"Eh… ah… um…"
Issei didn't quite process what he'd heard. The scene was far too different from what he'd imagined. Wearing a confused expression, he even wondered if he'd misheard.
Trying to confirm it, Issei forced a smile, scratched his ear, and said,
"Sorry, Yuuma-chan, could you say that again? I don't think I heard it clearly."
Yuuma, radiating icy hostility, leaned close and whispered into his ear with extreme coldness:
"Could you please go die?"
"Ha…"
Issei was completely speechless, disbelief written all over his face.
"Heh heh…"
Yuuma let out a sinister chuckle. A filthy magical fluctuation suddenly erupted from her body. Ominous, distorted light flickered as her clothes shattered and disintegrated into ash, revealing a voluptuous, naked body before Issei's stunned eyes.
The sudden explosive transformation left Issei's mind unable to process what was happening. But the excitement that followed shattered his daze.
Because he saw it.
Even if it was only for an instant, his well-trained peeping eyes saw everything clearly.
A huge secret. A real, massive secret—seeing it from this close, from such a hot-bodied girl!!
His obsession with breasts and the naked female body caused Issei to subconsciously ignore the shock and eeriness of her transformation. In his mind and vision, there was nothing but boobs.
When the transformation light faded, a fallen angel with pitch-black, corrupted wings stood before him. She wore revealing, SM-like clothing, her skin largely exposed, her body overflowing with sinister allure.
The demure girl from before was gone—no, perhaps she had never existed. This fallen angel, radiating evil and temptation, gazed at the shocked high school boy as if looking at someone already dead.
Black… wings!?
Faced with her cold gaze and pressure, Issei finally snapped out of his fantasies. He stumbled backward and fell flat on the ground, cold sweat pouring down his face.
"Today was actually quite fun, even if it was just a brief pretend relationship."
The fallen angel Yuuma placed one hand on her hip, admiring Issei's fear with amusement. She raised her wrist, inspecting the gift he'd given her earlier.
"This childish little play-dating with you… I'll treasure what you bought me."
"So—"
She brought her hands together. Purple-red light imbued with fallen energy gathered, forming a double-tipped dark red light spear in her grasp. She raised it high, aiming at the terrified Issei.
"Go die."
Puchi!
Before Issei's horrified eyes, the ominously glowing spear pierced straight through his chest.
Puchi!
After piercing him, the light spear dissipated. Hot, crimson blood—gushed out uncontrollably like an opened valve.
"Ah… ah…"
Issei instinctively clutched the fatal wound, but couldn't stop the blood loss. Kneeling on the ground with eyes wide and mouth agape, overwhelming pain flooded his mind, leaving him unable to form a coherent sentence.
"Sorry about this, Issei-kun. To us, you're a very dangerous existence, so it's better to kill you."
Though she said "sorry," the fallen angel, now sitting casually beneath the fountain with crossed legs, showed not the slightest hint of remorse. She watched the dying boy with interest and spoke words he couldn't understand.
"If you're going to hate anyone, hate the god who lodged that Sacred Gear inside you."
Sacred Gear… what even was that?
Filled with resentment and confusion, Issei vomited a mouthful of blood mixed with fragments of his organs. Completely drained of strength, he collapsed onto the ground, consciousness dragged into darkness.
"Such wonderful memories. Thanks~"
After confirming the boy was beyond saving, the fallen angel's face showed clear enjoyment from killing. She spread her black wings, soared into the sky, and vanished—leaving behind only a few feathers as proof it wasn't a hallucination.
On the brink of death, Issei lay alone, blood soaking the ground beneath him. He stared blankly at the gloomy sky, his fading consciousness filled with disbelief and regret.
This couldn't be real… dying for some ridiculous reason in such a shabby park…
What a loss. If I had to be killed… at least let me touch them, squeeze them a bit… such amazing boobs, Yuuma-chan…
His body grew colder, his mind blurrier. Even at death's door, Issei still desperately yearned for boobs—there really was no helping this man.
"Tsk tsk, craving boobs even at death. Your soul is basically the embodiment of lust."
As Issei's consciousness slipped into shock, a voice carrying an unknown emotion reached him. In his dim vision, he vaguely saw a man and a woman examining him.
That voice… sounds really nice. That girl must be… really cute. I want to see her…
"Mm-hm, thanks for the compliment."
Nep heard Issei's dying thoughts. She bent down, squinting as she examined the dying boy. Beside her, Raize looked at Issei's wide-eyed corpse-like expression and recalled his own first encounter with a ghoul.
They had just arrived—Nep seemed to have timed it perfectly, arriving exactly when Issei was on the brink of death.
Raize silently crouched down and extended his hand. Pink-purple light descended onto the wound, repairing the damage and stopping the bleeding.
However, Issei had already lost too much blood and was unconscious.
Raize searched his body, found a devil-summoning flyer, glanced at it, then tore open a spatial rift with his finger and tossed it inside.
