≡ Show Navigation Menu Get 5000000 0FP0EXP Token to set hidden as default.

Volume 1

Life 0: Prologue

Section 1: The Geometry of Desire

Sub Section 1: Kendo Peeping

Kuoh Academy was supposed to be a paradise built specifically for the teenage male fantasy. Once a prestigious, high-end all-girls academy, its recent transition to a co-educational institution left the student body flooded with an overwhelming eight-to-two female-to-male ratio. To an outsider, walking through the sunlit wrought-iron gates meant stepping into a garden of blooming youth, perfume, and soft laughter.

To the male minority, however, it was a bloody, unforgiving minefield—and at the absolute bottom of the food chain sat the infamous social pariahs of the second-year class.

“I’m telling you, the mathematical probability of a successful breach increases by forty percent if we use the western maintenance alcove,” Ren Nocturnus Veritas said, his voice quiet, flat, and chillingly precise.

He sat hunched over his wooden desk in the back corner of the classroom, tapping the end of a mechanical pencil against a hand-drawn blueprint of the school’s gym building. Surrounding his desk like three ravenous wolves were Issei Hyoudou, Matsuda, and Motohama.

“Look at the line of sight,” Ren continued, pointing the tip of his pencil at a crude illustration of the tree line adjacent to the girls’ locker room window. “The Kendo club clears out by 4:15 PM. The cleaning crew doesn’t rotate to the rear corridor until 4:30. That gives us a fifteen-minute window where the foliage provides seventy percent visual cover against the main courtyard.”

Issei leaned in, his eyes practically bloodshot with a mix of awe and desperate lust. “Ren… you crazy bastard. You actually mapped out the guard rotations?”

“It’s not rocket science, Issei, it’s basic spatial awareness,” Ren replied, his eyes narrowing slightly behind a fringe of dark hair. “You guys sprint in like brainless ape-men, heavy-footed and breathing through your mouths. That’s why you get caught, beaten, and publicly humiliated every single week. If we want to actually catch a glimpse of high-grade lace—or better yet, accidentally bump into one of them in the narrow hallway on the way out—we have to operate like a ghost squad.”

“A ghost squad… for peeping!” Matsuda gasped, wiping a solitary tear from his eye. “He’s a mad genius!”

“Adjust your glasses all you want, Motohama,” Ren added, darting a sharp glance at the group’s resident ‘data pervert.’ “Your digital camera’s shutter click is too loud. If we get compromised, we drop to the floor, use low-profile belly crawls through the bush, and break line of sight around the storage shed. No screaming, no leaving anyone’s wallet behind.”

Underneath the desk, out of sight from his comrades, Ren’s left hand flexed rhythmically. He squeezed his fingers into his palm, slowly relaxing them, mentally tracing the subtle friction of his skin against his fingernails. It was a minor habit he had picked up from a obscure neuro-somatic paper he’d scavenged online—an attempt to map out motor-neuron awareness through passive concentration. Between that, his self-taught martial arts drill routines, and his endless late-night binges of Metal Gear, Kingdom Hearts, Castlevania, and martial arts webtoons like Gosu, Ren’s mind naturally translated everyday actions into tactical grids.

But make no mistake: Ren was not practicing stealth for the noble pursuit of mastery. He was doing it because he was a seventeen-year-old high school boy dying for female warmth.

He wanted the reward. He wanted the soft, sweet smell of a girl standing too close to him in the crowded hallway. He wanted the thrill of a sheer, unfiltered view through a cracked window shutter. He wanted, more than anything, to break out of the pathetic background-character status that the universe seemed to have forced upon him. The calculating approach wasn’t a mask—it was simply how his intense, obsessive brain tried to guarantee success where his natural charm continuously failed.

“So,” Issei grinned, slamming a fist into his palm. “We execute the ‘Operation Rear Window’ today after fifth period?”

“Correct,” Ren said, folding the blueprint into a neat square and tucking it into his blazer pocket. “And try not to drool on the carpet this time, Issei. You’re ruining our stealth threshold.”

The golden glow of late afternoon washed over the rear courtyard of Kuoh Academy, casting long, dramatic shadows against the weathered brick of the main gym building.

At exactly 4:18 PM, three minutes behind Ren’s master schedule, four figures crawled through the thick hydrangeas lining the western alcove.

Ren led the formation in a textbook low-crawl, his elbows digging into the damp dirt and his hips staying flush against the ground. In his head, he wasn’t just creeping around a school building; he was snake-crawling through Tselinoyarsk, a ghost in the grass. He monitored his own breathing—in through the nose, four seconds; hold, two seconds; out through the mouth, four seconds. It was a basic parasympathetic control technique he’d read about in a military stress-management manual, paired with the neuro-somatic focus he practiced during boring lectures. Every nerve ending in his forearms registered the coarse texture of the soil, the damp chill of the earth beneath his uniform.

Behind him, however, was a disaster of acoustic signatures.

Issei was hyperventilating like an asthmatic engine, his knees scraping against the brickwork. Motohama was clutching his digital camera to his chest like a sacred relic, his glasses fogged up with sweat, while Matsuda dragged himself forward with all the stealth of a wounded bear.

“Quiet down, you apes,” Ren hissed over his shoulder without turning his head. “Issei, your footwork sounds like a herd of cattle. Settle your center of gravity.”

“I can’t help it, Ren!” Issei whispered back, his eyes wide and bloodshot. “The holy ground… we’re five meters from the sacred sanctuary! I can smell the fabric softener!”

“Focus,” Ren snapped softly, though his own heart was hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird.

He wasn’t immune. Far from it. As they reached the blind spot beneath the frosted glass transom of the girls’ changing room, the faint, sweet scent of berry shampoo and laundry detergent drifted through the slightly open gap at the top. Ren’s throat went dry. His skin prickled with a sudden, intense wave of heat. This was the moment. The calculated risk, the meticulous mapping of guard routes—it was all for this single, intoxicating proximity to a world he was completely shut out from. He wanted to see. He wanted to be near them. He wanted to prove that a background extra like him could outsmart the universe and claim a prize.

Ren carefully raised a small, angled dental mirror—scavenged from his bathroom cabinet—up toward the lower edge of the frosted window, tilting it to catch the reflection inside.

“What do you see?” Motohama whimpered, his fingers twitching on his camera shutter. “Ren, talk to me! Is it lace? Is it cotton?!”

“Visual contact,” Ren murmured, his eyes widening as the mirror angled toward the interior. The soft lighting reflected a blur of white towels, discarded blue gym uniforms, and the smooth, pale curve of a girl’s shoulder near the lockers. “Target acquired. High-density coverage. If we hold position for two minutes, the shift change will—”

“LET ME SEE!” Issei’s restraint snapped like a dry twig.

Driven by pure, unadulterated horniness, Issei lunged forward, abandoning all tactical protocol. He shoved past Ren, slamming his heavy leather loafers directly into the dry brush with a loud, distinct CRUNCH. In his desperate bid to climb the air conditioner unit for a direct look, his knee clipped Motohama’s shoulder, sending the data-pervert crashing sideways into Matsuda.

Matsuda let out a high-pitched, pathetic squeal as he fell into a metal watering can, which clattered loudly across the concrete floor of the alcove like a siren going off.

Ren’s soul practically left his body. “Abort,” he whispered in horrified disbelief. “Abort! Break line of sight! Low crawl to the storage shed, NOW!”

It was too late.

The frosted window snapped wide open from the inside. A sharp, icy voice echoed from the ledge above. “I thought I smelled garbage accumulating near the walls.”

Ren looked up slowly, his tactical composure instantly shattering into cold dread. Standing on the window ledge, framing the afternoon sun like a terrifying sentinel, was Koneko Toujou. The petite, white-haired first-year from the Occult Research Club stared down at them with eyes like frozen steel, a half-eaten chocolate bar held nonchalantly in her hand.

“K-Koneko-chan!” Issei gasped, frozen mid-climb on the air conditioner.

“Perverts,” Koneko said softly, her voice devoid of any human warmth. She didn’t scream. She didn’t run. She simply turned her head toward the interior of the locker room and spoke at a normal volume. “Vice President. The trash has gathered outside again.”

A heavy, suffocating silence descended over the alcove for precisely two seconds.

Then, the metal side door of the gym exploded open.

Out poured six senior members of the girls’ Kendo club, fully armored in bogu, their faces obscured behind dark steel grills, wielding thick, solid oak shinai. The air was instantly filled with a chorus of furious, bloodthirsty war cries.

“EXECUTE THE PEEPERS!”

“NO MERCY! SMASH THEIR SHINS!”

“Tactical retreat! Smoke route!” Ren yelled, reacting on pure instinct. He executed a sharp, fluid hip-roll to the left, springing off his hands into a low crouch to sprint for the gap between the storage sheds. His self-taught footwork kicked in—light on the balls of his feet, keeping his profile low to slip past the lead Kendo girl’s swing. The wooden sword whistled past his ear, missing his scalp by an inch.

I can make it, Ren thought, his heart soaring with a brief flash of hope. The gap is three meters away! I analyzed the terrain! I can escape!

“REN! DON’T LEAVE ME!”

A heavy, desperate hand grabbed Ren’s ankle from behind. Issei, having been struck across the back, had lunged blindly toward safety and caught Ren’s shoe, dragging him down onto the gravel with a brutal, knee-scraping thud.

“Issei, you absolute bastard, let go—!”

Ren didn’t get to finish the sentence. A heavy wooden shinai came down with the thunderous impact of a falling tree trunk directly across his shoulder blades.

CRACK!

The air was violently expelled from Ren’s lungs. Before he could roll away or use his hands to guard his ribs, three more wooden swords rained down in a chaotic, rhythmic beat.

“DIE! DIE! DIE!”

“MY LENS! NOT MY CAMERA!” Motohama shrieked somewhere to the right.

“SPARE MY FACE! I HAVE A DATE WITH DESTINY!” Matsuda howled as he was mercilessly battered into the dirt.

For three agonizing minutes, the western alcove became a war zone of blunt-force trauma and pathetic teenage cries. Ren curled into a tight defensive ball, tucking his chin into his chest and locking his forearms over his temple—a basic combat cover posture he’d memorized from a martial arts manual. But while he managed to protect his head, the wooden swords left brutal, stinging welts across his thighs, ribs, and back.

When the storm finally passed, the Kendo girls stood breathing heavily, resting their wooden swords on their shoulders, glaring down at the four broken shapes twitching in the dirt.

“If we catch you near the gym again,” the Vice President growled through her menuki mask, “we won’t use wooden swords next time. Clear out.”

The heavy metal door slammed shut, leaving behind an absolute, oppressive silence broken only by the soft rustle of leaves and the faint, pathetic groans of four beaten teenagers.

Motohama lay face down in a patch of mud, his glasses snapped in half. Matsuda was curled in a fetal position, clutching his stomach. Issei was sprawled on his back, staring up at the sky with swollen cheeks, bleeding slightly from his nose.

Ren lay motionless beside them, his uniform torn at the shoulder, covered in dirt and crushed hydrangea leaves. A sharp, throb of pain radiated from his left ribs down to his hip.

Slowly, painfully, Ren pushed himself up onto his elbows. His hands were shaking—not just from the physical shock of the beating, but from a dark, suffocating wave of humiliation that welled up from the pit of his stomach.

He had mapped it out. He had calculated the guard shifts, the visual angles, the acoustic dampening of the foliage. He had spent hours studying spatial mechanics, trying to elevate himself above the brainless, stumbling failures of his peers. And yet, here he was, bleeding in the dirt, dragged down into the exact same pathetic joke of an ending.

He looked over at Issei, who let out a long, dramatic sigh.

“Ah man…” Issei groaned, wiping his bloody nose with his sleeve, a goofy, invincible grin somehow returning to his face. “Did you see the white ones on the third locker? Totally worth it.”

Ren’s teeth ground together so hard his jaw ached.

Worth it?

Issei didn’t care. Matsuda didn’t care. They got beaten half to death, laughed it off, and moved on to the next pathetic delusion. But to Ren, every welt on his back felt like a physical brand, a reminder of his absolute uselessness. The universe didn’t care about his calculations. It didn’t care about his effort. To the world, to the girls, to the very narrative of this school, Ren Nocturnus Veritas was just a nameless, powerless extra destined to lie in the dirt while better men walked in the sun.

He pulled himself up to a sitting position, resting his forehead against his bruised knees, his dark hair veiling his face. Deep inside his chest, behind the throbbing pain of his ribs, something bitter and cold began to take root.

Sub Section 2: Brothers in Bruises

“Ow, ow, ow, cold, cold, COLD!”

Issei’s dramatic yelping echoed across the empty courtyard as he splashed freezing tap water onto his swollen nose. The four of them were huddled around the row of outdoor sinks near the track field, nursing their wounds under the dying orange light of the late afternoon sun.

“Stop whining, you baby,” Matsuda groaned, leaning over the adjacent sink and carefully dabbing at a massive red welt on his forehead. “You just got a bloody nose. My face took the brunt of a high-speed oak strike! What if this scars? What if my beautiful mug is permanently ruined? My future wife is going to weep!”

“Your future wife is going to weep regardless of what your face looks like,” Ren shot back, leaning heavily against the brick wall beside the sinks. He let out a loud, exaggerated groan of pain, clutching his side. “And for the record, Issei, you owe me a new ribcage. You didn’t just blow our cover, you literally grabbed my ankle and offered me up as a human sacrifice.”

“I panicked!” Issei argued, turning around with water dripping from his chin, his goofy grin completely unfazed by the beating. “It was fight or flight, man! My legs just gave out! But hey, you gotta admit, Ren… when the window opened, you saw them too, right? The promised land. It was totally worth taking a few hits.”

Motohama adjusted the taped-together bridge of his broken glasses, sniffling pathetically. “Speak for yourself. My camera lens is cracked. Do you know how many weeks of allowance I saved up for that optical zoom? The promised land requires preservation, Issei. We lost a historical archive today.”

Ren burst out laughing, a genuine, chest-deep sound that made him immediately wince and grab his ribs again. “You guys are absolute idiots,” he wheezed, shaking his head. “Next time, I’m drawing up a liability waiver before we deploy.”

Outwardly, Ren was perfectly in sync with them. He loved this. Despite the bruises and the dirt, standing here trading insults with three other hopeless losers was the only time during the school day he actually felt like he belonged somewhere. They were the bottom of the barrel, the undisputed outcasts of Kuoh Academy, but they were in it together.

Inwardly, however, Ren’s mind was running a cold, silent diagnostic on his own body.

While Issei and Matsuda continued to loudly debate whether the Vice President was wearing white or pale pink lace, Ren shifted his weight onto his right leg. He took a slow, measured breath, expanding his diaphragm to push against his bruised left ribcage.

Sharp pain on inhalation, his mind calculated, isolating the sensation from the noise around him. No grinding sensation in the bone. Muscle contusion, severe but localized. Flexibility drops by roughly fifteen percent on the left pivot.

He casually reached down, pretending to stretch his back, but he was actually pressing his thumb into the bruised tissue of his thigh, forcing his brain to map the exact circumference of the damage. He focused on sending slow, rhythmic pulses of relaxation to the inflamed area, attempting to manually lower his local muscle tension—a neuro-somatic trick he had been drilling for months.

“Hey, keep it down, the trash is making noise,” a sharp, disgusted voice drifted over the courtyard.

The four boys froze. Walking along the paved path a few yards away were three girls from their year. They were carrying their school bags, eyeing the group at the sinks as if they were staring at a pile of rotting garbage.

“Ugh, it’s the Pervert Trio,” one of them whispered loudly, pulling her skirt slightly tighter as if proximity alone could contaminate her.

“Quartet now, apparently,” another girl scoffed, her eyes briefly flicking toward Ren. “I don’t know why that quiet one hangs out with them. He’s just as creepy, mapping out the school like some kind of stalker. Did you hear they got busted at the gym again?”

“Pathetic. Let’s just go.”

The girls quickened their pace, completely ignoring Issei’s weak attempt to flash them a charming smile.

Once they were out of earshot, the four boys collectively sagged, the brief burst of adrenaline from their banter completely fading away. The heavy reality of their social standing crashed back down on them.

Issei sighed, leaning his back against the sink. “Man… why are they always so mean? We just want a little love. Is that so wrong?”

“We’re pioneers, Issei,” Motohama said solemnly, wiping his broken glasses on his shirt. “Society never respects pioneers in their own time.”

“Yeah, well, this pioneer’s back is killing him,” Matsuda muttered, grabbing his bag from the ground. “I’m going home to put ice on my face before my mom asks if I got into a fight with a bear.”

Ren watched them, his genuine smile fading slightly into a mask of weary camaraderie. He reached over, slapping Issei lightly on the unbruised shoulder. “Come on. Let’s get out of here before the Kendo club decides they want round two.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Issei grumbled, slinging his bag over his shoulder. He looked at Ren, his eyes briefly shining with that endless, unkillable optimism. “Hey, despite the total failure today… good plan, Ren. Really. We almost had ‘em. Next time, I won’t step on a branch, I promise.”

“Sure you won’t, Issei,” Ren replied, a faint, amused smirk returning to his lips. “Next time, I’m tying bells to your shoes so I know when to run.”

They shared a final, tired laugh as they began the slow, limping walk across the courtyard toward the front gates. But as they rounded the corner of the main building, the laughter died in their throats, replaced by a collective, burning silence.

Standing beneath the shade of the grand oak tree near the gates, looking like he had stepped straight out of a shoujo manga, was Yuuto Kiba.

Sub Section 3: The Solitary Grind

“Alright, this is my stop,” Ren said, pausing at the crosswalk where their routes home diverged. The streetlights overhead were just beginning to flicker on, casting long, artificial shadows across the pavement.

“Take it easy, Ren,” Matsuda groaned, rubbing his lower back. “And seriously, next time you draw up a map, include the Kendo club’s patrol routes.”

“I’ll factor in your lack of stealth as a primary variable,” Ren shot back with a dry smirk.

Issei chuckled, adjusting his grip on his bag. “Get some rest, man. Tomorrow’s a new day! And tomorrow, we’re definitely finding a blind spot near the tennis courts. I can feel it in my bones.”

“Your bones are currently pulverized, Issei,” Motohama pointed out, though he was already pulling out a small notebook to jot down the tennis court idea.

“See you idiots tomorrow,” Ren said, giving them a two-finger salute. He kept a warm, easy smile on his face as he turned and crossed the street, listening to their loud, bickering voices fade into the ambient noise of the evening traffic.

He walked for precisely one block. As soon as he turned the corner onto his quiet residential street, out of sight of his only friends, the smile instantly vanished.

His shoulders dropped. The casual, slouched gait of a careless teenager evaporated, replaced by a rigid, hyper-aware posture. He didn’t look like a boy who had just been laughing about a failed peeping mission. His eyes grew cold, flat, and intensely focused.

Every step he took was calculated to minimize the shockwave traveling up his bruised left leg. The public mask was off. The exhausting performance of being the “quirky tactician” of a joke group was done for the day. Here, in the quiet of his own space, there was only the bitter reality of his own weakness.

Ten minutes later, the front door of his empty house clicked shut. Ren didn’t bother turning on the main hallway lights. He walked straight to the bathroom, stripped off his dirt-stained, torn uniform, and stepped into the shower.

He turned the dial to maximum heat. The scalding water hit his shoulders, tracing the angry purple welts blooming across his ribs and back. Ren closed his eyes, resting his forehead against the damp tiles. He began his neuro-somatic breathing cycle. Inhale for five. Hold for two. Exhale for seven.

Instead of letting his mind wander, he drove his focus entirely into the bruised tissue of his left side. He visualized the capillaries, the inflamed muscle fibers, the rush of oxygenated blood circulating to the damaged areas. He mentally commanded the surrounding muscles to release their guard-tension, forcing his nervous system to bypass the pain signals and prioritize cellular repair. It wasn’t magic, but it worked—the intense, localized meditation tricked his body into accelerating its natural recovery process, dulling the sharp throbs into a distant, manageable ache.

After ten minutes of static visualization, he turned off the water, dried off, and pulled on a pair of loose-fitting track pants and a white t-shirt.

He walked into his bedroom and pushed his desk and chair against the wall, clearing a six-by-six-foot square of empty floor space.

Ren stood in the center, barefoot. He didn’t play music. He didn’t set a timer.

He dropped into a low, balanced orthodox stance and began to move. First came the evasions. He visualized the vice president of the Kendo club swinging that oak shinai at his head. He pivoted on his back foot, slipping his head off the centerline by a mere two inches—just enough for a phantom weapon to miss. Wasted energy is death, he reminded himself, smoothly returning to his center.

He transitioned into dodging, keeping his feet planted while aggressively tilting his torso back and laterally, bending at the waist and knees. He parried invisible strikes, his forearms moving in tight, economical deflections, immediately snapping out a counter-jab. Block, slip, strike.

The pace increased. He threw elbows, keeping his guard glued to his temples. He shot forward for a grapple, sprawling his hips hard against the floor to defend an imaginary takedown, popping right back up to his feet without using his hands. Sweat beaded on his forehead, stinging his eyes. His bruised ribs screamed in protest with every violent torso twist, but Ren ruthlessly suppressed the pain through sheer cognitive control.

He wasn’t training to fight demons or save the world. He didn’t even know the supernatural existed. He was training because the universe handed out power and protagonist-level charm to people who didn’t even have to try, leaving the rest of the world to be trampled. He refused to remain in the dirt.

For forty-five minutes, the room was filled only with the sharp hiss of his exhales and the squeak of his bare feet on the hardwood.

When his muscles finally reached the edge of failure, he stopped. He wiped his face with a towel, took a long drink of water, and sat down at his computer desk.

He booted up his PC and logged into his chess client. His rating sat firmly at 1600 Elo—not grandmaster level, but high enough to filter out the casuals.

He queued for a 10-minute rapid game. Playing Black, he responded to his opponent’s e4 with the Caro-Kann Defense. Solid, unassuming, defensive. As the mid-game approached, he systematically stripped the board of tension, coldly trading down pieces to nullify his opponent’s aggressive attacks. He didn’t play for flashy checkmates. He played a suffocating, mechanical positional game, choking his opponent’s movement until they blundered a knight out of sheer frustration.

He won the game on time, staring blankly at the Victory screen. The geometry of the board was just like the geometry of the school courtyard, or the angle of a punch. Everything could be mapped. Everything could be calculated.

Ren closed the client and shut down the computer. The digital clock on his nightstand read 11:30 PM.

He lay flat on his back on his bed, arms resting straight at his sides, palms facing up. He stared at the ceiling, beginning his final descent into sleep. He started at his toes, mentally shutting down the nerve clusters, moving up through his calves, his thighs, and his core. By the time his focus reached his chest, his heart rate had plummeted to a slow, rhythmic crawl.

Tomorrow was another day of playing the fool. But tonight, he was building the machine.

Sub Section 4: The Engine of Inspiration

To an outside observer, the paradox of Ren Nocturnus Veritas made no logical sense.

How did a solitary orphan—a teenager who played cold, positionally ruthless 1600-Elo chess and spent his nights methodically mapping out neuro-somatic nerve pathways—end up rolling around in the dirt as the four-man ‘ghost squad’ tactician for Kuoh Academy’s most infamous perverts? How could a mind capable of calculating precise line-of-sight angles for a high-risk stealth operation genuinely share high-fives and drool over high-grade lace with Issei Hyoudou?

The answer lay in the sheer, unadulterated volume of fiction that crammed every corner of his brain.

Ren was not a cold, monastic soldier born in a vacuum. He was a high school kid who had spent more than half his life starving for a life bigger than the one he was assigned. While his nights ended with brutal, self-taught martial arts drills, his afternoons and weekends were overwhelmingly consumed by an endless, ravenous appetite for pop culture, gaming, and fiction.

He didn’t just consume stories; he inhaled them until they rewrote his perception of reality.

His shelves and hard drives were digital and physical monuments to epic absurdities. He had spent hundreds of hours mastering tight parry windows and combo cancels in Devil May Cry and Tekken, analyzing spatial distance and frames of movement as if they were real-world physics. He had ground his way through every entry of Final Fantasy, losing himself in tragic, world-ending stakes. He had braved the claustrophobic dread of Biohazard, Silent Hill, and Project Zero, training his nervous system to sit quietly in darkness while ambient horrors hunted in the background. He knew the lore of Valkyrie Profile, The Elder Scrolls, and the sweeping, historical massacres of Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors like second nature, and he replayed Metal Gear Solid until tactical stealth felt as natural as breathing.

When he wasn’t holding a controller, his eyes were glued to screens reading endless streams of manga, anime, and webtoons. He drew his raw, unvarnished inspiration from the grand, planet-shattering scales of Dragon Ball, One Piece, Bleach, Naruto, and Fairy Tail. He obsessed over the violent, hyper-precise martial arts mechanics in webtoons like Gosu, The God of High School, and Eleceed. He devoured military power-fantasies like Teenage Mercenary and God of Blackfield, and took a dark, vicarious thrill in the ruthless, unyielding logic of Return of the Bloodthirsty Police and countess Murim novels centered on Heavenly Demons who forged supreme strength out of sheer, unbending will.

He didn’t just read about these characters—he desperately wanted to be like them.

That intense, nerdy obsession was the exact bridge that connected him to Issei, Matsuda, and Motohama. When he stood in the hallway arguing about Tekken frame data, debating power-scaling across shonen universes, or hyping up a new game release, Ren wasn’t wearing a mask. He was being a hundred percent authentic. He was just a fellow nerd who shared their wild, untamed teenage passions. When they dreamed of getting a girlfriend or building a legendary harem, Ren’s brain merely translated those same basic, hormonal desires into the epic, grand-scale narratives he loved. If a shonen protagonist could break through his limits to win the girl and save the world, why couldn’t a background extra like him use tactical genius to at least catch a glimpse of the promised land?

This massive, chaotic mix of fiction was also the precise reason Ren had not become a world-class Olympic athlete.

A true elite martial artist dedicated eight hours a day purely to physical conditioning, diet, and recovery. Ren couldn’t do that. His attention was constantly split. One week he would spend four hours a night drilling evasions because a chapter of Gosu hyped him up; the next week, his physical training would take a backseat because a new Kingdom Hearts release demanded fifty uninterrupted hours of his life. His routine was a messy, hybrid patchwork—part teenage slacker, part obsessive gamer, part self-taught martial artist.

Yet, beneath his mortal physical limits, this endless consumption of media was secretly constructing something far more dangerous: an unshakeable cognitive framework.

Where a normal human’s mind would shatter or freeze in sheer disbelief when confronted with the impossible, Ren’s brain had already spent a decade exploring concepts of spiritual energy, spatial rifts, inner power reserves, and supernatural hierarchies. He had already accepted, conceptually, that a mortal body possessed hidden depths waiting to be unlocked by those crazy enough to push past the brink.

As his breathing slowed and his consciousness finally slipped into the deep, dark ocean of sleep, his mind rested on the quiet, unyielding foundation he had built for himself. He was still weak. He was still just a powerless, bruised high school kid lying alone in an empty house. But the blueprint was already drawn, buried deep within his soul, waiting for the spark that would ignite it.

Section 2: The Hierarchy of Fate

Sub Section 1: The Prince and the Paupers

Standing beneath the golden canopy of the grand oak tree near the front gates, looking as though he had been hand-drawn by a high-budget animation studio, was Yuuto Kiba.

He was surrounded by a thick circle of second and third-year girls. Kiba’s signature blonde hair caught the dying sunlight perfectly; his smile was warm, effortless, and entirely disarming. Every soft laugh he let out elicited a chorus of suppressed giggles and blushing cheeks from the girls hanging on his every word.

“Look at him,” Issei spat, his knuckles turning white as he clutched his school bag straps. “Just look at that blonde bastard. Existing like he owns the universe!”

“It’s a crime against humanity,” Matsuda hissed, his bruised face contorting into an expression of raw, demonic rage. “How can one guy hoard that much female interaction while the rest of us are out here taking wooden swords to the spine?!”

“My data indicates a ninety-nine percent concentration of romantic interest directed solely at his demographic,” Motohama whimpered, pushing up his taped glasses. “The rest of us are living off biological crumbs.”

Ren chimed in loudly, his voice echoing their furious, theatrical outrage. “It’s a complete distribution error! The spatial density of girls around him is violating basic social equity! He’s running an illegal monopoly on school morale!”

They all burst into a chaotic, bitter tirade, cursing the skies, cursing Kiba’s princely face, and swearing vengeance on a society that favored handsome sword-club prodigies over battered peepers. Ren laughed along with them, slinging an arm over Matsuda’s shoulder as they shared in the ridiculous, agonizing solidarity of the bottom-tier outcast. He meant every word of his complaints—he genuinely hated how unfairly the social deck was stacked, and screaming about it with his brothers in arm was therapeutic.

Yet, behind his loud venting, Ren’s eyes narrowed into sharp, analytical slits.

He wasn’t just looking at Kiba’s face or the girls around him. He was breaking down Kiba’s body mechanics.

Look at his stance, Ren noted mentally, his gamer and martial artist instincts running an involuntary scan. Zero wasted energy. His weight is evenly distributed sixty-forty between his heels and the balls of his feet. Even while standing casually with his hands in his pockets, his posture is perfectly aligned—spine straight, shoulders relaxed, core stable.

When one of the girls laughed and lightly tapped Kiba’s arm, Kiba shifted his hips by half an inch, effortlessly absorbing the contact without breaking his smooth, liquid balance. To a normal person, he just looked charming and graceful. To Ren, who spent hours in his room attempting to master basic evasions and center-of-gravity shifts, Kiba’s movement profile was unnerving.

He moved like a high-level boss character. He moved like an elite swordsman straight out of a Murim webtoon or a Devil May Cry cutscene—someone whose body naturally operated at peak kinetic efficiency without having to drill it into his nervous system until his ribs bruised.

Issei envied Kiba because Kiba had a harem of cute girls.

Ren envied Kiba because the universe had clearly chosen Kiba as a “protagonist.” It had given him the face, the natural physical poise, the effortless grace, and the social untouchability that Ren could grind for a hundred years and still never naturally inherit.

Systemic privilege, Ren thought bitterly, watching Kiba bow politely and wave goodbye to the swooning girls before walking toward the gate. Some people are spawned with maxed-out base stats, while the rest of us have to fight for scraps in the mud.

“Man… I swear, one of these days, a beautiful girl is going to drop from the sky and fall in love with me,” Issei muttered, glaring at Kiba’s retreating back with an unbeatable, tragic hope. “Just you wait. My rom-com storyline is gonna start any day now!”

“Keep dreaming, Issei,” Matsuda groaned. “Your storyline is a horror manga, and we’re the side characters who get eaten in chapter one.”

“Shut up! A guy can dream!” Issei yelled back, though a wide, goofy grin returned to his face as they finally stepped through the gates and out onto the main street.

Sub-section 2: Parting Ways at the Crossroads

The evening air carried the cool breeze of early autumn as the four of them reached the major four-way intersection two blocks from the school. The streetlights were fully lit now, buzzing quietly against the twilight sky.

“Alright, this is where I split,” Motohama said, tapping his broken glasses. “I need to get to the electronics shop before it closes to see if my camera sensor is salvageable.”

“I’m heading straight home,” Matsuda sighed, stretching his arms up. “If I don’t ice these bruises, my mom’s gonna think I joined an underground fight club.”

“What about you, Issei?” Ren asked, resting his hands in his blazer pockets.

“I’m taking the scenic route home through the park,” Issei said, stretching his neck with a loud crack. “Need to walk off the sting in my legs. Plus… who knows? Maybe a cute girl is waiting for me on the bridge.”

“If a girl is waiting for you on the bridge at this hour, Issei, she’s either a ghost or a mugger,” Ren deadpanned, letting out a soft laugh. “Don’t get yourself kidnapped.”

“Screw you, Ren! You’ll see! Tomorrow I’m coming to school with a girlfriend!” Issei shouted triumphantly, giving them a dramatic wave as he turned down the tree-lined pedestrian path leading toward the local park bridge.

“See ya tomorrow, pervert!” Matsuda called out.

“Don’t die out there!” Motohama added.

Ren stood at the crosswalk, watching Issei’s retreating back until his friend’s red blazer disappeared into the shadow of the park trees.

“See you tomorrow, Issei,” Ren murmured quietly.

Then, he turned on his heel and stepped onto the crosswalk toward his own neighborhood.

The moment his back was turned to his friends, the friendly, casual warmth in his expression vanished. His shoulders dropped their slouched, teenage posturing, locking into a precise, balanced alignment. His eyes flattened, shifting from the bright, expressive energy of a high school banter-partner into the cold, calculating glare of an isolated strategist.

The public noise was gone. The jokes were over.

As he walked down the dimly lit pavement alone, his mind began counting his pulse, monitoring the slight inflammation in his left ribs, and mentally arranging his evening schedule. He had two hours of fundamental footwork drills, an hour of neuro-somatic breathing control, and a few rapid chess games to play before sleep.

He didn’t know that down at the park bridge, Issei Hyoudou was about to meet a girl named Yuma Amano. He didn’t know that the fragile, mundane reality of Kuoh was about to shatter into a blood-soaked nightmare of Fallen Angels, Sacred Gears, and Devils.

All Ren knew was that he was weak, bruised, and invisible—and he had work to do.

Sub Section 3: The Architecture of Movement

Ren didn’t take the turn toward his house.

Two streets past the intersection, he veered left into a narrow, shadow-drenched alleyway that cut behind a row of commercial storefronts. He unzipped his school bag, folded his school blazer into a tight square, and shoved it inside alongside his dress shoes. From the bottom of his bag, he pulled out a pair of worn, thin-soled athletic sneakers he carried everywhere, swapping his footwear with practiced efficiency.

He slung his bag tightly across his back, securing the straps across his chest. He took a deep, grounding breath through his nose, letting his gaze sweep over the concrete canyon before him. Fire escapes, dumpsters, air conditioning units, low brick walls, and rusted water pipes.

To a normal person, it was an ugly back alley. To Ren, whose brain was continuously wired by hundreds of hours of Mirror’s Edge, Assassin’s Creed, Dying Light, and hyper-kinetic urban webtoons, it was an obstacle course designed for spatial conquest.

He exploded forward.

His first three strides were explosive, driving the balls of his feet into the cracked asphalt. He launched himself at a four-foot dumpster, planting his palm on the metal lip and executing a clean, horizontal speed-vault. His body skimmed over the edge, landing silently on the far side in a low, sprung crouch.

Impact absorption: seventy percent on the right leg, he noted internally. Keep the left side guarded.

Without losing momentum, he took two hard steps up a brick wall, catching the top lip of a low concrete awning with his fingertips. He pulled his chin over the ledge, hooking his right heel over the masonry, and rolled his body up onto the roof section in one continuous, fluid motion.

The bruised ribs from the Kendo club’s beating flared with a sharp, white-hot sting as his torso compressed during the climb. Ren bit his tongue, suppressing a groan. He didn’t slow down. Instead, he forced his brain to process the pain as pure data—a temporary signal from bruised intercostal muscles that could be compensated for by shifting his center of gravity two inches to the right.

He ran across the flat gravel roof of the commercial building, sprinting toward the three-meter gap separating it from the adjacent residential complex. The drop below was two stories of hard concrete.

Three steps. Plant. Launch.

He hit the edge at full speed and sprang into the air. For a suspended, breathless second, Ren was weightless against the darkening purple sky, his arms reaching forward like a predator. He caught the iron railing of the residential fire escape, his fingers locking around the metal bars. The kinetic impact slammed his chest against the railing, knocking the wind out of him, but he immediately dissolved the force into a tight, fluid cat-leap, dropping three feet down to the metal mesh platform below.

He exhaled sharply through his teeth, his lungs burning, sweat dripping off his chin. He leaned against the brick wall, performing his neuro-somatic breathing cycle to force his heart rate back down from its peak.

Inhale five. Hold two. Exhale seven.

He loved this. He loved the absolute, uncompromising honesty of physical movement. Up here, away from the fake smiles of school and the suffocating reality of his background-character status, the world reduced down to pure geometry, friction, and momentum. If his calculations were off by an inch, he fell. If his grip failed, he bled. There was no divine intervention, no protagonist armor, no unearned privilege. There was only his own effort against gravity.

After a minute of rest, Ren climbed the final iron ladder leading to the main roof of the four-story residential building.

The cool evening wind pulled at his damp t-shirt as he stepped onto the gravel rooftop. The building sat on a natural elevation near the edge of the district, offering a wide, panoramic view of the surrounding neighborhood and the sprawling river park that cut through Kuoh.

Ren walked to the concrete ledge at the northern edge of the roof, resting his hands on the cool stone and looking down.

The streetlights along the river embankment were coming on, forming a long, glowing ribbon through the twilight shadows. The park below was quiet, almost entirely deserted as the evening chill settled in.

And there, roughly two hundred yards away, walking along the paved pedestrian path toward the center of the arched concrete bridge, was a familiar figure in a crimson school blazer.

Ren leaned forward slightly, his sharp eyes locking onto Issei’s distinct, heavy-footed stride.

Issei had reached the bridge.

Section 3: The Illusion of Fortune

Sub Section 1: The Anomaly

The wind pulled at Ren’s sweat-damp hair as he crouched on the concrete lip of the roof, his dark eyes locked on the tiny, distant figure in the crimson blazer two hundred yards below.

Issei had reached the midpoint of the arched pedestrian bridge. From this height, surrounded by the quiet hum of the city and the rustle of autumn leaves in the river park, everything looked like a miniature set piece.

Then, a second figure stepped out from the shadow of the weeping willows at the end of the bridge.

Ren squinted, his vision narrowing as he adjusted his posture to get a clearer line of sight. It was a girl. She was wearing an unfamiliar, high-class school uniform—not Kuoh Academy’s standard outfit—and carrying a sleek brown leather bag. She walked with a hesitant, almost fragile gait, her head bowed as she stepped onto the concrete arch directly into Issei’s path.

Ren watched as Issei halted mid-step. Even from two hundred yards away, Ren could practically hear the high-pitched, panicked squeak his friend undoubtedly made.

The girl stopped a few feet from Issei. She wrung her hands together, took a timid step forward, and bowed her head sharply, her dark hair falling forward over her shoulders.

For three agonized seconds, Issei stood completely frozen, like a statue carved out of pure shock.

Then, Issei exploded into a wildly hysterical, uncoordinated victory dance. He threw his arms into the air, fell back onto his heels, pumped his fists violently toward the sky, and nearly tripped over his own feet before bowing back to her so fast his forehead almost hit his knees.

On the roof, Ren stared for a beat, completely stunned.

Then, a massive, brilliant grin broke across Ren’s face. He let out a loud, breathless laugh, shaking his head in sheer disbelieving joy.

“No way…” Ren whispered, resting his forearms on the concrete ledge, his eyes crinkling with genuine happiness. “You crazy, loudmouth bastard… you actually did it.”

It was a miracle. One of the Four Perverts had actually done it. After all the beatings, the public humiliation, the broken camera lenses, and the bruised ribs from the Kendo club, Issei had somehow pulled off a total statistical anomaly. A cute girl had just intercepted him on a bridge to talk to him.

Ren felt a warm, genuine wave of pride swell in his chest. Issei was his brother-in-arms in the trenches of social pariahdom. Seeing him get a win felt like a victory for their whole pathetic group.

Sub-section 2: The Glitch in the Matrix

Ren kept watching as the girl took a step closer to Issei, her body language modest, almost deferential. Issei was rubbing the back of his head, laughing nervously, his chest puffed out like a proud rooster.

And that was when Ren’s tactical, gamer-wired brain kicked in.

The warm smile on Ren’s face slowly began to falter. His eyes narrowed, his internal diagnostic mechanics overriding his initial thrill.

Wait, Ren thought, his mind rapidly sifting through the variables. Run the geometry.

Kuoh Academy had only gone co-ed a few years ago. Every girl in the local district knew the infamous reputation of the Pervert Trio. Issei Hyoudou’s face was practically on a warning poster in every female locker room within a three-mile radius. Yet this girl—wearing a completely different uniform—was standing alone on an unlit, empty bridge at dusk, waiting specifically for the most notorious social outcast in the city.

It doesn’t make sense, Ren calculated, his mind spinning like a chess grandmaster analyzing an impossible blunder. The spatial probability of a random, high-tier girl approaching Issei at night, in an isolated location, with zero prior interaction… is practically zero.

To his media-drenched brain, it looked like an unearned cutscene. Or worse—it looked like an ambush script straight out of an action RPG. It was the classic setup where an NPC baits a naive player into an unwinnable trap zone.

Suddenly, a violent, unnatural sensation hit Ren in the chest.

It wasn’t the physical ache of his bruised ribs. It was an abrupt, icy drop in the pit of his stomach—a sudden, suffocating pressure that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up on end.

Ren gasped, taking a sharp step back from the ledge. His pulse spiked violently. For a terrifying, fleeting second, his subconscious mind—tuned by months of neuro-somatic focus—felt a prickle of raw, suffocating coldness radiating from that distant bridge. It was a heavy, razor-sharp weight in the air, like being locked in the crosshairs of a heavy sniper rifle.

His heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped beast. His hands twitched into tight fists. He stared back down at the distant girl on the bridge, his instincts screaming that something was fundamentally, terrifyingly wrong with the picture before him.

He was picking up on something that no mortal high schooler was supposed to feel: the faint, masked leak of a Fallen Angel’s murder-intent.

