Months slipped by after the field of flowers in Heaven and the hill above Kyoto's lights.
Ren barely noticed them pass.
He made time.
For the girls whose souls he'd already helped.
For the ones he was still, gently and steadily, drawing closer.
...
The training dimension today smelled faintly of rain.
Ren sat cross-legged on a floating stone platform, the soles of his feet bare against warm stone. His eyes were closed, but his awareness stretched far beyond the lids—out across the contained world he'd built around the manor, through the formations humming in the sky, down into the veins of power flowing under the ground.
Below his platform, the "floor" of the dimension was a broad plain of pale stone and short grass, broken up by boulders and the occasional conjured obstacle course. Above, clouds rolled slowly by, painted by his will into soft, shifting shapes that carried the faint imprint of his Dao.
Every blade of grass circulated energy in tiny loops. Every rock had subtle runes buried in its core, ready to be awakened. The entire space was a living formation, tuned to his Heaven.
Across from him, Shigune shifted her weight from foot to foot.
She still wasn't used to the quiet here.
The girl's long blond hair was braided in that crown-like loop he'd seen in old photos. Her heterochromatic eyes—one blue, one dark—kept flicking from his relaxed form to the small horned creature in her arms.
Poh dozed there, its mask-like face tilted up, four horns twitching whenever a stray strand of her aura tickled them. In the outside world, this Independent Avatar Sacred Gear—the strongest of the Four Fiends, Tāotiè, the Fiend of Gluttony—was infamous for its ability to devour anything: demonic power, magic, even other Sacred Gears.
Here, it looked almost absurdly small.
Ren exhaled once, slow.
The dimension listened.
"Okay," he said, voice even. "Start from the top."
Shigune jumped a little, then nodded quickly.
"O-okay," she said. Her voice was soft, but not weak—more like someone who had gotten used to not being heard. "I… I let the power rise from the core and… guide it along the loop you showed me."
She closed her eyes.
In Ren's Dao-sense, her body was no longer just flesh and blood. It was a half-lit maze of channels and nodes, of fear-tightened places and old scars, wrapped around the core of her Sacred Gear.
Deep in her chest, the Taotie's Sacred Gear stirred—starved instinct and gnawing hunger coiled around a girl who'd been taught to fear her own strength. Poh's body in her arms was just one manifestation; the true core sat deeper, bound into a Sacred Gear channel that could, left alone, devour almost anything it touched.
His Myriad Origin loop was already there around that core, a harness instead of a chain. Lines of alien Dao essence wrapped the Taotie's devouring instinct, re-routing that endless hunger toward curses, stray malice, waste energies—anything toxic trying to seep into her.
"Good," Ren murmured. "Don't force it. Just… hint."
Shigune pulled in a breath.
Poh's mask clicked once.
The air around her thickened.
Not the suffocating, chaotic hunger that once threatened to turn entire areas into hell when the Fiend's power was unleashed, but a focused tug—like the world exhaling impurities toward one point.
On the distant horizon, a conjured boulder began to darken.
Ren had seeded it earlier with layers of malicious residue: old curses scraped off battlefield scars, lingering resentments from destroyed sigils, fragments of hateful Will collected from demons he hadn't bothered to remember. Hidden veins of cursed energy flared to life, then sloughed off, turning into a greasy, dark mist that bled out of the stone.
The mist didn't spread.
It flowed, drawn like iron filings to a magnet, straight toward Poh's open mouth.
The small beast yawned hugely. Its mask split wider than its body should allow as it inhaled, swallowing the curse-mist in one gulp.
The boulder brightened, stone returning to its natural pale color. The dimension's "sky" above them cleared a fraction, one more invisible weight lifted from the field.
Shigune opened her eyes.
"…It worked," she whispered, disbelieving.
Ren smiled.
"Of course it worked," he said. "You're doing great."
Her cheeks colored faintly, lashes lowering. "It's just… when Poh eats things, people get scared."
"People get scared of a lot of things," Ren said. "Demons, dragons, change, honest tax forms."
She blinked at him.
He shrugged slightly, amused. "Fear is their business. Yours is control."
