Lavinia's city was colder than Kuoh.
Not the clean winter chill Ren had grown used to in Japan, but a damp, European cold that seeped through coats and nipped at fingers, the kind that lingered in old stone and the gaps between cobbles.
Narrow streets wound between buildings with warm light in their windows. Signs creaked faintly when the wind passed. Somewhere far off, a tram bell chimed once and fell back into silence.
Above it all, snow drifted down in lazy spirals.
Most of it wasn't natural.
"Ehehe…"
Under a streetlamp, a girl in a white-and-blue coat twirled with her arms thrown wide. Her breath fogged in the air, long blonde hair swaying like a banner. Each light step left a footprint of frost, crystal flowers blooming and fading on the cobblestones.
Overhead, a three-meter-tall ice doll in a Victorian dress turned in stately circles. Four slender arms folded with courtly grace, faceless head tilted as if listening to music only it could hear. Each slow pirouette scattered arcs of snow—thin, glittering veils that fanned out and drifted down like confetti, coating the street in soft blue light.
Absolute Demise.
To most of the world, it was a Longinus that could lock a region in a frozen grave, turning entire small countries into mausoleums of ice.
Tonight, it painted an old city street in gentle winter.
Ren leaned against a wrought-iron railing a little distance away, hands tucked in his coat pockets, watching her play.
His eyes saw drifting snow and a girl he liked watching until the world stopped.
His Dao-sense saw more.
The ice doll's existence traced thin lines of law through space—cold rules braided into reality, a guillotine-edge of "end" that once knew only how to cut. He could see the places where he'd laid his own patterns in, like careful stitches: how the absolute stop of its field had broadened into something more complex.
Still sharp.
But now, within that law, there were branches.
Pause.
Shelter.
Redirect.
A dead-end execution order reshaped into a winter that could choose what to protect.
He watched Lavinia spin, watched the doll's dress flare like frozen silk, and felt the way her True Self had sunk into the Sacred Gear. Absolute Demise no longer rode her like a curse.
It wore her like a signature.
"You're going to make the city jealous, you know," he called out, voice easy.
Lavinia stopped mid-spin.
For a heartbeat, she simply stood there in the snow, breath puffing white, scarf fluttering.
Then her eyes found him.
"Ren!"
She hopped off the little ice pedestal she'd made for herself and all but skipped across the snow-dusted street, boots squeaking faintly. The wind tried to snatch the edge of her scarf into her face.
Ren reached out lazily and caught it before it could slap her.
"You're late," she said, cheeks already pink from the cold.
"I'm here now," he replied. "Want me to pretend I rushed?"
She squinted up at him, trying very hard to look stern. It lasted about three seconds.
"…No," she conceded, shoulders relaxing. "Rushing in the cold is bad for your health."
"See?" He tugged lightly on the scarf, pulling her the rest of the way in until she bumped into his chest. "Always looking out for me."
One arm slid around her waist, settling her easily against him. Her warmth bled through his coat. The faint, clean chill of her magic clung to her hair and lashes like a second layer of frost.
"You smell like snow," he murmured into her hair. "Figures."
"Snow doesn't have a smell," Lavinia protested. "That's just the air changing."
"Then you smell like that," he said. "The part that changes first."
Her ears went pink to match her cheeks.
"You can't just say that so casually," she mumbled, face nestling into his coat for a moment.
"I can," he said. "And I will."
Above them, the ice doll pirouetted once, then lost its coherence. Its edges blurred, four arms folding inward as it dissolved into a cloud of glitter, as if Absolute Demise itself had turned shy and looked away.
...
They walked.
He let her lead.
The street opened into a small square strung with lights, makeshift stalls lining the edges. Someone roasted chestnuts over a brazier. Another stall sold candied fruit that gleamed red and gold under the lamps. There were carved wooden charms, crocheted scarves, leather-bound notebooks whose pages smelled of real paper and ink.
Lavinia drifted toward every stall that caught her eye, like a snowflake following a current.
Her gloved fingers hovered over little charms shaped like stars and wolves, over shyly smiling dolls, over handmade gloves. She pointed out everything that amused her—the crooked nose on a carved angel, the way a vendor's dog had fallen asleep right under the warmth of the grill, the pattern the lamplight made where it hit falling snow and turned it briefly gold.
Every time she looked back to see if he was still paying attention, he was.