Sub-section 3: Descent into the Grind

Ren stood on the edge of the roof for nearly a minute, his chest heaving, his dark eyes locked on the two figures beneath the streetlights.

Down on the bridge, Issei was still grinning, chatting away completely oblivious to the world, while the girl stood beside him, bowing politely as they began to walk off together.

Ren closed his eyes, taking a deep, ragged breath through his nose. He forced his neuro-somatic breathing routine to engage, driving his skyrocketing heart rate back down through sheer willpower.

Inhale five. Hold two. Exhale seven.

Slowly, the icy, suffocating prickle on his neck faded away into the cool autumn night air.

Ren opened his eyes and rubbed his forehead, letting out a long, weary sigh. “Get a grip, Ren,” he muttered to himself, his voice laced with dry, self-deprecating annoyance. “You’ve been reading too many horror webtoons and playing too much Biohazard.”

He shook his head, running a hand through his damp fringe. He was being paranoid. He was so used to analyzing threat angles and expecting the worst that his brain was manufacturing phantom danger out of thin air. Issei was just having his lucky day. If Ren went running down there like a maniac, acting like a jealous, paranoid stalker, he would ruin the single best moment of his friend’s life.

“Don’t ruin it for him,” Ren murmured softly to the empty night sky. “He earned his happy ending.”

He turned his back on the bridge.

Ren walked to the edge of the roof, grabbed the iron railing of the fire escape, and swung his body over the side. He dropped smoothly to the platform below, his thin-soled sneakers making a quiet tap against the iron mesh. He dissolved the kinetic impact into a tight crouch, pivoted on his heels, and began his rapid, silent descent back down into the dark alleys of the city.

Issei had just stepped into his grand high school romance.

Ren, on the other hand, had a long jog home through the dark. He had bruised muscles to ice, basic martial arts stances to drill, and a positional chess game to play before sleep.

He didn’t know that the girl on the bridge was Raynare. He didn’t know that Issei’s “happy ending” was actually a death sentence. All Ren knew, as he hit the cold asphalt of the alleyway and broke into a steady, rhythmic stride, was that the night was young—and he still had a long way to go before he was strong enough.

Life 1: New Life

Section 1: The Traitor of Kuoh

Sub Section 1: Girlfriend

The morning sun bled through the high windows of the 2-B classroom, throwing warm light across the rows of wooden desks. Before the homeroom bell could even chime, Matsuda and Motohama were already huddled around Ren’s desk, groaning over their shared homework assignment.

Ren leaned back in his chair, resting his hands behind his head. “Hey. Before Issei gets here, I have to report an anomaly from last night.”

Motohama paused, his pen hovering over his notebook as he pushed up his taped glasses. “An anomaly? Did you spot a new security blind spot near the gym?”

“Worse,” Ren said, dropping his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I was finishing my running route up on the ridge near the park bridge around dusk. I saw Issei walking home.”

Matsuda wiped his nose with the back of his sleeve. “So? The guy walks like a confused duck. What’s so weird about that?”

“He wasn’t alone,” Ren said, leaning forward. “A girl intercepted him right on the bridge. She was wearing an unfamiliar, high-class uniform—not Kuoh’s. She approached him, bowed, and they stood there talking for ten minutes.”

Silence fell over the desk.

Motohama’s eyes widened behind his thick lenses. “Nonsense. The baseline probability of a female initiating direct verbal contact with Hyoudou without a threat of physical violence is zero point zero zero three percent. Your spatial observation was corrupted by low lighting.”

“I’m dead serious,” Ren chuckled, enjoying their stunned expressions. “And then Issei did his ridiculous victory dance right there on the concrete.”

“He… he didn’t,” Matsuda gasped, clutching his chest as if hit by a physical bullet. “Ren, tell me you’re lying. Tell me he was getting mugged! Tell me it was a debt collector!”

“Good morning, losers!” a loud, booming voice echoed from the classroom doorway.

All three turned. Issei Hyoudou stepped into the room, and he was literally glowing. His stride was bouncing, his chest was puffed out like an overconfident peacock, and a wide, dopey, borderline-insane grin stretched across his face.

He didn’t just walk to his desk—he glided. He threw his school bag onto his seat with a flourishes that belonged in a high-budget theater production.

“Look at him,” Matsuda whimpered, his voice trembling with deep, existential terror. “Look at that face. Ren wasn’t lying.”

“Gentlemen,” Issei said, crossing his arms and looking down his nose at them with supreme, obnoxious smugness. “Bask in the presence of a man who has officially exited the lower strata of human existence.”

Motohama stood up so fast his chair screeched against the floorboards. “Hyoudou! Speak clearly! What happened on the bridge last night?!”

Issei closed his eyes, dramatically tossing his head back. “Ah, so the rumors have already reached your pathetic ears. Yes, it’s true. Yesterday evening, an angel descended from the heavens. Her name is Yuma Amano. She looked at me with tears in her eyes, blushed like a blooming rose, and confessed her undying love.”

“A CONFESSION?!” Matsuda shrieked, drawing the bewildered stares of three classmates near the window. He grabbed Issei by the lapels of his uniform, shaking him violently. “You traitor! You scum! You absolute villain! We had a pact! We were supposed to rot in the trenches of singlehood together!”

“Release me, peasant!” Issei laughed maniacally, swatting Matsuda’s hands away. “My rom-com storyline has officially begun! She asked me out on a date this Sunday! We’re meeting at the park! I am no longer just Issei the Pervert—I am Issei, the boyfriend!”

Motohama fell back into his chair, clutching his head in utter despair. “It’s a statistical catastrophe! The balance of power in our group has completely collapsed! We are down to a trio of pariahs!”

“He crossed the DMZ without tactical authorization,” Ren chimed in with a theatrical, disappointed shake of his head, joining the group outrage with an exaggerated sigh. “He violated the Non-Aggression Pact of the Four Perverts. I motion for an immediate tribunal.”

“Seconded!” Matsuda howled, pretending to wipe tears of blood from his cheeks. “May your date be rained on! May your shoe lace untie! May you accidentally order the most expensive item on the menu and be forced to wash dishes!”

Issei just threw his head back and laughed, utterly immune to their curses. He was floating on a cloud of pure, unadulterated teenage bliss.

Ren joined in on the loud, chaotic bantering, slinging an arm around Matsuda’s shoulders to fake-restrain him from tackling Issei. He played his part perfectly, slinging jokes and hyping up the absurd drama of the situation.

Yet, as he watched Issei chatter on about how cute Yuma’s voice was and how soft her hair looked, Ren’s analytical mind briefly drifted back to the rooftop.

He remembered the sudden, suffocating chill that had spiked through his chest when he looked down at that bridge. He remembered the razor-sharp feeling of invisible crosshairs locking onto the scene.

Ren looked closely at Issei’s face. There was no deceit there. No hidden agenda. Issei was just a naive, clumsy, genuine teenage boy who thought the universe had finally handed him a break.

I’m overthinking it, Ren thought to himself, forcing a soft, internal exhale. I spend too much time reading dark urban fantasy and drilling combat angles. It was just the autumn wind and my own paranoid imagination. He’s just happy.

Ren stepped forward, breaking away from Matsuda’s dramatic sobbing, and extended a closed fist toward Issei.

Issei blinked, looking at Ren’s hand.

“If you ruin this by saying something completely unhinged on Sunday, Issei,” Ren said, his warm, easy smile returning, “Matsuda and Motohama will personally bury you in the courtyard. But… congratulations, man. Don’t mess it up.”

Issei’s goofy grin softened into something genuine. He grinned wide and slammed his fist against Ren’s in a heavy, solid fist-bump. “Thanks, Ren. I won’t. I swear, I’m gonna be a total gentleman!”

“LIES!” Matsuda screamed in the background. “HE WILL FAIL IN FIVE MINUTES!”

Just as the homeroom teacher slid open the front door to call the class to order, a tall, striking girl with long crimson hair passed by the hallway window. She was accompanied by a smaller, blonde girl carrying a stack of papers.

As Issei sat down in his chair, the blonde girl paused briefly by the classroom door, slipping a small, elegant paper flyer onto the corner of Issei’s desk before walking away to keep up with the crimson-haired student.

Issei picked up the flyer, frowning in confusion. It was an oddly styled parchment featuring a strange, circular crest and a line of stylized text advertising the Occult Research Club.

“What’s this?” Issei muttered, turning it over in his hands.

“Probably trash,” Motohama sniffed, still wiping away his imaginary tears. “Focus on the lesson, traitor.”

Ren glanced at the flyer in Issei’s hand for a split second, noting the odd, symmetrical geometry of the crest. His brain filed it away as just another weird school club advertisement, entirely unaware that the wheel of fate had already begun to turn.

Sub Section 2: The Architecture of Aspiration

The sheer, absurd reality of Issei Hyoudou securing a date acted as a psychological accelerant for Ren.

If a guy who spent his afternoons meticulously cataloging the color of the girls’ tennis team uniforms could stumble into a high-tier rom-com scenario, the underlying mechanics of the universe were clearly pliable. As Ren sat in his dark, quiet bedroom that Friday night, his mind began to map out a new, hyper-focused thesis. To his gamer-wired brain, Issei had somehow triggered a hidden event flag by pure chance. But Ren didn’t want to rely on RNG—random number generation. He wanted to build his stats until the universe had no choice but to reward him.

He rationalized it through a flawless, two-pronged logical theorem: Path One dictated that maximizing his physical and tactical capabilities would inevitably elevate his social standing, inherently increasing the probability of drawing the attention of high-tier girls. Path Two provided the ultimate safety net—even if the girls never came, he would still be ascending toward peak human performance. It was a win-win scenario, fueled entirely by the raw, unadulterated envy and hope of a teenage boy.

That night, after completing a grueling two-hour parkour circuit across the commercial district rooftops, Ren didn’t just go to sleep.

He stood under the freezing spray of his shower, deliberately turning off the hot water to shock his nervous system. Closing his eyes, he pushed his neuro-somatic conditioning deeper than he ever had before. He didn’t just map the bruised tissue; he visualized his entire circulatory system. He focused on consciously dilating the blood vessels in his extremities, fighting the body’s natural autonomic response to the freezing water. He commanded his heart rate to slow, forcing his brain into a state of hyper-oxygenated calm. The cold ceased to be a physical torment and became pure data, a sensory input he could manually mute.

Stepping out of the shower, his skin flushed red from the extreme temperature shift, he wrapped himself in a towel and booted up his PC. He spent the next hour silently studying grandmaster chess tournaments online. He watched the world’s elite dissect the board, analyzing how they controlled the center, sacrificed pawns for positional dominance, and suffocated their opponents through suffocating spatial geometry.

Then, seamlessly shifting from high-level cognitive warfare to raw emotional fuel, he closed the chess client and opened his anime folder. He binged four episodes of a wildly popular harem anime. He watched the impossibly dense protagonist surround himself with beautiful, powerful heroines, absorbing the exaggerated tropes and dramatic pacing. He wasn’t just watching for entertainment; he was crystallizing his motivation. He let the fantasy feed his drive, transforming basic teenage hormones into a burning, mechanical obsession to ascend his own mortal limitations.

The next morning, while Issei was undoubtedly agonizing over what to wear for his Sunday date, Ren hit the local community gym.

He didn’t just wander over to the weight racks like a casual gym-goer. He arrived armed with a thick library book on human kinesiology and biomechanics. For three hours, he treated his own body like a dissecting table. He meticulously isolated every major muscle group—the latissimus dorsi, the obliques, the vastus lateralis, the intricate stabilizers of the rotator cuff. He tested fast-twitch versus slow-twitch muscle fibers, experimenting with explosive plyometric box jumps to measure his kinetic output, followed by agonizingly slow, time-under-tension isometric holds to map his muscular endurance. He wanted to understand the absolute mechanical limits of the human frame so he could eventually figure out how to break them.

By the afternoon, he transitioned his focus from raw strength to absolute elasticity.

Ren cleared the floor of his living room and initiated a brutal stretching regimen. He pushed his joints past their comfortable thresholds, performing static and dynamic splits, backbends, and contortionist bridges until his tendons screamed. He integrated advanced acrobatics, practicing back handsprings and aerial cartwheels in the tight, confined space of his house. Every time he failed, crashing heavily onto the hardwood floor, he instantly ran a mental diagnostic, adjusted his spatial trajectory by a fraction of an inch, and launched himself back into the air. He needed his body to act as a flawless, liquid shock absorber.

As the weekend progressed, Ren took his most ambitious step yet: attempting to synthesize his meditative mind with his violent body.

Until now, his neuro-somatic conditioning had been a static tool—something he used while standing still in the shower or lying flat on his bed to heal and recover. Now, he wanted to weaponize it.

He dropped into his orthodox fighting stance, bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet, and began throwing complex striking combinations at the empty air. A jab, a cross, a slipping pivot to the left, followed by a vicious roundhouse kick. But this time, he layered his breathing cycle directly over his kinetic output.

Inhale on the slip. Hold on the pivot. Exhale entirely through the strike.

It was agonizingly difficult. Moving at high speeds naturally spiked his adrenaline and shattered his focus, causing his heart rate to erratically spike. But Ren refused to quit. He visualized the oxygen routing directly to his fast-twitch fibers at the exact millisecond of impact. He forced his nervous system to stay icy and calm while his body executed violent, explosive torque. He wanted the cold, calculating mind of a 1600-Elo chess player operating inside the kinetic frenzy of a fighting game combo.

Sweat pooled on the floorboards beneath him. His lungs burned, and his muscles twitched with near-paralytic exhaustion. Yet, as Saturday night bled into the early hours of Sunday morning, a terrifyingly focused smile crept across Ren’s face.

Issei was going to chase a girl at the park. Ren was going to build a god out of flesh and bone.

Section 2: The Unseen Strike

Sub Section 1: The Art of the Shadow

Sunday afternoon in Kuoh’s shopping district was a dense, chaotic weave of civilian traffic. For Ren, it was the perfect laboratory.

He walked down the crowded pavement with his eyes cast downward, his vision deliberately restricted to the two feet of concrete immediately in front of his sneakers. He was running a real-time sensory isolation drill, forcing his brain to map his environment without relying on his primary optical input.

He tuned his hearing first, isolating the distinct acoustic signatures of the crowd. He separated the sharp, rhythmic clack-clack of a woman’s high heels to his left from the heavy, scuffing drag of a tired salaryman to his right. He mapped the Doppler effect of passing cars, judging their speed and distance purely by the pitch of their tires against the asphalt.

Next, he focused on olfactory data. He inhaled through his nose, compartmentalizing the competing scents of the street: the heavy, greasy exhaust of a passing bus, the sharp ozone of the cooling autumn air, and the overwhelming wave of caramelized sugar from a nearby crepe stand. He even mapped his tactile feedback and spatial awareness—the subtle shift in air pressure on his right cheek when a cyclist zoomed past too closely, the metallic tang of city smog on his tongue, and the exact positional weight of his own limbs as he navigated the moving bodies without bumping into a single person.

It was an exhausting cognitive load, demanding maximum neuro-somatic focus to process so much raw data simultaneously.

Then, a sudden, familiar sensory input broke his concentration.

It wasn’t a sound. It was a smell. Specifically, it was the suffocating, chemical assault of cheap, aerosol body spray applied in lethal quantities.

Ren stopped walking. He raised his head, fully opening his eyes.

Standing twenty yards ahead, staring nervously at his reflection in the tinted glass of a closed electronics store, was Issei Hyoudou. He was dressed in a casual jacket and jeans, frantically attempting to flatten a stubborn cowlick in his brown hair while checking his watch every five seconds. His posture was a frantic mess of nervous energy, shifting his weight back and forth like a coiled spring.

Ren crossed his arms, leaning casually against a brick pillar as a slow, amused smirk spread across his face.

Issei was actually on his date. The notorious pervert of Kuoh was standing in the middle of the shopping district, waiting for a girl.

Ren’s first instinct was to walk over, slap his friend on the back, and tease him about the toxic cloud of cologne hovering around him. But as he watched Issei pace back and forth, a different idea sparked in Ren’s tactical mind.

He had spent the entire weekend drilling his physical limits, studying blind spots, and mimicking the stealth mechanics of his favorite games. Tracking an active, moving target through an urban environment was the ultimate test of his spatial geometry and evasion training. Issei was loud, completely lacking in situational awareness, and entirely focused on his impending date—making him the perfect, unwitting training dummy. Furthermore, Ren’s natural curiosity demanded to see if this mysterious “Yuma Amano” was actually real or if Issei was about to get stood up in spectacular fashion.

Ren pulled his dark hood up over his head, shielding his profile.

He adjusted his posture, dropping his center of gravity slightly to mute the impact of his footsteps. He visualized the “cone of vision” extending from Issei’s frantic pacing. When Issei turned his head to the left, Ren slid smoothly into the slipstream of a large group of passing high school girls, using their collective mass as a visual barrier.

The game was on.

Issei finally checked his watch one last time, let out a massive, visible exhale, and began walking toward the central plaza.

Ren detached from the crowd, maintaining a precise thirty-yard gap. He mirrored Issei’s pace exactly, stepping only when ambient street noise—a passing truck, a laughing group of kids—masked the sound of his approach. He utilized the environment flawlessly, drifting behind bus stops, darting behind vending machines, and pausing in the shadows of store awnings whenever Issei randomly stopped to check his reflection.

To Issei, it was just a nerve-wracking Sunday stroll to meet his dream girl. To Ren, it was a high-stakes stealth mission playing out in real-time, completely devoid of his previous rooftop paranoia. He was just a gamer testing his urban mechanics in the real world, entirely unaware that he was quietly tracking his best friend straight toward a slaughter.

Sub Section 2: The Predator’s Gait

The target acquired her mark at exactly 1:15 PM near the central fountain.

From his vantage point on the second-floor balcony of an outdoor cafe, partially obscured by a decorative trellis, Ren watched Yuma Amano arrive. She was objectively flawless—petite, dressed in a stylish autumnal coat, her dark hair framing a delicate, flushed face. Issei practically vibrated out of his shoes, bowing so deeply he nearly headbutted the pavement before nervously offering her a hand.

Ren took a sip of his black coffee, his eyes tracking their movements as they began to walk toward the boutique stores. The stealth game was holding his interest, but as he watched Yuma walk, his freshly acquired knowledge of biomechanics began to fire warning signals in the back of his mind.

There was something fundamentally wrong with the way the girl moved.

Ren leaned forward, resting his elbows on the railing, his eyes narrowing as he analyzed her gait. Normal human locomotion was a controlled forward fall—the heel strikes the ground, the weight rolls through the foot, and the calves and hamstrings absorb and distribute the kinetic shock.

Yuma didn’t walk like that.

She stepped almost entirely on the balls of her feet, her spine aggressively straight, her shoulders pulled slightly back. She moved with an eerie, frictionless glide, as if her center of gravity was hovering a foot higher than it should be. To Ren’s analytical mind, her posture looked like a physical overcompensation. She walked exactly like someone who was subconsciously balancing a massive, unseen weight on their upper back.

She moves like she’s used to being airborne, Ren thought, tapping his index finger against his coffee cup. Or like she’s hiding a fifty-pound backpack under her coat. It doesn’t make sense.

Despite the mechanical anomalies, the date proceeded like a standard teenage rom-com. For the next three hours, Ren tailed them flawlessly. He shadowed them through a clothing store by pretending to browse winter jackets, tracked them across an arcade by blending into a crowd of rowdy middle-schoolers, and maintained a forty-yard visual down the main promenade as the sun began to dip below the city skyline.

He utilized his neuro-somatic breathing to manage the physical toll of a three-hour stealth operation, keeping his heart rate at a flat, resting rhythm while his legs burned from maintaining a low, silent crouch.

By 5:30 PM, the sky bruised into deep shades of violet and orange. The weekend crowd thinned out, the temperature dropped, and Issei and Yuma turned away from the commercial district, heading down the familiar paved path toward the river park.

The fun of the stealth drill immediately evaporated.

As Ren slipped into the perimeter of the park, sticking to the deep shadows of the towering oak trees, a profound, suffocating silence settled over the area. The ambient noise of the city seemed to mute itself. There were no joggers. There were no children playing. It was a statistical dead zone.

Ren scaled a thick, knotted oak tree near the center of the park, using a silent, explosive muscle-up to hoist himself onto a sturdy branch fifteen feet above the ground. From here, he had a perfect tactical view of the central clearing and the dry, concrete fountain where Issei and Yuma had come to a halt.

Then, it hit him.

The same violent, icy dread he had felt on the rooftop two days ago slammed into his chest, but this time, it was magnified a hundredfold. Ren’s breath hitched. His nervous system screamed in primal panic, every hair on his arms standing on end. The air itself felt heavy, thick with a cold, metallic pressure that tasted like copper in the back of his throat.

Down in the clearing, the shy, blushing demeanor of Yuma Amano vanished.

She turned her back to Issei, her shoulders dropping the forced human posture. The temperature in the park seemed to plummet by ten degrees.

“Hey, Issei…” her voice echoed, carrying a bizarre, echoing distortion that sent a violent shiver down Ren’s spine. “Can I ask you a favor?”

“S-Sure! Anything!” Issei stammered, entirely oblivious to the lethal shift in the atmosphere.

Yuma turned around. Her eyes were no longer those of a shy high school girl. They were flat, predatory, and glowing with an unnatural, violent light.

“Would you die for me?”

Up in the tree, Ren’s heart stopped. The shadows around Yuma began to warp, and a sickeningly bright, purplish-black light began to coalesce in the palm of her hand, emitting a high-pitched, humming frequency that made Ren’s eardrums throb.

This wasn’t a game anymore. The physics of reality were snapping right in front of him.

Ren didn’t think. He didn’t hesitate. He bypassed his conscious mind entirely, feeding every ounce of oxygen in his lungs into his fast-twitch muscle fibers, and shifted his weight forward on the branch to launch himself into the abyss.

Sub Section 3: The Fatal Inaccuracy

The fabric of reality did not just bend in the park clearing; it shattered.

As the sickening, high-frequency hum of the purplish-black light intensified, the very clothes on Yuma Amano’s body disintegrated into a storm of black feathers. For a singular, disorienting microsecond, her human disguise fell away completely. The dissolution revealed the pale, unblemished curves of her naked form, granting Issei’s perverted, hormone-addled brain a sudden, vivid flash of her breasts and bare skin.

Issei’s eyes widened, a dopey, confused blush fighting its way through his confusion. But the adolescent fantasy died instantly.

From her back, a pair of massive, pitch-black wings violently erupted, tearing through the air with a sound like snapping sails. The purplish light in her hand solidified into a crackling, lethal javelin of pure, weaponized radiance. The blush drained from Issei’s face, replaced by a hollow, paralyzing terror. His knees locked. His jaw went slack. The primal, undeniable presence of a Fallen Angel standing over him short-circuited his nervous system entirely.

Raynare smiled, a cruel, mocking twist of her lips, and drew the spear of light back, aiming directly for Issei’s heart.

From the canopy above, a shadow detached itself from the oak tree.

Ren did not shout. He did not issue a heroic battle cry. He weaponized gravity, free-falling fifteen feet and converting the raw kinetic energy of his descent into a singular, devastating point of impact.

Just as Raynare drove her arm forward to release the spear, Ren’s flying kick slammed squarely into the side of her skull.

The kinetic transfer was massive. The sheer, unexpected physical force of a hundred-and-sixty-pound human dropping from the sky broke her posture entirely. Raynare shrieked, the light spear dissolving into sparks as she was violently thrown off her feet. She skidded across the dry, cracked concrete of the fountain base, her black wings flailing in a frantic, uncoordinated mess before she crashed into the stone rim.

Ren hit the ground rolling, dissolving the shock of the landing through his shoulders and springing immediately back to his feet. He dropped into a low, orthodox fighting stance, his hands raised, his eyes locked on the crumpled heap of black feathers.

“Ren?!” Issei screamed, his voice cracking into a high-pitched wheeze as he collapsed backward onto the grass. “What—how—what the hell is that?!”

“Get up, Issei!” Ren barked, his voice tight, his eyes never leaving the Fallen Angel. “On your feet! Move!”

Before Issei could even attempt to command his paralyzed legs, the pile of black feathers at the fountain exploded outward. Raynare rose, her neck cracking sickeningly as she snapped her head back into place. A thin line of blood trickled from the corner of her mouth. Her eyes, now glowing with a furious, unhinged crimson light, locked onto Ren.

“A human?” Raynare hissed, her voice vibrating with supernatural malice. She wiped the blood from her lip, her expression twisting into absolute disgust. “You filthy, mundane little insect. You dare touch me?”

“You telegraphed your throw,” Ren said, his neuro-somatic breathing forcing his heart rate to remain steady despite the suffocating demonic pressure crushing the air out of his lungs. “Drop the wings and the light show, and your footwork is garbage.”

Raynare snarled, the air around her warping as she lunged forward. She did not run; she moved with a sudden, localized burst of acceleration that defied human physics.

Ren engaged.

For the first four seconds, Ren’s obsessive, grueling weekend grinds validated themselves. Raynare was vastly stronger and impossibly fast, but she was arrogant, wild, and completely lacked formal combat discipline. She threw a sweeping, decapitating hook. Ren slipped under it, pivoting on his back foot, and drove a precise, neuro-somatically enhanced liver punch into her exposed side. He felt the impact reverberate up his forearm. She recoiled, throwing a backhand strike. Ren parried it away, shifting his center of gravity to deliver a snapping inside leg kick to her leading knee.

He was technically out-striking a Fallen Angel. His martial arts foundation was unequivocally superior to her brawling.

But Ren was not the anomaly he needed to be. In another timeline, in the lost annals of Route 0, there existed a human named Fajar. Even without supernatural enhancement, Fajar’s martial arts were so profoundly transcendent—so impossibly perfect in their geometric execution and spatial dominance—that Raynare and her entire squad of Fallen Angels could not lay a single finger on him. Fajar had dismantled them through pure, god-like technique.

Ren was not Fajar.

Ren was a teenager with a fragmented, self-taught fighting style, operating on mortal hardware that was already redlining.

The turning point happened in a fraction of a second. It was exactly like high-level chess: against a vastly superior engine, a single inaccuracy does not just lose an exchange; it forces a checkmate.

Raynare feinted a high strike. Ren calculated the parry window based on human muscle-twitch speeds. He shifted his weight to the right to slip the blow. But Raynare’s supernatural physiology ignored momentum. She canceled the strike mid-air, reversing her kinetic energy instantly, and drove a brutal, localized burst of speed directly into Ren’s guard.

It was a catastrophic miscalculation.

Her knee slammed into Ren’s midsection with the force of a speeding compact car.

The sound of three ribs splintering echoed sharply across the park. Ren’s eyes widened, the air exploding from his lungs in a mist of blood and saliva. His neuro-somatic pain suppression shattered instantly under the sheer, localized trauma. Before his brain could even process the agony, Raynare grabbed him by the throat, hoisting him completely off the ground.

“Technique,” Raynare whispered, her eyes burning into his, “means nothing against a god.”

She casually casually backhanded him across the chest. The impact lifted Ren off his feet entirely, launching him through the air like a discarded ragdoll. He flew twenty feet backward, crashing violently through the thick wooden slats of a park bench before tumbling to a halt in the dark, damp grass near the edge of the clearing.

Ren lay completely paralyzed. The world spun in a sickening vortex of agony. He tried to command his body to rise, to push up onto his hands, but his nervous system was flooded with critical failure signals. He could only turn his head, his vision swimming, tasting the hot, metallic tang of his own blood pooling in his mouth.

Raynare did not even look at him again. He was a broken toy. She turned her attention back to her actual target.

“Ren…” Issei whispered, crawling backward across the grass, tears streaming down his face as he looked from his broken friend to the approaching Fallen Angel. “Stay away! Just take me! Leave him alone!”

“Oh, don’t worry. I’m leaving him to bleed out,” Raynare purred, her footsteps completely silent against the concrete. A fresh spear of crackling light materialized in her hand, illuminating the clearing in a sickly purple glow. “But you, Issei… you have something inside you that my superiors want gone. It’s nothing personal.”

“Wait, please—”

Raynare drove the spear downward.

The sound of the light blade piercing flesh and sinking deep into the earth was sickeningly wet and decisive. Issei’s back arched violently, a choked, gurgling gasp escaping his lips. His hands grabbed desperately at the shaft of light protruding from his chest before his strength gave out, his arms dropping limply to his sides. A massive pool of crimson blood began to rapidly expand beneath him, soaking into the dry soil.

Raynare pulled her hand away, letting the spear dissolve into harmless motes of light, leaving only the gaping, fatal wound behind.

She looked down at Issei’s lifeless eyes for a brief moment, brushing a speck of dirt from her shoulder. Without another word, she unfurled her massive black wings, kicking off the ground with a concussive shockwave that sent dead leaves spiraling into the air. In a matter of seconds, she was swallowed by the dark autumn sky, vanishing completely.

Silence rushed back into the park, heavy and absolute, save for the ragged, shallow wheezing of a broken tactician bleeding in the dark, forced to watch his friend die.

Sub Section 4: The Crimson Divide

Through the blurry, blood-stained lens of Ren’s fading vision, the world reduced itself to the agonizing sound of his own shallow breathing and the wet, rhythmic dripping of Issei’s blood onto the concrete.

Ten yards away, Issei lay on his back in the center of the growing crimson pool. His chest heaved in violent, erratic spasms. His hands twitched at his sides, lacking the strength to even clutch the gaping hole in his chest.

As the cold reality of death closed in around him, Issei’s mind began to unravel. He didn’t think about his parents, or his grades, or the video games sitting unfinished on his desk. As his eyes locked onto the pool of his own blood reflecting the dim streetlights, a single, hyper-fixated memory floated to the surface of his dying brain.

He remembered the old school building.

Just a few days prior, after getting brutally chased off by the Kendo club, Issei had looked up at the decaying wooden windows of the Occult Research Club. He had seen a girl standing there. A beautiful, untouchable upperclassman with hair so vibrantly red it seemed to burn against the dreary backdrop of the school.

“Red…” Issei gurgled weakly, his eyes glazing over as he stared at the blood soaking his hands. “It’s so red… but it’s not… not as beautiful as her hair…”

Ren gritted his teeth, tasting copper as he tried to force his shattered ribs to expand. He needed to move. He needed to drag himself over there and apply pressure to the wound. But his nervous system was screaming, completely locking his limbs in a state of traumatic paralysis.

“If I’m gonna die…” Issei whimpered, a pathetic, tragic tear slipping down his cheek. “I don’t want to die on the ground… If I have to go… I at least wanted to die with my face… buried in the soft breasts… of a beautiful girl…”

It was the most absurd, classically Issei Hyoudou final wish imaginable. Yet, as the words left his mouth, a shift occurred in the atmosphere.

The small, elegant paper flyer that the blonde girl had slipped onto Issei’s desk the previous morning had fallen from his jacket pocket during the attack. It lay directly in the center of the expanding pool of blood. As Issei’s lifeblood soaked the parchment, the strange, symmetrical crest printed on it began to emit a faint, pulsing light.

Then, the park exploded in crimson.

A massive, intricate magic circle, glowing with a deep, blood-red luminescence, violently etched itself into the air directly above Issei. The ambient temperature spiked. The sheer demonic pressure radiating from the crest was so heavy that Ren felt his lungs physically compress, his instincts screaming at him to flee a predator far older and vastly more terrifying than the Fallen Angel.

From the center of the crimson light, a figure materialized.

The first thing Ren saw was the hair—a cascading waterfall of profound, immaculate crimson that seemed to absorb the light around it. She stepped out of the magic circle, her tall, elegant frame wrapped in the Kuoh Academy uniform. Her blue-green eyes swept over the blood-soaked clearing with the calm, detached authority of a queen surveying her domain.

Rias Gremory had arrived.

She knelt gracefully beside Issei, seemingly oblivious to the blood soaking into her pristine skirt. She reached out, gently caressing Issei’s pale cheek.

“You are the one who called me?” Rias’s voice was smooth, carrying a hypnotic, aristocratic cadence that echoed through the empty park.

Issei could only let out a weak, rattling breath in response.

Rias looked at his chest, her eyes narrowing slightly as she sensed the lingering divine magic of the light spear, and the faint, dormant pulse of the Sacred Gear hidden deep within Issei’s soul.

“For a human to possess such an artifact… What a pity,” Rias murmured softly, a small, sorrowful smile touching her lips. “But I cannot let you perish here. Since you are going to die anyway, I will take your life.”

She leaned closer, pressing a hand over the fatal wound. A brilliant, crimson aura flared around her palm.

“From this moment on, you will live for me,” Rias declared, her voice ringing with absolute, demonic sovereignty. “You will be my servant.”

Twenty feet away, hidden in the pitch-black shadows of the shattered wooden bench, Ren lay completely immobilized. His throat was choked with blood, preventing him from calling out. He watched in agonizing silence as the school’s most untouchable princess gathered Issei into her arms.

Rias didn’t look toward the bench. She didn’t scan the perimeter. To a high-class Devil responding to a direct summoning pact, the localized area was just an empty stage for her new Pawn. The presence of a mundane human bleeding out in the dark foliage didn’t even register on her supernatural radar. Why would it? Ren had no magic. He had no Sacred Gear. He was just a baseline mortal whose biological signature was fading into the background noise of the city.

The crimson magic circle flared one final, blinding time.

When the light faded, Issei and Rias were gone. The park was entirely empty.

The silence that followed was deafening.

Ren lay in the cold, damp grass for a long time. The freezing autumn wind whipped across his face. Slowly, painfully, he forced his eyes open. He looked at the spot where his friend had died, and where a miracle had descended from the heavens to save him.

He didn’t feel relief.

A dark, venomous heat began to spread from the pit of his stomach, burning away the icy shock of his injuries. It was a terrifying, suffocating wave of pure, unadulterated bitterness.

He had dedicated his entire weekend to studying anatomy, optimizing his kinetic output, and mastering the geometry of combat. He had tracked a Fallen Angel through the city. He had thrown his mortal body into the path of a divine weapon, breaking his bones and rupturing his organs just to buy his friend three seconds of time. He had fought, and bled, and pushed his human limitations to the absolute brink.

And for what?

He was left to die in the dirt, entirely unnoticed and utterly discarded. Meanwhile, Issei—who had done absolutely nothing but walk blindly into a trap and cry about breasts—had been rewarded with a magical resurrection and the embrace of a demonic princess.

The universe doesn’t reward effort, Ren realized, his fingers digging into the muddy earth as a savage, toxic Envy finally took root in his soul. It only rewards the chosen.

Ren squeezed his eyes shut, engaging his neuro-somatic conditioning not for training, but for raw, spiteful survival. He mentally visualized the bleeding in his side, forcing his blood vessels to constrict. He blocked the nerve receptors screaming from his shattered ribs. He refused to die here as a forgotten extra.

With a ragged, bloody gasp, Ren rolled onto his stomach. He planted his elbows into the dirt, his knuckles white, and began the agonizing, solitary crawl back into the dark alleys of the city. The seed of darkness had been planted, and it was being watered by his own blood.

Section 4: The Broken Pattern

Sub Section 1: The Phantom Limbs of Memory

Issei woke up screaming.

He vaulted upright in his bed, his hands frantically clawing at his chest, fully expecting to feel a gaping, blood-soaked hole where his heart should be. Instead, his fingers met the soft, unblemished cotton of his pajama shirt. He gasped for air, his chest heaving, sweat dripping down his forehead.

He tore his shirt open. His skin was perfectly smooth. There was no blood. There was no puncture wound. There was no Fallen Angel with black wings laughing at him.

“A dream…” Issei choked out, collapsing back onto his pillows, his heart hammering against his ribs. “It was just… a really messed up nightmare.”

But as he swung his legs out of bed and stood up, a sudden, violent throb flared in his left arm. He grabbed his forearm, wincing. It felt like a phantom heartbeat trapped beneath his skin—a deep, unnatural heat radiating from his bones. He shook it off, attributing it to sleeping on his arm wrong, but the bizarre sensations didn’t stop there.

Walking to school that morning, the world felt fundamentally out of focus. It wasn’t dull; it was terrifyingly sharp. Issei could hear the individual rustle of oak leaves three streets away. He could hear the hum of the electrical wires above him. The morning sunlight seemed aggressively bright, forcing him to squint. As he walked through the front gates of Kuoh Academy, he even noticed a tiny, white-haired first-year girl sitting on a bench near the shoe lockers, quietly eating a melon bread. She paused mid-bite, her blank, golden eyes locking onto him for a fraction of a second before he looked away, thoroughly unnerved.

The moment he slid open the door to classroom 2-B, his disorientation was violently interrupted.

“Traitor!” Matsuda roared, instantly abandoning his desk and pointing an accusing finger.

Motohama was right behind him, pushing up his taped glasses with a menacing glare. “Report, Hyoudou. Detail every miserable second of your Sunday. Did she laugh at your outfit and walk away, or did she politely excuse herself to the restroom and never return?”

“Guys, you won’t believe it,” Issei stammered, dropping his bag onto his desk. He rubbed the back of his neck, laughing nervously. “I think the stress of the date gave me a literal fever. I had the craziest nightmare.”

“A nightmare?” Matsuda snorted. “You mean realizing you were on a date with a 3D woman?”

“No, I mean she turned into a monster!” Issei blurted out, waving his hands defensively. “I’m serious! We were at the park, and suddenly she grew these giant black bird wings, and her clothes vanished, and she pulled out this glowing spear and stabbed me right through the chest! It felt so real. I thought I was actually dead.”

A beat of silence hung over the desk.

Then, Matsuda and Motohama erupted into hysterical laughter.

“A monster!” Matsuda howled, clutching his stomach. “He got dumped so hard his brain had to invent a fantasy monster to protect his ego!”

“Fascinating psychological defense mechanism,” Motohama chuckled, wiping a tear from his eye. “To avoid the reality of a girl rejecting him, his subconscious hallucinated an assassination attempt. Truly pathetic, Issei.”

“Shut up! I’m telling the truth, it felt real!” Issei yelled, though his face flushed bright red. He looked around the classroom, desperate for some backup. “Hey, Ren, tell these guys I’m not—”

Issei stopped.

He blinked. The desk in the second row, right next to the window, was completely empty.

“Where’s Ren?” Issei asked, his voice suddenly dropping its comedic pitch.

Matsuda shrugged, wiping his eyes. “Hasn’t shown up. Homeroom is about to start. Pretty weird, right? Ren never misses a day.”

A cold, paralyzing spike of ice drove itself straight into the base of Issei’s spine. The ambient noise of the classroom—the laughing, the scraping of chairs, the distant school bell—suddenly muted itself, replaced by a high-pitched ringing in his ears.

Ren never misses a day.

The memory hit him not as a hazy dream, but as a visceral, high-definition flashback.

He didn’t just remember Yuma growing wings. He remembered a shadow dropping from the sky. He remembered Ren—Ren, who had supposedly just been walking home—flying out of the trees and kicking the monster in the face.

CRACK.

Issei gasped, stumbling backward and knocking his chair over with a loud clatter. The sound of Ren’s ribs shattering echoed in his skull. He could suddenly smell the copper tang of blood. He could see Ren’s broken body flying through the air and crashing through the wooden park bench, lying completely paralyzed in the dark grass, bleeding out while Issei was stabbed.

“Issei? Hey, man, you look like you’re gonna puke,” Matsuda said, his smile faltering.

“It wasn’t a dream,” Issei whispered, his eyes wide with absolute horror. He looked down at his left arm, which was suddenly pulsing with that same, strange heat. He looked at his unblemished chest.

If it wasn’t a dream, and Issei was perfectly fine… then where was Ren?

Without another word to his bewildered friends, Issei grabbed his bag, spun on his heel, and bolted out of the classroom before the teacher even walked in.

Sub Section 2: The House of the Wounded

Issei’s lungs burned as he sprinted away from Kuoh Academy, his feet blindly carrying him back to the scene of the crime.

When he reached the river park, the morning sun was illuminating the central clearing in harsh, unforgiving light. In his memory, the date with Yuma Amano had been a dream come true, right up until the sky darkened and she asked him to die for her. Normally, he might have lingered by the fountain to mourn the brutal betrayal of his first love.

But his heightened eyes immediately caught something else.

The heavy wooden bench at the edge of the clearing was completely shattered. Thick wooden slats were splintered in half, and the iron armrest was bent at a sickening angle. Just beyond it, in the damp grass, Issei spotted dried, rust-colored stains coating the dirt.

It wasn’t a nightmare. The physical evidence of Ren’s desperate, violent intervention was right there.

Panic completely overwrote his heartbreak. Issei spun around and sprinted toward the residential district, ignoring the throbbing ache in his left arm. He navigated the narrow, winding streets until he reached a worn, two-story apartment complex where Ren lived alone.

Issei took the metal stairs two at a time and hammered his fists against door number 204.

“Ren! Ren, are you in there?!” Issei yelled, his voice cracking. “Open up, please!”

For a long, agonizing minute, there was no response. Then, the deadbolt clicked.

The door opened just a few inches. Issei pushed his way inside, the words of apology tumbling out of his mouth before he even registered what he was looking at.

Ren was seated on the edge of a cheap futon, illuminated only by the pale light filtering through the drawn window blinds. He was a mess. His torso was heavily wrapped in thick white medical bandages, the fabric stained with faint, dark patches of dried blood over his left ribcage. His skin was pale, bathed in a cold sweat, and his breathing was agonizingly shallow, strictly regulated by his neuro-somatic focus to keep his shattered ribs from shifting.