He nodded toward Poh, who was licking its lips in a disturbingly cute way for something that once could have turned an entire battlefield into hell by eating everything in sight.
"How do you feel?" he asked. "Not Poh. You."
She paused, closing her eyes again.
He felt her awareness dip inward—past Poh's satisfaction, past the residual fear that years of being hunted and manipulated had left in her bones, down to the place where his Veil-lines and Myriad Origin loops coiled around her Anima.
"…Less… noisy," she said slowly. "Before, when I used Poh, it was like… a crowd shouting in my head. Hungry, angry, wanting to eat everything at once."
"And now?"
She looked up at him.
"Now it's… like one person," she said. "Still hungry. But listening."
Ren nodded once.
"That's you," he said. "You're the one Poh listens to."
Her grip tightened around the small beast. "Even if… even if it's a monster?"
Ren raised an eyebrow.
"You think I don't talk to monsters?"
She flushed. "That's not what I—"
He unfolded from his cross-legged seat in one smooth motion, landing lightly on the stone before her. He didn't loom; he rarely bothered. He just stood close enough that she had to tilt her chin up to look at him.
"Shigune," he said quietly. "I walked into the Gap and 'talked' Great Red into playing nice. I have a Dragon King napping on my couch sometimes. My 'day job' includes living with a house full of devils, angels, Fallen, and youkai who all think they're the scary ones."
His hand came up—not to touch her, but to hover in the air near Poh's head.
The little Taotie snuffled, then leaned into the invisible pressure like an animal seeking affection.
Ren let his fingers drop, scratching lightly behind one of its horns.
Poh's mask rattled in what could almost be called bliss.
"I like monsters," he said. "They're honest. You know what they want. It's people who confuse themselves."
Shigune stared at him.
"You're not afraid of him at all," she said.
"I understand him," Ren replied. "That's different. Understanding's cheaper than fear."
Her lips trembled, like she was biting back words she wasn't supposed to say.
"Shigune," he said softly.
"Y-yes?"
He stepped just a little closer.
"I like seeing you walk without flinching every time Poh breathes," he said. "I like seeing you smile when he eats something nasty and you realize the world didn't end."
He reached out, slow enough for her to pull away if she wanted, and rested his hand gently on top of hers where she held Poh.
"You know what I'd like even more?" he asked.
She swallowed. "W-what?"
"To see you reach for what you want without apologizing," he said. "Whether that's power… or people."
Her eyes widened.
Her first instinct, he could feel, was to deny everything. To say she didn't want anything; that if she wanted nothing, no one could take anything from her.
The Myriad Origin lines in her Soul Palace hummed, catching the edge of that instinct and dissolving its poison. Loops of chaos-refined energy turned the old fear into fuel.
Her fingers curled, almost despite herself, around his.
"…You," she said, so quietly it could have been a breath.
Ren's smile deepened, but his voice stayed gentle.
"Then hold on a little tighter," he said. "And let me spoil you a bit."
He let his hand slide down, lacing their fingers together.
Poh, squashed between them, made an indignant muffled noise and wriggled until it popped free; then it hopped up to his shoulder, tiny claws digging into his coat.
Shigune made a mortified sound. "P-Poh! Don't—!"
Ren laughed under his breath.
"It's fine," he said. "He knows a good vantage point."
He squeezed her hand once, firm.
"Walk with me," he said. "Just you. No curses. No running. We'll do another round of training later."
She hesitated.
Then she nodded.
"…Okay," she said.
Her grip stayed tight as they stepped off the platform and onto a conjured path that wound through the training dimension's endless plain. The field around them subtly changed as they walked: cursed boulders quietly dissolving, new formations etching themselves into the ground for the next round of exercises.
Far away, at the very edge of the dimension—on one of the observation platforms Ren had left for spectators—Asia and Irina watched, half-hidden behind a pillar.
Asia's hands were clasped in front of her chest, emerald eyes shining. Irina leaned so far to the side that one pure white wing threatened to pop out on instinct, her expression somewhere between starry-eyed and scandalized.
Natsume, sitting a little apart, glanced over the top of a book, eyes narrowing slightly as she took in the sight of Shigune's flushed cheeks and their joined hands.