When she paused a little too long at a certain charm or a certain scarf, it quietly ended up paid for and handed to her later, with a casual "Hold this for me," as if he'd just needed someone to carry it. When she tried to protest, he just smiled the way he always smiled when he'd already decided something.
They shared hot chocolate from a paper cup, the cheap kind from a street stall. She cupped it with both hands, breath spilling over the rim in faint clouds. His palm covered the backs of her fingers, True Essence circulating quietly beneath his skin, turning his hand into a gentle heater.
A sudden gust of wind rolled down the street, sharp and damp, trying to crawl up sleeves and under collars.
Lavinia squeaked, shoulders hunching as she instinctively turned away.
Ren laughed softly and moved without thinking, pulling her in front of him, arms wrapping fully around her, using his body as a windbreak. His coat blocked the gust, his own warmth bleeding through into her back.
"You're too warm," she complained half-heartedly, cheeks flushed deeper. "You feel like a stove."
"That's just the warmth of my physique," he said, completely serious. "Very convenient in winter."
She blinked, then narrowed her eyes.
"…You make that sound like a grandma's comment," she said slowly. "'Ah, this physique is good for the cold, very practical…'"
"If your grandma's built like a divine mountain that can flatten gods," Ren said, amused, "I'll accept the comparison."
A little snort broke out of her before she could stop it. Then giggles, muffled against his chest as she pretended she wasn't laughing.
The snow went on falling.
"You've gotten better at controlling it," she said after a while, voice quieter as she watched children run through the swirling flakes she'd called. "Absolute Demise doesn't… scare you."
Ren's gaze flicked up, tracking the faint law-lines the Sacred Gear had etched into the air.
"It never really scared me," he said. "I just didn't like the way it treated you."
She went still in his arms.
He looked down at her, eyes soft but steady.
"When we first met," he went on, "your Sacred Gear felt like a noose some god had looped around your neck. All it knew was how to end things. And everyone around you looked at you like you were walking around with an apocalypse in your ribcage."
Lavinia's fingers tightened on his coat. Her smile, when she tried to make one, wobbled at the edges.
"That's… not wrong," she said quietly. "I was afraid of it too. Of myself."
"Yeah," he said. There was no mockery in it. "You were."
He dipped his head until his forehead touched hers, their breaths mingling in small, white puffs. Her lashes glimmered with tiny ice crystals that hadn't melted yet.
"Now?" he murmured. "When I look at it, I see ice that knows how to protect what you care about. I see a law that bends because you wanted it to be kinder. That's not something Absolute Demise did. That's something you did."
Her eyes wavered.
"That's… unfair," she whispered. "Saying things like that…"
"Unfair?" he echoed, lips quirking. "You want me to balance it with an insult? I can say your fashion sense is dangerous. In a different way."
Lavinia let out a wet little laugh.
"You mean you don't like my coat?" she sniffled, glancing down at herself.
"I like everything you put on," he said calmly. "And take off."
Her face caught fire.
"Ren!"
"What?" His tone stayed mild, almost innocent. Only the amusement in his eyes betrayed him. "I'm only speaking the truth. Saying it out loud won't melt the street."
She made a strangled noise, burying her face against him again.
"That's… that's not the point…!"
"It is for me," he said, the teasing softening into something deeper. His hand brushed up her back, steady, grounding. "You're not a calamity, Lavinia. You're a woman I love holding. A woman whose laugh I like more than any law pattern."
The word "love" hung between them like a visible breath.
She went absolutely quiet.
Then, very slowly, she tipped her head back, blue eyes huge in the lamplight and snow.
"Then," she said, voice small but clear, "kiss me?"
He didn't make her wait.
His hand slid up, threads of True Essence moving with it, not to control her, but to still the jittery noise in the air around them. Fingers threaded through cool, soft hair. He lowered his head and kissed her under the falling snow—slow and unhurried at first, giving her every chance to lean in or pull away.
She leaned in.
Lavinia tasted like hot chocolate and winter air. The cold on her lips vanished against the warmth of his mouth. Her hands, which had been fisted in his coat as if clinging, slowly relaxed… then tightened again, pulling him closer with a shy, greedy strength.
The world around them blurred into warmth and the faint crackle of ice laws settling into new, gentler paths. Absolute Demise's domain, which could freeze a small country into crystal, now folded around the two of them like a snow globe—not to trap, but to shelter.