“Close the door, Issei,” Ren said. His voice was hoarse, stripped of its usual sarcastic warmth. “You’re being loud.”

Issei slammed the door shut, his legs giving out as he dropped to his knees on the tatami mat. “Ren… oh god. You’re alive. The bench… I saw the bench at the park. Was it… was the nightmare real? Did she actually—”

“It wasn’t a nightmare,” Ren interrupted, his dark eyes locking onto Issei. “She didn’t just attack you, Issei. She killed you. I watched her drive a light spear straight through your heart.”

Issei choked on his breath. He clawed at his shirt, pulling it open to reveal his completely unblemished chest. “But look! I don’t have a scratch! I woke up in my bed! How am I alive if she killed me?!”

“Because you hit the statistical jackpot,” Ren replied, a cold, dark edge creeping into his tone. He leaned back slightly against the wall, wincing as a spasm of pain shot through his side. “After you bled out on the concrete, a massive, crimson magic circle appeared right over your body. Rias Gremory stepped out of it.”

Issei’s eyes widened to the size of saucers. “The President of the Occult Research Club? Wait…” His mind flashed back to the blonde girl in the hallway, the strange flyer on his desk, and the final, fading memory of a beautiful girl with crimson hair standing over him in the dark. I will take your life. You will live for me.

“The flyer…” Issei whispered, staring at his hands. “I had that weird paper in my pocket. She told me I belonged to her now.”

“Exactly,” Ren said, his gaze analytical and unblinking. “Whatever that paper was, your blood activated it. She performed some kind of ritual, resurrected you, and teleported you both out of there. You got the ultimate magical bailout.”

“And you?” Issei asked, tears welling up in his eyes as he looked at Ren’s bandaged, broken body. “Did she heal you too? Did she bring you back here?”

A heavy, suffocating silence filled the small apartment.

Ren looked away, staring at the dust motes dancing in the sliver of sunlight slipping through the blinds. The memory of the cold mud, the agonizing pain, and the absolute insignificance of his own existence flared in his chest, burning hotter than his physical wounds.

“No,” Ren said softly, a bitter, venomous smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. “I got thrown twenty feet into a bench. I was outside the radius of your little miracle. She didn’t even glance in my direction. I spent three hours crawling back to this apartment through the dirt, choking on my own blood, while you got carried off by a demonic princess.”

“Ren… I’m so sorry,” Issei sobbed, bowing his head to the floor. “You tried to save me. You broke your body for me, and I left you behind.”

“You didn’t leave me behind, Issei. The world did,” Ren stated flatly.

As Issei continued to cry, Ren’s gamer-wired brain instinctively shifted into diagnostic mode, analyzing the boy weeping on his floor.

Issei looked the same, but he wasn’t. Ren’s trained senses picked up the subtle, impossible anomalies. Issei’s resting body temperature was too high, radiating a faint, localized heat that hadn’t been there on Friday. The micro-expressions of his musculature were different. The very presence he projected into the room felt dense, carrying a faint echo of the crimson magic that had saturated the park.

Issei wasn’t human anymore. He had crossed the threshold, completely bypassing the grueling, agonizing grind of mortal training through sheer dumb luck and a hidden stat modifier.

Ren closed his eyes, inhaling slowly through his nose. He had survived the night, but the baseline reality of their friendship had irrevocably fractured. Issei was a supernatural being now, and Ren was just the collateral damage left in the dirt.

Sub Section 3: The Watchers and the Fedora

Issei wiped his eyes, bowing his head one last time before stepping out of the apartment. He needed air. He needed to process the impossible reality that his normal life was over, and the agonizing guilt that his survival had come at the cost of Ren’s broken body.

Ren sat alone in the dim room, listening to the heavy footsteps of his friend receding down the exterior metal walkway. He closed his eyes, managing his breathing. He didn’t hate Issei. Hating Issei would be like hating a lottery winner for buying a lucky ticket. Issei was just a foolish, incredibly fortunate idiot. No, Ren’s bitterness was entirely reserved for the cold, mechanical unfairness of the world itself—a world that discarded the relentless grind of a mortal while handing divine miracles to the oblivious.

Outside, the late afternoon shadows were stretching across the concrete courtyard of the apartment complex. Issei barely made it to the bottom of the metal staircase when the temperature plummeted.

“I thought I sensed a lingering anomaly,” a grating, arrogant voice echoed from the shadows of the alleyway.

Issei froze. He turned slowly, his newly heightened senses picking up the sound of leather shoes against asphalt.

A tall man stepped into the fading sunlight. He wore a sharp trench coat and a fedora pulled low over his eyes, a menacing smirk stretching across his face. But it wasn’t his clothes that made Issei’s blood run cold—it was the massive, pitch-black wings sprouting from his back, identical to Yuma’s.

“Dohnaseek,” the man introduced himself, tipping his fedora. “I was sent to verify a glitch in our extermination report. It seems Raynare was sloppy. You’re actually alive.”

“No… not again,” Issei whimpered, stumbling backward.

Dohnaseek didn’t waste time with a theatrical monologue. He raised his hand, a crackling spear of yellow light coalescing in his palm, and hurled it with blinding speed.

The spear caught Issei squarely in the shoulder, pinning him against the metal railing of the staircase with a sickening crunch. Issei screamed, squeezing his eyes shut and waiting for the cold, absolute void of death to take him a second time.

But the void didn’t come.

His shoulder burned with agonizing pain, and blood soaked his uniform, but his heart kept beating. His new Devil physiology, completely unknown to him, violently rejected the fatal shock. He was bleeding, but he wasn’t dying.

Dohnaseek blinked, his smirk vanishing into a scowl. “Fascinating. Your physical density has fundamentally shifted. No matter. I’ll just aim for the head.” He began to manifest a second spear.

CLANG. THWACK.

Two heavy kitchen knives and a stainless-steel fork ricocheted violently off Dohnaseek’s raised forearm, the sudden kinetic impacts breaking his concentration. The Fallen Angel cursed, taking a half-step back as the silverware clattered onto the concrete.

“Get in here!”

Issei opened his eyes. Ren was leaning heavily against the doorframe of his second-floor apartment, his face deathly pale, his right hand still raised from the throw. Despite the agonizing pain radiating through his shattered ribs, Ren hadn’t hesitated. The world might have left him behind, but he wasn’t about to watch his idiot best friend get murdered twice in one weekend.

Ren grabbed the collar of Issei’s jacket and violently hauled him over the threshold, collapsing onto the floor with a wet, ragged cough as the exertion tore at his internal injuries.

“Ren!” Issei cried out, clutching his bleeding shoulder as he scrambled to help his friend.

“You’re an idiot, Issei,” Ren panted, a pained, breathless chuckle escaping his lips as he held his bandaged side. “If you can’t fight… you have to learn how to run.”

Down in the courtyard, Dohnaseek sneered, aiming his newly formed light spear directly at the open doorway of apartment 204. “A mundane human interfering again? How utterly pathetic. I’ll vaporize you both.”

Before the Fallen Angel could release the projectile, the air pressure in the courtyard violently inverted.

A massive, blood-red magic circle burst into existence on the concrete directly between Dohnaseek and the staircase. The sheer demonic aura radiating from it was so dense it physically rattled the windows of the apartment complex. Ren forced himself up onto one knee, his gamer instincts screaming as he recognized the same suffocating pressure from the park.

From the crimson light stepped Rias Gremory.

This time, she wasn’t alone. Flanking her was the petite, white-haired girl Issei had seen at the shoe lockers, a tall, handsome blonde boy with a knight’s posture, and a beautiful, raven-haired upperclassman who was smiling with terrifying, sadistic glee.

“This territory belongs to the House of Gremory,” Rias announced, her voice echoing with sovereign authority. She glared at Dohnaseek, her crimson hair flaring with magical energy. “You have immense nerve, Fallen Angel, attacking my servant in my own domain.”

Dohnaseek lowered his spear, his arrogant demeanor instantly dissolving into a tense, calculated grimace. He scanned the four Devils standing before him, doing the tactical math in his head.

“Rias Gremory,” Dohnaseek spat, taking a slow step backward into the shadows. “So, you claimed the boy. How tedious. I have no interest in starting a war with the Underworld over a single human anomaly. Consider this a temporary retreat.”

With a powerful flap of his black wings, Dohnaseek launched himself into the sky, vanishing into the twilight.

Rias sighed, dismissing her magical aura before turning her gaze up to the second-floor walkway. Her blue-green eyes locked onto Issei, who was clutching his bleeding shoulder, and then shifted, for the very first time, to the battered, blood-stained human kneeling beside him.

Ren stared back at the Crimson Ruin. He couldn’t fight her. He couldn’t even stand up. But as he looked at the flawless, magical beings who had effortlessly chased away a god, the seed of Envy in his chest finally sprouted, locking his resolve into something cold, permanent, and terrifyingly ambitious.

Sub Section 4: The Vanguard of Truth

Rias ascended the metal staircase with effortless grace, her peerage falling in seamlessly behind her. The blonde knight, Kiba, offered a polite, disarming smile, while the raven-haired Akeno covered her mouth with a delicate hand, her eyes dancing with quiet amusement. The small, white-haired girl—Koneko—remained entirely expressionless, her golden eyes locking onto Ren with the calculating gaze of a seasoned brawler.

Rias knelt beside Issei, pressing her glowing hand over his bleeding shoulder. A warm, crimson aura enveloped the wound, and within seconds, the torn flesh knitted itself back together without a trace of a scar.

“President…” Issei stammered, his face flushing crimson as he stared at the beautiful upperclassman saving his life for a second time.

“You are my cute servant now, Issei,” Rias said gently, withdrawing her hand. “It is my duty to protect you.” Her gaze then shifted to the pale, battered boy leaning heavily against the doorframe. “And you… you threw mortal steel at a Fallen Angel. That was incredibly foolish, but undeniably brave.”

“He didn’t just do it now!” Issei blurted out, scrambling to his feet. “President, this is my best friend, Ren. Yesterday at the park, when Yuma—I mean, Raynare—attacked me… Ren jumped out of a tree and kicked her in the face! He fought her to save me. That’s why he’s so hurt!”

Rias blinked, her aristocratic composure slipping for a fraction of a second. Akeno lowered her hand, her sadistic smile fading into genuine surprise, while Kiba and Koneko exchanged a swift, silent glance.

“You engaged a Fallen Angel in close combat?” Rias asked, her voice dropping a cautious octave. She stepped over the threshold into Ren’s apartment, her eyes scanning his blood-stained bandages. “As a completely ordinary human?”

“I observed her walking through the shopping district,” Ren stated, his voice calm and entirely devoid of bravado. He didn’t puff out his chest or downplay the danger; he simply delivered the raw data. “Her gait was mechanically unnatural—she was overcompensating for unseen mass on her back, which turned out to be the wings. I tailed you both to the park. When she initiated her attack sequence, I calculated a vertical drop from the canopy to disrupt her physical posture and interrupt her throw. It worked, temporarily.”

Ren took a slow, shallow breath, wincing slightly. “I engaged her in standard striking range. My technique was cleaner, but I miscalculated her kinetic reversal speed. She ignored physical momentum, bypassed my guard, and shattered my ribs. I survived because she deemed me irrelevant.”

Silence hung in the small apartment. Rias stared at Ren, her blue-green eyes wide. He wasn’t crying. He wasn’t hysterical. He was analyzing his near-death experience like a chess player dissecting a lost match.

Rias stepped closer and gently placed her hand against Ren’s bandaged side. “To possess such a clinical mind, and to act on it without magic… you are a rare anomaly, Ren.”

A soft, emerald-green light radiated from her palm, soaking through the bandages and deep into Ren’s torso. In an instant, the agonizing, grinding pressure of his fractured ribs vanished. The ruptured blood vessels sealed, the bone fragments fused, and the burning pain in his lungs evaporated. Ren took a deep, unrestricted breath for the first time in twenty-four hours. His neuro-somatic training had allowed him to endure the pain, but this—this was a total circumvention of biology. It was both a miraculous relief and a quiet, mocking reminder of the vast gulf between mortal effort and demonic power.

“Thank you,” Ren said simply, offering a respectful nod.

Rias motioned for them to sit. For the next ten minutes, the President of the Occult Research Club laid out the hidden architecture of the world. She explained the eternal stalemate between the Three Factions: the Angels of Heaven, the Fallen Angels of the Grigori, and the Devils of the Underworld. She revealed her true identity as the heiress to the Gremory clan, and explained the Evil Pieces system.

“You were targeted, Issei, because you possess a Sacred Gear—an artifact created by God,” Rias explained, her tone grave. “The Fallen Angels deemed it a threat. I resurrected you using a Pawn piece. You are no longer human; you are a Devil of my household.”

Issei looked at his hands, overwhelmed, terrified, yet strangely captivated by the beautiful woman who had claimed him.

Rias then turned her attention back to Ren. “Normally, it is our policy to erase the memories of humans who inadvertently witness our world. The truth often brings severe trauma, paranoia, and unnecessary danger. If you wish, I can use my magic to wipe these events from your mind. You can wake up tomorrow believing Issei simply had a strange weekend, free of this burden.”

Ren didn’t even hesitate.

“I appreciate the offer, President, but I decline,” Ren replied smoothly. “A memory wipe might be peaceful, but ignorance is a tactical blind spot. If there are Fallen Angels throwing light spears in my city, I prefer to know exactly where the threats are coming from. The truth doesn’t bother me.”

Akeno chuckled softly, her eyes gleaming with renewed interest. “My, my. What a pragmatic human.”

“Very well,” Rias said, respecting his agency with a solemn nod. “I will not erase your memory. But you must swear absolute secrecy, Ren. And understand that without a Sacred Gear, you are stepping into a crossfire completely unprotected.”

“Understood,” Ren said.

He stood up, rolling his newly healed shoulders, and walked over to Issei. He looked down at his best friend—the pervert, the slacker, the brand-new demonic Pawn—and smiled warmly. It wasn’t a mask; it was genuine affection. The toxic envy was there, buried deep in the bedrock of his soul, but it was dormant for now. Issei hadn’t asked for this, and he had nearly died twice.

Ren reached out and slapped Issei firmly on the shoulder.

“Well, look at you,” Ren laughed softly, his tone shifting back to the familiar, grounded banter of high school boys. “You actually did it, Issei. You managed to get a beautiful upperclassman in your life, even if you had to die to sign the club registry. Congratulations, man.”

Issei looked up, his eyes welling with tears again, and offered a weak, grateful grin. “Thanks, Ren. I guess… I guess my rom-com really did start.”

Sub Section 5: The Mortal Arsenal

The door clicked shut, leaving Ren in the sudden, suffocating silence of his apartment.

Through the window, he watched Issei walk away, surrounded by the beautiful, terrifying elite of Kuoh Academy. They were a flock of immortals returning to their hidden world, casually leaving the human realm behind. Ren stood completely still in his living room, his hands resting on his fully healed ribs.

He was grateful to be alive. He was glad Issei was safe. But beneath that genuine relief, a cold, desperate pragmatism began to claw at his chest. The power scaling of his reality had just been shattered. He was a level-one human living in an endgame zone, and the grace of a Devil princess wasn’t a sustainable survival strategy.

That night, Ren didn’t sleep. He sat in the center of his dark bedroom, crossing his legs and closing his eyes, diving deeper into his neuro-somatic conditioning than he ever had before.

Rias’s healing magic had been a humiliating display of power, but it had also provided him with an unintended gift: a flawless, tactile blueprint. When the demonic energy had flooded his system, Ren’s hyper-observant brain had tracked exactly how it stimulated his cellular regeneration and muted his pain receptors. He used that memory as a map. He focused on his breathing, visualizing his nervous system not as a chaotic web of impulses, but as a clean, manageable circuit board. He isolated the residual phantom aches in his side and consciously dialed them down to zero. He routed oxygen to his healing tissues with smooth, frictionless precision. By sunrise, he had completed his neuro-somatic foundation. His mind and body were finally, truly synchronized.

The next morning, while Issei was undoubtedly getting acquainted with his new demonic duties, Ren began a brutal, analytical post-mortem of his failures.

He stood in front of his full-length mirror, replaying the park fight in his head frame by frame. Inaccuracy number one, he thought, shadowboxing the exact sequence against his reflection. I treated Raynare like a human martial artist bound by gravity and momentum. I struck the liver, assuming a natural flinch response. I threw a leg kick, assuming her center of gravity was tethered to the earth. It wasn’t.

He adjusted his stance, dropping lower, visualizing an opponent capable of mid-air kinetic reversal. He integrated his newly perfected neuro-somatic breathing, forcing his muscles to snap through the combinations with zero wasted energy.

Then, he reviewed the Dohnaseek encounter. Throwing kitchen knives had been a successful distraction, but against a supernatural entity, distractions were just delayed executions. Bare fists and blunt-force trauma were mathematically useless against enemies with reinforced bone density and magical auras. If he was going to survive in Issei’s shadow, he needed to weaponize.

Over the next few days, Ren completely overhauled his combat syllabus. He spent hours at his computer, studying the lethal, hyper-efficient knife CQC (Close Quarters Combat) depicted in military action webtoons. He dissected the brutal, reverse-grip slaughter tactics of Teenage Mercenary and God of Blackfield, and the terrifying, relentless edge-alignment found in Return of the Bloodthirsty Police. He bought a dull training karambit and a tactical folding knife, spending his nights in the apartment fluidly drilling parries, disarms, and fatal artery strikes against an imaginary Fallen Angel until his knuckles bled.

But a knife wasn’t always available. He needed to be lethal in any environment.

Ren shifted his research to the ruthless, environmental pragmatism of Gray Yeon from Weak Hero. He started looking at mundane objects with a terrifying new perspective. A heavy winter coat wasn’t clothing; it was a tool to blind an opponent’s vision and trap their arms. A ballpoint pen was a makeshift spike for the carotid artery. A handful of dirt, a shattered coffee mug, the sharp edge of a desk—everything became a potential weapon to bridge the massive gap in physical stats.

To tie it all together, he booted up his old Metal Gear Solid files. He didn’t play for fun; he studied the tactical espionage philosophy. He reviewed the mechanics of sightlines, the art of silencing footsteps, and the core tenets of CQC. He realized that as a mortal, stealth was his absolute greatest asset. He couldn’t win a fair fight against a Devil or a Fallen Angel, which meant he must never, ever fight fair.

By the end of the week, Ren returned to the community gym.

He hit the weights with a desperation that bordered on manic. He deadlifted, squatted, and sprinted until his muscles screamed and his vision blurred with exhaustion. But when the dreaded wall of lactic acid buildup hit him—the physical limit that forces every human to stop—Ren simply closed his eyes.

He engaged his neuro-somatic control. He visualized the burning acid in his muscle fibers and manually commanded his circulatory system to flush it out. He slowed his heart rate, flooded his body with hyper-oxygenated blood, and forced his pain receptors to shut down.

When he opened his eyes thirty seconds later, the crippling fatigue was gone. He walked back to the squat rack, added another twenty pounds to the bar, and kept grinding.

He was still just a human. But he was building a monster in the dark.

Section 5: The New Paradigm

Sub Section 1: The Death of a Pervert

The rumor mill of Kuoh Academy was a highly efficient machine, but on this particular Monday morning, it was operating at terminal velocity. By 8:15 AM, the whispered reports had reached critical mass, rippling through the hallways and crashing into classroom 2-B like a tidal wave.

Issei Hyoudou, the undisputed king of the perverts, had been spotted walking to school in the company of Rias Gremory.

When Issei finally slid the classroom door open, he looked like a man who had stared into the abyss and found the abyss naked in his bed. He was exhausted, twitchy, and visibly sweating.

He didn’t even make it three steps into the room before the execution squad descended.

“Traitor!” Matsuda shrieked, launching himself across the room and grabbing Issei by the collar of his uniform. “Explain yourself, Hyoudou! The entire student body is saying you arrived with President Gremory! Confess your sins to the court!”

Motohama flanked him instantly, adjusting his taped glasses so the lenses caught the morning light in a blinding, sinister glare. “This is a violation of the sacred pact, Issei. We endure the absolute bottom of the social hierarchy together. If you have somehow bypassed the system and interacted with a top-tier idol, the penalty is death by a thousand cuts.”

“Guys, keep your voices down!” Issei panicked, waving his hands frantically as the girls in the classroom shot him glares of utter bewilderment. “It’s not what you think! She just… we just bumped into each other at the gates! It was a coincidence!”

“Lies! Deception!” Matsuda wailed, actual tears of bloodshot jealousy forming in his eyes. He looked over his shoulder, desperate for reinforcements. “Ren! Get over here! Hold his legs while we administer justice!”

Ren did not get up.

He remained seated at his desk near the window, his chin resting casually on his hand. He watched the chaotic, cartoonish display of his friends with a calm, unbothered expression. He knew exactly why Issei was with Rias. He knew about the bloody ritual in the park, the demonic reincarnation, and the fact that Issei was now functionally her property. There was absolutely nothing to be jealous of.

“Let the guy breathe, Matsuda,” Ren said, his voice entirely void of its usual degenerate enthusiasm. “He had a really rough weekend. If he says it was a coincidence, let it go.”

Matsuda froze. Motohama turned his head slowly, his jaw dropping in genuine shock. Issei just stared at Ren with profound, silent gratitude.

“Ren…” Motohama whispered, pointing a trembling finger at him. “Where is your fire? Where is your righteous fury? A member of the Perverted Trio has made contact with the Crimson Ruin, and you are sitting there reading… what is that? Gray’s Anatomy?”

Ren smoothly closed the thick, heavy medical textbook he had borrowed from the local library and placed it in his desk. “I’m just tired, Motohama. And honestly, it’s too early in the morning to be screaming about girls.”

A strange, unprecedented silence fell over their corner of the classroom.

It wasn’t just Matsuda and Motohama who noticed the shift. Several girls sitting a few rows away exchanged genuinely puzzled looks. For the past two years, Ren Nocturnus Veritas had been lumped into the same radioactive category as Issei and the others—a slouched, leering degenerate who spent his afternoons trying to peek into the Kendo club locker room.

But looking at him now, the “pervert aura” was completely gone.

His posture was entirely different. He wasn’t slouching; he sat with a straight, grounded spine, his shoulders relaxed but perfectly balanced. His eyes, which usually darted around looking for uniform malfunctions, were focused, sharp, and chillingly calm. The grueling neuro-somatic conditioning and the sheer, traumatic reality of surviving a Fallen Angel had burned the trivial teenage degeneracy right out of his system. He still offered them a friendly, familiar smile, but the energy beneath it was cold, calculating, and fundamentally dangerous.

“Did… did Ren hit his head?” Matsuda whispered loudly to Motohama. “He isn’t even looking at the girls’ tennis practice out the window.”

“A psychological reset,” Motohama deduced, adjusting his glasses nervously. “Perhaps the rejection he suffered last week was so catastrophic it shattered his libido entirely. He has ascended to a state of hollow enlightenment.”

“I can hear you both,” Ren sighed, resting his boots on the crossbar of his desk. “I’m not enlightened. I just have different priorities right now. Sit down before the teacher gets here.”

Issei collapsed into his chair, letting out a massive sigh of relief as Matsuda and Motohama begrudgingly backed off. He shot Ren a look that conveyed a million words of thanks. Ren just offered a subtle, reassuring nod. The trio was still intact on the surface, but the underlying reality was undeniable: Ren had quietly, cleanly resigned from being a human joke.

Sub Section 2: The Prince’s Escort

The final bell of the day rang, but the usual stampede for the door was abruptly halted by a blinding, blonde anomaly standing at the entrance of classroom 2-B.

Kiba Yuto, the undisputed “Prince” of Kuoh Academy, stood in the doorway with a flawless, disarming smile. The effect was instantaneous. A collective, high-pitched gasp rippled through the female population of the room. Girls stopped packing their bags, blushing furiously as they tried to make eye contact with the handsome knight.

Kiba politely stepped past a group of swooning third-year girls and walked directly toward the back row.

“Hyoudou-kun,” Kiba said gently, his voice smooth and perfectly modulated. “The President sent me to collect you. It’s time for club activities.”

The romantic tension in the room instantly shattered, replaced by a deafening, collective silence of utter confusion. The girls stared at Issei, their faces contorting in horror as their brains tried to process why the school’s most elegant prince was personally escorting the school’s most notorious pervert.

Matsuda and Motohama, however, did not experience confusion. They experienced absolute, violent despair.

As Issei nervously slung his bag over his shoulder and followed Kiba out into the hallway, Matsuda fell to his knees, gripping his hair. “It’s real! The rumors are real! He wasn’t just walking with her this morning; he’s actually been drafted into the Occult Research Club!”

Motohama slammed his fists onto his desk, his glasses fogging up with righteous fury. “Do you understand what this means, Matsuda?! He is going to be locked in a private room every afternoon with President Gremory, Akeno Himejima, and the school’s mascot, Koneko Toujou! He has bypassed the mortal realm and entered the promised land of harems!”

Ren slung his own backpack over his shoulder, looking down at his weeping friends with a mix of pity and analytical curiosity.

“I don’t understand,” Ren said smoothly, leaning against his desk. “If you guys are so intensely jealous that he gets to hang out in the club room, why don’t you just go to the faculty office, fill out a standard club application, and join?”

Motohama stopped crying. He looked up at Ren as if he had just suggested they try to breathe underwater.

“Apply?” Motohama scoffed, pushing his taped glasses up his nose with a dramatic, trembling finger. “Ren, your mind truly has deteriorated. One does not simply apply to the Occult Research Club. It is an impenetrable fortress of the elite.”

Matsuda nodded vigorously from the floor. “Yeah! Guys have tried it before! If you go up there with an application, President Gremory just smiles at you, says the club is at capacity, and closes the door. And if you try to be stubborn about it, you just… forget why you even wanted to join. It’s like her aura is so intimidating it actually erases your willpower. The whole school knows it’s an invite-only society for the absolute top-tiers. We don’t even have clearance to touch the doorknob!”

Ren hummed softly, his dark eyes drifting toward the window, looking out across the campus toward the silhouette of the Old School Building.

To the rest of Kuoh Academy, the ORC’s exclusivity was just a social phenomenon—a club for beautiful, untouchable idols. But to Ren’s newly calibrated tactical mind, the reality was stark and brutally efficient.

It’s not a social barrier, Ren realized, perfectly connecting the dots. It’s territory management. They reject everyone and use demonic suggestion to wipe the interest from persistent applicants. It ensures no normal humans ever stumble into their base of operations or accidentally witness a magic circle. It’s the perfect civilian filter.

“Well,” Ren said, adjusting the strap of his bag and stepping over Matsuda’s legs. “I guess Issei just got lucky. See you guys tomorrow.”

He left his two friends mourning their ruined high school lives on the classroom floor and walked out into the hallway. The comedic jealousy of the Perverted Trio was a comfortable, familiar noise, but Ren was completely detached from it now. The game had changed, and he had entirely different objectives to pursue.

Sub Section 3: Separate Paths

The setting sun bled across the horizon, painting the stone courtyard of Kuoh Academy in deep shades of gold and amber.

Issei Hyoudou walked alongside Kiba Yuto, his steps hesitant as the pair crossed the open grounds toward the shadowed silhouette of the Old School Building. Kiba moved with the effortless grace of a noble, his golden hair catching the dying light, while Issei glanced nervously around, terrified that a Fallen Angel might drop from the sky or that Rias Gremory might suddenly appear to demand another blood oath. He was headed toward his destiny—toward the grand wooden doors of the Occult Research Club, where a steaming shower, a naked Devil princess, and the official start of his supernatural life awaited him.

From the second-floor windows, dozens of eyes watched their departure. The school grounds were alive with a chaotic storm of rumors, spreading like wildfire from the classrooms to the clubhouses.

“Look at Hyoudou… Kiba-sama is actually taking him to the Old Building.” “Is it true? Did President Gremory really invite that pervert into her private club?” “Gross! What could someone like her possibly see in a creep like him?”

The envy directed at Issei was loud, explosive, and ridiculous. But as the students whispered about the sudden ascent of Kuoh’s luckiest idiot, another rumor was quietly taking root in the hallways—one spoken not with outrage, but with a strange, uncomfortable sense of unease.

“Hey… have you noticed Nocturnus lately?” “Ren? Yeah… he’s completely different.” “He used to stare at the girls’ track team with those other two creeps, but today he just walked past them without even turning his head.” “He looks… dangerous. Did you see his eyes when he talked to Matsuda? It felt like looking at a stranger.”

To the students of Kuoh Academy, Ren’s transformation was a mystery—a sudden, trauma-induced personality shift caused by a bad weekend or a secret heartbreak. They believed the slouched, leering pervert had broken under the weight of high school social pressure, casting aside his degenerate persona to become a cold, aloof recluse.

They could not have been more wrong.

Ren was not changing. Ren was returning to what he had always been.

Beyond the narrow boundaries of the High School DxD timeline, far beyond the conceptual framework of Heaven, the Underworld, and the Grigori, there had once existed a legend lost to the void. Long ago, in a era outside the cosmic tapestry, a collective known as the Fiction to Reality community sought to shatter their mortal limits. They sought to forge their own paths through the multiversal expanse, seeking out unformed, empty realms to claim and cultivate them into sovereign domains—much like the Daedric Lords of ancient elder lore.

The ambition was grand, but the multiversal cosmos was unforgiving. Powerful, primordial forces descended upon the community, unleashing a slaughter that reduced their grand vision to ash. Of all who fought in that forgotten war, only one survived through sheer, terrifying strength: a warrior named Fajar.

Fajar, possessed of power that defied the architecture of reality, tore a rift through the raw expanse of space and time. Single-handedly, he built his own realm, crowned himself its deity, and walked the endless corridors of existence as an absolute force. But Fajar never forgot the comrades who had bled alongside him.

During his infinite travels across the void, Fajar eventually stumbled upon the Harrowing Interstice—a dark, suffocating abyss where the raw negativity, forgotten grievances, and shattered fragments of dead souls from every universe accumulated, floating like discarded debris in an endless sea of darkness.

There, buried deep in the toxic currents of the void, Fajar found the broken remnants of his fallen comrade: Ren.

Ren’s soul was fractured, eroded by time and trauma, reduced to a flickering spark of instinct. But Fajar remembered who his friend had been. In his past life, before the war, Ren had been a mortal captivated by stories of fantasy and power—most notably the chaotic, supernatural world of High School DxD, blended with the dark, heartless mythos of Kingdom Hearts. He had loved the idea of the grand harem, the absurdity of teenage desire, and the intoxicating pursuit of strength.

Fajar took that shattered spark of a soul and placed it directly into the fabric of this timeline. It was a gesture of divine brotherhood—a living sandbox where Ren could reconstruct his identity, heal his broken spirit, and live out the precise fantasies he had once held in his mortal heart. Fajar wanted to entertain his old friend, allowing him to navigate the dilemma between the foolish, innocent desire for a harem and the ruthless pursuit of supernatural power.

Before his soul had been shattered in the ancient war, Ren had spoken a core truth to Fajar—a philosophy that defined his very essence:

“If I am strong enough, I want to stand in the light. I want to be part of the chosen, to laugh, to fight, and to claim a harem of my own. But if the world denies me that light… if I am just a baseline mortal standing in the shadow of born gods and lucky heroes… then I will abandon the dream. I will embrace the dark, become the monster of the unchosen, and forge my power through absolute, uncompromising strength.”

That was the truth resting in the depths of Ren Nocturnus Veritas.

His time spent as a crude, perverted high schooler with Matsuda and Motohama had been the subconscious healing phase—a peaceful, foolish disguise used by a recovering soul to experience normal mortal life. But the moment Raynare’s light spear shattered the park bench, the moment Issei was chosen by a Devil while Ren was left to bleed out in the mud, the peaceful dream ended.

The shock of near-death, combined with the lingering essence of Rias’s healing magic, had acted as a lightning bolt to his core. The slouched pervert was dying away, and the ancient, battle-tested warrior who had once stood alongside Fajar in a war against cosmic forces was beginning to awaken.

Ren walked through the heavy iron gates of Kuoh Academy, his backpack slung over one shoulder. The autumn wind whipped past his face, carrying the faint scent of fallen leaves and distant rain. He didn’t look back at the Old School Building. He didn’t look back at Kiba and Issei.

Up in the high tower of the clubroom, Issei was currently tumbling into a world of magic, demonic peerages, and beautiful women. He was the chosen one, handed a miracle on a silver platter, setting off on his grand, heroic rom-com.

Ren took a deep breath, engaging his neuro-somatic breathing. His heartbeat dropped to a slow, methodical thud. His senses expanded, taking in the rustle of the wind, the texture of the pavement beneath his boots, and the subtle, dark pulse resting dormant at the bottom of his own spirit.

Issei had chosen the path of the Devil, wrapped in the light of the chosen.

Ren turned down the quiet, shadow-draped alleyway leading toward his apartment, stepping away from the sunset and into the gathering twilight. He was a mortal with no magical blood, no divine artifact, and no demon princess to save him. But as his dark eyes reflected the fading light, a small, cold, and profoundly dangerous smile touched his lips.

He was going home to train. He was going home to bleed. And if the universe refused to give him a seat at the table, he would simply tear the table down.

Life 2: I Start as a Devil

Section 1: The First Awakening

Ren vaulted over the rusted chain-link fence, using his left hand as a pivot point to launch his body into the alleyway below. He wore a twenty-pound weighted vest strapped tightly across his chest, but his descent was completely silent.

Mid-air, he reached into his tactical belt, drew three weighted steel ball bearings, and snapped his wrist. The projectiles struck a line of empty aluminum cans sitting on a brick wall ten yards away with sequential, metallic clacks. Before his boots even touched the asphalt, Ren engaged his neuro-somatic breathing. He commanded his leg muscles to relax and compress at the exact moment of impact, absorbing the kinetic shock that should have rattled his knees, instantly converting the downward momentum into a smooth, forward roll.

He popped up into a low sprint, his heart rate steady at a calm ninety beats per minute despite an hour of high-speed urban parkour. The city was his testing ground. He was mapping the rooftops and alleyways, forcing his body to navigate complex environments while simultaneously deploying weapons.

As Ren rounded the corner of a residential street, he was forced to brake hard.

A rusty bicycle squealed to a halt right in front of him. Issei Hyoudou sat on the seat, hunched over the handlebars and panting like a dying dog. His school uniform was soaked in sweat, and a canvas bag filled with papers hung heavily from his shoulder.

“Issei?” Ren asked, straightening up and discreetly sliding a dull training karambit back into his pocket. “What are you doing? It’s past sunset.”

“Devil… chores,” Issei gasped, leaning his head against the handlebars. “President Rias gave me a stack of summoning flyers to hand out to people who might want to make contracts. But I don’t have enough demonic energy to use the magic teleportation circles yet. So… I have to bike everywhere.”

Ren looked at his friend’s exhausted state. He noted the heavy breathing, but beneath the fatigue, his analytical eyes picked up on the subtle changes. Even exhausted, Issei’s muscle density was slowly increasing. The ambient demonic energy in his system was passively reinforcing his biology while he pedaled a bicycle.

Before Ren could offer him a bottle of water, the streetlights above them flickered and violently shattered.

The ambient temperature plummeted. The hairs on the back of Ren’s neck stood on end as a suffocating, unnatural pressure flooded the street. Above them, hovering in the twilight sky, was a woman with long, vibrant blue hair, dressed in a trench coat that barely concealed her revealing outfit. Sprouting from her back were a pair of massive, pitch-black wings.

“Kalawarner,” the Fallen Angel introduced herself, her lips curling into a sadistic sneer. “Raynare reported a lingering anomaly. It seems she was right. A low-class Devil rat scurrying around the city.”

Issei dropped his bicycle with a clatter, stumbling backward in absolute terror. “Another one?! Give me a break!”

Ren didn’t panic. His neuro-somatic conditioning locked his heart rate in place. He stepped to the side, maintaining a clear sightline, and smoothly drew a tactical folding knife from his belt. He didn’t charge her—he knew the physics of a mid-air target against a grounded combatant.

“Issei,” Ren said, his voice terrifyingly calm, cutting through his friend’s panic. “Show me you can fight this time. You’re a Devil now. Act like it.”

Kalawarner laughed, raising her hand. A massive, crackling spear of blue light coalesced in her palm. “Fight? Don’t be absurd. You’re both going to be vaporized.”

Issei squeezed his eyes shut, raising his arms to shield his face. In the darkness of his panic, a single memory flashed in his mind: Rias Gremory, standing in the clubroom, telling him that the power of a Devil and a Sacred Gear was entirely dependent on imagination and pure desire.

I don’t want to die! Issei thought violently. I want to live! I want a harem! I want power!

A deafening, mechanical roar echoed through the street.

BOOST!

A shockwave of dense, crimson energy erupted from Issei’s body, cracking the pavement beneath his feet. Kalawarner recoiled in mid-air, the sudden pressure pushing against her wings.

From Issei’s left arm, a massive, crimson gauntlet materialized, armored in thick, draconian plates with a glowing green jewel embedded in the back of the hand. At the exact same moment, the skin on Issei’s back tore, and a pair of small, leathery, bat-like Devil wings unfurled into the night air.

Kalawarner stared at the red gauntlet, her arrogant sneer vanishing into a look of absolute horror. “That aura… that Sacred Gear. The Boosted Gear?! You possess the soul of the Red Dragon Emperor?!”

She looked at Issei, who was staring at his own armored arm in shock, and then at the dense, terrifying energy radiating from it. Doing the tactical math instantly, Kalawarner realized she was entirely unprepared to fight a Longinus-class artifact.

“This changes the parameters,” Kalawarner grit her teeth. She extinguished her light spear, wrapped her black wings around herself, and shot straight up into the night sky, retreating as fast as she could fly.

The heavy, suffocating pressure vanished. The street was quiet again.

Issei stood frozen, panting heavily as the crimson aura slowly dissipated. He looked at his demonic wings, then at the massive dragon gauntlet, completely bewildered by his own existence.

“Woah,” a voice said beside him.

Ren walked up, the folding knife completely gone from his hands. He grabbed Issei’s left arm, pulling the Boosted Gear closer to inspect it. Ren’s eyes were wide with genuine, enthusiastic curiosity as he tapped the thick crimson armor plating. It felt like impenetrable, ancient steel.

“You actually have a built-in weapon system,” Ren grinned, circling Issei to look at the leathery wings protruding from his uniform. “And aerial mobility. This is insane, Issei. You just scared off a Fallen Angel by flexing.”

“I… I did?” Issei stammered, the adrenaline finally wearing off. He looked at Ren, seeing his best friend completely unfazed and genuinely hyped for him.

“You did,” Ren laughed, slapping Issei on the right shoulder. “I told you to fight, and you pulled out dragon armor. Not bad at all, man. Not bad at all.”

Ren meant every word of it. His envy wasn’t directed at Issei’s success or his shiny new armor. Issei was his friend, and Ren was deeply relieved he wasn’t defenseless anymore. The true darkness waiting in Ren’s soul wasn’t about hating the chosen hero—it was about the agonizing realization that no matter how much he trained, the universe would never grant him a gauntlet of his own.

Section 2: The Tactical Guess

Lunchtime at Kuoh Academy was usually a chaotic affair, but the corner of Classroom 2-B felt like an interrogation room under totalitarian rule.

Issei sat at his desk, defensively holding a half-eaten yakisoba pan like a shield, while Matsuda and Motohama loomed over him, casting long, menacing shadows across his lunchbox.

“Start talking, Hyoudou,” Matsuda demanded, his voice dropping an octave into a low, sinister rasp. “It’s been three days since you were drafted into the Occult Research Club. Give us the detailed daily itinerary. And don’t leave out a single millimeter of what happens inside that Old School Building.”

“I told you guys a thousand times, it’s not what you think!” Issei groaned, throwing his hands up in exasperation. “It’s pure, unadulterated manual labor! My legs feel like lead every single afternoon! I’m pedaling a rusted bicycle across three different municipal districts handing out promotional flyers! Do you have any idea how exhausting it is to bike up the steep hill near the station four times in one night?!”

Motohama pushed his taped glasses up his nose, the light reflecting off the lenses in a stark, skeptical glare. “Flyers? A bicycle? You expect two refined scholars of culture to believe that Rias Gremory—the single most untouchable, elegant woman in this school—brought you into her private sanctuary just to make you a glorified paperboy? Your cover story is weak, Issei.”

“It’s not a cover story! She literally makes me track my delivery routes!” Issei yelled, his face flushing red. “I’m working my butt off while you two sit around talking about 2D girls!”

A few feet away, Ren sat quietly at his desk, flipping through a dense textbook on human neurological pathways. He took a slow, measured sip from his thermos, completely unbothered by the shouting match. His neuro-somatic training had made his hearing razor-sharp, meaning he didn’t miss a single beat of their ridiculous exchange.

Ren closed his book with a soft, precise thud, resting his chin on his hand as he looked over at the trio. A faint, mischievous glint flickered in his dark eyes.

“You know, Issei,” Ren spoke up, his calm, level voice smoothly cutting through the tension. “If you want them to believe you, you should be totally transparent about the rest of your routine.”

Issei blinked, looking at Ren with sudden relief. “See?! Ren gets it! Tell them, Ren!”

“I mean,” Ren continued, his expression completely deadpan, “it’s only natural, right? Let me take a wild guess at how your schedule actually goes. After all those busy, exhausting delivery runs make your muscles completely sore, President Gremory probably feels bad for you. So, naturally, she drags you into a private bath or shower right there in the clubroom to ‘wash away your fatigue’ personally.”

