Ajuka's monitors were still humming when Ren let his hand fall away from Ingvild's forehead.
Her eyes stayed on him like she was afraid he'd vanish if she blinked.
He didn't move far.
"Easy," he murmured, voice low and steady. "Your body's been on standby for a long time. Take it slow."
Her fingers flexed in the sheets, testing joints that hadn't obeyed her in decades. The floating magic circles around the bed shifted patterns on their own, sigils softening from "containment and preservation" to "stabilization and monitoring" as the room's wards recognized that the patient was now awake, not a problem to be catalogued and stored away.
Serafall's breath caught in her throat.
"Ingvild-chan…!" It came out halfway between a sob and a laugh. She took a step forward, then stopped herself with visible effort, hands hovering like she wanted to grab the girl and was terrified of breaking her.
Sona moved more quietly, but Ren could feel the iron tension in her aura slowly unwinding, thread by thread. She adjusted her glasses with a hand that was almost steady.
"I am Sona Sitri," she said, voice careful and formal. "Head of the Sitri Clan. We've… been monitoring your case."
Ingvild turned toward the sound.
Her gaze drifted over Serafall's bright, trembling smile, then to Sona's composed face—the resemblance between them, the Sitri crest embroidered small and precise on her lapel.
"Sitri…?" she whispered. Her voice scraped like unused strings. "Then that means… Leviathan-sama is…"
Serafall swallowed.
"I'm Serafall," she said softly, dropping the usual sing-song affect like a costume she set aside. "Current Maou Leviathan. And very, very happy to see you awake."
Ingvild's lips parted.
Maou. Leviathan.
In her last clear memories, those words had meant banners in the sky, a distant war she'd only heard about in hurried whispers. Old Satan, New Satan, factions and purges she'd never really understood.
Now that title was attached to this woman with the watery aura, sparkling eyes, and shoulders tight with barely contained emotion.
She looked down at her own hands instead.
They were thinner than she remembered, the skin paler, but not fragile. There was strength in the way her fingers curled—like someone who had been clenching them around something important, even in her sleep.
Ren watched more than flesh and bones.
He watched the rhythm of her demonic power flowing through long-neglected circuits, the way her Sacred Gear sat in her chest now—a quiet tide instead of a hurricane, its logic reworked so it cradled her mind instead of strangling it. The old Sleep Disease signatures had been burned clean, disease-loops isolated and turned into harmless circuits that would flicker out on their own.
"Ren…" she whispered, as if tasting the name again to make sure it wasn't something the dreamsea had invented.
"Yeah," he said. "Still here."
He reached for the bedside table, poured water from the waiting carafe, and held the cup to her lips.
Ingvild tried to lift her own hand. It shook halfway there, fingers trembling like they weren't quite convinced this was real.
Ren didn't comment.
He just shifted his grip so her fingers wrapped around the glass, letting her feel the weight, the cool surface, while he did the actual work of steadying it.
The first mouthful of water slid down her throat like something new.
She coughed once, breath hitching, then drew air in properly for what felt like the first time in a century.
The monitors chirped approval.
Ajuka's eyes were glued to the floating sigils above her bed. Equations danced in his pupils, demonic power flickering and rearranging as he built new formula-strings around the readings. His fingers twitched mid-air, scribbling symbols only he could see.
"Sleep Disease markers completely gone," he muttered. "Sacred Gear logic… restructured. No sign of backlash. The demonic-human hybrid reaction is—"
"Ajuka," Serafall said warningly without looking away from Ingvild.
He shut his mouth. The math kept moving behind his eyes.
Ren set the cup down.
"Okay," he said lightly. "Housekeeping."
Ingvild blinked, lashes trembling.
"…Housekeeping?" she echoed.
"You've been out for a while," he said. "A lot's changed. New Satans. World peace attempts. Big dragon-shaped headaches. We'll get you a proper briefing later. Right now there's one question I care about."
He leaned in, just enough that she could see his eyes clearly—calm, warm, utterly unhurried.
"Do you want to go back to sleep," he asked, "or do you want to live?"
Her breath caught.
Inside her, a very old knot twitched—a habit more than a pattern now. The reflex to curl back into numbness. To let the world turn without her. Sleep had been painful, but at least it had been quiet.
Living meant… risk.
Power.
Songs that could hurt people.