Irina leaned sideways. "That's… a date, right?" she whispered, halo of hair bobbing.
Asia smiled softly. "I think so," she said.
Natsume snorted quietly, but her gaze lingered.
...
Natsume Minagawa didn't like being watched.
She could handle being observed in battle—eyes on her movements, calculating, weighing threats—but casual attention, idle curiosity, people just looking… those made her feathers itch.
Unfortunately for her, Ren's training dimension had a lot of eyes.
Not people.
Wind.
She stood on a high arch of stone, a narrowing bridge that curved out over nothing. Wind tugged at her hair and clothes, smelling of distant rain and ozone and something older, like breath pulled from a deep valley.
Below, the dimension dropped away into a churning sea of clouds he'd conjured for today's exercise. Above, the "sky" was a deep, impossible blue, faint Dao-patterns drifting across it like barely visible constellations.
Beside her, a shadow rippled.
Qiongqi—her own Fiend—hung in the air like a dark storm given shape, the Independent Avatar's body half bestial, half vapor. Wings that weren't exactly wings—more like torn banners made of storm—spread behind it, whipping in the wind. The hawk-lion silhouette of its true form blurred at the edges, all wind and teeth and a loyalty that could turn the world into a killing field if it lost control.
Ren stood on the very edge of the stone arch, hands in his pockets, hair moving only slightly despite the gusts.
"So," he said. "How's the pressure?"
Natsume glared at him, bangs whipping across her forehead.
"Fine," she said shortly. "You didn't have to raise the wind this much."
"I did," he said mildly. "You wanted to practice fine control with Qiongqi's currents, remember? Hard to do that in a dead calm."
She clicked her tongue.
Qiongqi's storm-eyes swiveled toward her, hungry attention flicking from her to Ren and back.
The Veil he'd laid along its wind channels glowed faintly in his Dao-sense—a network of pressure-release nodes, siphoning spikes into tiny orbs forming one by one in her Soul Palace. The "wasted" violence that had once threatened to tear her apart now condensed into ammunition, compact spheres of sharpened wind folded into the foundations of her inner world.
Natsume crossed her arms.
"I could have practiced on the ground," she muttered.
"And then you'd just run away the second it felt like too much," he said.
She stiffened.
"I don't run away," she snapped.
"Mm." His tone stayed neutral. "Luxury liner incident."
She flinched, shoulders jerking.
"That wasn't—"
"I know," he said, voice softer. "You were a kid. You didn't have this—" he nodded toward Qiongqi, "—under control. You watched people die and decided the safest thing was to keep yourself small. Birds in too-small cages stop trying to fly."
She swallowed, eyes going hard.
"I'm not… small now," she said.
"I know," he repeated.
He turned to face her fully, still on the edge of the arch, heels almost over nothing.
"Show me," he said.
She scowled. "What, you want me to throw a tantrum with a legendary Fiend? Isn't that what the villains do?"
He chuckled.
"Difference between a tantrum and a technique is direction," he said. "Take aim."
He snapped his fingers.
The clouds below them surged.
Wind roared upward, spiraling around the stone arch like a vertical hurricane. For a moment, Natsume staggered; the force tried to pick her up and fling her into the void. Qiongqi's form stretched, elongated by the sudden pressure, snarling with a sound like ripping canvas and breaking bones.
The Veil nodes lit one after another, absorbing the spike, feeding it into her inner world as pure, condensed force. In her Soul Palace, tiny storm orbs formed along the "branches" of her nascent Primordial Tree, spinning in their own small orbits.
Natsume gritted her teeth, planted her feet, and threw out her hand.
"Down!" she shouted, more reflex than strategy.
Wind obeyed.
It snapped from wild spiral to focused torrent, slamming into the cloud sea with terrifying force. In Ren's Dao-sense, he watched the current twist along Qiongqi's lines, pass through the Veil, and emerge as a coherent strike instead of a chaotic burst.
Clouds split.
The sea of white parted like curtains, revealing a hidden layer of the training dimension beneath—a scattered field of floating rock platforms, each marked with sigils. The closest platform shattered under the impact, stone bursting outward in jagged shards before the formation caught and dissolved them into harmless motes.