Issei’s relief instantly dissolved. His jaw went slack.

“And not only that,” Ren added, stoking the flames with terrifyingly accurate precision, “given how attentive she seems, she probably drops by your house completely unannounced late at night or early in the morning. She sneaks into your bathroom while you’re washing up just to ‘check on your physical condition,’ and ends up hopping into the shower with you as if it’s the most normal thing in the world.”

Silence descended upon the classroom.

It was a total, suffocating, absolute silence.

Ren had meant it as a bizarre, hyperbolic joke to tease his friend—a ridiculous scenario that sounded like a cheap light novel plot. But Issei didn’t laugh. He didn’t yell. He didn’t call Ren crazy.

Issei simply froze.

His eyes widened to the size of dinner plates. A single, massive bead of cold sweat formed on his temple and rolled slowly down his cheek. His mouth opened slightly, but no sound came out. For five agonizing, uninterrupted seconds, Issei sat completely paralyzed, his mind flashing back to Rias randomly popping up naked in his bed, straddling him in the morning, and casually walking into his home bathroom to evaluate his demonic healing while he was covered in soap.

He didn’t say a word. The pause went on for so long it felt like time itself had stopped moving.

Matsuda’s eyes slowly shifted from Ren to Issei. Motohama’s glasses slid half an inch down his nose.

“He…” Matsuda whispered, his voice trembling with a horror so profound it bordered on existential. “He didn’t deny it.”

“The latency period of his response was three point four seconds,” Motohama choked out, his hands shaking violently as he pulled out a notepad. “A standard denial occurs within zero point five seconds. A pause of that duration indicates… visual processing. Memory retrieval!”

“HE DIDN’T DENY IT!” Matsuda roared, exploding into a hysterical, blood-curdling scream that rattled the classroom windows. “IT’S ALL TRUE! HE’S TAKING SHOWERS WITH THE CRIMSON RUIN!”

“TRAITOR! DEMON! EXECUTE THE HERETIC!” Motohama wailed, tearing off his glasses and launching himself over the desk.

In a flash of pure, chaotic madness, Matsuda and Motohama tackled Issei out of his chair. Matsuda locked Issei in a brutal, bone-crushing headlock while Motohama furiously attempted to rub a dusty chalkboard eraser directly into his face, both of them weeping actual tears of unadulterated, envious rage.

“GAHHH! GET OFF ME! REN, YOU BASTARD, WHY WOULD YOU SAY THAT?!” Issei shrieked, frantically trying to kick his legs free as he was swarmed by his hysterical friends. “IT WAS A MISUNDERSTANDING! SHE WAS JUST CHECKING MY DEMONIC RECOVERY RATE! IT WAS MEDICAL!”

“MEDICAL SHOWERING?!” Matsuda shrieked louder, pulling the headlock tighter. “I’LL SHOW YOU MEDICAL!”

Ren leaned back in his chair, taking another calm, slow sip from his thermos. He watched the three of them wrestling violently on the linoleum floor, a rare, genuine smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

In his previous life—or in the foolish, perverted disguise he had worn just a week ago—he might have joined the dogpile, screaming about unfairness and demanding details. But that superficial desire had been burned away in the fires of the park. He didn’t feel a single drop of jealousy toward Issei’s absurd, anime-trope lifestyle. He didn’t want a magical girl to wash his back; he wanted the strength to survive a spear of light through his heart.

Still, watching Issei get pummeled by chalkboard erasers because Ren had accidentally guessed the literal truth with 100% accuracy was undeniably hilarious.

“Keep your guard up, Issei,” Ren called out over the sound of screaming and squeaking sneakers, his tone entirely relaxed. “Your footwork on the floor is terrible. Motohama is about to take your back.”

“NOT HELPING, REN!” Issei howled from the bottom of the pile.

Section 3: The Golden Girl

The sensory overload of Kuoh’s central shopping district was entirely intentional.

Ren walked slowly down the crowded pedestrian avenue, his hands tucked casually into his jacket pockets. To anyone passing by, he looked like a relaxed high school student enjoying the late afternoon. Internally, his mind was operating at maximum processing capacity.

He was running a live neuro-somatic diagnostic on his five senses. By actively regulating his breathing, he forced his brain to filter out the useless white noise of the city. He isolated the sound of rubber soles squeaking on the pavement. He tracked the overlapping conversations of a group of girls thirty yards away. He separated the smell of roasted chestnuts from the sharp exhaust fumes of a passing delivery truck. He was teaching his body to read the environment the way a sonar array reads the ocean.

Suddenly, a distinct anomaly pinged his internal radar.

It was a dense, localized pocket of heat, radiating a heavy, almost magnetic pressure. Issei, Ren deduced instantly. His friend’s new demonic aura was impossible to miss once you knew what to look for. But what made Ren stop walking was the second anomaly right next to it.

It was a stark, jarring contrast. Where Issei’s presence felt like a heavy, burning coal, this second presence felt like a soft, weightless breeze. It was warm, impossibly pure, and completely devoid of malice.

Ren opened his eyes fully and navigated through the crowd. Near a large fountain at the center of the plaza, he found Issei frantically trying to communicate with a girl in a nun’s habit. She had long, brilliant blonde hair, emerald green eyes, and a frantic, innocent expression as she tried to read a heavily creased city map.

“No, no, the train station is that way, but if you want the church, you have to go back up the hill,” Issei was saying, pointing in two different directions and clearly confusing her more.

“Oh, dear,” the nun murmured, bowing apologetically. “I am so sorry for taking up your time. I am still not used to Japan.”

“Need a navigator, Issei?”

Issei spun around, letting out a breath of relief as Ren stepped out of the crowd. “Ren! Thank god. She’s looking for the old church on the outskirts of town, but my sense of direction is terrible.”

“Hello,” the nun said, offering Ren a polite, deeply respectful bow. “My name is Asia Argento. I have recently been assigned to the church here.”

“Ren Nocturnus,” he replied, giving a brief nod. His eyes scanned her quickly. No concealed weapons, no tactical posture, perfectly soft hands. She was a complete civilian. “The old church is about a twenty-minute walk from here. We can walk you there if you’d like.”

“Oh, I couldn’t possibly impose!” Asia protested, her face flushing with gratitude.

Before Ren could insist, a loud wail interrupted them. A small boy, no older than five, had tripped over a paving stone near the fountain, skinning his knee raw on the concrete. His mother rushed over, looking panicked as the boy sobbed loudly.

To Ren and Issei’s absolute shock, Asia didn’t hesitate. She ran straight over to the boy and knelt on the dirty pavement.

“It’s alright, little one. God’s grace is with you,” Asia whispered softly.

She held her hands hovering just an inch over the bleeding knee. Ren narrowed his eyes, his heightened senses flaring to maximum reception. The air around Asia’s hands rippled, and a brilliant, warm, golden-green light blossomed from her palms.

It wasn’t like Rias’s magic. When Rias had healed Ren’s ribs, it had felt like a dense, forceful overwrite of his biology—a demonic command forcing his cells to obey. Asia’s light was entirely different. It felt soothing, natural, and profoundly holy. Ren could literally feel the gentle oscillation of the aura washing over the air, completely knitting the boy’s skin back together in a matter of seconds.

The mother gasped in awe, thanking Asia profusely, but Asia simply smiled and walked back to them as if she had just handed the boy a band-aid.

Issei was staring at her with his jaw dropped. “You… you have magic?”

“It is my Sacred Gear,” Asia smiled humbly, holding her hands together. “Twilight Healing. It is a gift from the Lord to help those in pain.”

Ren logged the data instantly. A ranged, area-of-effect healing artifact. High output, low cast time. Extreme tactical value.

“That’s a beautiful gift, Asia,” Ren said smoothly, breaking Issei out of his trance. “Come on. Let’s get you to your church before it gets dark.”

The walk to the edge of town was pleasant. Asia was incredibly naive, marveling at the sights of Japan while Issei happily acted as her tour guide. Ren walked slightly behind them, playing the silent guardian, his eyes scanning the rooftops and alleyways out of sheer habit.

As they left the bustling city center and entered the heavily wooded hills on the outskirts, the atmosphere began to shift. The temperature dropped. The chirping of cicadas faded into an unnatural, suffocating silence.

When the abandoned church finally came into view through the trees, Issei smiled. “Well, here we are! It looks a little run down, but—”

Ren stopped walking.

His neuro-somatic conditioning spiked. His heart rate, previously sitting at a calm resting pace, hammered a sudden warning rhythm against his ribs. To Issei and Asia, the church was just an old, decrepit wooden building with broken stained glass and overgrown ivy.

But to Ren’s hyper-tuned senses, the building was screaming at him.

The air around the church tasted like copper and ash. The ambient pressure was sickeningly dense, carrying the exact same hostile, predatory signature he had felt radiating off Raynare in the park and Kalawarner in the alley. The holy aura that should have surrounded a church was completely absent, hollowed out and replaced by a suffocating nest of corrupted malice.

Fallen Angels, Ren realized, his hand instinctively brushing against the pocket where he kept his karambit. Multiple hostiles. High density.

“Thank you both so much,” Asia said, turning to them with a radiant, innocent smile. “You have been so kind to me. May God bless you.”

“Yeah, no problem, Asia!” Issei grinned, completely oblivious to the spiritual tripwire they were standing on. “See you around!”

Asia waved happily and turned, walking up the cracked stone steps and pushing open the heavy wooden doors. The darkness of the church swallowed her, and the doors shut with a heavy, final thud.

Ren stood perfectly still in the lengthening shadows of the trees. He didn’t pull out his knife. He didn’t say a word to Issei. Warning him now would only cause Issei to blindly charge into an enemy stronghold with zero tactical preparation, and both of them would be slaughtered.

“Man, she was really cute, huh?” Issei sighed dreamily, turning to head back down the path. “Maybe my luck is finally turning around.”

Ren turned and followed his friend down the hill, his expression carved from ice. He mentally mapped the coordinates, the sightlines, and the entry points of the building. His luck wasn’t turning around. Issei had just walked a defenseless, high-value healer directly into a den of monsters, and Ren knew with absolute certainty that this peace wasn’t going to last the week.

Section 4: Monsters in the Dark

The industrial district of Kuoh was a graveyard of rusted warehouses and defunct manufacturing plants, making it the perfect arena for a ghost.

At 1:00 AM, Ren was suspended upside down from a steel I-beam, twenty feet above the concrete floor of an abandoned factory. He wasn’t moving. He had engaged his neuro-somatic regulation to its absolute limit, manually dropping his heart rate to forty beats per minute and shallowing his breathing until his chest barely moved. He was practicing absolute concealment—the art of erasing his biological presence from a hostile environment.

A sudden, violent spike in atmospheric pressure nearly broke his concentration.

It wasn’t the cold, predatory malice of a Fallen Angel. It was feral, chaotic, and sickeningly dense, reeking of blood and raw ozone. Seconds later, four distinct, highly controlled demonic auras entered the perimeter, hunting the chaotic one.

Ren smoothly unhooked his legs from the I-beam, dropping to a lower gantry and melting into the deep shadows just beneath the factory’s rusted catwalks. He drew his dull training karambit purely out of instinct, his eyes adjusting to the darkness below.

The heavy metal doors of the factory blew off their hinges, crashing onto the concrete.

Rias Gremory stepped into the moonlight filtering through the broken skylights, radiating absolute, sovereign authority. Behind her walked Kiba, Koneko, Akeno, and a visibly terrified Issei, who was clutching his glowing red gauntlet.

“Viser,” Rias’s voice echoed through the cavernous space, cold and commanding. “You have betrayed your master, succumbed to your base desires, and become a Stray. In the name of the House of Gremory, I am here to execute you.”

From the shadows at the far end of the warehouse, a horrific screech vibrated against the corrugated metal walls. The Stray Devil emerged. From the waist up, it was a beautiful, albeit deranged woman. From the waist down, it was a grotesque, bulbous monstrosity of flesh, venomous stingers, and thrashing limbs.

Up in the rafters, Ren’s analytical mind immediately began running combat simulations. Target possesses massive weight advantage, unpredictable attack vectors, and heavily reinforced chitin. A frontal assault is suicide. Standard blade penetration is zero.

Down below, Rias looked at Issei. “Watch closely, Issei. You are a Pawn. Tonight, you will see the full potential of your peers.”

Kiba stepped forward first. He didn’t draw a stance; he simply rested his hand on the hilt of his sword.

Knight, Rias commanded.

Kiba vanished. Ren’s eyes, trained to track high-speed projectiles, barely caught the blur of motion. It was subsonic speed. Kiba materialized directly behind the Stray, his blade already returning to its sheath. A second later, three of Viser’s massive, thrashing limbs severed perfectly at the joints, spraying purple blood across the floor.

Rook, Rias called out.

Koneko stepped forward. The petite, white-haired girl—who couldn’t have weighed more than ninety pounds—casually walked up to a reinforced concrete pillar that had collapsed from the ceiling. Without grunting, she dug her fingers into the stone, lifted the three-ton block of concrete over her head, and hurled it like a baseball. It slammed into Viser’s torso with the force of an artillery shell, shattering the Stray’s chitinous armor and pinning it to the floor.

Queen, Rias finished, a cruel smile touching her lips.

Akeno stepped forward, her sadistic giggle echoing through the factory. She raised her hands, and the air pressure inverted. A blinding pillar of demonic lightning tore through the roof of the factory, striking the pinned Stray Devil with apocalyptic force. The sheer heat of the blast singed the air in Ren’s lungs twenty feet above.

When the light faded, there was nothing left of Viser but a scorch mark on the concrete.

Ren stared at the smoldering crater. His grip on the training karambit was so tight his knuckles were white.

This is the reality, Ren thought, his heart rate finally spiking as adrenaline flooded his system. If I fight them like a human, I die. If I try to match Kiba’s speed or Koneko’s strength, I die. Mortal physics cannot compete with demonic output.

He looked at the karambit in his hand, then back down at the crater.

But… durability is just matter. Matter has weak points.

A fleeting, ancient instinct flared in the back of his mind—a remnant of the shattered warrior who had fought alongside Fajar. He remembered a martial arts philosophy that defied the boundaries of physical limits. Kinetic condensing.

If Koneko used three tons of dispersed force to crush the armor, Ren couldn’t replicate that. But what if he used one hundred pounds of force, synchronized perfectly through neuro-somatic breathing, and condensed it entirely into the surface area of a needle’s point? What if he didn’t strike the armor, but drove the kinetic shockwave perfectly through the gaps in the joints, transferring the lethal momentum directly into the internal organs before the aura could react?

He didn’t need to be faster than Kiba. He just needed to be in the exact right place, at the exact right millisecond, striking with zero wasted momentum. The margin for error wasn’t small—it was zero. If he missed by a fraction of an inch, his bones would shatter.

A cold, terrifying smile spread across Ren’s face in the darkness of the rafters.

It was mathematically impossible for a normal human. But Ren wasn’t planning on staying a normal human for long.

Down on the floor, Akeno suddenly paused, her violet eyes snapping upward toward the steel gantries. “President… I thought I sensed something in the rafters just now. A slight fluctuation in the ambient heat.”

Rias frowned, manifesting a small sphere of crimson magic in her palm to illuminate the upper levels of the factory. “A Stray familiar, perhaps? Or a Fallen Angel spy?”

The red light swept across the rusted I-beams, illuminating the dust motes dancing in the air, the tangled ventilation pipes, and the broken skylights.

There was nothing there.

Ren was already two blocks away, sprinting silently across the rooftops under the moonlight. His mind was ablaze with kinetic equations, anatomical weak points, and a desperate, beautiful hunger. He finally had the blueprint. He knew exactly what he needed to build.

The scent of rust and damp concrete hung heavy inside the derelict five-story factory on the industrial fringe of Kuoh.

Ren clung to a high steel I-beam thirty feet above the cracked floorboards, his body flattened into the deep shadows near the ceiling. He wore a dark hoodie, reinforced gloves, and lightweight boots with soft rubber soles designed for sound dampening. His neuro-somatic conditioning was dialed to complete stealth mode: his heart rate hovered at a quiet forty-two beats per minute, his breathing was completely silent through his nose, and his body heat was tightly regulated to prevent excess sweat.

He hadn’t followed Issei here out of simple curiosity. Ren had been conducting a midnight urban scouting route when he picked up the familiar, dense pressure of Rias Gremory’s magic moving toward the industrial zone. Following them had been a live-fire exercise in stealth.

Down on the ground floor, five figures stood around a trembling Issei Hyoudou. Rias, Akeno, Kiba, and Koneko were gathered near the center of the vast, hollow chamber.

“Tonight is your first official lesson, Issei,” Rias’s voice echoed softly off the concrete walls. “A wild Devil—a Stray—has taken root in this facility. It has abandoned its master and given into its primal, monstrous urges. We are here to exterminate it.”

A guttural, wet screech ripped through the silence of the warehouse.

From the rusted elevator shaft at the far end, a grotesque creature dragged itself into the moonlight. It was Viser—a Stray Devil whose lower half had mutated into a massive, multi-legged arachnid form made of chiseled, chitinous hide, while its upper torso retained a twisted, monstrous humanoid shape. Acids oozed from its maw, sizzling as they dripped onto the concrete floor.

“It’s… a monster!” Issei shrieked, taking three quick steps backward.

“Observe carefully, Issei,” Rias commanded smoothly, stepping back beside him. “Every member of a peerage is assigned a role based on the chess pieces used to reincarnate them. Watch how my house executes its duties.”

From his perch in the rafters, Ren narrowed his eyes, his neural mapping firing at full capacity.

Kiba Yuto. Knight.

Kiba drew a sleek silver longsword. In a fraction of a millisecond, the blonde boy vanished. There was no windup, no friction, no telegraphing of movement. He appeared directly behind the Stray Devil, a blur of silver light trailing his blade.

CRACK.

Four of the creature’s armored spider legs were cleanly severed before the beast even registered Kiba had moved. Velocity, Ren noted, analyzing the biomechanics. He doesn’t accelerate—he instantly hits top kinetic speed. Unnatural stride length.

Viser howled in rage, swinging a massive, clawed arm toward Kiba.

Koneko Toujou. Rook.

The tiny white-haired girl stepped casually into the path of the claw. She didn’t dodge. She didn’t block. She simply caught the massive, monster-sized fist in her tiny palm, stopping several tons of force dead in its tracks. With a cold, expressionless glare, Koneko rotated her hip, grabbed the Stray’s wrist, and slammed the entire multi-ton beast into the concrete floor, shattering the foundation into dust.

Density, Ren cataloged. Her mass and structural alignment briefly become immovable. Incredible bone density.

Viser scrambled back, screeching in agony, only for black clouds to roll across the ceiling right beneath Ren’s beam.

Akeno Himejima. Queen.

Akeno hovered in mid-air, a sadistic, radiant smile playing on her lips as holy lightning crackled along her fingertips. “Shall I tenderize it, President?”

With a flick of her wrist, a blinding pillar of yellow thunder erupted from the sky, slamming into the Stray Devil and frying its hide until the flesh burned black.

Finally, Rias stepped forward, raising her hand. A sphere of crimson, anti-matter magic condensed above her palm. “And I am the King. Destruction is my domain.”

She launched the orb. The moment the red magic touched the Stray Devil, the monster didn’t just burn or bleed—it was atomized, converted into raw dust that dissolved into nothingness.

Issei stood frozen, staring at the empty space where a terrifying monster had existed just seconds prior.

“And you, Issei,” Rias said, turning to him with a gentle smile as she reached into her pocket, “are my Pawn. In fact, your potential is so vast that it took all eight of my Pawn pieces to reincarnate you. You hold the ultimate adaptability.”

Up in the shadows of the rafters, Ren pressed his back flatter against the iron beam, his chest rising and falling in slow, controlled cycles.

The demonstration was over. Rias’s peerage was laughing, chatting casually as if they had just finished an afternoon chore, completely unaware that a mortal observer was sitting twenty feet above their heads.

Ren stared at the cracked, cratered concrete floor below.

A normal human watching that fight would have felt absolute despair. How could fists, knives, or martial arts ever hope to match a girl who could lift a building, a knight who moved faster than sound, or a demon who could vaporize matter with a thought? A human soul would conclude that mortal effort was a joke—that without a Sacred Gear or a Devil piece, a mortal was just a bug waiting to be crushed.

Ren closed his eyes, engaging his neuro-somatic focus. He felt his pulse, his steady breathing, and the iron grip of his gloved fingers on the cold metal beam.

They’re wrong, Ren thought, a cold, sharp clarity settling over his mind. CQC and knives aren’t useless. They’re just incomplete.

He had watched the Stray Devil’s hide repel Kiba’s first strike until Kiba adjusted his wrist angle. The monster’s chitinous armor was thick, but its neck joint, the soft membrane behind its eyes, and the gaps between its sternum plates were unarmored. Physics still governed this world. Force still equaled Mass times Acceleration.

If a supernatural entity relied on reinforced skin and dense magic to survive, then a mortal couldn’t rely on brute strength. A mortal had to strike with absolute, terrifying precision. Every strike had to target the tiny, unprotected anatomical seams—the carotid plexus, the spinal cord junction, the tear ducts—with hyper-condensed kinetic force delivered faster than the enemy’s brain could trigger its magical defense.

He didn’t need to punch through a mountain like Koneko. He just needed to drive a two-inch blade into the exact millimeter of space where a monster’s nerve center connected to its spine, before it knew he was there.

Faster. Cleaner. More precise.

Down below, Rias opened a crimson magic circle, and the Occult Research Club stepped through, vanishing into thin air and leaving the ruined factory in total silence.

Ren waited three full minutes until the ambient magical pressure completely dissipated. Then, with smooth, frictionless agility, he dropped down from the thirty-foot rafter, landing in a low, silent crouch on the concrete.

He stood up, looking at the spot where the Stray Devil had been erased.

Issei was a Pawn. He had eight pieces of ultimate potential, a dragon gauntlet, and a team of god-like Devils to protect him.

Ren pulled his hood down, his dark eyes reflecting the pale moonlight filtering through the broken roof. He was just a human standing in an empty warehouse. But as he adjusted his tactical gloves and turned toward the exit, the foundation of his mortal arsenal was no longer a desperate defense. It was becoming a lethal, calculated science.

Section 3: Monsters in the Dark

The scent of rust and damp concrete hung heavy inside the derelict five-story factory on the industrial fringe of Kuoh.

Ren clung to a high steel I-beam thirty feet above the cracked floorboards, his body flattened into the deep shadows near the ceiling. He wore a dark hoodie, reinforced gloves, and lightweight boots with soft rubber soles designed for sound dampening. His neuro-somatic conditioning was dialed to complete stealth mode: his heart rate hovered at a quiet forty-two beats per minute, his breathing was completely silent through his nose, and his body heat was tightly regulated to prevent excess sweat.

He hadn’t followed Issei here out of simple curiosity. Ren had been conducting a midnight urban scouting route when he picked up the familiar, dense pressure of Rias Gremory’s magic moving toward the industrial zone. Following them had been a live-fire exercise in stealth.

Down on the ground floor, five figures stood around a trembling Issei Hyoudou. Rias, Akeno, Kiba, and Koneko were gathered near the center of the vast, hollow chamber.

“Tonight is your first official lesson, Issei,” Rias’s voice echoed softly off the concrete walls. “A wild Devil—a Stray—has taken root in this facility. It has abandoned its master and given into its primal, monstrous urges. We are here to exterminate it.”

A guttural, wet screech ripped through the silence of the warehouse.

From the rusted elevator shaft at the far end, a grotesque creature dragged itself into the moonlight. It was Viser—a Stray Devil whose lower half had mutated into a massive, multi-legged arachnid form made of chiseled, chitinous hide, while its upper torso retained a twisted, monstrous humanoid shape. Acids oozed from its maw, sizzling as they dripped onto the concrete floor.

“It’s… a monster!” Issei shrieked, taking three quick steps backward.

“Observe carefully, Issei,” Rias commanded smoothly, stepping back beside him. “Every member of a peerage is assigned a role based on the chess pieces used to reincarnate them. Watch how my house executes its duties.”

From his perch in the rafters, Ren narrowed his eyes, his neural mapping firing at full capacity.

Kiba Yuto. Knight.

Kiba drew a sleek silver longsword. In a fraction of a millisecond, the blonde boy vanished. There was no windup, no friction, no telegraphing of movement. He appeared directly behind the Stray Devil, a blur of silver light trailing his blade.

CRACK.

Four of the creature’s armored spider legs were cleanly severed before the beast even registered Kiba had moved. Velocity, Ren noted, analyzing the biomechanics. He doesn’t accelerate—he instantly hits top kinetic speed. Unnatural stride length.

Viser howled in rage, swinging a massive, clawed arm toward Kiba.

Koneko Toujou. Rook.

The tiny white-haired girl stepped casually into the path of the claw. She didn’t dodge. She didn’t block. She simply caught the massive, monster-sized fist in her tiny palm, stopping several tons of force dead in its tracks. With a cold, expressionless glare, Koneko rotated her hip, grabbed the Stray’s wrist, and slammed the entire multi-ton beast into the concrete floor, shattering the foundation into dust.

Density, Ren cataloged. Her mass and structural alignment briefly become immovable. Incredible bone density.

Viser scrambled back, screeching in agony, only for black clouds to roll across the ceiling right beneath Ren’s beam.

Akeno Himejima. Queen.

Akeno hovered in mid-air, a sadistic, radiant smile playing on her lips as holy lightning crackled along her fingertips. “Shall I tenderize it, President?”

With a flick of her wrist, a blinding pillar of yellow thunder erupted from the sky, slamming into the Stray Devil and frying its hide until the flesh burned black.

Finally, Rias stepped forward, raising her hand. A sphere of crimson, anti-matter magic condensed above her palm. “And I am the King. Destruction is my domain.”

She launched the orb. The moment the red magic touched the Stray Devil, the monster didn’t just burn or bleed—it was atomized, converted into raw dust that dissolved into nothingness.

Issei stood frozen, staring at the empty space where a terrifying monster had existed just seconds prior.

“And you, Issei,” Rias said, turning to him with a gentle smile as she reached into her pocket, “are my Pawn. In fact, your potential is so vast that it took all eight of my Pawn pieces to reincarnate you. You hold the ultimate adaptability.”

Up in the shadows of the rafters, Ren pressed his back flatter against the iron beam, his chest rising and falling in slow, controlled cycles.

The demonstration was over. Rias’s peerage was laughing, chatting casually as if they had just finished an afternoon chore, completely unaware that a mortal observer was sitting twenty feet above their heads.

Ren stared at the cracked, cratered concrete floor below.

A normal human watching that fight would have felt absolute despair. How could fists, knives, or martial arts ever hope to match a girl who could lift a building, a knight who moved faster than sound, or a demon who could vaporize matter with a thought? A human soul would conclude that mortal effort was a joke—that without a Sacred Gear or a Devil piece, a mortal was just a bug waiting to be crushed.

Ren closed his eyes, engaging his neuro-somatic focus. He felt his pulse, his steady breathing, and the iron grip of his gloved fingers on the cold metal beam.

They’re wrong, Ren thought, a cold, sharp clarity settling over his mind. CQC and knives aren’t useless. They’re just incomplete.

He had watched the Stray Devil’s hide repel Kiba’s first strike until Kiba adjusted his wrist angle. The monster’s chitinous armor was thick, but its neck joint, the soft membrane behind its eyes, and the gaps between its sternum plates were unarmored. Physics still governed this world. Force still equaled Mass times Acceleration.

If a supernatural entity relied on reinforced skin and dense magic to survive, then a mortal couldn’t rely on brute strength. A mortal had to strike with absolute, terrifying precision. Every strike had to target the tiny, unprotected anatomical seams—the carotid plexus, the spinal cord junction, the tear ducts—with hyper-condensed kinetic force delivered faster than the enemy’s brain could trigger its magical defense.

He didn’t need to punch through a mountain like Koneko. He just needed to drive a two-inch blade into the exact millimeter of space where a monster’s nerve center connected to its spine, before it knew he was there.

Faster. Cleaner. More precise.

Down below, Rias opened a crimson magic circle, and the Occult Research Club stepped through, vanishing into thin air and leaving the ruined factory in total silence.

Ren waited three full minutes until the ambient magical pressure completely dissipated. Then, with smooth, frictionless agility, he dropped down from the thirty-foot rafter, landing in a low, silent crouch on the concrete.

He stood up, looking at the spot where the Stray Devil had been erased.

Issei was a Pawn. He had eight pieces of ultimate potential, a dragon gauntlet, and a team of god-like Devils to protect him.

Ren pulled his hood down, his dark eyes reflecting the pale moonlight filtering through the broken roof. He was just a human standing in an empty warehouse. But as he adjusted his tactical gloves and turned toward the exit, the foundation of his mortal arsenal was no longer a desperate defense. It was becoming a lethal, calculated science.

Section 5: The Unseen Threshold

Sub Section 1: The Blind Vanguard

Survival against the supernatural was not a matter of blocking. If Ren attempted to block a punch from a Knight like Kiba or a Rook like Koneko, his forearms would shatter into dust, and the residual kinetic force would liquefy his internal organs. To survive in the crossfire of gods and monsters, the prime directive was absolute: do not get hit. And to ensure he never got hit, he needed the ability to foresee an attack before the enemy’s muscles even twitched.

His physical conditioning and neuro-somatic integration had already pushed his evasion to the absolute limit of human biomechanics. He could dodge, pivot, and roll with zero wasted momentum. But physical speed meant nothing if his reaction time was tethered to visual processing. Light hit the retina, the optic nerve signaled the brain, the brain commanded the muscles—that biological latency, no matter how optimized, was too slow to dodge a spear of light.

Sitting cross-legged in the center of his dark apartment, Ren held a thick strip of black cotton fabric in his hands.

If visual processing was a crutch that limited his reaction time, then the most logical step was to break the crutch entirely.

Ren raised the cloth, wrapped it securely over his eyes, and tied it tight at the back of his head. The world vanished into absolute, suffocating darkness. Instantly, his brain panicked, a primal spike of vertigo hitting his system as his primary method of spatial orientation was severed.

He didn’t remove the blindfold. Instead, he engaged his neuro-somatic breathing. He commanded his heart rate to slow, manually overriding his brain’s panic response, and forced his sensory hierarchy to re-calibrate.

Slowly, the darkness stopped feeling empty.

He heard the low, rhythmic hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen. He felt the subtle draft of cool air seeping in through the crack under the front door. He smelled the faint, metallic scent of the oil he used to maintain his training knives.

Ren stood up in the pitch-black room. He drew his dull training karambit from his belt.

For the next four hours, he ran through his brutal CQC and knife-fighting drills completely blind. At first, it was clumsy. He bumped his knee on the coffee table; he misjudged the distance to the wall and scraped his knuckles. But as he forced his neuro-somatic focus deeper into his peripheral nervous system, something incredible began to happen.

He stopped trying to see his imaginary opponent and started trying to feel them. When he slashed the air, he paid absolute attention to the micro-currents of wind wrapping around the blade. He mapped the entire apartment purely through echolocation, using the soft thud of his own footwork bouncing off the drywall to gauge his exact coordinates. He practiced slipping, weaving, and pivoting against invisible strikes, relying entirely on his spatial memory and the shifting pressure of the air around him.

But confining this training to a controlled environment wasn’t enough. The real world was chaotic, and he needed his newly developing senses forged in that chaos.

The next morning, Ren did not take off the blindfold.

He navigated his morning routine entirely in the dark. He cooked his breakfast by listening to the sizzle of the eggs and smelling the exact moment the proteins began to brown. He dressed himself by tactile memory.

When it was time to train outside, he pulled the hood of his jacket up, put on a pair of dark sunglasses over the thin black blindfold to hide it from civilians, and walked out the front door.

Stepping into the bustling commercial district of Kuoh blindfolded was like walking into a hurricane of sensory overload. The sheer volume of overlapping data—hundreds of footsteps, car engines, overlapping conversations, the heat of the sun, the wind channeling between buildings—threatened to overwhelm him. He stood frozen on the corner for a full minute, his neuro-somatic circuits burning as he processed the noise.

Then, he began to walk.

He didn’t bump into anyone. He felt the displacement of air as a businessman walked past his left shoulder. He felt the radiant heat of a food stall ten yards to his right. He stopped at crosswalks not because he saw the light change, but because he listened to the shifting idle of the car engines and the collective, forward momentum of the crowd around him.

Only three times during his four-mile trek across town did he slide his thumb under the blindfold, opening his eyes for a fraction of a second just to confirm his heading and correct his internal compass.

As the hours passed and the sun began to set, Ren realized that his neuro-somatic integration was unlocking something buried deep within his soul’s architecture—something that went beyond the basic five senses.

Standing in the middle of a crowded plaza, immersed in total darkness, he wasn’t just hearing or feeling the physical world anymore. He was beginning to sense intent. He could feel the slight, invisible spike in atmospheric pressure when a rushing pedestrian was about to abruptly change direction. He could sense the heavy, sluggish aura of a stray dog sleeping under a bench.

He was starting to feel the subtle, spiritual weight of the world around him. It was a faint, primitive version of the “foreseeing” he desperately needed. If he could sense the intent of a normal human’s movement before their foot even hit the pavement, then eventually, he would be able to feel the murderous intent of a Fallen Angel a split second before they threw a spear.

Ren adjusted his hood, turned toward the direction of his apartment, and walked smoothly through the crowded street. He was entirely blind, yet he had never seen the world more clearly.

Sub Section 2: The Ascetic Vanguard

Mastering the ability to sense hostile intent—to feel the invisible, psychic weight of a pending strike before the physical muscles even contract—was a threshold that usually required decades of desperate, monk-like devotion. For a baseline human, achieving that level of extrasensory perception meant stripping the mind to its absolute barest foundations, enduring years of sensory deprivation, and bleeding through thousands of life-or-death encounters.

Yet, Ren had begun to grasp the fringes of this impossible skill in a matter of days.

This terrifyingly accelerated growth was not merely the result of his neuro-somatic conditioning, nor was it simple biological genius. It was the resonance of the dormant architecture within him. Two distinct, unquantifiable forces were acting as a catalyst for his evolution.

The first was the ancient, dormant echo of his past life. He possessed the shattered, reincarnated soul of a warrior who had once stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Fajar in a multiversal war against primordial entities. His mortal brain was learning these tactical espionage skills for the first time, but his soul was simply remembering. When Ren closed his eyes and reached out to feel the atmospheric shifts of intent, he wasn’t building a new instinct; he was clearing the dust off a cosmic weapon he had wielded eons ago.

The second factor was the seed of darkness festering at the core of his being. The absolute, pragmatic acceptance of his role as the “unchosen”—the cold, dense gravity of his dormant envy—acted as a highly conductive medium. Light magic required faith and imagination, but the darkness within Ren was grounded in raw, unfiltered reality. It allowed him to feel the negative space in the world, picking up on malice, aggression, and intent like a spider sitting at the center of a perfectly tuned web.

He didn’t just practice this in the isolation of his apartment or the anonymity of the city streets. If he was going to weaponize his blindness, he had to normalize it in the most chaotic, densely populated environment available to him.

The next morning, Ren walked through the front gates of Kuoh Academy wearing a sleek, folded strip of black cotton tied securely over his eyes.

The reaction of the student body was instantaneous and profoundly loud.

As Ren navigated the bustling courtyard, sidestepping a group of first-years and fluidly adjusting his path to avoid a swinging gate, a wave of stunned silence rippled outward, immediately followed by furious, overlapping whispers.

“Is he… is he blindfolded?” “He just walked right around the fountain without touching his cane. He doesn’t even have a cane!” “What is Nocturnus doing?”

Inside Classroom 2-B, the sensory labyrinth was even more complex. Ren stepped through the sliding door, his neuro-somatic focus automatically mapping the room. He could smell the sharp tang of the dry-erase markers, hear the exact frequency of the fluorescent lights buzzing overhead, and feel the localized heat signatures of his thirty classmates. He walked smoothly down the aisle, his hip clearing the edges of the desks by a margin of mere millimeters, and sat down in his chair near the window.

Within five seconds, a heavy shadow fell over his desk.

“Ren,” Issei said, his voice laced with a mixture of genuine concern and utter bewilderment. “Buddy. What is on your face?”

Matsuda and Motohama flanked Issei, staring at Ren as if he had just sprouted a second head.

“It’s a blindfold, Issei,” Ren replied, his voice calm and perfectly leveled. He didn’t bother turning his head, instead facing the window where he could feel the morning sun warming the glass.

“We can see that it’s a blindfold!” Matsuda hissed, leaning in close. “The question is why are you wearing a blindfold in homeroom?! Did you lose a bet? Is this some kind of new, highly advanced perverted technique we don’t know about? Are you trying to heighten your imagination?!”

“My eyes are strained,” Ren answered smoothly, delivering the alibi he had prepared with deadpan sincerity. “I’ve been staring at too many screens lately, reading anatomical and medical texts until three in the morning. The blue light gave me severe ocular fatigue. I decided to give my optic nerves a rest. Plus, I was curious about how the body compensates. I’m training my other senses to pick up the slack.”

Motohama adjusted his glasses, peering closely at the black fabric. “You navigated the entire second-floor hallway, bypassed a crowd of girls from the tennis club, and found your exact desk without tripping over a single backpack. That level of spatial awareness transcends simple curiosity.”

Motohama paused, his eyes narrowing as he analyzed the perfect, relaxed posture Ren was holding. “The way you move… your center of gravity is completely locked. You didn’t just stumble in here. Ren… do you practice martial arts?”

“It’s been a long time,” Ren admitted casually, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms. It was a half-truth that perfectly covered his tracks. “I stopped talking about it because I only train when I’m alone. It’s just a hobby to stay in shape. Navigating the dark is just a new drill I’m trying out.”

The trio exchanged wide-eyed, completely baffled looks. Issei stared at his friend, a sudden wave of realization hitting him. Ren wasn’t just acting weird; he was genuinely disciplined. The physical changes, the calm demeanor, the sudden lack of interest in their degenerate antics—it was all starting to form a cohesive, terrifying picture.

And they weren’t the only ones putting the pieces together.

The girls sitting a few rows away had been eavesdropping on the entire exchange. The whispers began immediately, spreading through the female population of the classroom like a shockwave.

“Did you hear that? He’s a martial artist.” “That explains why his shoulders look so broad lately. He’s been hiding it!” “But wait… if he’s wearing a blindfold to rest his eyes… that means he literally can’t look at us.” “Oh my god. You’re right. He can’t peek in the locker rooms or stare at our skirts if he’s completely blind!”

The logic was bulletproof. To the student body of Kuoh Academy, the pervert persona was intrinsically tied to the act of looking. By voluntarily blinding himself, Ren had publicly and undeniably severed his ties to his degenerate past.

As the homeroom teacher walked in and demanded everyone take their seats, the rumors solidified into a new reality. Ren Nocturnus Veritas was no longer a creep. He was an eccentric, stoic ascetic. A mysterious, physically capable student who trained in secret and possessed the bizarre, almost intimidating discipline to navigate a high school entirely in the dark.

Ren sat quietly as the teacher began the roll call. He could feel the shifting weight of the classroom’s attention, the subtle reduction in hostility from the girls, and the lingering confusion of Issei and the others. It was the perfect cover. While Kuoh Academy debated the nature of his newfound stoicism, Ren simply slowed his breathing, sinking deeper into the dark, listening for the invisible currents of intent flowing through the room.

Sub Section 3: The Lethal Blueprint

The silence of Ren’s apartment was absolute, save for the slow, rhythmic intake of his neuro-somatic breathing. Seated in the center of the dark living room with the black cotton blindfold securely tied over his eyes, he was not resting. He was constructing a digital battleground in his mind, running high-fidelity simulations of the monsters he had witnessed in the factory.

He conjured Viser first. The Stray Devil shrieked in his mind, firing a volley of acidic venom. Ren visualized the exact trajectory, dropping into a low slide to let the acid melt the wall behind him. Viser lunged. Ren didn’t engage; he visualized utilizing the factory environment, parkouring up a rusted staircase, slashing a pressurized steam pipe to blind the beast’s multi-eyed vision, and escaping through a fractured skylight.

Then, he simulated the Occult Research Club.

Kiba Yuto. The Knight vanished. Ren’s mind calculated the air pressure. Kiba wouldn’t attack from the front. Ren visualized stepping backward the exact millisecond the silver longsword swung at his neck, ducking into the blade’s blind spot. He couldn’t fight Kiba. Escape was the only victory. Ren imagined throwing a handful of steel ball bearings onto the concrete to disrupt the Knight’s unnatural frictionless footwork, detonating a smoke grenade, and diving into a narrow ventilation shaft where a longsword couldn’t swing.

Koneko Toujou. The Rook charged. A punch capable of shattering a building aimed squarely at his chest. Ren visualized perfectly pivoting his hips, letting the small girl’s fist breeze past his jacket and slam into a load-bearing pillar. As the roof began to cave in from the structural damage, Ren would use the falling debris to mask his retreat, letting Koneko’s own catastrophic strength bury her momentarily.

Akeno and Rias. The magic-users. Ren’s tactical simulation for them was brutally short. Against Akeno’s lightning, the environment was his only shield; he would have to ground himself behind dense, insulated concrete, breaking line of sight before the thunderbolt fell. Against Rias’s orb of pure destruction, there was no block, no parry, and no cover. The simulation dictated total, immediate evacuation. If the Crimson Ruin targeted him, his only strategy was to never be in the room in the first place.