"If I stay awake," she said slowly, voice shaking, "I'll cause trouble. People said my voice could… affect devils, dragons, even…" Her hand drifted unconsciously toward her chest, fingers grazing the spot where Nereid Kyrie slept. "If I lose control—"
"You won't," Ren said, calm as deep water. "What was dangerous before was a broken system trying to handle something it wasn't built for. I reworked that part. Your song's not a landmine anymore. It's a tool. If you decide to use it."
He said it like a fact, not a boast.
For him, it was.
Serafall's shoulders loosened a fraction. Some of the fear in her blue eyes sank beneath the surface, replaced by raw, fragile hope.
Sona exhaled very quietly through her nose. Ren felt the subtle shift as she updated a dozen mental branching diagrams at once.
Ingvild stared at him.
"You… reworked…" Her mind snagged on the word, images of spells and formulas and long, hopeless medical reports flickering in her memory. She gave up on understanding the details and focused on the part that mattered. "And if you're wrong?"
"Then I'll fix it," he said. "Again. Until it's right. Worst case, I'm in the way when it misfires."
Her eyes widened.
"You'd put yourself—"
"In front of you?" He smiled. "Already did, when I walked into your soul. Relax. I'm hard to kill."
Hard to kill like someone who walked around with a Primordial Saint foundation, twelve Fate Palaces stacked into Heavens behind his soul, Hell Suppressing Immortal Physique half-complete making space twist just a little heavier where he stood.
He straightened a little.
"Anyway," he went on mildly, "you don't owe anybody a weapon. Or a title. Or service. You woke up. That's enough for today."
She looked like she wanted to argue with that—years of drilled-in guilt trying to rise—then faltered.
"Where… where am I supposed to go?" she whispered. "My family… they…"
"Sent you here to save you," Sona finished gently. "The old Leviathan line hasn't had direct, stable leadership in a long time. There will be… politics."
Understatement of the century.
Serafall grimaced.
"Old families are going to lose their minds when they hear you're awake," she admitted, and in that moment her bearing shifted—less magical girl, more Maou. "Some will want to put you on a throne. Some will want to put you back in a box. I won't let them. But it's going to be noisy for a while."
Ingvild flinched.
Ren watched the way her fingers tightened around the blanket.
Noise.
Pressure.
Expectations.
The same things that had ground her down once already, until all she could do was sing and sleep and hope the world forgot her.
He clapped his hands softly, the sound neat and precise, drawing every gaze.
"Well, here's the simple option," he said. "You can stay here in the Underworld—in a nice, secure facility—while everyone argues about your existence. They'll dress it up with fancy words, but that's the gist."
Serafall grimaced harder, because that was exactly what the government's "safest" plan had been.
"Or," Ren continued, "you move into my place on the surface for a while. Kuoh. Too many bedrooms, good wards, a garden, and more lively, lovely girls than I know what to do with. One more won't break anything."
He smiled at her again, softer this time.
"You eat real food. Learn what year it is. Pick up hobbies that aren't 'accidental world-ending siren song'. When you're ready, you decide what you want. If that's paperwork and politics, Sona and Serafall can help you. If it's something else, we'll figure it out."
Her mouth fell open.
"You're just…" She searched for the words. "You don't even know me."
"You've already left a great impression," he said, giving a lopsided smile. "I've seen enough to make a provisional judgment."
Her cheeks flushed, the faintest hint of color under skin that had been too pale for too long.
"That's not—"
"For the record," he added, quieter, "I'm offering because you're a cute girl who got screwed over by circumstances and cowardice. I don't want payment. I don't want your title. If you end up deciding you don't like me and move out later, that's fine too. I just want to see you live a life that's yours."
He held her gaze while he said it.
No joking. No hidden hooks.
Just a simple truth laid bare.
Ingvild felt something in her chest shake loose.
"…You're… very unfair," she whispered.
"People keep telling me that," he said lightly. "So. What do you want?"
She looked at Serafall.
The Maou's smile was wobbly but bright, eyes shining with tears she refused to let fall.
She looked at Sona.
The Sitri heiress' gaze was steady, sharp, but underneath the calculation there was a clear, quiet protectiveness—someone who would rather break her own schedule in half than let a patient be used like a pawn.
Then she looked back at Ren.
At the man who had walked into her nightmare calling it "just another stubborn puzzle," taken her hand, and told her the choice was hers.
"…I'd like to see the sky," she said, barely louder than a breath. "The real one. Not just… dream waves. And the ocean. I want to hear it with my own ears."
Ren's smile widened, slow and bright, like dawn.
"Then come to Kuoh," he said. "We'll start there."
Serafall made a small strangled noise.