Natsume's hair whipped around her face.
Her eyes were wide.
"…I did that," she breathed.
"Yep," Ren said.
"With control," she added.
"Also yes."
"And nothing… broke."
"Except what we wanted to break," he agreed.
The wind dropped from a scream to a steady roar, then to a manageable breeze. Qiongqi's form settled, the storm around it curling inwards, obedient, lingering near her shoulder with the possessiveness of a guard beast.
Natsume stared at her hand, then at Qiongqi, then at Ren.
"You're… annoying," she said.
He laughed.
"That's one way to say 'thank you'," he said.
She looked away, cheeks heating. "…Thanks," she muttered.
He hopped down from the very edge, landing beside her in a single, unconcerned step. Up close, she realized their height difference wasn't that big—but somehow, he always felt taller. Not physically. Just… heavier, like the air around him had more to say.
"Hey," he said lightly. "Mind a suggestion?"
"You'll make it anyway," she muttered.
"True," he admitted. "When you're up here and the wind's trying to throw you off, stop thinking 'don't fall.' Think 'this is my air.'"
She frowned at him. "That's not how gravity works."
"Gravity's just another habit of the world," he said. "Habits can be changed. You've got a Sacred Gear that lets you ride storms. Stop treating the sky like an enemy; treat it like your home turf."
He stepped closer to the edge again and held out his hand.
"Come on," he said. "Trust the air a little."
Natsume eyed the drop, then his hand.
"You're insane," she said.
"Probably," he agreed. "I also have a perfect record of catching people."
She hesitated.
Memories flickered—screams, fire, the ocean rising to swallow a burning ship. The feeling of power raging out of control, of wind sharpened into blades that didn't care who they cut.
Then another set of memories pushed in—the way Ren had blocked gods' curses like swatting flies; the way he'd touched her Soul Palace, brushed Qiongqi's core, and never once flinched at her power.
She exhaled sharply.
"Fine," she said, grabbing his hand. "If I fall, I'm suing you."
"That's the spirit," he said, amused.
He tugged.
They stepped off the arch.
For a split second, her stomach dropped. Instinct screamed—falling, falling, falling—
Then the wind caught them.
Not wild, not chaotic. A series of linked currents, each one humming with Karmic impressions of his Dao—trust, direction, refusal to let go.
One flow wrapped around her waist, another around their joined hands, another under her feet. The drop turned into a glide.
Natsume gasped.
They slid through the air in a lazy arc, Qiongqi trailing after them like a hunting shadow, the storm around it purring.
Ren's fingers tightened around hers.
"See?" he said. "Your air."
For a long moment, she didn't answer.
Then she laughed.
It was short, startled, a little rough around the edges—but real.
"You're…" she began, then shook her head, hair whipping.
"You can say I'm amazing," he suggested.
"You're full of yourself," she shot back automatically.
He grinned.
"There we go," he said. "That sounds more like you."
Their feet touched down on a lower platform, the wind dispersing gently. Qiongqi landed beside them with a soft thud, shaking itself out like a big storm-dog.
Natsume's heart was beating fast.
She was still holding his hand.
She realized it a second before he did, and yanked her hand back, face flushing.
"D-don't get the wrong idea," she blurted. "I only grabbed you so you wouldn't fall to your death and make my life more complicated."
"Of course," he said, utterly straight-faced. "I'm honored by your concern for my schedule."
She glared.
He chuckled and tilted his head.
"Hey, Natsume," he said.
"What?"
"If you ever want to go flying again without the training exercises," he said, "just ask. No gods, no curses. Just you, me, and the wind."
Her throat worked.
"…I'll think about it," she said.
He smiled.
"That's all I ask," he replied.
Above them, the wind that had once felt like a judge now circled her like something closer to an ally.
...
Lavinia's world was snow.
Not cold, not really.
Just… snow.
Ren found her in one of the pocket dimensions Grigori used for high-risk training—a blank white field under a pale sky, its perimeter wrapped in layers of Azazel's wards. Frost-blue sigils hung in the air like frozen flowers, tracing out Absolute Demise's potential range and giving warning if she pushed too far.