Opening his eyes to the darkness of his blindfold, Ren realized mental simulations were no longer enough. His mind understood the geometry of survival, but his body needed to be baptized in physical chaos.

At 2:00 AM, Ren stood in an empty, automated batting cage on the outskirts of Kuoh. The pitching machine was dialed to its maximum velocity—ninety-five miles per hour.

Ren stood directly in the batter’s box without a bat, perfectly still, entirely blindfolded.

Clunk. Thwack.

The machine fired. Ren heard the mechanical release, felt the displacement of air, and slightly tilted his head. The baseball slammed into the chain-link fence behind him, missing his ear by two inches. For an hour, he danced in the cage, letting the high-speed projectiles whistle past his shoulders, ribs, and face. He then moved to the alley behind the cages, where he had bolted a modified, spinning Wing Chun dummy to a brick wall. He engaged it blind, using his heightened tactile feedback to parry and redirect the rapidly spinning wooden arms, his neuro-somatic focus allowing him to deflect the heavy impacts with soft, circular motions.

But baseballs and wooden arms were predictable. They possessed mechanics, but they lacked malice. He needed a training ground that simulated the chaotic, lethal unpredictability of a supernatural battlefield.

Since he couldn’t spar with a Devil and there were no wild beasts roaming the city limits, Ren built his own hazard gauntlet.

He broke into a condemned, structurally unstable warehouse near the docks. Over the course of three nights, he rigged the ceiling and the rusted catwalks with a terrifying array of traps. He hoisted massive, heavy cinder blocks onto frayed ropes, rigged rusted iron pipes to tripwires, and suspended heavy sandbags attached to unpredictable pendulums.

On the fourth night, Ren stood in the center of the kill zone, blindfolded. He pulled the master release lever.

The warehouse erupted into a symphony of falling death. Ropes snapped. Chains groaned. Ren engaged his neuro-somatic breathing, expanding his senses outward. He felt the heavy, crushing intent of a cinder block plummeting toward his skull. He side-stepped, feeling the wind shear as the concrete shattered against the floor. A rusted pipe swung at his ribs from the dark; he felt the air compress against his side and backflipped, letting the pipe smash into a sandbag. He navigated the collapsing, chaotic environment entirely by sound, air pressure, and raw spatial instinct. If he made a single mistake, a falling cinder block would shatter his spine. He survived purely by refusing to be where the danger was.

When the traps finally settled and the dust cleared, Ren was untouched, though his chest heaved as he manually flushed the lactic acid from his system.

Now came the final, most difficult phase of the curriculum.

Ren reached up and untied the blindfold.

The moonlight filtering through the shattered warehouse windows flooded his retinas. Instantly, his brain tried to revert to its default state. The visual data—the dust motes floating in the air, the jagged shadows of the debris—screamed for his attention, trying to aggressively overwrite the delicate, hyper-tuned senses of hearing and air-pressure he had just forged.

He couldn’t let his eyes make him weak again.

Ren reset the traps. He walked back to the center of the room. He kept his eyes wide open, but he violently commanded his neuro-somatic circuits to treat his vision merely as secondary data. He focused his primary attention on the flow of the wind, the subtle groans of the ropes, and the ambient temperature of the room.

He pulled the lever.

As the hazard gauntlet rained down on him a second time, Ren watched the cinder blocks falling, but he didn’t dodge based on what he saw. He dodged based on what he felt. He synchronized the visual tracking with the invisible pressure of the air, fusing them into a singular, flawless reaction loop. He slipped between a swinging iron pipe and a falling sandbag with terrifying, frictionless grace, his dark eyes entirely calm, reading the physics of the room perfectly.

The threshold was crossed. His eyes were open, but his awareness was boundless.

Life 3: I Saved a Nun!

Section 1: The Mad Dog and the King’s Politics

Sub Section 1: Other Senses

The mechanics of sensing intent were not a new concept in the realm of fiction. As Ren sat in his apartment, recovering from the brutal hazard gauntlet he had constructed the night before, his mind drifted back to the vast archives of media he had consumed in his previous life. Specifically, his thoughts locked onto the wild, untamed jungles of Rusukaina from One Piece, and the grueling training regimen between Silvers Rayleigh and Monkey D. Luffy.

Rayleigh’s lessons on Observation Haki—Kenbunshoku—perfectly mirrored the threshold Ren was currently trying to master. He remembered the specific sequences vividly. Luffy, blindfolded and armed with only a stick, repeatedly failing to dodge Rayleigh’s strikes because his baseline human senses were too easily hijacked. Luffy would react to the audible snap of a twig under Rayleigh’s sandal, completely missing the actual physical strike coming from another angle. He would lose his focus the moment the scent of roasted meat drifted through the jungle air. Rayleigh had relentlessly beaten the boy to teach him a fundamental truth: sight and sound are easily manipulated, but the underlying intent of a living creature cannot be faked.

Ren realized that while he had successfully forced his body to react to intent during his blindfolded warehouse drill, he was still inherently vulnerable to cognitive hijacking. His past self—the deeply entrenched otaku—had a fatal flaw: the tendency to experience absolute tunnel vision when consuming entertainment. If a screen was in front of his face, the rest of the world ceased to exist. In a battlefield populated by supernatural predators, that kind of singular focus was a death sentence.

He needed to weaponize his own distractions.

Ren grabbed his smartphone and a pair of noise-canceling over-ear headphones. He downloaded the specific episodes of Luffy’s training arc, ensuring the video quality was high and the audio was crystal clear. Then, he put his jacket on, secured the headphones over his ears, hit play, and walked out into the bustling evening streets of Kuoh’s commercial district.

This was not a leisurely stroll; it was an advanced, high-stress multitasking protocol.

The volume in his headset was turned up loud enough to completely drown out the ambient noise of the city. The vibrant, flashing animation on the bright screen dominated his direct line of sight. To any casual observer, Ren looked like a typical, hopelessly distracted teenager glued to his phone, completely oblivious to the world around him.

Internally, however, Ren’s neuro-somatic circuitry was burning at maximum capacity, actively splitting his brain’s processing power into two distinct, parallel tracks.

Track one was entirely dedicated to the screen. He watched Rayleigh dodge a massive elephant with a casual tilt of his head, analyzing the animated biomechanics and absorbing the fictional lore of sensing invisible presence. He allowed the loud anime soundtrack and the dramatic voice acting to flood his auditory cortex. He deliberately let his otaku instincts engage, drawing his conscious attention deep into the media.

Track two was pure, unfiltered survival instinct. Because his primary visual and auditory channels were effectively blinded by the device, he violently forced his peripheral nervous system to take over spatial navigation.

He walked smoothly down the crowded sidewalk, his eyes completely locked on the glowing screen. A man carrying a stack of heavy boxes rushed out of a storefront to Ren’s left; Ren didn’t look up, but he felt the sudden, localized shift in air pressure and the heavy vibration radiating through the concrete. Without missing a beat, he smoothly pivoted his hips, letting the man rush past his shoulder with an inch to spare.

He crossed a busy intersection. The noise-canceling headphones blocked the sound of the idling engines and the pedestrian crossing signals. Ren navigated the crosswalk entirely by feeling the collective kinetic momentum of the crowd moving around him and sensing the thermal heat radiating from the grills of the stopped cars. When a bicyclist swerved unexpectedly to avoid a pothole, slicing directly into Ren’s path, Ren simply decelerated his stride by a fraction of a second. The bicycle’s handlebars whipped past his chest, ruffling his jacket, but his eyes never once left the animated fight on his phone.

It was a beautiful, terrifying synthesis. He was training his subconscious to maintain an impregnable, 360-degree radar of intent and physical displacement, even when his conscious mind was completely disengaged. If he could navigate the chaotic unpredictability of a dense urban center while actively distracting himself, no supernatural ambush would ever catch him off guard.

The sun dipped completely below the horizon, bathing the streets in the harsh, neon glow of storefronts and streetlamps. The commercial district slowly transitioned into the quieter, more residential arteries of the city. Ren kept walking, the glow of his phone illuminating his calm, stoic face as Luffy finally managed to dodge Rayleigh’s club on screen.

Suddenly, the passive, rhythmic data stream of the city was shattered by a massive, jagged spike of raw emotional static.

Ren stopped walking. He didn’t even need to focus to feel it; the sensation was so dense and violently erratic that it felt like a physical weight pressing against his chest. It was a suffocating aura of despair, terror, and absolute, crushing defeat.

He paused the video. He pulled the noise-canceling headphones down around his neck, letting the quiet hum of the evening street rush back into his ears, and finally looked up from the screen.

Standing under the flickering light of a broken streetlamp, leaning heavily against a brick wall, was Issei Hyoudou.

The boy looked like he had just been dragged through a warzone. His school uniform was torn and stained with what looked unmistakably like dark, drying blood. His posture, usually so animated and full of obnoxious teenage energy, was completely shattered. Issei was trembling violently, his eyes hollow, wide, and staring blankly at the pavement. His knuckles were bruised, and his breathing was shallow, ragged, and hitched with the unmistakable rhythm of someone trying desperately not to hyperventilate.

Ren’s tactical mind instantly processed the visual data. The blood on Issei’s clothes didn’t match the location of his minor physical abrasions. It’s not his blood, Ren deduced, the cold logic taking over. He didn’t just get into a fight. He witnessed a slaughter.

Ren slipped his phone into his pocket, his posture shifting from relaxed distraction into absolute, grounded focus as he stepped out of the shadows and approached his broken friend.

Sub Section 2: The Blood of a Pawn

Ren closed the distance between them with measured, silent steps. Issei didn’t even register his approach. The boy was trapped in a violently looping memory, his breathing shallow and rapid, his eyes locked onto the dark pavement as if he could still see the viscera spilling across it.

“Issei.”

The word was spoken quietly, but it carried the firm, grounded density of a command. Issei flinched violently, his head snapping up. When he saw Ren standing under the streetlight, the dam broke. Issei’s legs gave out, and he slid down the brick wall, burying his face in his trembling hands.

“Ren… Ren, it was a massacre,” Issei choked out, his voice cracking into a ragged sob. “There was so much blood. The guy just wanted a contract… he just wanted a Devil to help him… and that psycho chopped him to pieces. He was laughing, Ren. He was just laughing.”

Ren knelt on the pavement in front of him. He didn’t offer a hollow platitude like it’s going to be okay. He grabbed Issei’s wrists, pulling his hands away from his face, and looked directly into his terrified eyes.

“Breathe, Issei,” Ren ordered, his tone devoid of panic, acting as an emotional anchor. “Four seconds in. Four seconds out. Do it.”

Issei stuttered, gasping for air, but the absolute, unshakable calm radiating from Ren forced his lungs to comply. He took a jagged breath, then another, the violent trembling in his shoulders slowly reducing to a dull shake.

“Report,” Ren said softly, using the exact, clinical tone a field medic would use on a shell-shocked soldier. “Whose blood is on your uniform? You aren’t wounded.”

“It’s the client’s,” Issei whispered, his eyes widening as the memory replayed. “I went to a house to fulfill a summon. But there was a priest waiting. His name was Freed Sellzen. He had a gun that shot light, and a sword made of light. He just… slaughtered the guy. And he was going to kill me, too.”

Ren’s mind processed the data with cold, terrifying efficiency.

A human priest wielding anti-supernatural, light-based weaponry. The Church has active exorcists operating in Kuoh. The Fallen Angels aren’t the only hostile faction in the city.

“How did you survive?” Ren asked, keeping his grip on Issei’s wrists to keep him grounded.

“Asia,” Issei said, the name tearing out of his throat like a jagged piece of glass. “She was there. The nun we helped in the plaza. She’s… she’s traveling with Freed. When he went to execute me, she jumped in the way. She healed me. Freed backhanded her… he bashed her across the room just for helping me.”

Ren’s eyes narrowed slightly. The girl with the Twilight Healing is embedded with a psychotic exorcist. She isn’t a combatant; she’s a captive asset being utilized for field triage.

“Then President Rias arrived,” Issei continued, tears finally spilling over his bruised cheeks. “The whole club teleported in. They stopped Freed. But… but we didn’t stay. Rias said we couldn’t risk a full-scale war with the Fallen Angels right now. She opened a magic circle and pulled us out.” Issei looked down at his own hands, his voice dropping to a whisper of absolute self-loathing. “We left her, Ren. She saved my life, and I just left her on the floor with that monster. I’m a coward.”

Ren let go of Issei’s wrists and sat back on his heels, analyzing the sheer, brutal reality of the situation.

Issei was viewing this through the lens of a high schooler. He thought he was the protagonist of a heroic story, where the good guys always save the innocent girl. But Ren saw the exact, pragmatic logic of Rias Gremory’s decision.

Rias was not a superhero. She was a sovereign commander managing enemy territory. She had assessed the battlefield, recognized that her Pawn was safe, and calculated that engaging an armed exorcist backed by Fallen Angels over a human nun was a massive strategic liability. Asia Argento was not part of the Gremory peerage; therefore, she was expendable. Rias had made a ruthless, tactically sound choice to protect her own family.

Ren respected the logic. It was exactly the kind of cold calculus he would expect from a veteran leader. But it also cemented a chilling truth in his heart: to the high-tier entities of this world, mortal lives were nothing but numbers on a spreadsheet.

Ren stood up. He looked down at Issei, who was still drowning in his own guilt.

“Rias made a commander’s call, Issei,” Ren said, his voice flat, cutting through the emotional static. “She protected her unit. You can’t hate her for that. But you can hate yourself for being too weak to override her order.”

Issei looked up, stunned by the bluntness of the statement.

“You have a dragon’s gauntlet inside your arm,” Ren continued, his dark eyes reflecting the flickering amber light of the streetlamp. “You survived an execution. Asia paid for that survival in blood. If you want to repay that debt, sitting in an alleyway crying about how unfair the world is won’t accomplish anything. Are you a Devil, or are you just a kid playing dress-up?”

The words were harsh, entirely stripped of typical friendly comfort, but they were exactly what Issei needed to hear. The panic in Issei’s eyes slowly began to recede, replaced by a flickering, desperate spark of anger. Not anger at Ren, but anger at his own powerlessness.

Issei slowly pushed himself off the pavement, his legs unsteady but holding his weight. He wiped his face with the back of his bloodstained sleeve, his jaw tightening.

“I have to see her,” Issei muttered, staring at the ground, his fists clenching at his sides. “I’m going to find her tomorrow. I have to know if she’s okay.”

“Then go home, wash the blood off your uniform, and get your head straight,” Ren replied smoothly, slipping his headphones back over his ears. “Panic gets you killed. Resolve gets you answers.”

As Issei gave a stiff, determined nod and began to limp down the street toward his house, Ren watched him go. The naive, perverted high schooler was finally starting to crack, forced to confront the violent reality of the supernatural world.

Ren tapped the screen of his phone, resuming the animated training sequence of Silvers Rayleigh. As he turned and walked in the opposite direction, descending back into the dark, his own resolve crystallized into absolute certainty. Faction war was brewing in Kuoh, and the time for blindfolded drills was over.

Section 2: The Innocent’s Walk

The mid-day sun beat down on the crowded shopping district of Kuoh, casting harsh shadows across the pavement. The weekend foot traffic was a chaotic, unpredictable ocean of moving bodies.

Ren walked directly through the center of it, his eyes glued to the glowing screen of his smartphone, his ears sealed beneath heavy, noise-canceling headphones. He was currently watching a high-speed tactical breakdown of CQC weapon disarms, letting the rapid-fire visual data and the instructor’s loud voice dominate his conscious brain. Yet, his body moved with the fluid, frictionless grace of water flowing through rocks. He sidestepped a running child, pivoted his shoulders to avoid a woman carrying grocery bags, and instinctively adjusted his stride to match the shifting density of the crowd. His open-eye sensory training was holding perfectly.

Then, two massive, contrasting blips of intent painted themselves across his internal radar.

One was a heavy, dense furnace of demonic energy—a localized pocket of heat that felt like a coiled spring. Right beside it was a soft, weightless aura of pure, golden warmth, vibrating with an innocent, almost tragic lack of malice.

Ren didn’t even look up from his screen as he adjusted his trajectory, seamlessly merging into their path. He stopped walking exactly two feet in front of them, sliding his phone into his pocket and pulling his headphones down around his neck in one smooth motion.

Issei nearly dropped the two strawberry crepes he was holding, letting out a startled yelp. Beside him, Asia Argento blinked in surprise, wearing her nun’s habit and a bright, innocent smile.

“Jesus, Ren!” Issei gasped, clutching his chest. “Where did you even come from? You move like a ghost!”

“I was just taking a walk,” Ren said, his dark eyes scanning the perimeter before settling on his friend. He looked Issei up and down, noting the clean casual clothes and the completely relaxed posture. “I have to admit, Issei, your turnaround time is impressive. Last night you were covered in blood, having a panic attack against a brick wall because she was trapped with a psychotic priest. Today, you’re buying her crepes. Walk me through the tactical pivot. Are we on a rescue mission, or is this a date?”

Issei flushed a violent shade of red, frantically waving a crepe in the air. “It’s not—we just ran into each other! I was looking for her, and she was out running an errand, so I decided to show her around town! She’s never been to a Japanese arcade before.”

“It is wonderful to see you again, Ren-san,” Asia bowed deeply, her emerald eyes shining with genuine warmth. “Issei-san has been so kind to me today. He even won me a stuffed bear.”

Ren looked at the small plush bear clutched in Asia’s hands, then back at Issei. The stark contrast between the brutal reality of the supernatural world and the naive innocence of this afternoon was jarring. Ren gestured toward a nearby cluster of park benches sitting beneath the shade of a large oak tree.

“Let’s sit,” Ren suggested smoothly. “Eating while walking ruins the digestion anyway.”

They moved to the bench. As Issei handed Asia her crepe and excitedly explained the mechanics of a UFO catcher, Ren kept his posture relaxed, resting his elbows on his knees. But his eyes never stopped moving. He casually scanned the rooftops, the alleyways, and the faces of the crowd. He was acting as their invisible sentry.

“So, Asia,” Ren asked, taking a sip from his water bottle. “You mentioned yesterday that you were assigned to the old church. But you’re walking around town with a Devil, and you live with Fallen Angels. The ecclesiastical politics there seem a bit tangled. If you don’t mind me asking, why are you really here?”

Asia’s bright smile faltered. She lowered her crepe, her fingers tightening around the paper wrapper. Issei shot Ren a look of panic, silently begging him not to pry, but Ren ignored him. Information was survival.

“I… I am no longer a part of the Church,” Asia said softly, her voice carrying the heavy weight of a profound tragedy. She looked down at her lap. “I possessed the Twilight Healing since I was a child. I was raised in the Church, praised as a Holy Maiden. My only purpose was to heal the sick and the wounded in the name of the Lord. But one day, a Devil was brought before me, gravely injured. He was in so much pain.”

She looked up, a single tear pooling in the corner of her eye. “I healed him. I didn’t think about his faction or his race. I just saw someone suffering, and I used my gift. But the Church leadership discovered what I had done. They branded me a witch. They said my light was corrupted for aiding a demon. I was excommunicated and cast out.”

Issei looked absolutely furious, his fists trembling on his knees. “It’s so messed up, Ren. She did the right thing, and they threw her away! That’s why she’s with the Fallen Angels now. They took her in when she had nowhere else to go.”

Ren did not express outrage. He didn’t offer a warm, comforting smile. His mind was an absolute void of emotion, rapidly assembling the tactical data into a terrifying, cohesive picture.

A high-value, area-of-effect healer. Excommunicated, meaning the Church will not send reinforcements to retrieve her. Taken in by Fallen Angels, a faction actively operating in enemy Devil territory.

“They didn’t take you in out of charity, Asia,” Ren stated, his voice flat, cutting through Issei’s emotional defense like a scalpel.

Both Issei and Asia looked at him, startled by the coldness in his tone.

“Ren, what are you talking about?” Issei frowned, defensive of the fragile peace they were enjoying.

“Look at the board, Issei,” Ren said, leaning back and crossing his arms. He lowered his voice, ensuring only they could hear him over the ambient noise of the plaza. “The Fallen Angels are operating covertly in a city controlled by the Gremory clan. They employ a psychotic exorcist who executes contractors in cold blood. Does that sound like a charity organization that takes in stray nuns out of the goodness of their hearts?”

Asia shrank back slightly, hugging her plush bear tighter.

“They don’t care about your faith, Asia,” Ren continued brutally, because lying to them would get them killed. “They care about your Sacred Gear. You are an unaligned, top-tier medical asset. They aren’t your saviors; they are your wardens. They are keeping you close because a healer of your caliber shifts the tactical balance of any faction war.”

Issei’s eyes widened as the logic clicked into place. The realization hit him like a physical blow. “Wait… if they’re just using her for her gear… then why did they let her wander around town by herself today?”

“They didn’t,” Ren said softly.

Ren’s neuro-somatic radar had been tracking the environment since the moment he sat down. For the last ten minutes, he had felt a heavy, suffocating pressure hovering just at the edge of his sensory range. It was a familiar, predatory coldness.

“They let her off the leash just to see where she would go,” Ren warned, his eyes locking onto Issei with absolute, grave intensity. “And to see who she was talking to. You are a Gremory piece, Issei. You represent enemy territory. They are not going to let a high-value asset just walk away and play arcade games with a Devil.”

Ren stood up, slipping his headphones back over his ears but leaving the audio off.

“Keep your guard up, Issei,” Ren ordered quietly. “The date is over. Get her out of the open, and do not trust the shadows.”

Before Issei could ask another question, Ren turned and blended seamlessly back into the crowded street, leaving the two of them sitting on the bench. Ren didn’t go far. He simply circled the perimeter, melting into the blind spots of the plaza, waiting for the inevitable ambush to fall.

Section 3: The Pragmatist’s Restraint

Ren did not stay in the shadows for long. Less than three minutes after he had melted into the crowd, he re-emerged from an alleyway, his expression carved from granite. He walked briskly back to the bench where Issei and Asia were still sitting in tense silence.

“Get up,” Ren ordered quietly. “We’re boxed in. I mapped the perimeter. They’ve locked down the immediate sightlines and cleared the civilian foot traffic from the eastern plaza. It’s impossible to avoid them now.”

Issei jumped to his feet, panic flaring in his eyes, but Ren kept his focus entirely on the nun.

“Asia,” Ren said, dropping his voice to a low, tactical whisper. “You are a woman of the cloth. Do you have any holy water on you?”

Asia blinked, startled by the strange urgency of the request, but she reached into the deep pockets of her habit. “I… yes. A small vial for personal prayer. Why?”

“Give it to me,” Ren commanded, holding out his hand. Asia placed the tiny glass vial into his palm. Ren instantly popped the cork, drew his training karambit, and carefully poured the blessed liquid over the curved steel blade. The water clung to the metal, shimmering with a faint, imperceptible light.

Before Issei could ask what Ren was doing, the temperature in the plaza plummeted. The warm afternoon sun was suddenly eclipsed by a localized shadow, and a suffocating, dense malice flooded the air.

“Such a touching display of solidarity,” a sadistic, melodic voice echoed from above.

Raynare descended from the sky, her massive black wings absorbing the light around her. She landed on the cobblestone with a soft click of her heels, wearing her revealing dominatrix attire and a smile of absolute, predatory arrogance.

Asia stood up, stepping out from behind Issei. Her hands were trembling, but her emerald eyes carried a heartbreaking resignation.

“Ren-san was right,” Asia said, her voice wavering as she looked at Issei. “They do not care about my faith. Lady Raynare told me this morning that she would grant me one final day to spend freely with you, Issei-san. A farewell, before I return to the church to fulfill my purpose.”

She turned slightly, offering Ren a sad, fragile smile. “I am glad you found us, Ren-san. When I first met Issei, you were there beside him. I am happy that I was able to spend my last moments of freedom with both of you.”

“Nobody is saying farewell!” Issei roared, his terror entirely vaporized by righteous, explosive fury. He stepped firmly in front of Asia, shielding her with his body.

A mechanical, draconic pulse shattered the air.

BOOST!

A shockwave of crimson energy blasted outward. The heavy red plates of the Boosted Gear materialized over Issei’s left arm, the green jewel glowing with raw heat. The fabric of his shirt tore as two leathery Devil wings ripped from his back, casting a demonic shadow over the pavement.

Ren flipped the holy-water-coated karambit into a reverse grip, lowering his center of gravity. “I hope you can actually fight this time, Issei,” he said, his neuro-somatic breathing locking his heart rate into a cold, rhythmic thud. “Because running isn’t an option.”

“I’m going to smash her!” Issei yelled, recklessly charging forward, reeling his heavy gauntlet back for a devastating right hook.

Raynare laughed, summoning a spear of crackling blue light into her hand. “A Pawn playing hero? Die.”

She sidestepped Issei’s clumsy, telegraphed punch with zero effort, raising her spear to impale him through the ribs. But Issei was exactly what Ren needed: a loud, high-threat distraction.

Ren engaged. He didn’t run; he slid.

Exploiting the blind spot created by Raynare’s focus on Issei, Ren slipped completely under her guard. His neuro-somatic conditioning allowed him to move with terrifying, frictionless velocity. He didn’t aim for a fatal blow against her reinforced collarbone or sternum. He aimed for the anatomical seams.

Slash.

The holy-water-coated blade dragged across the back of Raynare’s knee joint. The moment the blessed steel touched her skin, the holy water violently reacted with her dark aura.

Raynare shrieked in absolute agony, her knee buckling as the holy magic burned through her flesh like battery acid. She swung her light spear wildly down at Ren, but Ren was already gone. He pivoted on his heel, letting the spear crash into the pavement where he had just been standing. As Raynare overextended, Ren drove the karambit into her lateral obliques, twisting the blade and pulling it out before she could even register the secondary pain.

“GAAAH! You miserable little worm!” Raynare screamed, her arrogant composure shattering as she bled from two seared, burning wounds.

She lunged at Ren, abandoning Issei entirely. But Ren was in his element. His open-eye sensory training was flawless. He watched her shoulder drop, felt the shift in air pressure, and effortlessly slipped past her thrusts. Every time she missed, Ren countered with surgical, terrifying precision—a nick to the wrist, a shallow cut across her tricep. The holy water was bypassing her supernatural durability entirely.

Ren was dismantling a Fallen Angel with a two-inch blade.

“I’ll kill you! I’ll skin you alive!” Raynare shrieked, backing away as she realized she was losing to a baseline human. “Kalawarner! Dohnaseek! Kill them!”

The air above the plaza rippled. Ren’s internal radar spiked violently.

Two more heavy, predatory auras crashed into the battlefield. Kalawarner dropped from the sky, her blue hair whipping behind her, alongside a trench-coated Fallen Angel in a fedora. All three of them instantly summoned massive spears of light, illuminating the plaza in a blinding, lethal glow.

The tactical math just inverted, Ren realized, his mind operating at a million miles an hour.

“Die!” Dohnaseek roared, hurling a light spear directly at Ren’s chest.

Ren didn’t blink. The hazard gauntlet he had built in the warehouse had prepared him for exactly this. He felt the murderous intent radiate from the spear before it even left the Fallen Angel’s hand. Ren dropped into a flawless backward roll, the spear scorching the air a millimeter above his nose and detonating against the bench behind him.

A barrage of light rained down. Ren moved like a phantom. He sidestepped Kalawarner’s thrust, vaulted over a shattered concrete planter to avoid an explosive blast from Raynare, and ducked under a horizontal sweep. His neuro-somatic focus reached its absolute zenith; he felt the wind, the heat, and the intent of every strike, dodging a three-on-one assault from supernatural executioners without taking a single scratch.

But Issei did not have neuro-somatic training.

“GAAAH!” Issei screamed as a light spear grazed his shoulder, burning his skin black. He stumbled, swinging his gauntlet blindly, only for Dohnaseek to kick him brutally in the chest. Issei crashed onto the cobblestone, coughing up blood.

Ren smoothly backflipped away from another explosion, landing in a crouch. He looked over and saw Kalawarner raise a spear directly over Issei’s throat. Ren could dodge all day, but he didn’t have the offensive output to stop three Fallen Angels at once, and Issei was out of time.

“Stop!”

Asia’s voice cracked over the sound of crackling light. She ran forward, throwing herself between the Fallen Angels and Issei’s battered body. Tears streamed down her face, but she looked up at Raynare with desperate resolve.

“I will go with you,” Asia sobbed, her voice trembling. “I won’t fight. I won’t run. Just please… leave Issei-san alone! Don’t hurt them anymore!”

“Asia, no!” Issei choked out, reaching for her habit with a bloodied hand. “Don’t do it!”

Raynare smiled, a cruel, triumphant sneer returning to her face as she lowered her spear. “See? Was that so difficult, little nun? You always belonged to us.”

Raynare grabbed Asia roughly by the arm. Kalawarner and Dohnaseek sneered at Issei’s pathetic state on the ground, entirely ignoring the human who had just danced through their crossfire. With a rush of displacing wind, a black magic circle enveloped the Fallen Angels and the weeping nun.

In a blink of an eye, the plaza was empty.

Ren stood slowly, his grip loosening on his karambit. He hadn’t taken a single hit. His breathing was steady. But as he looked down at Issei, who was sobbing into the cracked pavement, Ren felt the bitter, icy reality of his existence settle into his bones. He could dodge the wrath of gods, but dodging wasn’t enough to save anyone.

Life 4: The Rescue of the Holy Maiden

Section 1: The Pawn’s Gambit

Sub Section 1: The Gathering in the Clubroom

The journey across town to the Old School Building was quiet. Ren had expected the headquarters of a High-Class Devil to feel like an impenetrable fortress—guarded by magical tripwires, lethal wards, and stoic sentries. Instead, Issei simply pushed open the heavy oak doors of the Occult Research Club, and Ren walked right in behind him.

The scene waiting for them inside shattered every intimidating rumor Ren had ever heard about the Gremory clan.

Rias Gremory stood near her desk in the middle of changing out of her school uniform. She was dressed in nothing more than a pair of crimson lace panties and a matching brassiere, holding a crisp white blouse in her hands. Her long, scarlet hair draped over her bare shoulders like liquid silk.

Issei slammed the door open, ready to scream his heart out. “PRESIDENT! YOU HAVE TO HELP ME SAVE ASIA—”

He froze dead in his tracks.

Issei’s eyes locked onto Rias’s nearly bare form. His jaw dropped, his face flushed a violent, incandescent shade of red, and within half a second, twin geysers of blood erupted violently from his nostrils, splattering across the wooden floorboards.

“Issei?!” Rias gasped, quickly holding the blouse over her chest, though she didn’t look particularly angry—just thoroughly flustered. “What are you doing bursting in here without knocking?!”

“P-President!” Issei yelled, holding his hands over his face to catch the streaming nosebleed while frantically trying to maintain his moral outrage. “I don’t care if you’re in your underwear! Asia is in danger! The Fallen Angels took her back to the church, and they’re going to kill her! We have to go right now!”

“We are doing no such thing!” Rias snapped back, stepping behind a folding screen to finish buttoning her shirt. Her tone was sharp, but beneath the political authority, her voice carried a clear, undeniable wave of genuine worry. “Do you have any idea how dangerous that church is right now, Issei? You barely survived a single encounter! I am responsible for your life. As your master, I cannot and will not allow you to throw yourself into a suicide mission!”

“She saved my life!” Issei shouted back, his nose bleeding so hard it was dripping through his fingers. “I don’t care if I die! I’m going!”

Beside the sofa, Akeno giggled softly into her palm, clearly enjoying the chaos, while Kiba smirked, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed.

Koneko sat on the couch, calmly nibbling on a chocolate bar. She glanced at Issei’s bloody face and deadpanned, “Your sudden burst of heroic righteousness is heavily undermined by the fact that you are currently hemorrhaging from sexual excitement.”

Ren stood near the doorway, resting his hand casually in his jacket pocket as he took in the entire absurd scene.

So this is the terrifying Gremory peerage, Ren thought, a faint, amused smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

He had mentally prepped himself for a dark cabal of ruthless demon lords. Instead, he was standing in a cozy, antique lounge watching a teenage boy argue about international faction politics while bleeding out of his nose because his boss was changing her clothes. The terrifying rumors of the Occult Research Club as an unfeeling, untouchable fortress were wildly exaggerated. They weren’t a cold military unit—they were just an oddly warm, deeply dysfunctional family. And the fact that they had casually allowed a baseline human like Ren to walk directly into the King’s dressing room proved they were far more laid-back than their terrifying aura suggested.

Before the argument could escalate any further, Akeno stepped forward, holding a glowing crimson parchment.

“President,” Akeno interrupted smoothly, her playful smile dimming into a professional expression. “An urgent summons just arrived from the Underworld. Lady Sona and the Sitri clan are waiting for us at the territorial boundary.”

Rias stepped out from behind the screen, fully dressed in her school uniform. She sighed, looking at Issei with a mixture of stern authority and soft concern.

“We have to leave immediately,” Rias said, walking toward the large magic circle forming on the floor. She paused beside Issei, looking him dead in the eye. “Listen to me, Issei. You think you are weak because you are a Pawn. But you are wrong. In the game of Devil chess, a Pawn carries a special rule. When a Pawn reaches the deepest rank of enemy territory… it Promotes. It gains the power of any piece it chooses.”

Kiba chimed in smoothly, “The abandoned church is controlled by Fallen Angels. It is, by definition, deep enemy territory. If you make it inside, your Evil Piece will allow you to promote.”

Ren, who had been quietly observing from the sidelines, finally stepped into the conversation.

“I don’t know much about Devil chess,” Ren said, his calm, level voice drawing everyone’s attention. “But in standard human chess, Pawns aren’t just fodder. They are the entire structural spine of the board. You use pawn structures to lock down the center, pawn storms to shatter the enemy King’s defense, and pawn marches to force your opponent into terrible trades. A Pawn isn’t a sacrifice—it’s a slow, unstoppable executioner waiting for the eighth rank.”

Rias stopped right at the edge of the magic circle, turning her head to look at Ren with genuine surprise. Her blue-green eyes narrowed slightly, inspecting the mortal boy with newfound intrigue.

“You understand strategic board theory?” Rias asked, a subtle spark of respect in her voice. “In this entire academy, Sona Sitri is the only person who speaks about chess with that level of analytical depth.”

Rias shook her head, a faint smile appearing on her face before the crimson light engulfed her and Akeno. “We must go. Kiba, I leave the clubroom in your hands.”

With a flash of red light, the two high-class devils vanished.

The room fell quiet. Kiba straightened up from the wall, walking over to Issei.

“So,” Kiba asked, his tone remarkably light. “Are you really going to the church, Issei?”

“It’s obvious!” Issei snapped, wiping his nose. “I’m going whether the President likes it or not!”

“You know,” Kiba chuckled softly, “if you go alone, you’re just going to die before you even step foot in the building. And then how are you going to save her?” Kiba reached down and drew his sleek silver sword half an inch from its scabbard, the metal gleaming in the sunlight. “Which is why I’m coming with you.”

Issei blinked in shock. “Kiba… but what about the President’s orders?”

“If the President truly wanted to forbid you from going,” Kiba smiled mischievously, “she wouldn’t have just scolded you. She would have bound you in leather restraints, locked you in the basement, and guarded the door herself.”

Issei froze. A dazed, incredibly perverted expression washed over his face as his brain processed the image. “Wait… leather bondage restraints? Man… now I kind of wish she did forbid me…”

“Gross,” Koneko’s flat voice cut through his fantasy.

The tiny white-haired girl stood up from the couch, wiping the chocolate from her fingers. She cracked her knuckles with a sound like snapping wood. “I’ll go too. For Issei’s sake. He’ll die in five seconds if there’s no one around to hit things for him.”

Issei’s eyes welled up with massive, dramatic tears of absolute gratitude. “KONEKO-CHAN!”

Driven by pure, unadulterated emotion, Issei lunged forward and wrapped his arms around her in a suffocating bear hug.

Koneko’s expression didn’t change, but her eyes narrowed into sharp slits. “Too tight.”

BAM!

With a terrifying display of casual Rook strength, Koneko grabbed Issei by the face and launched him across the room. Issei slammed violently into the leather couch, flipping over the back of it.

“THANK YOU SO MUCH!” Issei popped right back up, tears streaming down his face, and charged forward again. “YOU GUYS ARE THE BEST!”

“Too loud,” Koneko said.

BAM!

She sidestepped his lunge, grabbed him by his collar, and threw him headfirst into the wall, cracking the plaster.

Issei bounced off the wall, completely unfazed by the brain damage, and lunged in for a third hug. “KONEKO-CHAAAN!”

BAM!

Kiba stood next to Ren, watching Issei get repeatedly pulverized and hurled across the clubroom like a ragdoll. Kiba rubbed the back of his neck, chuckling sheepishly as he looked at Ren.

“You know…” Kiba muttered softly, feeling a little left out of the emotional reunion. “I offered to help first. He didn’t even try to hug me.”

Ren looked over at Kiba, taking a slow, measured breath of air to keep from laughing out loud.

“Give it up, Kiba,” Ren said dryly, patting the handsome Knight on the shoulder. “You’re a great guy, but you don’t have breasts or cat ears. His brain is physically incapable of registering your emotional availability.”

Sub Section 2: The Pawn’s Infiltration

The treeline surrounding the abandoned church was thick with damp mist, casting jagged, unnatural shadows across the overgrown perimeter.

Under the cover of a dense oak canopy three hundred yards from the boundary fence, Kiba unrolled a worn architectural schematic across a flat stone. He weighed down the corners with four heavy pebbles, pointing his finger at the center of the parchment.

“I managed to pull the original construction blueprints from the municipal registry,” Kiba whispered, his voice hushed and professional. “The sanctuary sits at the core of the floor plan. If they’re holding Asia for a ritual, it’s almost certainly happening on the primary altar directly beneath the central nave. The front courtyard is wide open—zero cover.”

“Then we smash through the double doors, clear the nave, and take her back!” Issei growled, slamming his fist into his palm, his Boosted Gear flickering with impatient crimson embers. “Koneko can break the gates, Kiba clears the hallway, and I’ll go straight for Raynare!”

Koneko gave a small, stoic nod, adjusting her fingerless gloves. “I can tear the main doors off their hinges.”

As the three of them prepared to break cover and charge into the courtyard, a hand reached out from the darkness, catching Issei firmly by the back of his collar and yanking him back into the brush.

“Wait,” Ren commanded softly.

Issei stumbled backward, glaring at his friend. “Ren! What are you doing?! Every second we waste standing around here, Asia is in danger!”

Ren didn’t look flustered. He remained crouched in the undergrowth, his dark eyes fixed on the illuminated stained-glass windows of the church. His neuro-somatic focus was fully engaged; he could feel the heavy, oppressive malice radiating off the building, along with the distinct thermal signatures of armed men patrolling the perimeter walls.

“We talked about chess in the clubroom,” Ren said, his voice flat and dangerously calm. “There’s a famous rule laid down by Emanuel Lasker, one of the greatest grandmasters in history: When you see a good move, always look for a better one.”

Kiba paused, looking at Ren with mild curiosity. “A better move?”

“Kicking the front door down is a move,” Ren explained, pointing a tactical finger toward the map. “It’s aggressive, direct, and predictable. But what is our actual win condition here? Is our objective to kill every exorcist in the city, or is it to secure Asia Argento?”

“To save Asia, obviously!” Issei snapped.

“Exactly,” Ren continued. “Asia is the objective. In tactical terms, she is the high-value piece currently sitting on the enemy’s side of the board. If you charge through the front gate, you kick off an alarm. You draw fifty armed priests into a choke point, force ourselves into a prolonged attrition fight, and give Raynare a ten-minute warning to either execute Asia or finish whatever ritual she’s performing before we even cross the threshold.”

Ren looked at Kiba, then at Koneko. “A real chess player doesn’t sacrifice momentum to pick off random pawns if he can slip behind enemy lines and threaten the objective directly. We don’t need a siege. We need a stealth extraction.”

Kiba stared at the map, then looked up at Ren with a slow, approving grin. “You want to bypass the front line entirely.”

“Look at the blueprints,” Ren said, tapping the rear section of the building. “There’s an old drainage maintenance shaft running under the eastern wing, leading straight into the upper choir balcony overlooking the main altar. The roof ventilation above the sanctuary is structurally degraded. We infiltrate silently, locate Asia, drop in directly on top of her, and secure her before Raynare realizes the perimeter was breached.”

Koneko looked at Ren, her expression softening into a rare look of genuine tactical appreciation. “Smart,” she murmured.

“Alright,” Issei gritted his teeth, swallowing his reckless urge to scream. “We do it your way. But we move fast.”

Using Ren’s heightened sensory radar as their compass, the four-man squad moved like ghosts through the shadows. Ren led the vanguard, his open-eye training mapping the patrols before they even rounded a corner. He felt the shifting weight of the armed exorcists on the gravel, guiding Kiba and Koneko around the blind spots of the searchlights.

They bypassed the front gates entirely, scaling the rusted iron drainage pipe along the church’s rear flank and slipping through a broken stained-glass rose window thirty feet above the ground.

Within two minutes, they were crouching silently behind the marble balustrade of the high choir balcony, hidden in the deep shadows near the vaulted ceiling.

Ren dropped to one knee, peering down through the decorative stone pillars.

The main sanctuary below was a nightmare carved from dark magic and blood.