She was the one who chased him halfway through, up on her toes, a tiny frustrated sound escaping her when he pulled back just enough for her to breathe.
"Again," she demanded, surprised by her own boldness.
His smile curved against her mouth.
"As you wish."
The second kiss burned colder and sweeter, like biting into fresh snow over warm sugar. Above them, Absolute Demise's ice doll—or what remained of it—reshaped itself without a command. The three-meter-tall executioner had shrunk, now no more than a meter tall, dress smoothed into something simpler, four arms folded neatly. It hovered overhead, faceless head bowed, not as an instrument of judgment, but as a silent guardian watching over its mistress.
When they finally parted, Lavinia's eyes were a little glazed, her breath clouding in fast, uneven puffs.
"You… you're dangerous," she mumbled.
"Only to enemies," he said. "To you, I'm just greedy."
"Greedy…?"
"For more of this," he said, thumb brushing her reddened lower lip. "For more evenings where you smile without looking over your shoulder. For more mornings where you steal the blankets and pretend it wasn't on purpose."
She squeaked, eyes going wide.
"You noticed that?!"
"I notice everything about my girls," he said lightly. "Even the tiny things you think I miss."
Shame and happiness tangled in her expression until he had to kiss her forehead just to give those feelings somewhere to go.
Later, when the square had emptied and the snow lay thicker on the stones, they slipped away to a quiet apartment at the edge of the city. The world outside turned to muted white; inside, the windows fogged over, hiding everything from the night.
Ren was shameless, as always. His touches were sure without being rough, his kisses unhurried and thorough, the calm patience of a man who had long since learned every way her body and heart could melt for him. He didn't rush. He didn't push. He simply stayed, present in every heartbeat, every breath.
They made love like it was the most natural thing in the world, like gods and pantheons and Longinus classifications didn't exist.
For Lavinia, Absolute Demise had once meant the end of all things.
In his arms, the only thing that ended was the part of her life where she'd been alone.
...
The room Ingvild liked best in Rias' renovated mansion wasn't the biggest or most luxurious one.
It was the one with the old piano.
Moonlight spilled through the tall windows, turning the polished black wood into a quiet pool of reflected sky. Dust motes drifted in the beams, slowly spinning. The house, which had once been a devil noble's residence, breathed with a different rhythm now—voices and footsteps, laughter and arguments, the faint hum of Sacred Gears at rest.
Ingvild sat at the keys, purple hair falling in a soft curtain around her face. Her fingers moved in slow, deliberate patterns, coaxing sound out of the slightly out-of-tune instrument. The melody wasn't complex, but it carried weight: sadness worn smooth by time, a longing that no longer cut as sharply, but had never gone away.
Her voice rose above the notes.
It wasn't loud.
It didn't need to be.
Nereid Kyrie's power was subtle—a song that called sea and serpent both, a High-tier Longinus that could soothe or command dragons and, if given free rein, drown entire fleets and swallow cities in a single tide.
Ingvild's Soul Palace echoed that sea now.
Once, it had been a stagnant ocean under a sky that never changed, held in unnatural sleep for a century, her dreams bound by the Longinus' awakening and her own bloodline. Now, waves moved. Currents shifted. Human life force and demonic power folded together in loops that Myriad Origin caught and smoothed, turning every swell of energy inward, strengthening her core instead of spilling outward uncontrolled.
Ren leaned against the window frame, arms crossed, letting the song wash over him.
To his senses, each note traced a thin river through her Law-lines, tugging at dragons half a world away, brushing the scales of beings who could tear mountains. The potential was terrifying. The girl at the piano, humming to herself as if afraid of disturbing the house, was not.
She noticed him halfway through a phrase.
Her eyes flicked up, orange brightening. She didn't stop singing. If anything, her voice warmed, the notes loosening as if she'd been holding something back and had just let it go.
By the time the last chord faded, the air in the room felt clearer, as if someone had opened a window only she could see.
"Hey," Ren said quietly.
Ingvild turned on the bench to face him.
"Hey," she echoed, smiling softly. "Sorry. I got… carried away."
"Good," he said, pushing off the window and crossing the room. He sat beside her on the bench, shoulders brushing. "You should."
She ducked her head, a faint flush coloring her cheeks.