"Huh? Raize, are you saving him?"
Nep blinked her beautiful eyes at Raize. She knew him well—he had some kindness, but he was definitely no saint.
"Since neither of us dislikes him, and you're about to take the soul of his Sacred Gear anyway, saving him is a fair trade."
Raize wasn't a saint, but since his system wanted the soul inside the Sacred Gear, saving Issei's life in exchange was acceptable.
Issei was lecherous, but not detestable like a certain protagonist. Even as a pervert, he was a straightforward one.
Nep taking the Red Dragon Emperor's soul didn't bother him. Everything he had now was given by Nep—if she wanted to massacre the world, he'd only hand her the knife.
After stabilizing Issei's condition, Raize stepped aside and gestured for Nep to begin.
"Raize, you really do have principles~"
Nep spoke casually as she circled Issei playfully, then extended her fair hand toward the boy lying on the ground.
Click—
A strange sensation, like a foreign object forcefully jamming into gears and halting them, spread out. Massive unknown symbols materialized as data streams in Nep's palm. An indescribable yet bizarre power enveloped Issei.
Under Raize's astonished gaze, Issei's body began to blur like a glitched image. The blood on the ground turned into strings of garbled code.
The sight was eerie and shocking. Within the endless flow of symbols, a gauntlet wrapped by a transparent deep-red dragon phantom emerged from Issei's chest.
Roar!
The dragon phantom radiated terrifying pressure, raising its ferocious head and roaring at Nep. Yet its furious roar couldn't break through the bizarre data stream.
"Emmmm, I don't want the Sacred Gear—just the soul."
Nep ignored the dragon's struggles entirely. The runic data stream transformed into chains that viciously stabbed into the dragon phantom, ripping it out of the gauntlet.
Raize heard no roar, but he could tell—the soul representing the Red Dragon Emperor was in immense pain, struggling violently.
It was useless.
The runic chains seemed to devour and assimilate it. In the blink of an eye, the dragon's form blurred and disintegrated, its existence broken down into crimson runic data that Nep absorbed into her palm.
She left behind a trace of residual power in the gauntlet. Without the dragon soul, the green gem of the Red Dragon Emperor dimmed and slowly sank back into Issei's body.
The gauntlet could still use Boost and Transfer, and with enough energy could even enter Balance Breaker—but Juggernaut Drive was absolutely impossible now.
"All done. This soul was pretty high quality!"
Runic data flickered through Nep's pale blue eyes. A smile appeared on her delicate face, and her body turned into purple data streams, instantly merging into Raize.
[ Raize, we can head out now. Today's unexpected gain was really nice! ]
Listening to the system's cheerful voice in his mind, Raize touched his chest and glanced at the unconscious boy lying on the ground. After raising his hand and firing a healing beam that would completely restore the other party, his figure entered acceleration mode and vanished on the spot.
A tiny rune symbol appeared where he had been. After trembling slightly, it shattered into faint particles of light, thoroughly erasing the excess aura and traces left behind.
Issei, whose injuries had already been fully restored, was pulled back from the boundary of death. His upper clothes were only slightly damaged at the chest now, and he was merely in a deep coma.
When a cool breeze brushed past in the middle of the night, Issei shuddered and groggily opened his eyes. His blurred vision moved up and down as if he were trying to recall something.
After sorting out the memories in his head, his eyes widened instantly. He jerked upright, lowered his head, and stared in shock at the torn clothes on his chest. Trembling, he touched his chest with both hands and muttered hoarsely,
"It wasn't a dream… Then I should've died just now. Why is my chest…"
Why… am I still alive? Why are my injuries healed?
Questions echoed endlessly in Issei's mind. After confirming it wasn't a dream, the pain from having his chest pierced earlier seemed to return as a phantom ache, making him subconsciously clutch his chest.
"…Amano… Yuuma!"
With a stiff expression, Issei took out the photo booth picture he had taken with Yuuma from his pocket. After looking at it, he raised his head toward the fountain. In his vision, the unforgettable image of Yuuma appeared like a lingering afterimage, as if she were standing there, piercing him with a red-glowing spear.
A cold wind swept through, rustling the leaves of the park trees. This tiny sound directly stimulated Issei. Panicking, he jumped to his feet and sprinted desperately toward the park exit. He didn't want to stay here even for a single second.
The memory of being pierced by a light spear wielded by Yuuma with pitch-black wings kept flashing through his mind. The phantom pain and marks on his chest made it impossible to treat it as a dream. Although he didn't know why he hadn't died and his wounds were healed, he had no time to think about that here.
Running for his life, Issei babbled incoherently in terror,
"Why… why did my first date turn out like this!? That was an illusion! A dream! Ahhh—there's no way to treat that as an illusion or a dream!!!"
The boy's frantic sprinting and incoherent shouting made passersby look at him like he was some kind of lunatic.