In the center of the nave, floating three feet above a massive, glowing purple magic circle, was Asia Argento. She was bound in dark, ethereal chains, her face pale as snow, her eyes closed in absolute agony as green, luminescent strands of pure energy were slowly being dragged from her chest. Standing directly beneath her was Raynare, her black wings unfurled, her eyes burning with sadistic ecstasy as she absorbed the floating light into a pair of green, crystalline rings hovering in her hands.

Surrounding the altar were at least thirty robed exorcists, wielding heavy silver crucifixes and automatic pistols loaded with light-blessed rounds, chanting a low, guttural incantation in Latin.

She’s extracting the Sacred Gear, Ren cataloged instantly, his neuro-somatic mind running the cold math. The ritual is fifty percent complete. Asia’s life force is tethered to the Twilight Healing. If that extraction finishes, she dies.

Ren reached into his tactical vest, quietly drawing two smoke grenades and sliding his karambit into a reverse grip. He turned his head to look at Kiba, Koneko, and Issei, keeping his voice to a imperceptible whisper.

“Alright,” Ren began, his analytical mind executing the final sequence. “Here’s the extraction protocol. Koneko, you drop first to break their central formation and draw their fire. Kiba, you use your speed to cut Asia’s chains the second the smoke pops. I’ll provide suppressive throwing blades to blind their primary shooters. Issei, the moment she falls, you grab her and—”

Ren stopped mid-sentence.

Beside him, Issei was no longer listening. He was staring down at Asia’s agonizing face, his breath coming in ragged, violent gasps. The green jewel on his crimson gauntlet flared with an uncontrollable, blinding dragon fire.

BOOST! BOOST! BOOST!

The deafening, mechanical roar of the Sacred Gear shattered the silence of the cathedral like a bomb, echoing violently off the vaulted ceiling.

Ren’s eyes widened in sheer, utter disbelief. “Issei, wait—”

“ASIAAAAAAAAAA!”

Issei screamed at the absolute top of his lungs, completely abandoning the balcony, the smoke grenades, the stealth protocol, and the entire concept of tactical planning. Driven by pure, unadulterated, suicidal rage, Issei vaulted straight over the marble railing, launching himself thirty feet through the air directly into the middle of thirty armed exorcists and a High-Class Fallen Angel.

Ren froze on the balcony, his hand still holding a smoke grenade, his dark eyes staring at the empty space where his best friend had been sitting a microsecond ago.

Slowly, Ren reached up with his free hand and pinched the bridge of his nose, taking a long, deep, excruciatingly slow neuro-somatic breath to keep his brain from short-circuiting.

“I literally just explained chess to him,” Ren muttered under his breath, his voice dripping with pure, exhausted exasperation.

Section 2: The Cathedral of Blood**

Sub Section 1: The Mortal Vanguard

Issei crashed into the center of the nave like a crimson meteor, shattering the stone tiles and sending a shockwave that threw the closest exorcists off their feet.

Up in the balcony, Ren didn’t waste another second on exasperation. His neuro-somatic radar instantly expanded, mapping the shifting battlefield. He picked up the thirty human priests reacting to Issei, but more alarmingly, he felt three massive, predatory spikes of cold malice descending rapidly from the church’s belfry.

“Rias and Akeno aren’t here yet. We bypassed the perimeter too fast,” Ren said, his voice a rapid-fire tactical feed as he armed both smoke grenades. He looked at Kiba and Koneko. “Three more Fallen Angels are dropping through the ceiling in about five seconds. I can’t pierce high-tier supernatural armor, but human bones break just fine. You two keep the Angels off Issei. I’ll clear the exorcists.”

Kiba drew his silver sword, his eyes gleaming with lethal focus. “Leave the wings to us. Don’t die, Ren.”

Kiba and Koneko vaulted over the railing, plummeting into the fray just as the stained-glass skylights above the altar shattered. Kalawarner, Dohnaseek, and a third Fallen Angel in a gothic dress, Mittelt, descended with light spears blazing.

Ren pulled the pins on both grenades and tossed them over the edge.

FSHHHHH.

Thick, blinding gray smoke immediately flooded the rear of the sanctuary, swallowing the back line of chanting priests.

Ren dropped from the balcony, landing silently in the dense fog. He closed his eyes. The visual input was useless here, but his open-eye sensory training had prepared him perfectly for this exact scenario. He felt the panicked, erratic heartbeats of the exorcists, heard the panicked clicks of their gun safeties, and sensed the displaced air as they aimed blindly into the smoke.

A priest fired a wild shot. Ren felt the muzzle flash’s thermal bloom and stepped cleanly to the left, letting the bullet whistle past his ear. He flowed forward, entirely empty-handed. He gripped the priest’s extended wrist, pivoted, and snapped the joint with a brutal, rotational lock. As the man dropped, Ren spun, delivering a precise, kinetic elbow strike to the temporal bone of a second priest, shutting his brain off instantly.

He was a phantom in the fog. He didn’t rely on magic; he relied on perfect, frictionless biomechanics.

A larger exorcist lunged through the smoke, swinging a heavy, steel-capped ceremonial staff. Ren didn’t back away. He stepped into the swing, passing the lethal arc of the weapon, grabbed the wood near the man’s grip, and drove his knee into the priest’s solar plexus. With a sharp twist of his hips, Ren stripped the staff from the man’s hands.

Now armed with a six-foot reach, Ren became a localized natural disaster. He swept the legs out from under two priests, cracked the staff against the jaw of a third, and vaulted off a wooden pew to deliver a crushing downward strike to a fourth. His neuro-somatic breathing kept his heart rate perfectly stable as he systematically dismantled the human army.

“HA! A little rat playing in the fog!”

A maniacal, grating laugh ripped through the smoke. Freed Sellzen charged into the fray, dual-wielding a smoking exorcist pistol and a blazing blade of pure light. His movements were frantic, enhanced by church magic to be vastly faster and stronger than a baseline human.

Freed fired three shots, instantly closing the distance to slice Ren in half.

But Freed possessed no martial discipline—only chaotic, murderous intent. Ren felt the massive, telegraphed spike of aggression before Freed even pulled the trigger. Ren tilted his head, letting the bullets graze the collar of his jacket, and dropped his center of gravity.

As Freed swung the light sword in a lethal horizontal arc, Ren didn’t try to block the unblockable blade. Instead, he thrust the blunt end of his wooden staff directly into Freed’s leading foot, pinning it to the stone floor. The sudden loss of momentum threw Freed’s violent swing completely off balance. Ren smoothly ducked under the light blade, used the staff as a fulcrum, and delivered a devastating, spinning palm strike directly to Freed’s throat.

Freed choked, his eyes bulging as his windpipe compressed. Before the psychotic priest could recover, Ren swept his staff behind Freed’s remaining leg and slammed him face-first into the cold stone floor, instantly dislocating Freed’s shoulder with a brutal joint lock. The “mad dog” of the church had been flawlessly outmaneuvered by pure physics.

Meanwhile, at the front of the altar, the supernatural war raged.

Kiba was a blur of silver, parrying a storm of light spears from Dohnaseek and Kalawarner. The shockwaves of their clashes cracked the marble pillars. Koneko picked up entire wooden pews and hurled them like missiles at Mittelt, keeping the sky-bound Angel frantically dodging.

Issei charged straight through the chaos, ignoring the burns on his skin as he boosted his gauntlet to maximum capacity. “RAYNARE!” he roared, leaping onto the altar, drawing back a fist radiating enough draconian power to shatter a mountain.

Raynare didn’t even look at him. Her eyes were locked onto the glowing purple magic circle above her.

“Too late, little Devil,” Raynare whispered in absolute ecstasy.

With a sickening, ethereal tearing sound, the two glowing green rings of the Twilight Healing were violently ripped from Asia’s chest. The light surrounding the nun instantly died.

Issei’s punch connected with the magical barrier surrounding the altar, shattering it into a million pieces of glass, but the momentum threw him off balance. He crashed onto the marble steps.

Raynare absorbed the green rings into her own chest, letting out a euphoric gasp as the holy power fused with her dark aura.

Above the altar, the chains vanished. Asia Argento’s lifeless body plummeted toward the cold stone floor. Issei scrambled forward, catching her in his arms, but as he looked down at her pale, still face, the horrific reality set in. The extraction was complete.

Sub Section 2: Dying Nun

A deafening BANG shattered the gloom as Freed yanked a flashbang from his belt and detonated it at his own feet. White fire and a concussive shockwave ripped through the fog.

Ren didn’t blink. His neuro-somatic radar had picked up the metallic pin-pull a fraction of a second before the detonation. He simply closed his eyes and adjusted his breathing, letting his body absorb the air displacement without flinching. When the smoke cleared, Freed was already scrambling through a shattered side window into the dark courtyard, clutching his broken shoulder. Ren watched him vanish, making no move to pursue. Chasing a manic, fleeing mercenary while the primary objective hung in the balance was an irrelevant distraction.

Across the nave, Issei screamed in pure, unadulterated grief. “RAYNARE!”

Ignoring his broken ribs, Issei lunged at the Fallen Angel, raising his Boosted Gear for a desperate swing. But Raynare, newly empowered by the stolen Sacred Gear glowing within her chest, merely sneered. She swatted Issei aside with a casual flick of her black wing. Issei crashed violently onto the stone floor, skidding across the altar steps, his blood staining the white marble.

Kiba and Koneko tried to push through to help him, but Kalawarner, Dohnaseek, and Mittelt locked them in a brutal stalemate, raining down a barrage of light spears that kept the Knight and Rook completely pinned.

Ren was already shifting his weight to intervene when the air inside the cathedral turned heavy and scorching hot. A massive, crimson magic circle erupted across the center floor, illuminating the high vaulted ceilings in blood-red light.

Rias Gremory and Akeno Himejima emerged from the light, their demonic aura radiating with suffocating authority.

“Rias…” Ren muttered, his dark eyes instantly spotting the opening.

With the High-Class Devils entering the fray, the battlefield shifted instantly. Ren didn’t hesitate. Exploiting the momentary pause as the Fallen Angels recoiled from Rias’s overwhelming presence, Ren sprinted onto the altar platform. He scooped Asia’s frail, cold body into his arms, leaped off the dais, and brought her straight to Issei.

“She’s slipping, Issei,” Ren said softly, gently transferring the dying nun into Issei’s shaking arms. “Talk to her.”

Above them, Rias’s eyes burned with cold rage. “Akeno. Kiba. Koneko. Eradicate the intruders.”

“With pleasure, President,” Akeno smiled, her lightning crackling wildly across the rafters as she, Kiba, and Koneko swarmed Kalawarner, Dohnaseek, and Mittelt, driving them back into the shadows of the nave.

Raynare, realizing the situation had inverted, spread her wings to take flight through the shattered glass dome above. “This isn’t over!”

TAK.

Ren vaulted off a marble pillar, using his wooden staff to propel himself high into the air. He landed directly on the railing of the choir loft above Raynare, cutting off her vertical escape path.

Raynare halted mid-air, hovering fifteen feet above the ground, glaring at the human boy with bitter contempt. “Get out of my way, baseline trash! You don’t have your little holy water trick anymore. You can’t even scratch me with that pathetic piece of wood!”

Ren rested the wooden pole across his shoulders, his expression entirely unreadable. “Let’s test that theory.”

Raynare thrust a spear of light directly at his chest. Ren tilted his head half an inch, letting the energy beam scorch the fabric of his collar, and stepped into her space.

He didn’t need holy water to break physics.

Ren drove the tip of the wooden staff directly into the nerve cluster behind her shoulder joint. The kinetic force, amplified by his precise posture, bypassed her external magical barrier and transferred straight into her skeletal structure. Raynare gasped as her arm went numb, her light spear disintegrating.

Before she could recover, Ren spun the staff in a fluid, relentless spiral. Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!

The wood struck her elbows, her floating ribs, and the lateral tendons of her knees. He wasn’t trying to slice her; he was systematically dismantling her balance, disrupting her center of gravity, and draining her stamina with flawless, unbroken martial pressure. Raynare shrieked in frustration, forced backward step by step, her wings flapping erratically as she tried and failed to land a single strike on the phantom-like human.

“I am entirely confident I can beat you to death right here, one-on-one,” Ren said, his voice terrifyingly calm as he delivered a spinning strike to her jaw that sent her crashing onto the lower altar steps. “But you aren’t my opponent tonight.”

Ren lowered his staff and stepped back into the shadows of the altar.

On the floor below, Issei held Asia tightly against his chest, tears streaming down his face as her skin grew paler by the second.

Asia’s eyelids fluttered open, her faint emerald eyes looking up into Issei’s crying face. A small, heartbreakingly beautiful smile touched her lips.

“Issei-san…” Asia whispered, her voice barely a breath. “You came for me… You really came…”

“Don’t talk, Asia!” Issei sobbed, holding her hand against his cheek. “Save your strength! The President is here! She can fix this!”

“I am… so happy,” Asia murmured softly, reaching up with trembling fingers to wipe a tear from his eye. “I was always so lonely in the church… no one ever talked to me like a real person. But today… I got to walk in the city with you. I met Ren-san… and the others. I made real friends…”

She swallowed hard, her chest barely rising. “Issei-san… if… if I were to be reborn… would you… would you be my friend again? Would you… spend time with me…?”

“What are you saying?!” Issei roared through his tears, clutching her tighter. “Don’t talk like you’re dying! You’re going to live! We’re going to hang out every day! I’ll take you back to the arcade! I’ll introduce you to my friends, Matsuda and Motohama… sure, they’re total perverts, but they’re good guys, I swear! You’re going to have so many friends, Asia!”

Asia’s smile widened, tears spilling over her pale cheeks. “You’re crying for me…” she whispered softly. “Someone is crying… just for me… That was… all I ever wanted…”

Her hand slowly slipped from his cheek, falling limply onto the cold marble floor. Her eyes closed softly, the final faint breath escaping her lips.

“Asia…?” Issei whispered. “Asia… Hey! Wake up! ASIA!”

Silence answered him.

Issei lowered his head onto her chest, his shoulders shaking uncontrollably as a howl of pure, agonizing grief echoed through the shattered cathedral. “All she wanted… was a friend… She didn’t care about factions… she just wanted to live…”

He looked up at Raynare, who was slowly pushing herself off the ground, clutching her bruised jaw. Issei’s eyes were no longer those of a scared high school boy. They were burning with an ancient, terrifying dragon fire.

“Give her back…” Issei growled, his voice dropping into a guttural, terrifying register. “GIVE HER BACK TO ME!”

BOOST! OVERBOOST!

The green jewel on the Boosted Gear erupted in a blinding pillar of crimson fire that shattered the remaining stained-glass windows of the church. The raw, unleashed energy of the Welsh Dragon flooded Issei’s body, answering his desperate, agonizing cry for power.

Raynare gasped, backing away in terror. “No… no! Stay back!”

Issei didn’t run. He vanished.

In a fraction of a second, Issei closed the distance, his boosted gauntlet roaring like a unleashed beast. He drove a massive, catastrophic right hook straight into Raynare’s chest.

BOOM!

The shockwave tore through the nave. Raynare coughed up blood as the stolen Twilight Healing was violently purged from her body, the green rings of light bursting free from her chest and hovering in the air. Raynare was launched backward, crashing through the heavy stone pillars of the altar and collapsing into the rubble, broken and utterly defeated.

Issei stood amidst the settling dust, his breathing heavy, his crimson gauntlet smoking. He reached out his hand, and the two glowing rings of the Twilight Healing floated gently down into his palm.

He didn’t celebrate. He turned around, walked slowly back to where Asia lay on the marble floor, and fell to his knees beside her, holding the Sacred Gear against his chest as the cathedral fell dead silent.

Section 3: Rebirth and Residuals

Sub Section 1: The Forgotten Vanguard

The deafening roars of dragon fire and crackling lightning slowly faded, leaving the ruined cathedral in a heavy, reverent quiet.

Issei remained on his knees in the center of the shattered altar, trembling as he clutched the two glowing green rings of the Twilight Healing against his chest. Beside him, Asia lay completely still, her pale face bathed in the dim moonlight filtering through the shattered stained-glass dome.

Heavy, measured footsteps echoed across the stone floor. Rias Gremory walked up the altar steps, her crimson hair framing a gentle, sorrowful expression. Behind her, Akeno, Kiba, and Koneko gathered in a quiet semicircle, looking down at the fallen nun.

Rias lowered herself to one knee beside Issei. She reached out, her soft hand resting gently on Issei’s trembling shoulder.

“I heard her final words, Issei,” Rias said softly, her tone carrying a profound, maternal warmth. “She wished with all her heart to be reborn… so that she could stay by your side and be your friend.”

Issei looked up through bloodshot, tear-stained eyes, his voice choked with despair. “President…”

Rias reached into her blazer pocket and produced a glowing, intricately carved chess piece carved from polished ruby—a Bishop. It pulsated with a soft, dense demonic mana.

“It is a wish I have the power to grant,” Rias continued, looking at Issei with absolute sincerity. “Her soul has not yet crossed the boundary. I can tether her back to this world. But… I must apologize to both of you. If I bring her back, she can no longer be a holy maiden of the Church, nor can she be human. She will be reborn as a Devil… as my piece, and your fellow comrade.”

Issei didn’t hesitate for even a fraction of a second. A wave of immense, overwhelming relief washed over his battered face, wiping away the dark shadow of grief. Tears spilled from his eyes anew, but this time born from pure, ecstatic hope.

“I don’t care if she’s a Devil, a demon, or anything else!” Issei cried out, nodding frantically. “Just save her, President! Please, bring Asia back!”

Rias offered a warm, reassuring smile. “Very well.”

She placed the crimson Bishop piece gently onto Asia’s sternum. Rias raised her hand, reciting the ancient incantation of the High-Class Devil house of Gremory. A brilliant circle of crimson crests erupted beneath Asia’s body, radiating a soothing, life-giving heat. The ruby chess piece slowly sank through her clothes, dissolving directly into her chest cavity.

“Now, Issei,” Rias instructed softly. “Give her back what belongs to her.”

Issei leaned forward, his hands shaking as he gently pressed the two glowing rings of the Twilight Healing onto Asia’s chest. The holy artifact resonated with her newly reborn Devil core, dissolving into particles of brilliant emerald light that flowed back into her bloodstream, sealing her internal wounds and rekindling the spark of life within her heart.

Asia’s chest rose with a sudden, deep gasp of air.

The pale, ghostly color drained from her skin, replaced by a soft, healthy flush. Her long eyelashes fluttered, and slowly, her deep emerald eyes opened, squinting against the dim light.

“Issei… san…?” Asia whispered faintly.

“ASIA!”

Issei burst into loud, unrestrained bawling, throwing his arms around her and pulling her into a fierce, desperate embrace. He buried his face in her shoulder, sobbing like a child. “You’re alive! You’re really alive! Don’t you ever scare me like that again, you idiot!”

Asia blinked in utter confusion, but as she felt the warm, frantic beating of Issei’s heart and the wet tears soaking into her collar, a breathtakingly pure smile broke across her face. She raised her slender arms, wrapping them tightly around his back.

“Issei-san…” Asia wept softly, her own tears of joy flowing freely. “Thank you… thank you so much…”

Akeno giggled softly, resting a hand on her cheek, while Kiba let out a relieved, handsome chuckle. Even Koneko’s stoic face softened into a faint, approving nod.

Issei carefully slid his arms beneath Asia’s back and knees, scooping her up into a gentle bridal carry. He held her close against his chest as if she were made of delicate glass. Asia rested her head against his shoulder, clutching his shirt, completely safe.

“Let’s go home,” Rias said, her voice filled with pride as she turned toward the shattered main entrance of the church. “We have a lot of welcoming celebrations to prepare for our newest member.”

“Right!” Issei beamed, wiping his nose with his shoulder as he carried Asia down the altar steps.

Rias, Akeno, Kiba, and Koneko fell into rank around Issei and Asia, forming a tight, protective honor guard. Laughing, chatting, and completely wrapped up in the emotional warmth of their miraculous victory, the Gremory peerage walked out through the archway, disappearing into the cool night air toward the Occult Research Club.

The heavy silence of the ruined cathedral settled back over the stone floor.

Dust motes drifted peacefully through the silver beams of moonlight streaming through the shattered ceiling. The wind whistled through the broken stained-glass windows, rustling the torn cloth of the abandoned pews.

Standing on the far side of the shadowy altar, resting a splintered six-foot wooden staff across his shoulder, was Ren.

He stood completely still, his dark eyes staring at the empty double doors where his best friend and a squad of high-class demons had just walked out. Not a single person had looked back. Not a single person had called his name.

Ren slowly reached up with his free hand, pinched the bridge of his nose, and let out a long, quiet, neuro-somatic exhale.

He looked down at his scuffed school shoes, then at the blood-stained wooden pole in his hand, and finally at the absolute wreckage of the empty church.

“Right,” Ren said dryly to the empty room, his voice echoing off the cold stone walls. “Great team bonding, guys. I’ll just walk.”

Sub Section 2: Day After Flash Back

The autumn morning sun streamed through the stained-glass windows of the Occult Research Club, casting warm golden light across the lounge. Asia was happily drinking tea while Rias walked her through the basics of Devil society, and Koneko was quietly sharing a box of pastries with her.

Yet, sitting on the leather sofa, Issei couldn’t concentrate on his tea. A heavy, nagging weight sat in the pit of his stomach.

Man… I really screwed up yesterday, Issei thought, staring down at his floating tea leaves as his mind drifted back to the previous night’s return from the abandoned church.

(Issei’s Flashback)

They had been walking back to the school grounds in high spirits. Asia was safe in Issei’s arms, Rias and Akeno were discussing the logistics of Asia’s official transfer into the Gremory peerage, and Koneko was nibbling on a congratulatory chocolate bar.

Suddenly, Kiba came to a dead halt on the sidewalk, tapping his chin with a thoughtful look.

“Wait…” Kiba muttered, looking around at the empty street. “I feel like… we forgot something really important.”

Rias paused, turning her head. “Did we leave traces of demonic magic near the altar, Kiba?”

“Did I forget to collect the broken light spears?” Akeno tapped her cheek innocently.

Issei blinked, looking to his left, then to his right. His eyes widened in absolute, horrifying realization. “REN!” Issei shrieked, clutching his head in panic. “WE LEFT REN IN THE CATHEDRAL!”

Silence fell over the Gremory peerage.

Akeno giggled nervously into her sleeve. “Oh my… he was so quiet during the battle, I completely forgot he wasn’t part of our telepathic network.”

“He systematically dismantled thirty armed exorcists with a wooden pole,” Koneko deadpanned, taking a slow bite of her chocolate. “And we left him alone in a dark, creepy ruin.”

Rias’s face flushed a deep crimson—not from anger, but from sheer, unadulterated embarrassment. “Ah… he… he was very helpful, wasn’t he? We really should have brought him back with us…”

“I’ll go get him!” Kiba offered immediately, drawing upon his Knight speed. “I’m the fastest. Stay here!”

In a flash of silver light, Kiba bolted back toward the outskirts of town. Within two minutes, he was standing in the ruined nave of the abandoned church. The dust had settled, the moonlight shone through the broken roof, and the quiet whistling of the wind echoed through the empty hall.

Kiba walked up to the altar, looking around carefully. “Ren? Are you still here?”

Only silence answered him. The wooden staff Ren had used lay shattered on the marble floor, but the boy himself was completely gone.

When Kiba returned to the group and shook his head, Issei had felt a cold sweat break out across his back.

(End of Issei’s Flashback)

Miles away, in a small, meticulously kept apartment, the morning sun was blocked out by heavy velvet curtains.

Ren sat cross-legged in the center of his bed, his eyes closed, his breathing measured and rhythmic. His neuro-somatic focus was tuned entirely inward, observing the turbulent currents flowing through his chest.

They didn’t mean anything bad by it, Ren narrated silently to himself, opening his memory bank to yesterday’s midnight silence inside the cathedral.

(Ren’s Flashback)

Standing alone on the ruined altar after the Gremory peerage walked away, Ren had felt a cold, quiet reality settle over him.

Maybe I really am just an outsider, Ren had thought, staring at the empty double doors. I’m not part of their little family. That’s just how the world works.

He took a slow breath, shaking his head to clear the thought. Stop being overly sensitive, Ren. You aren’t a tragic protagonist in a melodrama. Just jog after them and catch up.

He adjusted his jacket and turned to leave. But before his foot could touch the lower altar step, a sudden, violent vibration erupted from the base of his spine.

It wasn’t physical. It was a cold, suffocating surge of primordial shadow echoing directly inside his mind, accompanied by a raspy, unnatural whisper that rasped against his soul:

Rennnnnn……

Ren froze mid-stride, his pupils dilating.

An overwhelming wave of pure, unfiltered abandonment violently flooded his nervous system. It wasn’t just about tonight; the dark frequency acted like a catalyst, dragging old, buried wounds back to the surface of his consciousness.

Memory fragments flashed before his eyes with terrifying clarity.

He remembered the night Raynare first struck in the park. Issei had been impaled, dying on the grass, only for Rias Gremory to descend in a pillar of glorious crimson light, cradling Issei and resurrecting him as a Devil. Ren had been lying just feet away in the shadows, bleeding, invisible to the High-Class Devil’s eyes. Nobody had offered him a miracle. He had been forced to drag his broken, blood-soaked body through the dark mud, crawling back to his apartment alone, stitching his own flesh in the dark.

Another memory surfaced: sitting on the roof with Matsuda and Motohama, eating cheap convenience store lunches. Ren had offhandedly suggested, “Hey, what if we tried joining the Occult Research Club too?”

Matsuda and Motohama had burst out laughing, waving their hands dismissively. “Are you insane, Ren? That’s the forbidden garden! Only guys like Issei get to be chosen by beauties like Rias Gremory! Normal trash like us don’t belong in their world. We’re just background characters.”

Standing in the abandoned church, the dark energy inside Ren’s chest violently expanded, thrashing like a trapped beast.

It’s a good thing I didn’t follow them, Ren realized, his analytical mind fighting to maintain control over the sudden emotional turbulence. If I had walked into their clubroom with this dark energy raging inside me, it would have erupted into a chaotic mess.

Driven by the explosive surge of sinister power flooding his muscles, Ren vaulted through the shattered stained-glass window. He didn’t run like a human; he moved like a streak of black lightning across the rooftops of Kuoh, his physical limitations temporarily shattered by the raging dark energy.

He burst through his apartment window, landed silently on his floor, and immediately dropped into a cross-legged meditation pose, locking his mind down to regulate the chaotic force before it could destroy his body.

I will not be consumed, Ren declared internally, his mental voice ringing like a iron bell against the darkness encroaching on his consciousness. I will not lose myself. I still want to be me.

He probed the raging dark energy with his neuro-somatic awareness, analyzing its composition.

I know what you are, Ren told the darkness. You are born from the feeling of abandonment. You are the bitterness of feeling like an anomaly that doesn’t belong in this world.

The dark whisper hissed violently in response, attempting to drown his mind in a wave of destructive rage against the world that had cast him aside.

Listen to me! Ren commanded, his willpower clamping down on the dark entity like a vice. If I can’t get the harem… if I’m not the destined hero of this story, fine! Then I want to be powerful! I want to enjoy the process of becoming stronger! I want to enjoy learning the hidden truths of this universe!

Ren leaned into the dark energy, projecting his cold, unyielding resolve directly into its core.

Lashing out at the world in a meaningless, temporary outburst of rage is pathetic, Ren argued sharply. You explode for five minutes, destroy a few buildings, and then fade away into nothingness. What’s the point of that? Instead of wasting yourself on a childish tantrum… help me become stronger. Channel your force into my body. Help me cultivate. So that one day, if the time ever comes… I will have the power to fight the entire world.

The raging dark energy paused its violent thrashing. The suffocating malice slowly shifted, resonating with Ren’s cold, absolute ambition. The dark entity accepted his terms.

The chaotic rage smoothed out, transforming into a dense, potent fuel stream. Ren immediately guided this dark power through his internal pathways, using it as a battering ram against his stagnant meridians.

POP! POP!

Two blocked meridian channels in his torso burst open under the immense pressure, allowing his internal energy to flow with three times its previous velocity. His physical body settled into a deep, harmonious state of cultivation.

With the dark storm contained and integrated, Ren’s mind returned to absolute, crystalline clarity.

He re-examined his memories of Issei and the Occult Research Club—this time without emotional bias.

Issei didn’t abandon me maliciously, Ren realized calmly. The night after Raynare attacked us, Issei came straight to my apartment. He didn’t go to his parents or his other friends—he came to me, because I was the only person he trusted enough to share the terrifying truth with.

And when Dohnaseek ambushed us in the alley, Rias and her peerage didn’t ignore me. They healed my injuries without hesitation because it was the natural, right thing to do.

They allowed me into their clubroom. They let me sit on their couch. Rias bantered with me about chess theory, even when she was half-dressed. They spoke to me normally, like an equal.

(End of Ren’s Flashback)

Ren slowly opened his eyes in the quiet, sunlit bedroom.

He took a deep, refreshing neuro-somatic breath, feeling the dense, newly cultivated energy humming steadily within his newly opened meridians. His mind was calm, sharp, and utterly devoid of resentment.

He stretched his limbs, feeling significantly stronger, faster, and more centered than he had been twenty-four hours ago.

I’ll head to school early today, Ren thought, standing up from his bed with a faint, grounded smile. Issei is probably stressing himself out thinking I’m mad at him.

Ren walked over to his closet to grab his Kuoh Academy uniform, completely at peace with his place in the world.

He had no idea that the dark entity he had just bargained with and integrated into his meridian system was not a mere manifestation of his own subconscious emotions—it was the seed of darkness from the harrowing interstice, quietly sprouting deep within his soul.

Sub Section 3: The Strongest Pawn and the Twelve Gates

Issei sat across from Rias’s mahogany desk in the Occult Research Club, staring at the empty, velvet-lined wooden box she had just opened. The afternoon sun caught the dust motes drifting between them, underscoring the weight of the revelation she had just dropped.

“Eight pieces?” Issei repeated, his eyes wide. “Wait, President, I thought a Pawn was just one piece. I used all of them?”

“You did,” Rias smiled, leaning back in her leather chair. “The Evil Piece system assigns a value based on the latent potential and raw power of the soul it resurrects. Because you host the Sacred Gear of a Heavenly Dragon, a single Pawn piece was not enough to anchor your soul to the living world. It took all eight of my Pawns to complete your reincarnation.”

Issei looked down at his left hand, slowly clenching his fingers into a tight fist. He wasn’t just a basic foot soldier; he was the entire frontline defense of the Gremory peerage condensed into a single entity. The sheer weight of Rias’s investment in him ignited a fiery, unyielding resolve in his chest.

“I won’t let you down, President,” Issei declared, his voice ringing with absolute certainty. “If I took all eight pieces, then I’ll just have to do the work of eight men. I’m going to hold the title of the Strongest Pawn. No one will ever touch you or the others while I’m standing.”

Near the clubroom sofa, a bright, melodic laugh broke the serious atmosphere. Asia Argento was sitting with Koneko, her eyes shining with genuine, profound happiness. The fear and loneliness that had haunted her in the church were entirely gone, replaced by the warmth of a family that had quite literally fought a war to bring her home.

“I am so happy to be here,” Asia beamed, clasping her hands together naturally. “Thank you all so much. I must thank the Lord for guiding me to such wonderful—”

She closed her eyes to pray, and instantly let out a sharp, pained yelp, clutching her temples as if a spike had just been driven through her skull.

“Ouch! My head!” Asia whimpered, tears pricking the corners of her eyes.

Akeno walked over, giggling softly behind her hand as she poured Asia another cup of tea. “You have to be careful now, Asia. You are a Devil. The system of Heaven and the light of God are fundamentally opposed to our existence. Simply praying to Him or reading a holy text will give you a terrible migraine, and holy water will burn your skin.”

Asia blinked, rubbing her forehead with a sheepish, slightly overwhelmed smile. “I… I suppose I will have to break a few old habits, then.”

While the Occult Research Club settled into their new dynamic, miles away in his darkened apartment, Ren Nocturnus Veritas was breaking the biological limits of a human baseline.

He sat perfectly still on the floor, stripped to the waist, his skin slick with a heavy layer of sweat. The dark energy he had integrated earlier was not a passive resource; it was a violent, highly conductive fuel, and he was currently using it as a battering ram against his own internal architecture.

In classical eastern martial arts, the human body contained Twelve Great Meridians—primary energetic pathways that governed the flow of life force, stamina, and kinetic output. For a normal human, these pathways were narrow, clogged by physical impurities and biological limitations.

Ren isolated the dark energy within his lower abdomen and violently forced it upward.

Crack.

It wasn’t a physical sound, but a deep, internal release. Ren gritted his teeth as the dark energy surged through the Lung Meridian, searing the pathway open, before cascading into the Large Intestine and Stomach Meridians. The pain was excruciating, like liquid nitrogen and boiling water being pumped through his veins simultaneously, but his neuro-somatic conditioning allowed him to compartmentalize the agony and maintain his breathing rhythm.

He pushed the dark tide further, systematically shattering the blockages in the Heart, Spleen, and Kidney meridians. With every gate that burst open, his physical senses expanded. He could hear the blood pumping through his own capillaries; he could feel the exact gravitational pull anchoring his bones to the floor.

When the twelfth and final meridian cleared, the chaotic dark energy suddenly smoothed into a frictionless, rushing river of absolute power. Ren opened his eyes. The room seemed sharper, the shadows deeper. He clenched his fist, feeling a terrifying, coiled kinetic density in his muscles that vastly eclipsed the physical capabilities of any normal martial artist. The seed of darkness had provided the key, and Ren had just unlocked the door to true superhuman cultivation.

He stood up, walking over to the sink to wash the sweat from his face, entirely unaware of the cosmic origins of the power now flowing through his veins.

The next morning, the sun rose over Kuoh Academy, marking a distinct shift in the air. Ren walked through the school gates, perfectly attuned to his newly opened meridians, and immediately spotted Issei standing near the courtyard entrance. Issei wasn’t alone. Standing beside him, nervously adjusting the collar of her brand-new Kuoh Academy uniform, was Asia Argento.

She caught sight of Ren, her face instantly lighting up with a brilliant smile as she waved excitedly. As Ren walked over to greet the newest transfer student of Class 2-B, he realized the chessboard had completely reset. The skirmishes were over, but a much larger, more dangerous game was just beginning.

Volume 2

Life 1

Section 1

Sub Section 1: The Angel in the Living Room

The plan orchestrated by Rias and the Occult Research Club had moved forward with surprising efficiency. Within twenty-four hours of her resurrection, Asia Argento was standing in the entry hallway of the Hyoudou household, clutching her small travel bag against her chest like a shield.

She bowed so deeply her forehead nearly touched her knees. “I-I am so terribly sorry for the intrusion! My name is Asia Argento. Please forgive me for taking up space in your home!”

Standing on the wooden flooring, Gorou and Miki Hyoudou—Issei’s parents—stared at the blonde girl in absolute, stunned silence.

Issei winced, frantically scratching the back of his neck. “Uh, Mom, Dad… like President Rias explained, Asia doesn’t have anywhere else to go right now, so—”

CLASP!

Before Issei could finish his sentence, his mother lunged forward, grabbing both of Asia’s hands with a gasp that shook the ceiling. Her eyes were sparkling with sheer, unadulterated ecstasy.

“A real girl…” Miki breathed, her voice trembling with emotion. She turned her head toward her husband, tears swelling in the corners of her eyes. “Dear! Look! A real, polite, sweet young girl is standing in our hallway!”

Gorou pulled out a handkerchief, aggressively dabbing his eyes. “I never thought I’d see the day… I was convinced our bloodline was destined to end in a tragic swamp of perversion…”

Asia blinked, utterly bewildered by the warm reception. “Um… am I really not a burden?”

“A burden? Heavens no!” Miki cheered, practically dragging Asia toward the living room table. But as she pulled out a chair for the girl, Miki’s expression softened into a look of genuine, motherly concern. She leaned down, keeping her voice low. “Asia-chan… are you truly sure you want to stay here? Issei is… well…”

“Hey!” Issei squawked from the hallway.

Miki turned to look at her son with a sigh of profound disappointment. “Asia-chan, I have to be honest with you. Every time I go into Issei’s room to do the laundry, I find thick, terrifying stacks of adult magazines hidden under his bed, behind his desk, and tucked inside his closet.”

Issei’s entire brain short-circuited. His jaw dropped so far it nearly hit the floor, his face turning as red as a ripe tomato. “YOU KNEW?! YOU’VE KNOWN THIS ENTIRE TIME?!”

“Of course I knew, you idiot! You hide them behind the curtains like a middle schooler!” Miki snapped back, before turning her gentle gaze back to Asia. “So you see, Asia-chan… are you really alright staying under the same roof as a boy like him? He spends half his free time staring at swimsuit catalogs.”

Issei held his breath, mortified beyond belief, fully expecting Asia to recoil in disgust.

Instead, Asia tilted her head, her deep emerald eyes shining with absolute, unfiltered purity. A breathtakingly radiant smile lit up her face.

“Issei-san is the kindest, most wonderful person in the entire world,” Asia said softly, her voice brimming with absolute sincerity. “When I was all alone and had no one, Issei-san came for me. He risked everything just to save my life. I would be honored to stay here, to assist him, and to learn more about the world by his side.”

Silence fell over the living room.

Gorou and Miki stared at Asia for three full seconds. Then, both parents broke into loud, hysterical blubbering, hugging each other tight as tears cascaded down their cheeks.

“AN ANGEL HAS DESCENDED UPON THE HYOUDOU HOUSEHOLD!” Gorou sobbed toward the ceiling.

“ISSEI, IF YOU EVER MAKE THIS GIRL CRY, WE ARE DISOWNING YOU!” Miki cried out, pointing a dramatic finger at her son.

Issei slumped against the wall, dragging a hand down his face in equal parts embarrassment and immense, quiet relief. “I won’t… I swear I won’t.”

The next morning, the bell for homeroom at Kuoh Academy had not yet rung.

Issei walked into Class 2-B, his backpack slung over his shoulder. The lingering guilt from two nights ago still weighed heavily on his mind. He had barely slept, constantly replaying the moment they had walked out of the ruined church and completely forgotten his best friend on the altar.

He looked toward the window seat—and stopped dead in his tracks.

Ren Nocturnus Veritas was sitting quietly at his desk, casually adjusting his uniform tie. His posture was perfectly upright, his breathing calm, and his dark eyes were looking peacefully out at the cherry blossom trees in the courtyard. The dense, turbulent energy he had contained over the weekend had settled smoothly into his twelve cleared meridians, giving him an air of effortless, grounded composure.

“REN!” Issei screamed, abandoning all sense of decorum as he sprinted across the classroom.

Before Ren could even react, Issei threw his arms around Ren’s shoulders, pulling him into a desperate, tearful bear-hug. “BRO! YOU’RE ALIVE! I’M SO SORRY! WE LEFT YOU IN THAT CREEPY CHURCH AND I DIDN’T REALISE UNTIL WE WERE HALFWAY HOME!”

Ren didn’t even flinch under the sudden impact. His newly cultivated physical density allowed him to absorb Issei’s frantic momentum without his chair sliding an inch.

Ren gently patted Issei’s back with one hand, his expression entirely deadpan. “Issei. Release me. You’re cutting off the airflow to my trachea.”

Issei pulled back, clutching Ren by the shoulders, searching his face for any sign of lingering anger. “Are you mad at us? You can hit me if you want! I deserve it!”

Ren let out a quiet, amused breath, resting his chin on his hand. “Issei, I walked home, ate dinner, slept for eight hours, and cleared my internal energy pathways. I am completely fine. There is no big deal. Sit down before the teacher gets here.”

Issei wiped a tear from his cheek, grinning like a maniac. “Man… you really are the chillest guy on the planet.”

Just as Issei took his seat beside Ren, the front door of the classroom slid open. Their homeroom teacher stepped inside, clapping her hands to get the class’s attention.

“Alright, everyone, take your seats,” the teacher announced with a warm smile. “Before we begin morning announcements, we have a new transfer student joining Class 2-B today. Please welcome her nicely.”

The door slid open further, and Asia Argento stepped into the room, wearing the standard Kuoh Academy girl’s uniform. She held her hands tightly together in front of her skirt, looking nervously at the rows of unfamiliar faces.

Then, her eyes scanned toward the back row—and locked straight onto Ren.

Asia’s eyes went wide. “Ren-san!”

Completely forgetting where she was, forgetting the teacher, and forgetting her planned speech, Asia gasped with pure joy and trotted straight down the aisle between the desks. Before anyone could process what was happening, she threw her arms around Ren, burying her face against his chest in a heartfelt hug.

“Ren-san! You’re safe! I was so worried when I didn’t see you at the clubroom yesterday!” Asia beamed, hugging him tightly.

The entire classroom went dead silent. Thirty pairs of eyes locked onto the scene in absolute shock.

Ren blinks, his dark eyes looking down at the blonde girl clinging to his blazer. He raised a hand and gently patted her head. “Asia. I am completely fine. But… I believe you have an introduction to give to the class.”

Asia froze. She slowly turned her head, realizing that the teacher, Issei, and every single student in Class 2-B were staring at her.

A bright, fiery blush exploded across Asia’s cheeks. “A-Ah! I-I am so terribly sorry!” She squeaked, bowing frantically to Ren before scrambling back to the front podium, her face burning like a lightbulb.

“Ahem,” the teacher cleared her throat, chuckling softly. “Go ahead, dear.”