"You always look so serious when you sing," he said. "Like you're afraid if you breathe wrong, the ocean will swallow someone."
Her fingers tightened on the edge of the bench.
"…Before you," she murmured, "they told me what my power could do. That if I lost control, I could… drown cities. Call dragons that would crush everything. So I tried very hard to not… move. To not disturb anything."
"Does it feel better now?" he asked, voice low.
She met his eyes.
"…When you're listening," she admitted, "yes."
He could feel it clearly.
Without him, Nereid Kyrie's tides would still be dangerous but blunt—surging outward whenever her heart spiked, wanting to wrap the world in water. With Myriad Origin woven through her, each surge looped back, flowing around her Soul Palace like a tide pool feeding itself, tempering her body and spirit before it ever touched the outside.
Her power could still sink continents.
But now, that catastrophe started from a place of choice, not panic.
Ren reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, fingers grazing the shell lightly.
"I like your singing because it makes this place feel less like an old devil mansion and more like a home," he said. "That's my favorite part."
Her eyes widened.
"…Not because it's useful?" she asked. "Because I can call dragons for you?"
"Dragons I can get," he said without hesitation. "You? There's just one."
The words hit harder than any flattery.
Color bloomed across her cheeks, reaching the tips of her ears.
"That's unfair," she whispered.
"Probably," he agreed easily.
He leaned in and kissed her, slow and careful.
Ingvild tasted like night air and something faintly salty, like sea breeze trapped in a room too long. She made a small, surprised sound, then leaned into him, hands fisting in his shirt with hesitant greed. Her demonic power trembled, then settled, waves calming under a new moon.
When they parted, she stayed close, forehead resting against his shoulder. Her fingers didn't quite let go of his shirt.
"…Ren," she murmured. "Stay until I fall asleep?"
"Sure," he said. "But then I'm going to steal at least one more kiss."
She let out a quiet, genuine laugh.
"…Okay," she said.
Later, when the house grew still and the only sound in the room was the slow ticking of the old clock and her breathing evening out, the piano sat silent. Nereid Kyrie slept with its wielder, the sea in her Soul Palace no less deep, but content to rest.
Ren kept his promise.
And collected his tax.
...
On another day, the library smelled of old paper and dust that no cleaning magic could truly erase.
Shelves stretched up toward the ceiling, packed with grimoires, magic theory, history texts, and an entire section Ravel had labeled "Ren's nonsense ideas" and then pretended she hadn't. Lamps burned with a gentle, steady glow, warded so they wouldn't scorch a single page.
Valerie sat curled in an armchair that was slightly too big for her, knees drawn up, bare feet tucked under the hem of her dress. A book lay open in her lap. Her pale hair spilled around her like a curtain, catching the lamplight.
Her eyes followed the same line twice.
The Sephiroth Graal's presence coiled in her Soul Palace like an intricate tree of light—a cluster of golden spheres connected by branches that touched death and soul both, capable of tearing the boundary between life and afterlife to shreds.
Once, those branches had grown out of her control, piercing through her mind to show her how souls were made, how they broke, how they could be made to obey. The knowledge had almost erased her.
Now, with Myriad Origin threaded through the Graal's roots, much of that light folded inward instead, repairing damaged pathways, strengthening the vessel that carried it.
Ren slipped through the doorway, letting the hush of the library settle over him.
"Valerie," he said softly.
She looked up.
"Ren," she replied, voice as gentle as ever, as if afraid to disturb the books.
He walked over and leaned on the arm of her chair, close enough that he could see the page she wasn't really reading.
"Lost in it?" he asked, nodding at the book.
She glanced down.
"…I keep reading the same paragraph," she admitted after a small pause. "The words make sense, but my thoughts… wander."
"To where?" he asked.
She hesitated.
"…To… nothing in particular," she said finally. "Just… quiet. It used to be… only quiet. Now there is more, and it's… loud. Even when I'm not doing anything."
He understood.
Before, the Graal had numbed her to everything but itself—a coffin made of miracles. Now that its branches were turned inward, she felt things. Little annoyances. Little comforts. The warmth of tea. The way Gasper's laughter scratched at her ears. Her own heart stumbling when Ren walked into a room.
For someone who had spent so long half-asleep, being alive was… noisy.
He sat on the low table in front of her, close enough that his knees bumped the chair.
"You're allowed to close the book," he said. "Even in the middle of a sentence."