"Ren-chii, you can't just kidnap the cute Leviathan girl—"
"Less kidnapping and more 'offering a safe place to recover,'" he said calmly. "Under adult supervision. And a Maou or two."
He glanced sideways at Sona.
"What do you think?" he asked. "Can you tolerate one more variable in your scheduling nightmare?"
Sona pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose.
He could almost see the calculations flicker behind her eyes—risk matrices, political fallout, security protocols, the map of the Underworld's factions and how they'd react to "Ingvild Leviathan moves into strange human town with dragon-slayer cultivator and Maou supervision."
She also glanced, just once, at Ingvild's face.
At the awe and fear and fragile hope there.
"…If she wishes to go," Sona said finally, "then the Sitri Clan will support that choice. The manor is already one of the most secure locations on the surface. From a tactical standpoint, it's… acceptable."
Ren's grin went a little crooked.
"You're adorable when you say 'acceptable' and mean 'I've already accounted for this three branches ahead,'" he said.
Color touched the tips of her ears.
Serafall shot him a look.
"Ren-chii, flirting in front of your patient—"
"It's fine," Ingvild blurted, and immediately went even redder when three sets of eyes swung back to her.
Ren chuckled.
"See?" he said. "Democracy."
Ajuka cleared his throat.
"If we're done reworking custody law in my medical ward," he said dryly, "I'd like a word with our… guest cultivator before he smuggles away my patient."
Ren glanced at him.
"Sure," he said easily. "We'll step out for a bit."
He looked back at Ingvild.
"I'm going to talk shop with the green-haired scientist for a moment," he told her, tone casual. "You've got two overachieving devils here to babysit you. If you start feeling weird, say something. Out loud."
She nodded, fingers still clenched in the blanket.
"Okay," she whispered.
"Good girl," he said, soft enough that it was more warmth than words.
Then he turned and followed Ajuka out into the corridor.
The hallway outside felt almost unnaturally quiet after the low, constant hum of the warded room.
Ajuka didn't waste time on small talk.
"How stable is this?" he asked as soon as the door sealed shut behind them. The light from the corridor sigils painted sharp green lines along his cheekbones. "You introduced an external lawset directly into her soul. In my world, that's—"
"Madness?" Ren suggested.
"Either suicide or a possession scenario," Ajuka finished flatly. "The system should have rejected it. It didn't. It adapted. Why?"
Ren rocked his weight back a little, hands sliding into his pockets.
"Because I told it to," he said.
Ajuka stared.
Ren lifted one shoulder in a slight shrug.
"Think of it this way," he went on. "The way energy works here is just a set of habits. Shortcuts your Heaven and Earth got used to taking. My Dao doesn't ask permission from that. I threaded a new logic spine through the mess. Her Anima liked it, so it accepted."
He tapped his temple.
"The Immortal Soul Bone takes complexity and makes it simple," he added. "Your Sleep Disease, her Longinus, devil-human hybrid issues… all of that is just one tangled problem to me. I spent a little effort, now it's straight."
Ajuka's eye twitched.
Part of him wanted to be offended on behalf of every careful line of magical theory he'd written. Part of him was already trying to reverse-engineer those "logic spines" from his monitor readings, even knowing it was like trying to sketch a river during a storm.
"There will be opposition," he said finally. "To you taking her. To her… existing like this. Old Leviathan loyalists. Certain Maou blocs. Some humans, once word of her Sacred Gear gets out. How do you want me to handle the news?"
Ren tilted his head, considering.
"However you like," he said. "Stamp your name on it if that makes it easier. Call it a cooperative Beelzebub-Leviathan project with outside assistance. Announce it, bury it, hold a press conference, leak it on some anonymous forum. As long as nobody tries to stuff her back in a tube, I don't care."
Ajuka narrowed his eyes.
"And if someone does?" he asked quietly.
Ren's smile thinned.
"Then they can 'come say hi' to me," he said. "Personally."
For a moment, the calm, relaxed man in front of him wasn't quite so soft.
Ajuka felt a phantom echo of the pressure from the Dimensional Gap—the weight of twelve Heavens stacked behind a pair of human eyes, Trihexa's sealed malice coiled somewhere in that inner world like a chained mountain. The ward-lines along the hallway bent very slightly around Ren's presence, recognizing something that wasn't supposed to exist here.
If someone tried to chain Ingvild again, it wouldn't be "political trouble."
It would be an extinction event.
"…Understood," Ajuka said.
Ren's smile warmed again like nothing had happened.