In the center of that world, Lavinia spun.
She wore her usual witch robe and pointed hat, long blonde hair swirling, sapphire eyes fixed on the patterns she was weaving. Her breath puffed in small white clouds, though she didn't seem to feel the chill.
Absolute Demise slumbered in her shadow, the conceptual Longinus that could summon a three-meter ice doll capable of freezing entire regions into crystallized stillness.
Little ice butterflies drifted around her. Where they landed, the world stopped.
Literally.
Where a butterfly's wing brushed a falling snowflake, the flake froze in mid-air, hanging there, refusing to obey gravity. A drifting motecule of frost-mist halted, every particle locked in place. A patch of wind-blown snow paused in its dance.
She flicked a finger; the tiny bubbles of stillness shattered, releasing pent-up stillness in a soft rush. Time resumed in that spot with a subtle, rippling catch-up.
"Pretty," Ren said from the edge of the field.
Lavinia brightened immediately.
"Ren-chan!" she called, waving with the enthusiasm of a child and the smooth grace of a veteran magician. "You came!"
"Of course," he said, walking forward.
The snow crunched under his feet, then… stopped. Where his sole met the ground, his Heaven overlaid itself, turning frozen ground into a stable platform of compressed laws. He didn't need it, but he liked the habit of not letting other people's rules touch him directly.
She bounced closer, eyes sparkling.
"Look, look," she said, gesturing to the butterflies. "I tried what you said. About not thinking of it as 'ending' things, but as… pausing them. See? I can make tiny safe spots now!"
She threw a butterfly at him.
It fluttered through the air, delicate, almost harmless-looking, and settled on his sleeve.
For an instant, the universe around that point… paused.
His Dao, Absolute Demise's conceptual freeze, Myriad Origin's loops—all of it hung in perfect stillness around that one spot. No circulation. No decay. No movement.
Lavinia's eyes went huge.
"A-ah—wait, that might have been—"
Then the butterfly cracked.
His Heaven quietly asserted itself: Nice trick, but I'm still here.
The ice flake shattered in slow motion, then accelerated back to normal speed. Time slipped back into its usual rhythm, the stillness dissolving like frost touched by sunlight.
Ren looked at his sleeve, then at her.
"…Not bad," he said.
Her shoulders sagged in relief. "I was so scared it would… erase something important," she admitted. "But it worked! It really worked! Your idea was amazing, Ren-chan!"
He smiled.
"It was your heart that made it work," he said. "I just nudged the logic."
When they'd first started working together, Absolute Demise had looked to his Dao-sense like a guillotine hung over reality—sharp, efficient, terrifying even by his standards. Now, after weeks of careful adjustments, its edge had shifted. It still held the authority to end phenomena, but Lavinia's Anima had braided in alternatives: pause, redirect, protect.
"Come on," he said. "Let's take a break. You've been out here for hours."
She pouted. "You can tell?"
"Your Soul Palace is frosted over," he said dryly. "Also, your nose is red."
Her hands flew to her face. "Ehh?! It is? That's embarrassing…"
"It's cute," he said.
Her brain tripped over itself.
"R-Ren-chan," she said, cheeks going pink. "You can't just… say things like that so casually…"
"Why not?" he asked. "You're cute. It's a fact."
She made a soft, strangled noise and half-hid behind her hat.
He laughed and, with a flick of his fingers, opened a small pavilion from his Heaven—a wooden platform with cushions and a low table, standing incongruously on the snow as if it had always been there. The air inside was warmer, tuned to her comfort instead of the biting chill Absolute Demise liked.
Steam rose from a pot of hot chocolate that absolutely hadn't been there a second ago.
Lavinia's eyes sparkled again.
"Waaah… magic pavilion," she murmured, flopping onto a cushion without any of the dignity her reputation as "Ice Princess" would suggest. "You really can do anything, Ren-chan."
"Not anything," he said, sitting across from her. "But enough to make sure you don't freeze yourself just because you forgot time exists."
She giggled, accepting a mug.
For a while, they just… sat.
Snow fell softly around them outside the pavilion. The training field's wards hummed faintly at the edges of perception. Lavinia sipped her drink, legs kicking idly under the table, every movement radiating that strange mix of adult capability and childlike openness that defined her.