Valerie blinked.
"…Isn't that… wasteful?" she asked. "Everyone says I should… use what I have. Be helpful."
"You being here is helpful," he said simply. "You breathing. Reading. Making sure Gasper doesn't forget to eat. You don't have to resurrect anyone tonight to have value."
Her lips parted.
"…You say it like it's easy," she whispered.
"It's not," he said. "But I like watching you try. That's my favorite thing about you."
She frowned slightly, not in displeasure, but in confusion.
"Trying?" she echoed.
"Yeah," he said. "Most people only move when someone pushes them. You… keep taking small steps even when nobody's watching."
He didn't mention the nights he'd seen her sitting right here, book forgotten, just staring at a lamp flame and forcing herself not to sink back into that old seductive quietness. Those weren't steps anyone had asked for. She took them anyway.
She swallowed, throat working.
"…You notice," she said.
"Of course I do," he replied.
He leaned in and brushed his lips against her forehead first, letting her feel the warmth without the shock. Then, when her eyes softened and her shoulders loosened, he lowered his mouth to hers.
The kiss was gentle, lingering.
Valerie's fingers curled in the fabric of his pants, knuckles going white with the effort not to cling too hard. Her heart beat too fast for someone who had once barely had the strength to stand. The Graal's branches trembled, light flaring and then settling in a new pattern—less tree of execution, more tree of life.
When he drew back, she was flushed, eyes bright in a way that had nothing to do with her Longinus.
"…Will you stay?" she asked quietly. "Just… sit here while I read… and… if I start drifting, pull me back?"
He smiled.
"Deal," he said. "But every time I catch you drifting, I'm charging a kiss."
Her blush deepened, but she nodded.
"…That seems… fair," she murmured.
He stayed.
He talked about the books on the shelves, about the ridiculous title of the treatise Ravel was currently obsessed with, about the way Koneko guarded snacks like a dragon guarding treasure. He made the world smaller, more human, until Valerie's breathing eased and the Graal's light in her Soul Palace dimmed to a peaceful glow.
Every time her eyes unfocused for a little too long, he tapped the page with one finger.
When she looked up, his lips were already waiting.
...
Kuoh's night, seen from the ground, was a thin, quiet thing—scattered lights, the occasional car, the soft glow of the Academy's wards.
Viewed from the Dimensional Gap, it was a faint thread in a sea of madness.
Here, the sky was an endless, shifting void of colors that weren't colors. Winds that weren't winds screamed silently across a landscape of broken worlds—shards of dimension, splinters of reality, all floating in an ocean of raw space-time that tried to be nothing and everything at once.
Most beings who came here for long lost themselves in that silence, minds unraveling under the pressure of a place that had never been meant for living things.
Ophis sat on a piece of broken worldstone, bare feet dangling over nothing.
Snakes coiled lazily around her arms and shoulders—manifestations of infinity shaped like serpents, their eyes empty and curious. They hissed without sound, tasting a chaos that didn't dare touch their mistress.
Ren walked up behind her as if he were approaching a park bench.
"You're going to make the local dragons jealous," he said. "Hogging all the best view spots."
Ophis turned her head.
Her expression barely changed; it almost never did. But Ren had known her long enough to see the tiniest shifts—the faint softening at the corners of her eyes, the almost-imperceptible tilt of her head.
"You came," she said.
"Of course," he said, as if that were obvious. "You asked."
She considered that for a moment, then nodded once, as if ticking off an item on a list.
The infinity coiled in her Dao wasn't like any law he'd touched before. It was not flame or sea or life or death. It was the idea of "without end" given form. A concept that had put on skin and hair because the universe found that shape convenient.
To most, standing this close to her would have felt like standing at the edge of a bottomless well, with gravity pulling at every particle of your being.
To him, it just felt vast.
A sky without end.
He sat down beside her, letting his legs dangle into the chaos. The Dimensional Gap's currents howled around them.
For a while, neither of them spoke.
"You are noisy," she said at last.
"Personally or spiritually?" he asked.
"Both," she said.
He chuckled.
"I'll take that as a compliment," he said.
She tilted her head, thinking it over.
"It is… not unpleasant," she admitted.
Progress.
Ren watched the way Myriad Origin had begun to weave thin threads through her infinity. Not chains—he wasn't stupid enough to try binding this. They were more like suggested paths, little options that appeared when her concept brushed against things like curiosity, affection, or warmth.