Asia took a deep, shaky breath, placing her hands on her chest to steady her beating heart. “H-Hello, everyone. My name is Asia Argento. I recently moved here from Europe… I am still learning many things about Japan, but I hope we can all be wonderful friends!”

She offered a sweet, breathtakingly innocent smile to the room.

Instantly, the atmosphere in Class 2-B shifted.

“She’s so cute!” several girls whispered, clutching their cheeks. “Look at how gentle her aura is!”

“An angel…” the boys murmured in collective reverent awe. “An actual angel just transferred into our class!”

Hands immediately shot up across the room.

“Argento-san! What are your hobbies?”

“I love taking walks and looking at flowers!” Asia answered with a bright, friendly smile.

“Argento-san! What kind of food do you like?”

“Issei-san’s mother made delicious miso soup for me this morning!” Asia replied warmly.

The boys practically swooned. Her complete lack of pretense and sweet, approachable demeanor were miles apart from the distant, untouchable beauty of Rias Gremory or Akeno Himejima. To the male population of Class 2-B, Asia was a pure, heavenly gift.

Then, a student in the front row asked the fatal question.

“Argento-san, where are you living right now? Did your family move here with you?”

Asia smiled brightly, answering without a single drop of hesitation. “Oh! I don’t have any family here, so I am staying at Issei-san’s house!”

The air in the classroom instantly plummeted by twenty degrees.

Asia, completely unaware of the nuclear bomb she had just dropped, continued with pure, innocent enthusiasm. “Issei-san was kind enough to open his home to me! I get to witness so many of his daily habits, and I am just so happy to be around him and assist him every day!”

SNAP.

The sound of several mechanical pencils snapping simultaneously echoed through the dead-silent classroom.

Issei froze in his seat, his skin turning deathly pale as he felt a wave of absolute, murderous intent rolling toward him from every single male student in the room. Lenses gleamed in the light; knuckles cracked like lightning.

“Issei…” a boy in the front row growled, his eyes burning with demonic jealousy. “What… did she just say?”

“He’s living with an angel…” another whispered, his voice dripping with dark rage. “HE’S LIVING WITH AN ACTUAL HOLY MAIDEN!”

Issei slowly raised his hands, sweating bullets. “W-Wait! Guys! It’s not what you think! It’s a complicated situation—”

“DEATH TO HYOUDOU ISSEI!”

By the time the lunch bell rang, Issei had barely survived four periods of intense, psychological warfare. The boys of Class 2-B had subjected him to endless glares, paper-airplane assaults, and ominous threats of exile. The only safe zone in the room was the small radius around Ren’s desk, where Ren quietly ate his bento, completely ignored by the angry mob due to his stoic, neutral presence.

Eventually, the initial wave of rage passed, leaving the classroom in a tense stalemate.

Over by the back window, Matsuda and Motohama sat slumped over their desks, staring blankly at the ceiling in soul-crushing despair.

“It’s over, Motohama…” Matsuda whimpered, clutching his heart. “The world is fundamentally broken. Issei has betrayed the pervert alliance. First he hangs out with the Occult Research Club, and now a cute blonde transfer student is living in his house…”

“He’s living the harem dream while we rot in the barren wasteland of singlehood…” Motohama groaned, pushing his glasses up his nose with a trembling, tearful hand. “All the girls are flocking to him… We’re just trash…”

“Um… excuse me?”

A soft, melodic voice broke through their depression. Matsuda and Motohama slowly lifted their heads.

Asia was standing beside their desks, holding her neatly packed lunchbox. She looked at them with wide, curious eyes. “Are you Matsuda-san and Motohama-san?”

Matsuda blinked, pointing a thumb at his own chest. “Uh… yeah? That’s us…”

Asia’s face instantly lit up with a brilliant, joyful smile. “I knew it! Issei-san told me so much about you two!”

Matsuda and Motohama froze. “He… he did?”

“Yes!” Asia clasped her hands together, nodding enthusiastically. “Issei-san said you two are his absolute best friends in the entire school! He told me how much he loves hanging out with you, and how you always stick together through thick and thin! He said that even though you can be a little wild sometimes, you’re truly wonderful, reliable people!”

Asia took a small step closer, bowing slightly to them. “Issei-san cares about you both so much. He said he couldn’t imagine high school without you. So… if it’s alright with you, I would love to be your friend too!”

Matsuda and Motohama stared at Asia in absolute, breathless shock.

The image of Issei they had built in their minds—a traitorous, arrogant harem king who had abandoned them—instantly shattered into a million pieces, replaced by a heroic, glowing vision of their true brother.

He… he talked about us to the cute girl? Matsuda thought, tears welling up in his eyes.

He didn’t abandon us… He elevated us! Motohama realized, his jaw trembling.

In unison, both perverts burst into loud, ugly, fountain-like tears of pure, unadulterated ecstasy, throwing their arms around each other’s shoulders as they howled toward the ceiling.

“ISSEIIIIII!” Matsuda roared through his tears. “YOU BEAUTIFUL BASTARD! WE WERE SO WRONG ABOUT YOU!”

“YOU NEVER FORGOT THE BROTHERHOOD!” Motohama sobbed hysterically. “YOU’RE THE GREATEST FRIEND A MAN COULD EVER ASK FOR!”

From his desk a few feet away, Issei—who was currently nursing a bump on his head from an earlier eraser thrown by a jealous classmate—looked over at Matsuda and Motohama crying like babies in front of a smiling, clueless Asia.

Issei let out a long, exhausted sigh, a warm smile creeping onto his face as he looked at Ren.

Ren took a quiet bite of his rice, returning Issei’s look with a subtle, approving nod.

“See?” Ren murmured calmly, setting his chopsticks down. “A good move always opens up the rest of the board.”

Sub Section 2: The Tactical Reconnaissance

The lunch hour was drawing to a close, and a comfortable, warm breeze drifted through the open windows of Class 2-B. Asia had happily trotted off to help the homeroom teacher sort some paperwork, leaving Issei alone at his desk.

Matsuda and Motohama slowly walked over, their earlier joyous tears drying into a slightly melancholic expression.

“Hey, Issei,” Matsuda said, scratching his cheek awkwardly. “We really appreciate what you said to Argento-san… but, man, it feels like we never hang out anymore. You’re always with the Occult Research Club after school.”

Motohama adjusted his glasses, looking at the floor. “Yeah. It feels like the old trio is dead.”

Issei looked at his two best friends, a heavy wave of guilt washing over him. It was true. Between the training, the demon contracts, and the life-or-death battles with Fallen Angels, he had completely neglected the normal, mundane high school life he used to share with them.

“You guys aren’t dead to me,” Issei said firmly, standing up from his desk. “I’m sorry I’ve been so distant. Tell you what—after school today, I’m all yours. We’ll do whatever you want.”

Matsuda’s eyes lit up instantly. “Really?! Then we’re doing the classics! A high-risk, high-reward tactical infiltration of the physical education building! We’re going peeping, brother!”

Issei’s smile froze.

In truth, the idea of crawling through dusty air ducts to catch a blurry, long-distance glimpse of a sports bra had entirely lost its appeal. Over the past week, he had accidentally walked in on Rias changing, seen Akeno in various states of undress, and shared a roof with Asia. His baseline for visual stimulation had been permanently shattered by High-Class Devils and Angels.

“Uh… sure,” Issei lied through his teeth, trying to muster some enthusiasm for the sake of his friends. “Yeah, sounds great.”

“We need a fourth,” Motohama declared, turning his head toward the back row. “Ren! You’re coming too, right?”

Ren was quietly reading a thick, leather-bound book on Eastern meridian theory. He didn’t look up from the page. “I have absolutely no interest in watching teenagers change their gym clothes.”

Matsuda and Motohama instantly deflated, their shoulders slumping in synchronized depression. “Come on, Ren… you used to be right there in the trenches with us…”

Ren let out a quiet sigh, gently closing his book. He looked at the three boys, his dark eyes analyzing their pathetic, pleading expressions.

“I am not interested in the objective,” Ren stated calmly, standing up from his chair. “However, I acknowledge that the structural integrity of this friend group requires maintenance. Therefore, I will act as your vanguard. I will map the patrol routes, bypass the security locks, and deliver you to a secure observation point. Once the infiltration is complete, I am leaving.”

Matsuda and Motohama gasped, their eyes shining with sheer awe. “A tactical extraction… Ren, you’re a god!”

Three hours later, the afternoon sun cast long shadows across the physical education building.

The infiltration was flawless. It was almost frighteningly clinical.

Ren moved through the shadowy corridors like a ghost, his twelve cleared meridians allowing him to regulate his internal body temperature and heartbeat, rendering him virtually invisible to standard human awareness. He led the trio through a blind spot in the faculty patrol route, bypassed a locked utility door using a basic hairpin tension wrench in under four seconds, and guided them up a narrow maintenance shaft overlooking the first-year girls’ locker room.

“Clear,” Ren whispered, his voice barely a breath as he popped the ventilation grate open half an inch.

Matsuda and Motohama scrambled forward, pressing their faces against the narrow gap. Below them, a dozen first-year girls were chatting happily as they changed out of their gym uniforms.

“Jackpot…” Matsuda whispered, tears of joy streaming down his face.

“The tactical layout is perfect,” Motohama breathed heavily, his glasses fogging up.

Issei, who had genuinely believed he was over this kind of mischief, found himself inching forward. As he caught sight of the lively, energetic first-years below, his dormant perverted instincts suddenly flared back to life.

Wow… I guess I really am just a degenerate at heart! Issei thought, his face flushing red as he eagerly joined his friends at the grate.

Ren stood in the shadows behind them, completely unmoved. He had completed his end of the social contract. Without making a single sound, Ren turned around, slipped back down the maintenance shaft, and vanished into the afternoon air.

Down below, the locker room door swung open. A petite, silver-haired girl with a stoic expression walked in, carrying her folded uniform.

It was Koneko Toujou.

Issei’s blood ran cold. Wait… Koneko is a first-year! This is her class!

Before Issei could grab Matsuda and Motohama to abort the mission, Koneko paused near her locker. She didn’t look up. She didn’t shout. She simply turned her head slightly, her golden eyes locking onto the exact coordinate of the ventilation grate hidden in the ceiling shadows. She had smelled them the moment they crawled into the shaft.

Issei swallowed hard. We are so dead.

Twenty minutes later, the Occult Research Club doors slammed open.

A heavily bruised, battered, and groaning Issei was unceremoniously dragged into the room by the collar of his shirt and dumped onto the carpet. Koneko stood over him, casually dusting off her hands with an expression of profound, absolute disgust.

“Trash,” Koneko muttered, walking over to the sofa and sitting down.

Rias, Akeno, and Asia looked up from the tea table, blinking in surprise.

“Issei-san!” Asia gasped, rushing over to kneel beside him. “What happened? Were you attacked by Fallen Angels again?!”

“No,” Koneko deadpanned, taking a sip of her tea. “He and his idiot friends were crawling through the ceiling of the first-year locker room like rats.”

Rias paused, her teacup halfway to her lips, while Akeno let out a long, amused, “Oh my…”

Asia’s face fell into a look of deep, genuine confusion. She gently patted Issei’s bruised cheek. “Issei-san… if you really wanted to see a girl undress… why didn’t you just ask? I would have undressed for you anytime you wanted.”

Issei choked on his own spit, his face instantly turning a violent shade of red. “A-Asia! You can’t just say things like that! And that wasn’t what this was about! I swear!”

Rias sighed, resting her chin on her hand, a faint, teasing smile playing on her lips. “Really, Issei. You have already seen me without my clothes multiple times. If you are that desperate for visual stimulation, as your master, I suppose I could accommodate you. There is no need to resort to petty voyeurism.”

“President, please! You’re making it worse!” Issei pleaded from the floor, waving his hands frantically. “I wasn’t actually trying to peep! Matsuda and Motohama were feeling depressed because we haven’t been hanging out. I just agreed to go along with them to cheer them up! It was a bonding exercise!”

Koneko set her teacup down, narrowing her golden eyes slightly. “When I entered the room, I sensed four distinct heat signatures in the ventilation shaft. But when I broke through the ceiling, there were only three of you. Where was the fourth?”

Issei groaned, sitting up and rubbing the lump on his head. “That was Ren. But he wasn’t peeping. He literally just picked the locks, guided us through the blind spots, opened the grate, and immediately walked away.”

The clubroom fell silent.

“Ren?” Rias asked, her brow furrowing in genuine surprise. “He assisted a voyeuristic infiltration, but refused to actually partake in the objective?”

“Yeah,” Issei sighed, looking down at the floor. “He told us he has zero interest in that stuff anymore. He only came along to act as our tactical guide because he felt bad for Matsuda and Motohama.”

Akeno tapped her cheek, a thoughtful look crossing her face. “You know, President… I have been hearing rumors among the student body recently. Before the incident in the park with Raynare, Ren was heavily associated with Issei’s… particular hobbies.”

“I remember,” Rias nodded slowly. “They were the ‘Perverted Quartet’ of the second year.”

“But the rumors say he changed drastically after that week,” Akeno continued, her tone shifting into a more analytical register. “Students have reported seeing him walking through the school hallways entirely blindfolded, navigating purely by sound and air pressure. When asked why, he reportedly stated that closing his eyes was the most efficient way to purge visual distractions and perverted thoughts.”

Koneko looked toward the window, her stoic expression softening into a look of quiet, begrudging respect. “He successfully masked his scent and thermal output well enough that I didn’t sense his departure from the shaft.”

Rias leaned back in her chair, a complex, assessing gleam in her crimson eyes. The boy they had left behind in the ruined church wasn’t just a baseline human anomaly. He was evolving, shedding his adolescent flaws and forging himself into a weapon of pure, frictionless discipline.

“It seems,” Rias murmured quietly, “the rumors are entirely true.”

Sub Section 3: Rias Sona Rivalry

The rivalry between Rias Gremory and Sona Sitri, the Student Council President, was an open secret that practically dictated the social hierarchy of Kuoh Academy. Whenever the two heiresses clashed, the entire school ground to a halt to watch.

The spark for this particular afternoon’s conflict was ignited during the lunch hour, when Sona adjusted her glasses in the Occult Research Club room and formally introduced her newest pawn: a loud, aggressively eager blonde boy named Genshirou Saji. With both High-Class Devils having recently acquired new, highly unusual human pieces, a proxy war was inevitable.

It began with tennis. The school’s tennis courts were completely swarmed by the male student body, who packed against the chain-link fences like sardines. Rias and Sona, dressed in incredibly form-fitting athletic wear, rallied the ball back and forth with terrifying, superhuman velocity. Every explosive volley sent shockwaves across the clay, while the boys in the stands howled in perverted ecstasy as the girls’ skirts fluttered and their assets bounced with every sprint.

The athletic warfare escalated through a series of sports, ending in a massive, chaotic game of dodgeball in the main gymnasium. To settle the score, Sona and Rias conscripted members from the Student Council, the Occult Research Club, and a large handful of regular students from their respective classes to pad the teams.

The game quickly devolved into a supernatural battlefield thinly veiled as a gym class activity. Issei and Saji threw balls at each other with enough kinetic force to dent the wooden floorboards, while Kiba and the Student Council members unleashed a barrage of rapid-fire throws. The crowd roared, fully expecting the match to boil down to a final, dramatic showdown between Rias and Sona.

Instead, the gymnasium witnessed an absolute anomaly.

Ren Nocturnus Veritas had been drafted onto Rias’s side simply to fill the roster. He had stood near the backline for the entire game, completely silent, with his eyes half-closed and his hands casually stuffed into the pockets of his gym shorts.

When a stray ball, thrown at breakneck speed by the Student Council’s rook, careened directly toward his face, Ren didn’t even flinch. He simply tilted his head two inches to the left. The ball grazed his ear, blowing his hair back, and slammed into the wall behind him.

Sona narrowed her eyes, instantly signaling her entire frontline to target the quiet boy. Five dodgeballs were hurled at Ren simultaneously from different angles.

Ren let out a slow, neuro-somatic exhale. His twelve newly opened meridians hummed to life, projecting a spherical field of absolute spatial awareness around his body. He stepped forward. He pivoted on his heel, letting one ball whiz past his chest. He bent backward at a gravity-defying angle, allowing two more to sail over his nose. He swayed like a willow branch in a hurricane, completely untouchable.

It was a display of pure, predictive evasion that defied human biology, mirroring the profound haki training he had studied in his private time. He wasn’t tracking the balls with his eyes; he was reading the displaced air pressure and the micro-movements of his opponents’ shoulders before they even threw.

By the time the ten-minute timer rang out, the rest of the court was utterly exhausted, panting and bruised. Ren was the only player remaining untouched, casually holding a dodgeball in one hand, completely devoid of a single drop of sweat. He had won the match by sheer, impossible attrition.

The gymnasium fell into a stunned, deafening silence, shattered only when Rias began to clap, her crimson eyes gleaming with a mixture of awe and intense curiosity.

Two hours later, the sun was beginning to set, casting long, golden shadows across the empty back courtyard of the old school building.

Ren moved across the rooftops with absolute, frictionless grace. He was practicing urban parkour, utilizing the dense energy of his internal meridians to achieve explosive vertical leaps and silent landings. He vaulted over the edge of the physical education building, dropping twenty feet and rolling seamlessly onto the grass to disperse the kinetic impact.

As he stood up, he noticed a small gathering near the edge of the woods.

Issei was on the ground, his arms shaking violently as he attempted to push himself up from the dirt. He was drenched in sweat, his face purple with exertion. Rias stood over him with a stern, authoritative expression, while Asia hovered nearby, holding a towel and looking incredibly worried.

“Ninety-eight… ninety… nine…” Issei gasped, his elbows buckling.

“Push through it, Issei,” Rias commanded firmly. “The Boosted Gear multiplies your base power, but if your physical vessel is weak, the recoil will shatter your bones. You need to do another set of fifty.”

Issei collapsed flat onto his stomach, groaning into the dirt. “President… even if I wanted to… my arms are literally made of jelly right now. I can’t lift an inch.”

“If you repeatedly overload the anterior chain without allowing for muscular hypertrophy and cellular repair, you will only achieve muscle catabolism, not growth,” a calm voice interrupted.

Rias, Issei, and Asia turned to see Ren walking out from the shadows of the trees, his breathing perfectly regulated despite his intense parkour routine.

“Ren-san!” Asia beamed, her worry instantly fading into a bright smile.

Ren nodded to her, then crouched down beside Issei. He pulled a small, leather-bound notebook from his pocket and flipped it open, revealing a highly detailed, hand-drawn schematic of the human muscular anatomy.

“Push-ups heavily tax the pectoralis major, the anterior deltoids, and the triceps brachii,” Ren explained smoothly, tracing the muscle groups with his pen. “By forcing your body past total muscular failure on a single exercise, you are risking acute tendon inflammation. If you want a stronger vessel for your Sacred Gear, Issei, you need to engage the posterior chain—your latissimus dorsi, your rhomboids, and your lower body kinematics. Squats, pull-ups, and core stabilization will serve you far better right now than doing another fifty useless push-ups.”

Issei pushed himself up onto his knees, staring at the detailed anatomy diagrams in Ren’s notebook with wide, bewildered eyes.

“Dude…” Issei panted, wiping sweat from his forehead. “Since when are you a fitness guru? I thought you were just a degenerate otaku like me, Matsuda, and Motohama!”

Ren closed the notebook with a soft snap, standing up. “I am an otaku, Issei. But my palette is significantly broader than yours. While you three were obsessing exclusively over harem tropes, ecchi, and forbidden romance, I was consuming everything. Shonen, seinen, dark fantasy, military history, tactical espionage, wuxia, and murim martial arts.”

Ren looked down at his own hands, casually clenching his fists to feel the dense kinetic energy coiled in his forearms. “When I wasn’t hanging out with you guys, I wasn’t just sitting in my room reading manga. I was attempting to replicate the internal energy cultivation and martial principles I read about. This is what I’ve always done in my private time.”

Issei blinked, a look of profound realization crossing his face. “So… you actually train?”

“I do,” Ren admitted calmly. He looked at Issei, then at Rias, and finally at Asia. “I won’t lie. I was absolutely invested in the perverted and harem genres alongside you three. But then… reality happened.”

Ren’s dark eyes softened slightly, though his posture remained utterly grounded. “I watched you get resurrected by a beautiful, high-class demon. I watched you gain an incredible power. I see you now, hanging out with Rias, Akeno, Koneko, and living under the same roof as Asia. I’ll admit it—at first, it made me incredibly depressed. I felt exactly the same despair that Matsuda and Motohama are feeling right now.”

Issei winced, a heavy wave of guilt washing over him.

“But there is a distinct difference between me and the other two,” Ren continued, his tone shifting from reflective to entirely analytical. “Matsuda and Motohama are still clinging to the fantasy. I just… lost interest. The appeal completely evaporated. If I read a harem or ecchi manga now, it’s strictly to analyze the comedic timing. The underlying desire is gone.”

Rias’s expression softened into one of genuine, aristocratic empathy. She took a step forward, resting a hand over her heart. “I am truly sorry to hear that, Ren. It was never my intention to make you feel inferior, or to cause you emotional distress by bringing Issei into my world.”

Ren let out a light, breathy chuckle, his face breaking into a casual, highly approachable smile. He waved his hand dismissively.

“Don’t apologize, President. It’s perfectly fine,” Ren said warmly, bearing no trace of malice or resentment. “I don’t know about Issei, Motohama, or Matsuda, but I always had two very distinct goals for my life. One was the standard, degenerate teenage harem dream. The other was to push the absolute limits of human potential, become overwhelmingly powerful, and explore the deepest, most dangerous secrets this world has to offer.”

Ren looked up at the twilight sky, his newly opened meridians humming in quiet resonance with the fading light.

“The universe looked at my situation and gave a very definitive, undeniable ‘no’ to the first goal,” Ren smiled, shrugging his shoulders. “So, it just made my choices easier. I’m pivoting. I am going to pursue the second goal with everything I have.”

He reached down, giving Issei a friendly, encouraging pat on the shoulder. “Don’t skip leg day, Issei. Your dragon is heavy; you’re going to need strong knees to carry it.”

With a final, polite nod to Rias and Asia, Ren turned around and walked away across the courtyard. He vanished into the evening shadows, leaving the Red-Haired Ruin Princess, the Holy Maiden, and the Red Dragon Emperor staring in absolute silence at the retreating back of a boy who had just declared war on the limits of humanity.

Sub Section 4: The Familiar Hunt and the Crucible of Shadows

While the grand machinery of supernatural diplomacy churned forward, the Occult Research Club and the Student Council embarked on a joint expedition into the mythical Familiar Forest. Because Ren was an unaligned human possessing no devil contract or peerage piece, he was entirely excluded from the outing—a fact that suited his training schedule perfectly.

The expedition itself was an absolute comedy of errors.

Issei had spent three days hyping himself up, fully convinced he was going to tame a legendary, ultra-voluptuous female dragon or a drop-dead gorgeous cat-girl familiar. Instead, the team was greeted by the eccentric Familiar Master, Zatouji, who wore a ridiculous safari hat and spoke like an over-enthusiastic game show host.

The forest quickly spiraled into chaotic absurdity. Saji was hunted down and traumatized by a swarm of hyper-aggressive Sprite Sprites, screaming for his life while running in circles. Issei’s heroic dreams were utterly vaporized when he encountered a legendary Sprite Slime—a creature that possessed the terrifying, acidic ability to dissolve clothes while leaving the wearer completely unharmed. Issei wept tears of perverted joy as the slime targeted the girls, only to be promptly beaten into a bloody pulp by a combined strike from Koneko and Rias. In the end, while Saji bound himself to a bizarre Sprite Sprite, Issei walked away from the mystical realm with nothing more than a tiny, green, glass-like slime that he named “Ryuuteimaru,” his grand dreams of a familiar harem thoroughly crushed.

Meanwhile, miles away from the chaos of the Familiar Forest, Ren was turning his body and soul into a crucible.

In the secluded, overgrown courtyard behind his apartment complex, Ren began his session by stripping his physical conditioning back down to raw geometry. Having shattered the limits of his Twelve Great Meridians, his body possessed an unprecedented density of kinetic potential. But power without elasticity was brittle.

He initiated deep, hyper-extensive stretching routines, forcing his tendons and fascia to adapt to his newly expanded energy threshold. He moved into complex acrobatic flows—cat-leaps, aerial flips, handstand wall-runs, and instant directional shifts. His joints popped in rhythmic succession, expanding his range of motion until his body could contort and spring without a single millisecond of mechanical delay.

Next came the tactical espionage protocols.

The church raid and his recent infiltration of the school gym had revealed a glaring gap in his movement repertoire: standard martial arts footwork was designed for ring fighting or open battle, not low-profile tactical infiltration.

Inspired by the tactical espionage mechanics of Metal Gear Solid, Ren spent hours practicing low-profile soldier mechanics. He executed high-speed prone crawls across the damp grass, dragging his torso with minimal vertical displacement. He practiced rapid sideways rolls, transitioning smoothly from a roll directly into an ankle-high low crawl, keeping his head down below shoulder height while maintaining an astonishing forward velocity. He mastered the crouch-dash—a low-center-of-gravity glide that allowed him to move at near-sprint speeds while keeping his body folded under standard window-height cover.

He then synthesized these military drills with classical ninja principles. He focused on weightless kinetic transfer—stepping from heel to lateral toe to completely silence his footfalls on dry leaves and gravel. He learned to collapse his presence, actively dampening his thermal output, heart rate, and air-pressure footprint until he could pass within inches of a prowling stray cat without setting off its instincts.

With his stealth and physical frame calibrated, Ren integrated his foundational martial arts: striking, grappling, dodging, evading, and blocking.

THUMP.

Ren drove a simple straight punch toward the air. But this time, he didn’t just snap his hip. He channeled a surge of black internal energy straight from his lower dantian, surging it through his newly cleared Arm-Taiyin Lung Meridian and driving it out through his knuckles.

The displacement of air was instantaneous. A localized shockwave burst forward, flattening the tall grass fifteen feet ahead of him with a deafening crack.

Ren stared at his fist. The integration of his cleared meridians with the dark internal energy transformed basic physical mechanics into devastating spatial strikes. A standard palm strike now carried enough kinetic density to shatter a Fallen Angel’s light spear at the point of origin; a simple rotational joint-lock could snap supernatural bone structure effortlessly. He no longer needed blessed steel or holy water to survive a confrontation. His bare hands were now fully capable of executing High-Class entities.

Yet, the more he pushed his physical training, the more prominent the dark energy became. It pulsed deep within his chest, heavy, dense, and unnaturally cold.

As the sun set, Ren sat cross-legged in his apartment, dropping into a deep state of neuro-somatic meditation.

Previously, he used neuro-somatic breathing merely to regulate his oxygen intake and smooth out lactic acid in his muscles. Now, he applied the protocol inward, using it to smooth the turbulent flow of the dark internal energy coursing through his twelve meridians.

He slowed his breath. Four seconds in. Four seconds hold. Four seconds out.

As he guided the dark stream through his internal pathways, smoothing out the jagged ripples of the interstice energy, strange, fragmented visions began to bleed into his conscious mind.

It did not feel like a memory. It felt like a surging, multi-layered projection delivered entirely in the second person.

You are standing in the ash of a burning horizon, a cold, collective whisper echoed in his mind, radiating a suffocating wave of ancient, abyssal sorrow. You watched your sky fall. You were left behind in the dark while the light exalted others. You are forgotten. You are the echo of a world that failed to survive.

A storm of random, agonizing negative emotions surged through Ren’s chest—grief from a dead civilization, rage from a betrayal executed thousands of years ago, the crushing despair of infinite souls vanishing into the void across the multiverse.

It was a psychic tide meant to drive a human mind into absolute, screaming madness.

Ren did not scream. He did not flinch.

He sat perfectly still in the darkness of his room, his heart rate remaining at a steady, rhythmic forty beats per minute. His neuro-somatic focus acted as an unbreakable, crystalline mirror. He didn’t absorb the negative emotions, nor did he fight them. He simply observed them from a position of absolute, fascinated detachment.

Fascinating, Ren thought, watching the cosmic fragments of despair drift through his dark energy channels like luminescent dust. So this energy isn’t just raw kinetic fuel. It carries the emotional residue of countless fallen existences.

He didn’t fear the dark whispers. To an otaku who had spent a lifetime studying cosmic horrors, dark fantasy realms, and multiversal lore, the horrifying echoes of the interstice were not a curse—they were an incredible, endless library of raw, unfiltered data.

Ren smoothly wrapped his neuro-somatic breath around the surging negative emotions, compressing them, smoothing them, and weaving them seamlessly back into the steady, frictionless river of his twelve meridians.

He opened his eyes. A faint, imperceptible dark sheen flickered across his pupils before dissolving into total calm. The dark energy was fully smoothed, his meridians were humming with pristine efficiency, and his mind remained absolute master of its domain.

Life 2: I Pick a Fight

Section 1: Calm Before Storm

The afternoon sun cast long, lazy shadows across the Occult Research Club room. Rias Gremory sat at her mahogany desk, reviewing a stack of summon request logs. Akeno Himejima stood beside her, pouring a fresh cup of Darjeeling tea with her usual elegant, enigmatic smile.

“How is our newest Devil progressing with his clients?” Rias asked, not looking up from the paperwork.

“It is quite fascinating, President,” Akeno giggled softly, resting a hand against her cheek. “Issei is still completely inept at manipulating demonic magic, so he hasn’t successfully formalized a single contract yet. However… his clients absolutely adore him.”

Rias paused, looking up in genuine surprise. “Really?”

“Yes. It seems his complete lack of aristocratic Devil pride is his greatest asset,” Akeno explained. “Whether it is listening to an elderly man complain about his aching joints, or helping a lonely housewife carry her groceries, Issei treats them with a clumsy, genuine warmth. He isn’t making magical pacts; he is making friends. The clients are having a genuinely enjoyable time with him.”

Rias smiled warmly, setting her pen down. “A Pawn that leads with his heart. That is exactly why I chose him.”

While Issei was unknowingly charming the human populace through sheer earnestness, Ren was systematically turning himself into a weapon.

In the quiet isolation of his apartment, Ren stood perfectly still in the center of the room. Having cleared the Twelve Great Meridians, his internal architecture was primed. It was time to transition from energy circulation to practical, combat-ready application.

He took a slow neuro-somatic breath and forced the dense, dark energy residing in his lower abdomen to flood his muscular tissue.

Application One: Somatic Overclocking.

Ren vanished from the center of the room. A split second later, the air cracked as he reappeared near the window, his fist stopped exactly one millimeter from the glass. By channeling the dark energy directly into his fast-twitch muscle fibers, his base speed and kinetic strength shattered baseline human limits, elevating his raw stats into the realm of supernatural entities.

Application Two: Dermal Condensation.

Ren shifted his focus, drawing the energy outward. Instead of letting it flow through his muscles, he pushed the dense dark matter to the very surface of his skin, compressing it into a microscopic, frictionless barrier. He picked up a stainless-steel utility knife from his desk and drove the blade directly into his forearm.

Clink.

The blade didn’t even scratch his skin. It felt as though it had struck solid tungsten. The dark energy acted as an impenetrable kinetic armor, fully capable of stopping high-velocity sharp objects without relying on magical shields.

Satisfied with his physical applications, Ren sat down cross-legged on the floor. It was time to delve deeper.

In classical cultivation, the Twelve Great Meridians were rivers that flowed through the body. But the Eight Extraordinary Meridians were the reservoirs—deep, hidden lakes that stored immense volumes of latent power.

Ren closed his eyes, gripping the turbulent, icy power of the interstice, and violently forced it down into the dormant pathways of the Governing Vessel and the Conception Vessel.

The pressure inside his skull was immense. The dark energy fought back, resisting the confinement of the extraordinary channels, but Ren’s neuro-somatic willpower acted like an iron vise. He pushed relentlessly until, one by one, all Eight Extraordinary Meridians burst open, flooding his core with an ocean of condensed, abyssal power.

Suddenly, the absolute silence of his apartment shattered.

Previously, Ren could only feel the raw, second-person negative emotions of the dark energy. Now, with the extraordinary reservoirs open, his perception evolved. He could hear them.

A cacophony of thousands of overlapping, agonizing wails echoed directly into his auditory cortex. It was the screaming chorus of forgotten entities, the wailing of dead worlds lost in the harrowing interstice. There were no visual hallucinations yet, but the sheer volume of the multiversal despair was enough to rupture a normal human’s sanity.

Ren simply listened. He sat quietly in the dark, his expression completely neutral, observing the agonizing cries of the multiverse with pure, clinical fascination.

Later that evening, Issei was lying on his bed, reading a manga and thoroughly enjoying the peacefulness of his room.

A sudden flash of crimson light illuminated his ceiling.

Issei dropped his manga in shock as a teleportation circle etched itself into his floorboards. Rias Gremory stepped out of the magic circle, her face pale, her breathing heavy, and her crimson eyes filled with an uncharacteristic, wild desperation.

“President?!” Issei yelped, scrambling backward against his headboard. “What are you doing here—”

Without a single word, Rias grabbed the hem of her school uniform and pulled it over her head, tossing it onto the floor. She immediately reached back to unhook her bra.

Issei’s brain instantly flatlined. “W-W-Wait! President! What is happening?!”

“There is no time to explain, Issei!” Rias commanded, her voice trembling slightly as she stepped toward the bed, her stunning figure completely exposed to the moonlight. “I need you to take my virginity right now! You took sex education classes, didn’t you? Be a man and do it!”

Issei’s heart hammered against his ribs like a jackhammer. He was paralyzed, caught between the absolute peak of his degenerate dreams and the terrifying realization that his master was acting completely out of character.

Before Issei could even formulate a response, the temperature in the bedroom plummeted to a freezing zero.

A second magic circle, this one shining with a cold, brilliant silver light, materialized directly behind Rias.

“I must say, my lady,” a smooth, chillingly calm female voice echoed through the bedroom.

Rias froze in terror. Issei peeked around her shoulder to see a beautiful woman with long silver hair, dressed in an immaculate French maid outfit, stepping out of the circle. Her eyes were completely devoid of warmth.

“To go so far as to throw away your purity to a low-class reincarnated Devil,” Grayfia Lucifuge said coldly, adjusting the cuffs of her uniform. “It is a truly desperate, unbecoming attempt to cancel your engagement. But I am afraid you are out of time.”

Section 2: Riser Phenix

Sub Section 1: Childish Disappointment

“As a noblewoman, and especially as the heir to the House of Gremory, you are expected to conduct yourself with elegance and wisdom,” Grayfia stated, her voice devoid of inflection but carrying the crushing weight of a glacier. She did not avert her gaze as she looked down at the trembling redhead. “Please put your clothes back on, my lady.”

Rias’s face burned with a mixture of profound shame and terror. Without a word, she hurriedly picked up her uniform from the floor and pulled it back over her shoulders, her previous desperation entirely neutralized by the maid’s freezing presence.

Grayfia turned her silver eyes toward the boy still frozen against his headboard. “I am Grayfia Lucifuge. I serve the House of Gremory.”

Rias finished buttoning her blouse, her hands shaking slightly. “Grayfia… did you come here on your own? Or were you sent by my family? By my brother?”

“Everyone,” Grayfia answered smoothly, her gaze remaining entirely unreadable. “Your father, your brother, and myself. Your actions tonight were highly erratic, Rias.”

Realizing exactly how grave the political and familial situation had become, the fight completely drained out of Rias. She turned to Issei, a look of genuine sorrow and regret crossing her beautiful features. “I’m so sorry, Issei. Please… just forget everything that happened here tonight. I lost my mind for a moment.”

Grayfia tilted her head slightly, her sharp eyes scanning Issei’s magical signature. “Issei… Is this the boy your reports mentioned? The one possessing the soul of the Red Dragon Emperor?”

“Yes,” Rias confirmed quietly.

“I see. Then we will speak of this later. Come, my lady.” Grayfia turned, stepping back into the silver magic circle. Rias gave Issei one last, lingering look of apology before following the silver-haired maid, vanishing into the night and leaving the bedroom in total silence.

Issei sat alone on his bed, the cold night air drifting in through the window. The terrifying political tension of the underworld completely bypassed his brain, replaced instead by a singular, soul-crushing realization: he had been less than ten seconds away from achieving his ultimate harem dream, and it had been snatched away. A profound, hollow depression settled over him.

While Issei wallowed in his ruined teenage fantasy, Ren Nocturnus Veritas was plunging into the deepest, most esoteric layer of martial philosophy.

Having cleared his extraordinary meridians and smoothed the dark interstice energy, Ren recognized that raw kinetic output and elemental manipulation were ultimately finite. To truly ascend, he needed to master the origin point of all supernatural phenomena: Will upon reality.

He had studied the concept through countless fictional mediums. The Occult Research Club called it demonic imagination; mages in Fairy Tail relied on strong emotions; warriors in One Piece utilized Haki—a profound sense of self that allowed them to strike untouchable Logia users or nullify immortal abilities. But stripped of their stylistic flavor, they all traced back to a single, fundamental cosmic truth: divine authority. It was the act of a conscious entity imposing its absolute desire upon the physical world.

Standing in the center of his dark apartment, Ren began to practice.

The vast majority of martial artists only practiced mechanics, forms, and breath control. When they threw a punch, they left the ultimate result to physics and fate. Even the greatest masters only embedded their intent to harm. Ren, however, was practicing how to embed absolute will.

He threw a slow, deliberate palm strike at the empty air. He didn’t just visualize the kinetic transfer; he mentally commanded the space to fracture. When I strike, the opponent falls. It is not a probability; it is a law.

He visualized a reinforced magical barrier. He didn’t imagine hitting it hard enough to break it; he imposed the absolute reality that the shield was already shattered by his touch. He visualized environmental hazards—a man made of lava, a cloud of corrosive poison. He channeled his dark energy not to fight the elements, but to violently erase their right to exist within his immediate vicinity. It was incredibly taxing, a mental strain that dwarfed physical exhaustion, but slowly, the air around Ren’s fists began to warp, bending slightly under the sheer gravitational weight of his imposed reality.

The next afternoon, the atmosphere inside the Occult Research Club was incredibly heavy.

Issei sat on the sofa, still radiating a miserable, zombie-like depression over the previous night’s interrupted climax. Rias sat at her desk with Grayfia standing dutifully behind her, while Akeno, Kiba, Koneko, and Asia stood in tense silence.

Rias took a deep breath, preparing to explain the situation to her peerage.

Before she could speak, a massive magic circle erupted in the center of the room. It wasn’t the crimson of the Gremory clan, but a blazing, fiery orange. A pillar of intense heat washed over the room, and from the flames emerged a tall, blonde young man in a maroon suit, radiating an aura of absolute, unchecked arrogance.

“Rias, my beloved,” Riser Phenex smirked, stepping out of the flames. “I have come to collect you. It is time we return to the Underworld and prepare for our wedding ceremony.”

Rias stood up, her crimson aura flaring in instant defiance. “I have told you a hundred times, Riser. I will not marry you. I will choose my own husband, and I will live my life on my own terms.”

Grayfia stepped forward, her voice cutting through the tension as she looked at Issei and the confused peerage. “Allow me to introduce Riser Phenex, the third son of the noble House of Phenex. He is Lady Rias’s officially arranged fiancé.”

Riser scoffed, waving a hand dismissively. “I truly do not understand how long you intend to keep up this stubborn charade, Rias. You know the reality of our world. The Great War against the Angels and Fallen Angels decimated our population. We lost countless Pureblood Devils. This engagement isn’t just about us; it is a mandate to preserve the Pureblood lineages so our race can survive.”

Sitting on the sofa, Issei froze. The fog of his perverted depression instantly evaporated. He looked at Rias, seeing the deep, painful burden in her eyes. This wasn’t just a rich girl rebelling against her parents; this was the crushing weight of an entire species’ survival being forced onto her shoulders. For the first time, Issei truly understood the political cage his master was trapped in.

“Even so, I refuse to be a broodmare for a man I do not love,” Rias sneered.

Riser’s arrogant smile vanished, replaced by a dark, volatile scowl. He looked around the clubroom, visibly turning up his nose. “I cannot stand the impure, filthy air of this human world. You have played your little games long enough, Rias. If you will not come willingly, I will drag you back by force. Even if I have to burn this miserable human school to the ground and slaughter every single one of your low-class pieces to do it.”

“Try it, Riser,” Rias challenged, her demonic power surging violently enough to crack the windows.

Flames erupted from Riser’s hands, melting the carpet beneath his feet as the two High-Class Devils prepared to tear the room apart.

CRACK.

The temperature in the room instantly dropped below freezing. A suffocating, terrifying pressure slammed into everyone present, forcing Issei and Asia to their knees. Grayfia had taken a single step forward, a fraction of her silver aura leaking into the room.

“In the name of Sirzechs Lucifer, I ask that neither of you take this altercation any further,” Grayfia said, her voice eerily calm, yet promising absolute annihilation. “If you ignore this request, I will personally intervene and subdue you both.”

Rias and Riser immediately broke into a cold sweat. The flames died down, and the crimson aura vanished.

“Hmph,” Riser clicked his tongue, taking a step back. “I am not foolish enough to pick a fight with the strongest Queen in the Underworld. I will back down. For now.”

As the suffocating pressure lifted, Grayfia adjusted her collar, her expression returning to perfect neutrality. Then, she paused, her silver eyes narrowing slightly as she recalled a specific detail from her intelligence briefings.

