion, blinked like a startled bird.
"M-me?" she stammered. "What… what do you need?"
Ren reached out, caught her wrist gently, and gave a steady tug.
She squeaked, stumbling forward, balance gone.
"Sit," he said, tone calm, the same voice he used when explaining cultivation diagrams. "I need a pillow."
"A wh—"
He didn't give her time to overthink it.
In one smooth motion, he shifted, sliding down until he was lying along the couch, then rolled just enough to rest his head squarely in her lap.
The room didn't go silent.
But the sound dimmed noticeably.
Ravel froze.
Her brain visibly bluescreened.
Her hands hovered awkwardly over him, fingers twitching uselessly in the air as his weight settled across her thighs. He was warm; even with his power suppressed, his body had a density to it now, the Hell Suppressing Physique and dozen Fate Palaces turning his presence into something that made fabric and cushions and even the air feel more solid.
"Y-you can't just—!" she squeaked at last, voice jumping an octave. "Ren, this is—this is improper!"
He tilted his head slightly, looking up at her from where he lay, eyes half-lidded and amused.
"I think we passed 'improper' a while ago," he said lazily.
Her cheeks went scarlet.
"T-that's not—that's not what I meant!"
"I know," he replied.
He closed his eyes, exhaling quietly, letting his body relax for the first time since the alarms had gone off.
"You're comfortable," he added. "You've got good lap-pillow energy."
Ravel made a noise that might have been an affronted squawk or a deeply pleased little squeal. It came out somewhere in the middle.
Slowly—very slowly—her hands lowered.
Her fingers brushed through his hair once, hesitant.
He didn't move.
He didn't tease. Didn't say anything more. Just let her decide.
After a moment, her hand flattened, stroking his hair back from his forehead in a gentle, halting rhythm.
"…Idiot," she whispered, so soft it almost vanished under the background noise of clinking dishes and low conversations. "You scared me too."
He smiled, eyes still closed.
"I know," he murmured. "Thank you for worrying."
Around them, the room had rearranged itself.
The girls were, as he'd noted to himself, clingier.
Asia had curled up at the arm of the couch near his feet, small body tucked into a blanket someone had draped over her. Her angelic aura—so often tense with the strain of healing—was finally relaxed, drifting around her like a soft glow as her breathing evened out toward a doze.
Koneko had claimed his other arm, hugging it like an oversized plush toy. Her ears twitched every time he shifted, tail flicking, but she didn't let go, cheek pressed against his shoulder with quiet possessiveness.
Akeno perched on the back of the couch behind Ravel, one leg folded under her, the other dangling off the side. Every now and then her fingers dipped down to flick his ear, just hard enough to make it twitch and draw a faint squint from him.
"Checking your reflexes," she said innocently when he cracked an eye at her.
Rias sat nearby, sideways in an armchair with her knees drawn up, arms wrapped loosely around them. She watched him with soft, thoughtful eyes, expressions shifting across her face—fondness, exasperation, a little spike of jealousy when his hair got too much attention from someone else—then smoothing into something steady and warm. The kind of look that said, I'm keeping an eye on you, so don't you dare vanish.
Sona and Tsubaki sat at the low table, a laptop closed and a stack of papers untouched between them. They talked quietly about future schedule adjustments, about meetings with various factions, about how to integrate the new "Ren factor" into security protocols. But every few sentences, one of them would glance over at the couch, as if to make sure he hadn't slipped away while they weren't looking.
Serafall had somehow ended up on the floor with Ophis beside her and a deck of colorful, cartoonish cards spread out between them.
"Okay, Ophis-chan—" she started.
Ophis stared at her blankly.
Serafall coughed. "Okay, Ophis. This card means you can steal snacks. This card means you can defend your snacks. This card means you win the whole game and everyone owes you snacks."
Ophis' eyes narrowed slightly in intense concentration. She arranged her cards with the same seriousness she'd once reserved for planning how to reclaim the Dimensional Gap, then placed one down with slow, careful intent.
"Snacks," she said.
Serafall clutched her heart.
"Too cute," she whispered.
Penemue and Griselda sat near the windows, talking shop.
There were still logistics to handle. Fallen infrastructure to reorganize. The Vatican's reaction to an apocalypse averted by a man who wasn't exactly in any scripture. But their tones were calmer now, more measured. The tightness that had ridden their words earlier was gone, replaced by the steady cadence of professionals who knew the world wasn't ending today.
At some point, Yasaka had arrived.
The Kyoto fox sat on another couch, golden eyes soft, elegant kimono a little more casual than usual. Kunou sprawled across her lap, tails flicking as she babbled excitedly to anyone who would listen about how "Ren-nii punched the big bad beast so hard it disappeared" and how cool it had been when the sky turned into giant glowing palaces.
Yasaka just smiled and nodded, her own tails wrapping protectively around her daughter as she watched the room. The way she looked at Ren carried deep, quiet gratitude and the subtle calculation of a leader who had just seen a new variable enter the balance of the world.
It was noisy.
Messy.
Warm.
Ren let his inner Heaven dim further, twelve Fate Palaces settling into a gentle, slow rotation like planets moving into a stable orbit. The universal paths he'd mapped—toward Martial World, toward other distant realms—remained fixed points in his awareness, bright and patient, like doors he'd locked but kept the keys to.
He could feel the itch to move, simmering under his calm.
To step into a new sky.
To test his Myriad Origin loops, his chaos refinement, his half-complete Hell Suppressing Immortal Physique against cultivation systems that had never heard the word "Dao." To carve his own legend into another world the way Li Qiye had once carved his into the Nine Worlds.
Later, he told that part of himself again.
He'd already chained Trihexa. He'd already sealed the ExE road, rewriting the rules so that paths he closed would not reopen without his consent. He'd shown gods and devils that a new factor existed in their equations—a man whose cultivation system didn't come from any of their mythologies.
He had time.
For now, he was content.
Content to lie there with his head in Ravel's lap, eyes half-closed, listening to the rise and fall of familiar voices. The clink of cups from the tea station. The occasional crackle of harmless lightning as Akeno experimented with party-appropriate spells. The slap of cards on the tatami. The soft, steady crunch of Ophis chewing snacks with single-minded focus.
He cracked one eye open again and glanced up at Ravel.
She yelped, caught mid-stroke, fingers tangled in his hair.
"Wh-what?" she demanded, cheeks still flushed. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
He smiled lazily.
"Just checking," he said. "You're cute when you're pretending not to be happy."
Her face went cherry-red.
"I am not—!"
He closed his eye again, grin widening just enough.
"Sure," he said. "Whatever you say."
Her next stroke was a little firmer than strictly necessary.
He liked that, too.
His Heaven hummed quietly in the background.
Voices rose and fell around him.
Yeah, he thought, letting the warmth soak into him, eyes drifting shut as the noise washed over him.
This isn't a bad flavor of life at all.