"Good talk," he said. "Send me whatever data you're comfortable sharing. I'll see if any of it meshes with my stuff without breaking your reality."
"You're treating my world like a test bench," Ajuka muttered.
"Like a garden," Ren corrected. "I don't mess with the soil unless I'm sure the plants can handle it."
Ajuka snorted softly despite himself.
"Get out of my lab," he said.
Ren gave him an easy wave and slipped back into the room.
...
The transfer to Kuoh was almost anticlimactic.
Even Serafall—who'd watched him twist space to drag half a pantheon across worlds and had personally seen him build a training dimension around his manor—still felt a little odd when reality folded like a paper fan around Ren's casual gesture.
One moment: Underworld medical ward.
Next: the familiar living room of the Kuoh manor.
Soft couches.
Low table.
The smell of tea and old books and the faint, ever-present hint of ozone from overworked training formations in the backyard.
Ren set Ingvild down on the biggest couch, one arm under her knees, the other behind her shoulders. He moved like she weighed nothing. Gently, he propped a pillow behind her back so she could sit without straining.
The manor's wards rolled over her aura like a curious tide, tasted her Leviathan bloodline and Longinus, then settled when they found Ren's mark wrapped around her core like a soft, unbreakable chain.
Several heads turned at once.
Rias, mid-conversation with Akeno, froze halfway to her teacup.
Asia, arranging snacks on a tray, nearly dropped a plate.
Koneko, curled in an armchair with a manga, blinked once, ears twitching beneath her hair.
"Welcome home," Ren said mildly to the room at large. "We have a guest."
"O-oh," Asia said, scrambling to set the tray down before it shook itself off her hands. "Um. Hello…?"
Rias rose smoothly, crimson hair spilling over her shoulder like a banner.
Her eyes, sharp and curious, swept over Ingvild—her long violet hair, the faint, lingering imprint of Underworld wards on her skin, the unfamiliar yet familiar aura of Leviathan lineage humming under her heartbeat.
"Ren," Rias said slowly. "Is that…?"
"Ingvild Leviathan," he confirmed. "Former coma princess. Newly awake. Very confused. Be nice."
Ingvild flinched at her full name.
Her fingers twisted in the blanket spread over her lap.
Rias caught that tiny movement.
She softened, dialing back the usual Gremory showmanship. When she spoke, it was with the warmth of a host greeting a guest, not a heiress addressing an unexpected piece on the political board.
"I'm Rias Gremory," she said, stepping forward with a small, welcoming smile. "This manor is under my care. It's a pleasure to meet you, Ingvild."
She offered her hand.
Ingvild stared at it for a heartbeat, then reached out tentatively.
Their fingers touched.
Akeno's light steps whispered across the floor. She glided up beside Rias, smile playful but eyes just as observant.
"I'm Akeno," she said gently. "Rias' Queen. And one of the people Ren keeps dragging into ridiculous situations."
"I don't drag," Ren said. "I invite."
Asia hurried up on the other side, nervous but determined, green eyes shining.
"And I'm Asia," she said. "I… um… I also woke up in a place I didn't understand, once. So if you feel lost, it's… it's okay."
Her smile was small but impossibly sincere.
Koneko closed her manga, slid off the chair, and padded closer on silent feet.
She didn't say much.
She just looked Ingvild over, gold eyes narrowed in a measuring way that had scared off more than one arrogant devil.
Then she nodded, short and decisive.
"…Smells like ocean and magic," she said. "Not dangerous."
For Koneko, that was practically a hug.
Ingvild's eyes went wide.
"I…" she managed. "It's… nice to meet you…"
Sona stepped in smoothly, every inch the composed Student Council President even outside school.
"As you already know," she said, "I am Sona Sitri. This is a temporary arrangement for your recovery and orientation. My peerage and I will assist with any practical needs you have."
Serafall beamed.
"And I'm Serafall!" she declared, switching back to her full magical-girl mode like flicking a switch. "Big sister Maou, magical girl enthusiast, and unofficial head of the 'Protect Ingvild-chan's Smile' committee☆"
Ingvild flinched at the star at the end of her sentence.
"I… committee…?" she echoed faintly.
"Just let her have it," Sona muttered.
Ren hid a smile behind his hand.
On the back of another couch, Kuroka lounged with careless grace, tail flicking lazily. Her golden eyes studied Ingvild with the relaxed focus of a predator watching a new cat wander into established territory.
"Mmm~ another little sister-nyaa," she purred. "Boss, your collection is getting pretty big."