It didn't change what she was.
It just gave "Infinity" a few more ways to express itself.
He reached into his coat and pulled out a small paper bag.
"Here," he said. "Donuts. The good kind. Rias tried to hide this box, but I am extremely skilled at theft when sugar is involved."
Ophis blinked.
She accepted the bag, peered inside, and immediately pulled out one donut, then two, then three. Her snakes leaned in as if considering devouring the offerings too.
Ren watched her take a bite with the same blank intensity she applied to everything.
"Still good?" he asked.
She chewed thoughtfully.
"Yes," she said. "Sweet. Round. Quiet."
"Quiet?" he repeated, amused.
"In here," she said, tapping her chest with one small finger.
Ophis, born as the Infinite Dragon God, had always wanted silence—to reclaim the Dimensional Gap as her home, to remove whatever "noise" disturbed her concept. Great Red, with his endless motion, had been the loudest of all.
Now, sitting beside a man whose Dao Heart crackled with movement, she found that same quiet in something as simple as sugar and company.
Ren leaned back on his hands, looking out into the storm of broken worlds.
"You know," he said, "you're easy to read."
She turned to him again.
"…I do not change," she said. "I am infinity. There is nothing to read."
He smiled.
"Sure there is," he said. "Like right now."
He met her gaze.
"You're curious," he said. "You call me noisy, but you keep asking me to come here. You could sit alone in the Gap forever. You don't."
She considered that.
"…You are interesting," she conceded. "I want to see what you do."
He shifted closer, enough that their shoulders brushed.
"Good," he said. "Because I like you better like this."
"Like what?" she asked.
"Not pretending you don't care about anything," he said. "That's my favorite thing about you. When you decide to care, you don't do it halfway."
Her snakes stirred, tongues flickering.
Ophis's expression barely changed, but her fingers tightened slightly around the paper bag. Her aura, usually a perfectly flat, unmoving line, rippled—just once.
He moved his hand slowly, giving her plenty of time to watch it, and laid it gently over hers.
Her gaze dropped to their joined hands.
"…Your hand is warm," she said.
"Yours is not," he replied.
She frowned the tiniest bit.
"Is that bad?" she asked.
"No," he said. "It just means I have more excuse to do this."
He leaned in and stole a kiss.
To anyone else, kissing Ophis would have felt like pressing one's lips against the edge of an event horizon—cold, weightless, the sensation that if you leaned too far, you'd never feel anything again.
To Ren, it felt like touching the surface of a perfectly still lake that had never known a single thrown stone.
For a moment, nothing changed.
Then, very faintly, he felt it—a tiny spike in the rhythm of her power. A flutter.
Her heart, which had never bothered to beat in any human sense, stumbled through a single, hesitant thump. Her fingers clenched his. The snakes around her arms went still, as if the concept of "Infinity" itself had paused to see what that feeling was.
He drew back just enough to see her face.
Ophis stared at him, black eyes wide.
"…That was… noisy," she declared.
"Did you hate it?" he asked.
She paused, searching herself with the same clinical attention she might devote to a new universe forming far away.
"…No," she said slowly. "It was… different. My chest is… strange."
She pressed her free hand against her sternum, as if expecting to feel something physically there.
Ren laughed quietly, unable to hold it in.
"That," he said, "is your heart racing."
"…It is… unpleasant?" she asked.
He tilted his head.
"You tell me," he said.
She closed her eyes for a second, as if checking some internal metric only she could see.
"…It is… annoying," she decided. "But… I do not want it to stop yet."
He shook his head, expression equal parts helpless and fond.
"Honest as ever," he said.
They sat on the broken rock together, legs hanging into chaos that didn't dare touch them. They passed donuts back and forth. Sometimes they ate in silence. Sometimes he told her about small, stupid things happening in Kuoh—Issei getting yelled at by Rias, Asia learning new recipes, Tiamat pretending she didn't like certain human cartoons.
Every so often, he leaned in and stole another kiss, quietly enjoying the way each one made that "annoying" heartbeat a little less reluctant.
...
Ren knew, of course, what was happening underneath it all.
He wasn't just a man wandering between dates and donuts.