"You know," she said eventually, gaze dropping into her cup, "when I was younger… I really thought my power meant I shouldn't get close to anyone."
Ren watched her quietly.
"Every time I used it," she went on, "something stopped. A spell. A demon. An entire field of battle. People looked at me like I was a walking emergency stop button. Useful, but… scary."
She smiled, but it was brittle at the edges.
"I got used to that," she said. "It was okay. I had Tobio and the others. Azazel. That was enough. I thought it had to be."
Her aura flickered—snow and ice and the faint, sharp edge of conceptual erasure.
"Then you showed up," she said.
He raised an eyebrow. "That sounds like the start of a complaint."
"Maybe a little," she said, lips curling. "You walked into our world like you owned nothing and everything, rearranged cursed systems, pulled impossible beasts out of their cages… and treated me like…"
She hesitated.
"…like what?" he asked gently.
"Like a girl who likes sweets," she said. "Not just a weapon."
He smiled, something warm and quiet behind his eyes.
"You do like sweets," he said.
"I do," she agreed. "And snow. And cute things. And… you."
The last part slipped out almost casually.
Ren's eyes softened.
"I see," he said. "That's a pretty good list."
She peeked at him over her mug, blue eyes bright.
"I'm still scared sometimes," she admitted. "That if I… let myself want more, I'll lose control. That if I… hold someone too tight, the world will stop around them, and I won't be able to start it again."
She laughed lightly, but her fingers tightened on the ceramic. "It's a silly fear, right?"
"It's not silly," he said. "It's honest."
Dao-essence traced a quiet line between his Heaven and her Soul Palace, reinforcing the Anima safeguards he'd woven before. If her heart didn't want something gone, Absolute Demise couldn't erase it. That had been his rule. Today, he tightened it—adding an extra anchor, a clause that tied her power's limit to his Heaven's bottom line.
"Lavinia," he said, tone softening. "Look at me."
She did.
"You can freeze concepts," he said. "You can erase cursed phenomena, hostile laws, even things the gods don't understand. But you can't erase what I've decided to protect."
Her eyes widened.
"And I've decided," he went on, "that you are someone I protect. From enemies. From curses. And from your own fear, when it lies to you."
Her fingers trembled around the mug.
"That's… a lot," she whispered.
"I'm greedy," he said. "I see people I like and keep them safe. You're already part of my lively group."
"…You make it sound like you're hoarding us," she said, trying to joke.
"I am," he replied. "Proudly."
She laughed again, this time with less brittleness, a soft sound that warmed the air more than the hot chocolate.
"Ren-chan," she said after a moment, voice small, "if I… if I reached out… would you… take my hand?"
He extended his without hesitation.
"Always," he said.
She set her mug down.
Her hand slid into his, fingers cool and a little shaky.
For Lavinia, that simple contact was almost as terrifying as drawing Absolute Demise.
She waited.
The world didn't stop.
The snow kept falling outside the pavilion. Time continued to move. The ice doll lurking in the depths of her Sacred Gear stirred but did not manifest, its freezing world held firmly behind new conceptual gates.
Ren's thumb brushed over the back of her hand, warm and steady.
"See?" he said. "I'm still here."
"…You really are unfair," she murmured, eyes wet at the corners. "You say exactly the things I… wanted someone to say."
"That's my specialty," he said lightly. "Knowing what my women need to hear."
Her cheeks flared.
"Y-your women…" she echoed, flustered.
He squeezed her hand gently.
"If you want that," he said. "No rush. I have time."
She stared at him for a long heartbeat.
"…I'll be greedy too, then," she said softly. "Just a little."
She leaned over the table.
Her lips brushed his cheek—light, quick, like a snowflake landing.
When she pulled back, face crimson, he just smiled.
"Nice technique," he said. "We can refine it later."
"Ren-chan!" she yelped, throwing a cushion at him.
He caught it with one hand, laughing.
Outside the pavilion, snow continued to fall. Inside, the air was warm with drifting steam, soft laughter, and the low, content hum of Absolute Demise settling into a new role—not guillotine, but shield.