"Inaccurate terminology," Rias said dryly.
Ingvild's head spun.
New faces. New names. New energies, all strange and yet somehow… gentle. Not the clinical cold of Underworld specialists who had only ever seen her as a case file and a hazard.
Ren clapped his hands once more, lightly.
"All right," he said. "A couple ground rules so she doesn't get overwhelmed. One: no one asks her to sing on command. Her power is hers. She decides when she uses it and for what."
Rias nodded immediately. Akeno's expression turned thoughtful and respectful.
"Two," Ren continued. "No politics for at least a week unless she brings it up. And three—someone please make sure she doesn't get lost if she wanders outside. The human world has cars now, and I don't trust them."
Ravel, who had been sitting near the window with a stack of documents, looked up sharply at that.
Her blonde curls bounced as she stood, trying very hard to appear composed and not at all like she'd been eavesdropping. Her phoenix wings, currently sealed, flickered faintly at her back.
"I am Ravel Phenex," she said with a small curtsey, formal and precise. "Heir of House Phenex and… currently residing here for educational purposes."
Her eyes flicked briefly toward Ren at "educational," then away, cheeks coloring.
"If you require assistance with modern Underworld society or the human realm," she added, tone brisk to cover the shyness, "I would be pleased to advise you."
Ingvild blinked.
"Th-thank you," she said.
The room's atmosphere shifted, bit by bit, from "crisis" to "new housemate."
Asia fussed over extra pillows.
Akeno headed toward the kitchen to prepare more tea.
Rias began gently explaining Kuoh Academy—its classes, the quirks of living in a town that sat on top of a devil territory, what year it was, what "smartphones" and "internet" meant in the most non-threatening way possible.
Ren stepped back, letting the women weave their social net around the newly awakened girl.
He felt, rather than saw, the moment Ophis appeared.
Her presence was a quiet subtraction, a hole in the world shaped like a small child.
She slipped into the living room without any door opening, bare feet making no sound on the floorboards. The air didn't move around her so much as hesitate.
Her snake-like golden eyes settled on Ingvild.
The Leviathan girl shivered.
Ren's Dao senses registered two infinities brushing—one tiny, one endless.
Ingvild's song, still mostly dormant, carried a faint, ocean-deep resonance that brushed the sleeping trails of dragons. Ophis was infinite void, silence at the heart of things.
Ophis tilted her head.
"Her song," she said, voice flat but thoughtful. "It is… small. But it touches dragons."
Ingvild went very still.
She had grown up hearing legends. Of Dragon Gods. Of beings like Ophis and Great Red—the Infinite Dragon God, the True Red Dragon Emperor. Of seas and dreams and songs that could stir even those titans.
Now one of those beings was standing in front of her.
Ren moved before panic could spike.
He stepped to Ophis' side, resting a casual hand on her head.
"Curious?" he asked.
She nodded once.
"I will listen," she said.
"Listening is fine," he said. "No testing. I'm not interested in waking up to two Dragon Gods and a sea goddess arguing over decibels."
A faint blink. For Ophis, that was almost humor.
"Great Red is quiet," she said after a moment. "He sleeps. Or sulks. I cannot hear his dream-trails now."
Ren's mouth quirked.
Of course you can't, he thought. They run through my Heavens now.
Out in the Dimensional Gap, the paths he'd carved out of Great Red's dream residue lay still. No dragon god roared against his new gravity. No wave of draconic outrage answered the subtle shift in one sleeping Leviathan's aura.
Good.
He wasn't particularly worried about the others either.
Tiamat was prickly, but she'd already watched him walk through worse things than a siren song. Fafnir was too busy with gold. The rest of the dragon crowd would follow the mood of the strongest.
Right now, the strongest dragon in this universe was sitting in his living room eating cookies.
Ophis leaned slightly into his hand without seeming to notice she'd done it.
"I will watch her," she said simply.
Ingvild, who had spent the last hundred years half-dreaming under the weight of an incurable disease and an out-of-control Sacred Gear, felt her brain quietly give up on understanding and skip straight to acceptance.
There was a Dragon God in the living room.
She was being patted like a pet.
And no one was screaming.
Ren's smile was small and satisfied.
"Welcome to the modern age," he said quietly, mostly to Ingvild. "It's weird, but it's home."
Her eyes met his.
For the first time, the tiny flicker of Anima he'd seen curled tight in her soul world peeked out and looked back at him—hesitant, but no longer hiding entirely.
"…Okay," she whispered.