Every time he brushed his perception across the people he'd tied himself to, he could feel it—the way the Myriad Origin Scripture had seeded itself in devils, angels, humans, dragons. The way their Soul Palaces revolved cleaner, the way their law-lines brightened, the way even the faintest stirrings of intent now had paths to grow along instead of being choked by the world's limits.
They were changing.
Rias, with her Destruction that had always been too heavy for a single girl's shoulders, now circled a core that understood creation as well as annihilation. Akeno's thunder learned tenderness. Koneko's senjutsu, once a knife she'd been afraid to draw, now traced gentle patterns through the world, refining her body and soul with each breath.
Asia's light, Sona's precision, Serafall's overwhelming magic, Kuroka's dusk-black Youjutsu, Tiamat's draconic might, Gabriel's radiance, Yasaka's foxfire, Amaterasu's sun, Penemue's wisdom, Seekvaira's steel, Le Fay's dreams…
The women who already shared his bed did so with a regularity and heat that would have made most gods cough blood.
Their nights were a tangle of laughter and tangled limbs, of possessive arms and muttered complaints about sore waists that never actually meant "stop." They were shameless in their greed, and he was more than happy to indulge them.
He was, after all, very good at what he did.
And he had absolutely no restraint when it came to making his women feel wanted.
But he never made their worth depend on how bright their power burned.
With Griselda, he talked about duty and gentleness, about the quiet, stubborn way she held to her faith after everything.
With Rossweisse, he teased her about coupons and awkwardness and the way she got flustered whenever he mentioned "marriage,"
With Natsume and Shigune, he praised their courage and kindness—their willingness to stand up again and again despite what they carried.
With Tsubaki, he spoke of fairness and selfish wishes, of the parts of herself she'd never been allowed to acknowledge.
With Ingvild, he loved her song more than the dragons it could call across the sea.
With Valerie, he valued her small, stubborn steps toward being a person who wanted things, not the Graal's miracles that could rewrite life and death.
With Ophis, he called her honest, not invincible.
He could already sense that, someday, there would be a shift.
A day when he would no longer be able to keep the worlds neatly separate. When the girls he'd quietly guided and loved in Kuoh would stand on stone platforms in Martial World, gazes lowered slightly as they felt countless martial artists' killing intent pressing down on them from the stands. When they would look up and see sect banners and clan flags, smell blood that had seeped into battle stages over a hundred years.
In those worlds, affection didn't mean mercy.
In those worlds, talent was property, and the weak were meat.
He wondered how it would go.
Rias and Sona, stepping into a sect examination where failure meant crippled meridians. Akeno facing down a clan that thought "mixed blood" meant "ready-made sacrifice." Koneko staring at body-tempering maniacs who treated children as disposable stock.
Tiamat, who had slept in the Dimensional Gap and traded blows with gods, meeting martial artists who had never heard of Dragon Gods but whose fists could shatter stars.
Gabriel walking through a killing field with wings folded, watching mortals tear each other apart for a single drop of divine blood.
Yasaka and Amaterasu measuring ancient shrines in another cosmos, feeling the Dao there and realizing, with a chill, that in some universes, gods were nothing more than cultivators who had climbed higher than others.
All of his girls wanted to stand by his side.
All of them had chosen that, each in their own way.
And the culture of cultivation worlds was a different breed entirely compared to the chaos of this world or the layered intrigue of the Three Factions or other God Factions.
Ren couldn't deny it.
The longer he stayed in Martial World, the more he found himself walking that path without thinking—measuring distances in realms, thinking in terms of True Divinities, of Law Essence and Dao Hearts, of Asura-like force fields and killing intent that could crush a man's courage before the first blow was thrown.
The more he smiled, the more ruthless he became when he turned that smile on an enemy.
He wondered, idly, how cultivators, Divine Lords, World Kings, and Emperyeans would react to a world like DxD.
It was a thought for the near future.
But not now.
Now, his Dao Heart felt very, very at ease.
He thought of Lavinia's laughter under artificial snow, of Ingvild's voice turning an old house into a home, of Valerie blinking herself back from the edge of old habits, of Ophis chewing slowly on a donut and calling her own heartbeat "annoying."
Ren smiled.
Whatever storms were coming—battle stages drenched in blood, gods offended, sects erased—he would walk into them the same way he did everything else.
Calm.
Confident.
Greedy for one more evening, one more song, one more quiet library, one more donut shared on the edge of the void.