“Lady Rias,” Grayfia began, turning her head. “When I confirmed the Red Dragon Emperor’s identity last night, I neglected to ask about another anomaly in the reports. My intelligence network noted that during the incident with the Fallen Angel Raynare, a normal human teenager directly engaged the Fallen Angels and survived. Where is this individual?”

“Oh! That’s Ren!” Issei blurted out, jumping up from the sofa. “Hold on, I’ll go get him!”

Before anyone could stop him, Issei sprinted out the door. Less than three minutes later, he returned, dragging a completely unbothered Ren by the sleeve of his uniform.

Ren stepped into the clubroom. He took one look at the melted carpet, the lingering thermal radiation of Riser’s flames, the residual cryogenic chill of Grayfia’s aura, and the intense, assessing stares of every supernatural being in the room.

He didn’t say a word. He simply shoved his hands into his pockets and stood there, observing the aristocratic Devils with the calm, detached fascination of a scientist looking at a new breed of volatile insects.

Sub Section 2: The Fried Chicken and the Rating Game

All eyes in the Occult Research Club shifted to the human who had just been dragged into the room. Riser narrowed his eyes, searching for a demonic aura, a sacred gear, or any trace of magical energy. Finding absolutely nothing, he scoffed.

“This is the human anomaly?” Riser mocked, shaking his head. “He has no mana. No aura. He is just a baseline mortal. Have your standards fallen so low, Rias, that you are employing standard humans to do your dirty work?”

Akeno smiled behind her hand. “Looks can be deceiving, Lord Phenex. He is quite the interesting variable.”

Ren ignored the commentary entirely. He leaned against the wall near the door, his eyes scanning Riser’s posture, thermal output, and center of gravity, quietly calculating exactly how much force it would take to snap the arrogant Devil’s neck.

Before the tension could escalate further, Grayfia stepped to the center of the room. “On behalf of the Gremory and Phenex families, a formal resolution has been proposed to settle this dispute. A Rating Game. Will you reject this as well, Lady Rias?”

“I accept,” Rias answered instantly, her eyes flashing with determination. “I want to do this and get it over with.”

For the benefit of the newer members in the room, Grayfia seamlessly transitioned into an explanation. “A Rating Game is a traditional battle between Devils and their peerages, conducted in a pocket dimension. Historically, it was used to measure a Devil’s military might. In the modern era, it serves a dual purpose: it provides crucial battle experience for the servants, and it acts as a stage for the master to display their tactical leadership and strategic merit.”

Riser let out a condescending laugh. “Are you entirely sure about this, Rias? You have never participated in a single Rating Game. I have fought in several, and I remain undefeated. Furthermore, look at your peerage. You have a Knight, a Bishop, a Rook, and a completely untrained Pawn. That is hardly a vanguard.”

Riser snapped his fingers.

The room was instantly flooded with a blinding array of teleportation circles. When the light faded, fifteen girls materialized behind Riser, filling the clubroom to the brim.

“Allow me to introduce my complete set,” Riser smirked, gesturing grandly. “My Queen, Yubelluna. My Bishop, Mihae. My Knights, Karlamine and Siris. My Rooks, Isabela and Xuelan. And my Pawns: the twins Ile and Nel, the twins Ni and Li, Marion, Bülent, Shuriya, and Mira.”

Riser spread his arms, basking in the glory of his fully assembled, entirely female peerage. He expected Rias to look intimidated. He expected the Gremory servants to tremble.

What he did not expect was for Issei to fall to his knees, clutching his chest as he openly wept tears of profound, agonizing complexity.

Issei was vibrating with a mixture of overwhelming awe, sheer terror, and soul-crushing envy. A master with an entire harem of beautiful women representing every single archetype—maids, knights, twins in gym bloomers, mature women—it was the exact dream Issei had sworn his life to achieve.

Riser blinked, completely thrown off balance by the crying boy. He pointed a finger at Issei. “Rias… what is wrong with your Pawn? Is he having a seizure?”

Rias dragged a hand down her face, sighing heavily. “Issei’s ultimate life goal is to become a Harem King. You are currently standing in front of his manifested dream.”

Ile and Nel, the twin Pawns dressed in pristine school gym uniforms, looked down at Issei in disgust. “Gross,” they said in perfect unison.

“Now, now, my sweet Pawns,” Riser purred, walking over to the twins and pulling them flush against his chest. “Do not be too harsh. It is completely natural for a filthy, low-class Devil to look upon the glory of the high-class and weep with envy.”

Riser smirked. He grabbed Ile by the chin and leaned down, pressing his lips against hers in a deep, aggressive French kiss. A second later, he pulled back and captured Nel’s lips, continuing the passionate display. Throughout the entire kiss, Riser kept his eyes locked dead onto Issei, his gaze transmitting a clear, agonizing message: Look at this. You will never, ever have this.

Riser pulled back from the panting twins, wiping his mouth. “You will never have what I have, boy.”

“DON’T SAY EXACTLY WHAT I WAS THINKING!” Issei shrieked, scrambling to his feet, his face red with rage and jealousy. “You’re the worst! You’re a terrible match for the President! Even if you marry her, you’re just going to keep messing around with all these other girls!”

“I thought you admired players, boy,” Riser laughed, wrapping an arm around the waist of Bülent, who was dressed in a classic maid outfit. “I am their master, their hero. They demand my affection, and as a noble, it is my duty to provide it.”

“You aren’t a hero, you’re a seed-scattering bird!” Issei yelled, pointing an accusing finger. “Actually, no, you’re just a giant fried chicken! You’re a rooster trying to mate with as many hens as possible!”

Riser’s smug expression instantly vanished, replaced by a dark, murderous glare. “How dare you… Rias, how exactly have you raised your servants to speak to a pureblood noble this way?”

Rias simply looked away, ignoring him while silently agreeing with every word Issei had just said.

“I’ll show you how she raised me!” Issei roared. A crimson gauntlet materialized on his left arm, the Boosted Gear flaring to life with a mechanical hum. “I’m going to beat the aristocratic smugness right out of you!”

Riser let out a long, exhausted sigh. “What an absolute pain. Mira.”

A small girl wielding a heavy metal staff stepped forward.

Issei charged, pulling his fist back. But as he looked at Mira, his hesitation spiked. She was just a small girl. He didn’t want to punch her in the face. Instead of striking, Issei awkwardly lunged forward, trying to grab the staff out of her hands to disarm her.

It was a fatal, amateur mistake.

Mira didn’t even blink. She sidestepped Issei’s clumsy grab, swept her staff behind his knees, and drove the blunt end directly into his sternum. Issei gasped, the wind completely knocked out of his lungs, and crashed hard onto the floorboards, utterly incapacitated in less than two seconds.

Riser walked over, gently patting Mira on the head. Her stoic battle expression instantly melted into a bright, happy smile as she leaned into her master’s touch.

“Mira is the absolute weakest of my Pawns,” Riser sneered, looking down at Issei wheezing on the floor. “But in terms of quality, combat experience, and sheer instinct as a Devil, she eclipses you completely. Do not make me laugh, boy. Even the most frightening Sacred Gear in history is useless if the user is incompetent. Pearls before swine.”

Riser turned his back on Issei, looking thoughtfully at Rias. “Actually… if I crush him now, this Rating Game will be horribly boring. A show requires at least a little tension.” Riser smiled arrogantly. “I will grant you ten days to prepare before the Rating Game.”

“That is not necessary,” Rias shot back, her pride stinging. “We can begin the match immediately.”

“Do not be foolish, Rias,” Riser said, his tone dropping its theatrical arrogance for a moment of cold, undeniable logic. He pointed at Issei on the floor. “Look at what just happened. Your Pawn hesitated because he was fighting a girl, and he was instantly neutralized. I have seen countless geniuses fall on the battlefield because their masters could not lead them properly. If you honestly believe you can defeat my entire experienced peerage with nothing but your naive passion, you are thoroughly delusional.”

Rias gritted her teeth. She couldn’t refute a single word. Her tactical leadership was untested, and her strongest piece was currently gasping for air on the carpet. “I understand,” she said quietly.

“Good.” Riser turned his gaze toward Issei, and then, his eyes drifted to the quiet human still leaning against the wall by the door. “Make use of these ten days, boy, so you can at least entertain me before you die. And that goes for your little human friend, too.”

Sub Section 3: The Mortal Vanguard

Ren pushed himself off the wall, his hands casually slipping out of his pockets as he walked toward the center of the clubroom.

“I am not a part of the Gremory peerage,” Ren stated, his voice perfectly even, betraying no intimidation in the face of the Phenex heir. “Even if President Rias allowed me to join her vanguard, the rules of a Rating Game strictly govern reincarnated and pureblood Devils. I am a baseline human. I cannot participate.”

Riser blinked, looking down his nose at the boy. “Pardon me, then. I assumed the trash was collected together.”

“However,” Ren continued, stopping just a few feet away from the aristocrat, “if you genuinely want to fight me, it has to be right now. Because you will not get another chance on the board.”

Riser let out a sharp, incredulous laugh. “Another cheeky brat.”

He didn’t even need to give a command. Mira, having just easily dispatched Issei, immediately spun her heavy metal staff and launched herself at Ren, aiming a brutal sweeping strike at his ribs.

Ren didn’t blink. He didn’t even shift into a combat stance. As the metal staff blurred toward him, he simply stepped a half-inch inside her guard, bypassing the weapon’s kinetic arc entirely. With a clinical, effortless motion, Ren drove the edge of his hand directly into the side of Mira’s neck. The strike pinched her vagus nerve with pinpoint accuracy. Mira’s eyes rolled back, and she collapsed to the carpet without a single sound.

The clubroom went dead silent.

“MIRA!” Ile and Nel shrieked in unison.

The twin Pawns instantly summoned massive, roaring chainsaws, their gym uniforms fluttering as they charged Ren with murderous intent.

Ren exhaled a quiet neuro-somatic breath. As Ile swung horizontally, Ren ducked underneath the roaring teeth of the blade, stepping into her space. He executed a flawless CQC disarm, grabbing her wrist, twisting the joint past its mechanical limit, and using her own momentum to hurl her directly into Nel. As the twins collided in a tangle of limbs and dropped chainsaws, Ren delivered a swift, devastating sweeping kick that sent them crashing into the wall, completely unconscious.

The remaining Pawns—Ni, Li, Marion, Bülent, and Shuriya—erupted in outrage. Abandoning all formation, the five girls charged Ren simultaneously from multiple angles.

It was a massacre disguised as a martial arts exhibition.

Ren flowed through their coordinated strikes like water slipping through jagged rocks. His cleared meridians hummed, feeding him impossible kinetic speed and spatial awareness. He parried Marion’s strike with the back of his hand, used the momentum to drive an elbow into Bülent’s solar plexus, and swept Ni and Li off their feet with a fluid, low-altitude leg sweep. Shuriya tried to attack from his blind spot, but Ren simply pivoted on his heel and delivered a palm strike to her chest that launched her halfway across the room. In less than ten seconds, five high-class Devil Pawns were groaning on the floor.

“Stand back!” a fierce voice commanded.

Xuelan, one of Riser’s Rooks, stepped forward. She dropped into a flawless, traditional Chinese Kung Fu stance, her eyes burning with the thrill of a martial challenge.

“Finally,” Ren murmured, recognizing the grounded balance of her footwork. “Someone who actually knows how to fight.”

Xuelan charged. The exchange was a blistering blur of parries, strikes, and deflections. Xuelan fought with the overwhelming physical strength and dense durability granted by her Rook trait, fully expecting to tank Ren’s counterattacks.

As she threw a devastating straight punch, Ren stepped inside. He didn’t just meet her with physical force; he drew upon the dark interstice energy pooling in his extraordinary meridians. He embedded his sheer will into his right fist—imposing the absolute, undeniable reality that her demonic defense was already shattered.

His fist collided with her sternum.

CRACK.

The sound of Xuelan’s defensive aura shattering echoed like a gunshot. The physical strength of a Rook was entirely bypassed by Ren’s imposed reality. Xuelan gasped, her eyes going wide with shock before her legs gave out, dropping her to her knees in instant defeat.

“Impossible…” Riser whispered, his arrogant smirk entirely wiped from his face. “A human just broke a Rook’s defense…”

Karlamine, a Knight adorned in light armor, stepped over her fallen comrade. She drew her broadsword, pointing the gleaming blade at Ren. Unlike the others, her eyes held deep, honorable respect. “You are a warrior of incredible skill. I challenge you.”

“Accepted,” Ren nodded calmly.

Karlamine exploded forward, moving at the blinding, supernatural speed inherent to the Knight piece. She was nothing but a blur of steel.

But to Ren, she was moving in slow motion. Thanks to his rigorous blindfolded training, he didn’t need to track her with his eyes; he felt the displacement of air pressure and the linear trajectory of her thermal signature.

“High speed is completely useless if the attack is entirely straightforward,” Ren stated calmly.

He didn’t dodge until the blade was a millimeter from his nose. With a microscopic tilt of his torso, the sword sliced empty air. Before Karlamine could correct her momentum, Ren stepped into her guard, trapping her sword arm and delivering three rapid, localized strikes to her joints. The Knight collapsed to the floor, completely immobilized.

Ren stood amidst the groaning, unconscious bodies of eight Devil peerage members. He slowly turned his head, his dark, calculating eyes locking onto the two remaining frontline fighters.

Isabela and Siris immediately dropped into defensive guards, sweat pouring down their faces as they stared in absolute terror at the human anomaly standing before them.

“Who is next?” Ren asked.

Sub Section 4: The Honor of the Peerage

“It appears Akeno’s assessment of you was entirely accurate,” Grayfia’s calm, chilling voice cut through the heavy tension of the clubroom.

The silver-haired maid stepped smoothly between Ren and the two terrified Devils remaining on Riser’s frontline. She looked at the unconscious bodies of the Phenex peerage scattered across the floor, then turned her composed gaze to the human boy.

“However, Ren, I must ask you to cease your assault,” Grayfia said politely. “If you dismantle the rest of Lord Phenex’s vanguard here in this room, Lady Rias will not have much of an opponent left for the actual Rating Game. Is that not correct, my lady?”

There was a long, suffocating pause.

Rias was still standing frozen near her desk, her crimson eyes wide as she processed the absolute massacre that had just occurred in under two minutes. A normal, uncontracted human had just single-handedly broken the martial line of a veteran Devil peerage without breaking a sweat.

Grayfia’s question finally snapped her out of her shock. Rias shook her head, forcing her aristocratic composure back into place.

“Yes… that is correct,” Rias said, her voice steadying as she looked at Ren with a profound, newfound respect. “Thank you, Ren. But I need to have a real fight. I have to defeat Riser myself, on the official stage, to prove my independence.”

Ren smoothly dropped his combat posture. The oppressive, localized gravity of his embedded will evaporated into the air. He slipped his hands casually back into his pockets and took a step back.

“No problem, President,” Ren replied easily. “He issued a challenge, and I merely accepted it. I have no intention of interfering with your official business.”

Riser Phenex stood near the back of the room, his fists clenched tight as his healing magic washed over his unconscious servants, slowly reviving them. The arrogant, theatrical smirk that had defined his entire presence was completely gone, replaced by a grim, wary realization.

“I am genuinely glad that you are a baseline human,” Riser said, his voice entirely devoid of mockery as he looked at Ren. “If you were eligible to participate in the Rating Game, I would have a tremendous amount of tactical preparation to do. You are a terrifying anomaly.”

Ren offered a slight, polite bow of his head. “I am honored to hear that.”

Riser then turned his gaze down to Issei, who had finally managed to sit up from the floor, clutching his bruised chest. Riser’s expression hardened into the stern, uncompromising mask of a true Pureblood noble.

“Listen to me carefully, boy,” Riser said coldly. “Whether you like it or not, you are a member of the House of Gremory now. Every single action you take, every word you speak, and every time you fall on your face reflects directly upon Rias’s reputation. Do not sully her honor with your pathetic, unrefined behavior.”

Riser gestured toward Ren. “Take an example from your human friend. If you want to protect your master, you need to forge yourself into a weapon, not a clown.”

With a snap of his fingers, the blazing orange teleportation circles reappeared. Gathering his battered and bruised peerage, Riser and his servants vanished in a pillar of fire, leaving the Occult Research Club in a heavy, echoing silence.

Issei stared at the scorch marks on the carpet, Riser’s final words ringing in his ears like a death knell. He looked at Ren, who was completely unbothered, and then at Rias, whose future depended entirely on a battle they were currently destined to lose. The gravity of the supernatural world finally crushed the last remnants of Issei’s naive fantasies.

Rias walked around her desk, looking at her weary, outmatched peerage. She took a deep breath.

“We are hopelessly outclassed in experience and technique,” Rias admitted firmly, looking at Issei, Asia, Kiba, and Koneko. “If we fight him today, we lose. Therefore, we are going to use every single second of the ten days he gave us. The Occult Research Club will be excusing ourselves from school starting tomorrow. We are heading into the mountains for an intensive training camp.”

She turned her gaze to Ren, offering him a warm, deeply appreciative smile. “Thank you for defending my honor today, Ren. You showed us exactly what true martial discipline looks like.”

Ren walked toward the clubroom door, offering a casual wave over his shoulder. “Don’t mention it. Good luck in the mountains, President. Make sure Issei doesn’t skip leg day.”

Life 3: Training Camp

Section 1: The Mountain Camp and the Multiversal Echoes

The Gremory training camp was situated deep within the secluded mountains, far away from the prying eyes of human civilization. With only ten days to close the massive experience gap between Rias’s peerage and Riser’s veteran vanguard, the schedule was utterly relentless.

Issei was subjected to a brutal rotational gauntlet, passing through the hands of every senior member.

Under Akeno’s tutelage, the focus was demonic magic and manifestation. “Demonic power is entirely dependent on your imagination, Issei,” Akeno instructed, demonstrating a perfectly formed orb of lightning. “You must visualize the outcome completely and without hesitation.”

Asia, despite her angelic origins, adapted to the demonic magic system flawlessly, easily manifesting elemental light and spending the rest of the camp honing her healing Sacred Gear. Issei, however, failed spectacularly, producing nothing but pathetic sparks.

Akeno sighed, handing him a basket of apples. “If combat magic is too abstract, start with fine control. Peel these fruits using only your demonic aura.”

Issei sat by the cabin for hours, staring intensely at the apples. As he visualized the skin of the fruit peeling away, his deeply ingrained degenerate instincts took over. Peeling the outer layer to reveal the soft flesh underneath… wait… isn’t that exactly like stripping a girl’s clothes?! The sudden, perverted epiphany sparked a massive surge in his demonic aura, planting the foundational seed for a spell that would eventually become his signature technique: Dress Break.

When he transitioned to unarmed combat with Koneko, the results were far more painful. Issei spent hours being thrown into the dirt, entirely unable to read her stoic, heavy strikes.

“Trash footwork,” Koneko deadpanned, effortlessly sweeping his legs out from under him for the twentieth time.

Issei groaned from the grass. “Man… Ren would have been the perfect trainer for this. He took down your entire counterpart frontline without even trying.”

Koneko paused, a rare flicker of agreement crossing her golden eyes. “Yes. We should have brought him.”

Kiba took over in the afternoon, putting Issei through a dizzying crash course in swordsmanship and evasion, forcing him to track blindingly fast strikes to improve his kinetic reflexes. Finally, as the sun set, Rias oversaw his physical stamina training.

“Ninety-nine… one hundred…” Issei gasped, his arms giving out as he collapsed from another set of push-ups.

“Get up, Issei, you have to push harder,” Rias began, before suddenly pausing. She remembered the leather-bound notebook Ren had pulled out in the school courtyard, detailing the severe drawbacks of localized muscle failure. She sighed, adjusting her strategy. “Actually, stop. Stand up. We are switching to squats and core stabilization. You need to develop your posterior chain, not just your chest.”

Outside of Issei’s grueling rotation, the rest of the peerage trained individually. Rias locked herself in the cabin, obsessively studying the tactical layouts of historical Rating Games. Akeno ventured into the deep woods, unleashing massive, terrifying lightning storms to increase her voltage output. Koneko repeatedly hurled massive boulders across ravines to push her physical limits, while Kiba ran high-speed evasion drills through the dense treeline.

However, despite their intense dedication, their methodology was fundamentally flawed.

They were training in isolated silos. Had Ren been officially admitted into the peerage, his tactical mindset would have immediately restructured the entire camp. Individual conditioning was a waste of a ten-day limit. Ren would have forced them into brutal, synchronized cross-sparring. He would have suggested throwing Issei into genuine, near-death combat against Akeno and Rias, relying entirely on Asia’s Twilight Healing to instantaneously repair the tissue damage. By abusing the healer, they could have bypassed biological recovery times entirely, compressing years of actual battlefield survival experience into a single week. Instead, they settled for traditional, compartmentalized drills.

While the Gremory peerage prepared for war in the mountains, Ren remained in the city, sinking deeper into the abyssal depths of his own internal architecture.

Having cleared his major pathways and extraordinary reservoirs, Ren turned his focus to the micro-circuitry of his body: the minor chakras.

Sitting in the center of his darkened living room, Ren directed the dense, frictionless dark energy through the hundreds of smaller energetic nodes scattered across his joints, spine, and cranial cavity. The process was painstakingly delicate, requiring surgical neuro-somatic precision to prevent the dark interstice energy from rupturing the fragile pathways.

Once the minor chakras were fully aligned, Ren initiated the final phase of his current cultivation stage. He drove the energy directly into his three core Dantians—the Lower Dantian at his naval, the Middle Dantian at his heart, and the Upper Dantian at his pineal gland.

Crack.

The three centers ignited simultaneously, forming a perfect, circulating trinity of absolute power.

Instantly, Ren’s perception of the interstice energy evolved. He no longer just felt the sorrow. He no longer just heard the wails.

The darkness behind his closed eyelids violently shattered, replaced by a blinding, multiversal kaleidoscope of pure, unadulterated tragedy. He saw the visions. He watched ancient, forgotten empires burn to ash under skies of bleeding glass. He saw the faces of millions of entities betrayed by their creators, screaming in terror as they were cast into the void. He witnessed the visceral, raw envy of beings watching the light exalt others while they were left to rot in the dark.

It was a psychic avalanche of multiversal despair, projecting the collective nightmare of every forgotten soul directly into his visual cortex.

Ren sat perfectly still. His breathing remained at a flawless forty beats per minute. He did not look away, nor did he flinch. With absolute, chilling detachment, the human anomaly observed the infinite horrors of the interstice, smoothly integrating their power into his own accelerating evolution.

Section 2: The Hot Springs and the Physics of Destruction

The sun finally dipped below the mountain peaks, signaling an end to the brutal, bone-crushing schedule of the training camp. For the Occult Research Club, the evening transitioned into the most anticipated recovery activity: the traditional open-air hot springs.

Initially, the baths were strictly separated by gender. However, despite the fact that Issei had already bathed with Rias and Asia multiple times back at his house, his deeply ingrained, degenerate instincts from his days with Matsuda and Motohama completely overrode his exhaustion. The mere presence of a bamboo partition separating him from the girls was an unbearable psychological challenge.

“Issei, you are practically dead on your feet,” Kiba advised gently, sinking into the steaming water with a relaxed sigh. “You exhausted your demonic aura trying to peel apples all day. You really need to just rest.”

“Rest is for the weak, Kiba!” Issei hissed, his eyes completely bloodshot as he pressed his face against the wooden divider. “There is a wall. A wall meant to be conquered! If my imagination dictates my demonic power, then I just need to visualize seeing through the wood!”

Ignoring Kiba’s exasperated warnings, Issei clamped his hands to his temples and forced every last drop of his remaining demonic energy into his optic nerves, desperately trying to invent a functional X-ray spell on the spot. He strained so hard that a blood vessel popped in his nose. Ten seconds later, Issei’s eyes rolled back into his head, and he collapsed face-first into the hot spring with a pathetic splash, completely unconscious from magical exhaustion.

Kiba dragged the unconscious Red Dragon Emperor out of the water and carried him to the partition door.

“President?” Kiba called out apologetically. “Issei just knocked himself out trying to invent X-ray magic.”

On the other side of the wall, Rias dragged a wet hand down her face. She was genuinely worried that her Pawn was going to cause permanent neurological damage to himself just to catch a glimpse of them. “If he is going to literally kill himself trying to peep, it is safer to just remove the obstacle,” Rias sighed.

Ten minutes later, Issei woke up to the absolute greatest miracle of his life.

The partition had been ignored, and the hot spring was now a fully mixed bath. Rias, Akeno, and Asia were soaking in the steaming water, completely bare and entirely comfortable with his presence, chatting casually as if it were the most normal thing in the world. Issei sat in the corner, tears of absolute joy streaming down his face as he thanked the heavens for his master’s boundless generosity.

The only exception was Koneko. The petite first-year sat on a submerged rock at the edge of the pool, tightly wrapped in a thick white towel, glaring daggers at Issei. “Pervert,” she muttered, clearly still uncomfortable with the new arrangement.

Hundreds of miles away from the mountain retreat, Ren was standing in the center of an abandoned, concrete industrial lot on the outskirts of Kuoh Town.

Having successfully mapped his minor chakras and synchronized his three core Dantians, Ren transitioned to clearing his major chakras—the primary energy gates located along the spine. He systematically forced the dark interstice energy through the Root, Sacral, Solar Plexus, Heart, Throat, Third Eye, and Crown chakras. The process was agonizing, but once completed, his internal circuitry was flawlessly unblocked. His body was no longer just a vessel; it was a perfect, unobstructed conduit for multiversal energy.

It was time to practice externalization.

Drawing upon classic Dragon Ball tropes, Ren extended his right hand. He didn’t want to just strike with his energy; he wanted to project it. He commanded the dense, dark energy from his Dantians to flow down his arm and pool in his palm.

A sphere of condensed, swirling black energy materialized. It hummed with terrifying kinetic weight, warping the air around it.

“Fire,” Ren commanded.

He threw the dark energy sphere like a baseball at a rusted, junked sedan thirty feet away. The projectile crossed the distance instantly.

CRASH.

The black sphere slammed into the side of the car, completely crushing the reinforced steel door and flipping the two-ton vehicle onto its roof through sheer kinetic force. The sphere then destabilized and simply fizzled out into black mist.

Ren frowned, lowering his hand.

It hadn’t exploded. It had merely acted like a bowling ball made of incredibly dense gravity.

Ren walked over to the dented car, analyzing the failure. Magic users, like Devils, relied on pre-established magical formulas to create explosions. But Ren didn’t have magic; he operated on the principle of imposing his will upon reality using raw interstice energy.

“I told the energy to form a sphere and hit the target, so it did exactly that,” Ren muttered to himself, tracing the dented steel. “But an explosion isn’t just a heavy impact. It is a rapid exothermic reaction. It is the sudden, violent expansion of gases and thermal energy.”

He realized the flaw in his cultivation. He possessed the raw power to impose reality, but his conceptual framework was too vague. If he wanted his energy constructs to behave like explosive plasma, he couldn’t just visualize a generic flash of light from a shonen manga.

He needed to understand the exact mechanics of what he was commanding the universe to do.

Ren turned away from the junked car and walked back toward the city streets. The physical training was put on hold. It was time to visit the local library and heavily study the advanced physics of thermodynamics, the chemistry of combustion, and the exact molecular triggers of exothermic reactions.

Section 3: Mixed Bath and Harrowing Interstice

The steam rising from the mountain hot spring curled into the crisp night air, carrying with it the gentle sounds of water splashing and relaxed conversation. Issei sat submerged up to his chin, his face flushed a deep, dangerous shade of crimson. He was trying, and utterly failing, to keep his eyes fixed firmly on the starry sky.

“You are staring awfully hard at the moon, Issei,” Akeno teased, resting her arms on the smooth stones at the edge of the pool. She leaned forward slightly, allowing the water to ripple against her bare collarbones. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather look down here? You went through so much trouble to see through the wall, after all.”

“I am practicing supreme mental discipline, Akeno-senpai!” Issei squeaked, his voice cracking violently as his peripheral vision betrayed him.

Rias chuckled softly from across the spring, sweeping her wet crimson hair over her shoulder. “Let him be, Akeno. He used up all his demonic aura on a very… creative endeavor. If his heart rate goes any higher, I am afraid my Pawn will go into cardiac arrest before we even reach the Rating Game.”

Asia, entirely oblivious to the heavy, teasing tension, scooped up some warm water and poured it over her shoulders with a bright smile. “The water is so nice and warm! It feels like all the aches from today’s magic training are just melting away. Don’t you think so, Issei?”

“Y-Yeah, Asia! Melting! Everything is melting!” Issei stammered, frantically splashing cold water onto his burning cheeks.

Sitting on a submerged boulder near the shallow end, Koneko pulled her white towel tighter around her small frame, narrowing her golden eyes at him. “Disgusting. Your degenerate aura is contaminating the water supply.”

“I haven’t even done anything!” Issei protested defensively.

Kiba simply laughed from his corner of the spring, leaning his head back against the rocks. “Enjoy the peace while it lasts, Issei. Tomorrow we increase the gravity on your evasion drills. Riser gave us ten days, and we are going to use every single hour.”

Rias’s smile softened into a look of quiet determination. She looked around the spring at her peerage, the people who were currently breaking themselves to protect her freedom. “Thank you, all of you. For putting up with this grueling camp. I promise you, when we step onto that battlefield, I will not let your efforts go to waste.”

While the Occult Research Club bonded in the secluded mountains, Ren was standing on the roof of his apartment building under that same starry sky, pushing the boundaries of human limitation.

Having mastered the internal circuitry of his chakras and the theoretical physics of external projection, Ren moved to the next logical stage of advanced control: manipulating his own mass.

His goal was levitation. He closed his eyes, synchronizing his three Dantians, and began to externalize the dark interstice energy. But instead of projecting it outward as a destructive force, he directed it downward, enveloping his own body in a hyper-dense, frictionless aura that actively repelled the Earth’s gravitational pull.

Slowly, his sneakers lifted off the concrete.

One inch. Six inches. A full foot in the air.

Ren opened his eyes, hovering effortlessly above the rooftop. But as he severed his physical tether to the earth, something fundamental shifted. The moment he broke gravity’s hold, his resonance with the dark energy spiked exponentially. The wails of multiversal despair he had been hearing in his mind suddenly amplified, turning from distant echoes into a deafening, immediate roar.

The Harrowing Interstice was reacting to him. It was pulling on the energy flowing through his meridians.

Ren didn’t resist. Intrigued, he closed his eyes again and focused entirely on that pull, amplifying his internal frequency to match the violent, sorrowful resonance of the void. He pushed his will outward, demanding the space in front of him to yield.

The air on the rooftop tore open.

It didn’t form a neat, magical circle like Devil transportation magic. Reality simply ruptured like a ragged wound, bleeding pitch-black mist.

Ren slowly lowered himself to the concrete, his eyes fixed on the tear. The sheer atmospheric pressure leaking from the portal was suffocating. It smelled of ozone, ash, and absolute zero. It was a dimension fundamentally hostile to normal life—a place where no sane creature would ever willingly tread.

Without a second thought, Ren stepped through the rift.

The portal sealed shut behind him, leaving him standing in a sprawling, endless wasteland of shattered gray rock and skies bleeding with dark, violet nebulas. The gravity here was immense, pressing down on his shoulders with the weight of deep ocean depths, and the air was so dense with raw, negative energy that it felt like breathing liquid glass.

Ren looked around, his analytical mind instantly evaluating the environment. The hostility of this dimension was perfect. The intense atmospheric pressure and the boundless density of the dark energy made this place an ultimate hyperbolic training ground. A baseline human would be crushed into paste in seconds, but for someone cultivating this exact energy, the potential for rapid physiological evolution was limitless.

Yet, as Ren walked forward, his boots crunching against the ashen ground, the tactical assessment faded, replaced by a profound, deeply unsettling sensation.

He felt entirely at peace.

The wails of despair swirling through the violet storms didn’t frighten him; they sounded like a choir. The crushing gravity felt like a warm embrace. Against all logic, standing in the most terrifying, desolate corner of the multiverse, Ren felt a bizarre, overwhelming sense of coming home.

A primal urge gripped his chest—a sudden, intense desire to just start walking into the abyss, to explore the endless, dead horizons and never look back.

Ren stopped in his tracks, his supreme neuro-somatic control catching the emotional spike before it could fully hijack his logic. He calculated the variables. If he gave in to the urge to explore this wasteland, time dilation and the sheer scale of the dimension meant he likely wouldn’t return for months, maybe years. Perhaps never.

He was perfectly fine with leaving, but disappearing without a trace was highly inefficient. It left loose ends.

“Not yet,” Ren murmured to the howling wind.

He extended his will, forcing the fabric of the interstice to rupture once more. Stepping back through the tear, Ren materialized in his dark, quiet apartment in Kuoh. He looked around the mundane room, the lingering chill of the void still clinging to his skin. If he was going to plunge into the abyss for an extended period, he needed to properly sever his ties to this world first. He would pack his essential gear, tie up his lease, and at the very least, say his farewells.

Life 4: Rating Game

Section 1: Preparation

Sub Section 1: Forgotten Ren

The atmosphere inside the Occult Research Club was thick with nervous anticipation. The ten-day grace period had evaporated. Rias Gremory stood at the head of the room, adorned in her formal crimson combat uniform, projecting an aura of aristocratic determination. Behind her stood Akeno, Kiba, Koneko, Asia, and Issei—each bearing the quiet, heavy tension of soldiers stepping onto a battlefield for the very first time.

Standing before them, completely unbothered by the heavy atmosphere, was Grayfia Lucifuge. The silver-haired maid held a pocket watch, snapping it shut with a crisp click.

“You are on time, Lady Rias,” Grayfia noted smoothly. Her icy silver eyes then swept across the assembled peerage, calculating their numbers. She frowned slightly. “However, there appears to be someone missing. Where is Ren?”

Rias blinked, slightly taken aback by the question. “Ren? He is a baseline human, Grayfia. He is not part of my peerage, nor is he eligible to participate in a Rating Game. I did not think to involve him.”

“Technically, you are correct,” Grayfia replied, her tone perfectly level. “However, Lord Sirzechs was under the impression that the boy had become intimately acquainted with your affairs. He assumed Ren would tag along, as Lord Sirzechs wishes to see this human anomaly with his own eyes.”

A heavy silence fell over Rias. A sudden, crushing wave of tactical regret washed over her. She remembered Ren effortlessly dismantling Riser’s veteran vanguard in this very room. She remembered Koneko and Issei mentioning how drastically Ren’s combat insight could have accelerated their training in the mountains. Because she had been so entirely consumed by the political urgency of the engagement, the thought of simply hiring or inviting Ren as a tactical consultant for the camp had completely bypassed her mind.

“I… I missed an incredible opportunity,” Rias admitted quietly, pinching the bridge of her nose. “He would have been an invaluable asset during our training camp. It simply did not cross my mind.”

“A lack of peripheral vision in times of crisis is a common flaw in inexperienced commanders,” Grayfia stated without malice. “No matter. I will personally retrieve him so he may spectate the match alongside Lord Sirzechs and myself.”

Issei, who had been vibrating with nervous energy, finally raised his hand. “Uh, excuse me, Grayfia-san. You keep mentioning this Sirzechs guy. Who exactly is he?”

Grayfia turned her gaze to the ignorant Pawn, though it was Rias who answered, her voice laced with quiet pride.

“Sirzechs is my older brother, Issei,” Rias explained, adjusting her gauntlet. “But he is no longer a Gremory. During the aftermath of the Great War, he was chosen to inherit the title of the Crimson Satan. He is Sirzechs Lucifer, the current absolute ruler of the Underworld.”

Asia gasped softly, and Issei’s jaw practically unhinged. The sheer scale of the political hierarchy he had stumbled into was staggering.

“Come,” Grayfia instructed, gesturing to the massive, glowing transportation circle manifesting in the center of the room. “The stage is set. The spectators are waiting. It is time.”

In his dimly lit apartment, Ren was meticulously packing a heavy canvas duffel bag. He had calculated exactly how many non-perishable rations, synthetic water filters, and medical supplies he could comfortably carry under 300 times Earth’s gravity. He was preparing for his one-way trip into the Harrowing Interstice.

The temperature in his living room suddenly plummeted. Frost formed on the edges of his windows, and a blinding silver magic circle illuminated the dark floorboards.

Grayfia materialized, her posture immaculate, taking in the sight of the packed duffel bag and the tactical gear laid out on Ren’s bed.

“Leaving town?” she asked neutrally.

“Relocating to a more intensive environment,” Ren answered without missing a beat, zipping a pouch on his tactical vest. “To what do I owe the pleasure, Grayfia? The Rating Game should be starting momentarily.”

“I have come to invite you to the VIP viewing gallery,” Grayfia said, stepping fully into the room.

Ren paused, crossing his arms. “I am not a Devil. I am not contracted to the Gremory House, and I am not a member of the Occult Research Club. Politically and socially, I have absolutely no place at an aristocratic event.”

“Lord Sirzechs took a keen interest in you following the incident with the Fallen Angel Raynare,” Grayfia countered smoothly. “When intelligence reports confirmed that a baseline human neutralized eight members of the Phenex vanguard in under two minutes without utilizing mana or a Sacred Gear, that interest evolved into a demand. He wishes to have a conversation with you.”

Grayfia tilted her head slightly, a microscopic challenge gleaming in her silver eyes. “Or is the prospect of analyzing a high-level tactical war game too boring for you?”

A slow, genuine smirk touched the corner of Ren’s mouth. He recognized the bait, but he didn’t care. It was a flawless counter.

“On the contrary,” Ren replied, grabbing his coat and leaving the duffel bag on the bed. “I absolutely love a good show. Lead the way.”

The VIP spectator box was an architectural marvel suspended high above a one-to-one replica of Kuoh Academy, entirely contained within a pocket dimension. The room was lavishly decorated in crimson and gold, featuring massive crystalline screens projecting every angle of the battlefield below.

Standing by the panoramic glass was a tall, handsome man with flowing crimson hair that perfectly matched Rias’s. He radiated an aura so incomprehensibly dense that a normal human would have been instantly crushed into dust just by standing in the same room.

Ren stepped out of the silver teleportation circle, entirely unaffected. His cleared meridians and synchronized Dantians automatically neutralized the oppressive atmospheric pressure of the Devil King’s ambient power.

“Lord Sirzechs,” Grayfia announced, bowing perfectly. “I present Ren Nocturnus Veritas.”

Sirzechs Lucifer turned, his warm, charismatic smile greeting the human boy. He expected awe. He expected terror. He expected the boy to fall to his knees, as was standard for almost any lesser being in his presence.

Instead, Ren offered a polite, measured bow—the exact degree of respect one might give to a visiting university professor—and then straightened up, looking directly into the Devil King’s eyes with calm, calculating appraisal.

Sirzechs’s smile widened into something incredibly genuine. The absolute lack of sycophancy or fear was profoundly refreshing. “Welcome, Ren. Please, have a seat. I hope you will enjoy the match with us.”

“Thank you for the invitation, Lord Lucifer,” Ren replied, taking a seat in one of the plush velvet chairs overlooking the battlefield. “It is an honor to observe.”

“Grayfia tells me you are a close friend of my sister’s Pawn,” Sirzechs began, taking the seat beside him and pouring two glasses of high-end Underworld tea.

“Issei and I have a history,” Ren confirmed, accepting the glass. “I used to be a founding member of the school’s perverted quartet. We spent most of our time calculating the structural integrity of the girls’ locker room walls.”

Sirzechs let out a sudden, booming laugh, entirely delighted by the blunt admission. “A noble pursuit for a teenage boy! But I imagine there is more to you than voyeurism. The reports on your combat capabilities defy basic physics.”

Ren took a slow sip of his tea. “Outside of my former associations, I am a scholar. My pursuits lie in the absolute mastery of martial arts, tactical espionage, asymmetrical warfare, and multiversal abilities. I seek a total understanding of the world’s mechanics.” Ren glanced down at the projection of the battlefield, where Rias and Riser’s pieces were taking their starting positions. “I am also an avid player of classic chess. Which makes this particular event highly relevant to my interests.”

Sirzechs’s eyes gleamed. “A Rating Game is indeed nothing more than a magical translation of the chessboard. Which brings me to my primary curiosity. How does a human chess player with no magical lineage blind a Fallen Angel and dismantle a Devil vanguard?”

“Necessity,” Ren answered simply. “It started when Raynare targeted Issei. I intervened. Against a creature that can manifest light spears that travel at terminal velocity, standard human vision is a lethal liability. Light is too distracting; it forces the brain to process unnecessary data. So, I blinded myself.”

Sirzechs leaned forward, resting his chin on his hands, completely captivated. “You intentionally robbed yourself of sight?”

“I engaged in intensive blindfolded neuro-somatic training,” Ren corrected. “I honed my other senses—spatial pressure, thermal shifts, kinetic displacement—until I could perfectly predict the trajectory of her attacks without needing to see them. From there, it was simple chemistry. A combat knife coated in highly concentrated holy water. I bypassed her guard, disrupted her flight mechanics, and nearly killed her before she retreated.”

“Incredible,” Sirzechs murmured. “A purely tactical deconstruction of a supernatural threat.”

“Long story short,” Ren concluded, his dark eyes fixed on the crystalline screens below, “that encounter proved that baseline humanity is insufficient for survival. I continued down a different path. I cultivate an energy source external to the standard magical systems of this world. That is why I can shatter a Rook’s defense and bypass a Knight’s speed. I do not use mana. I impose my own kinetic reality.”

Sirzechs sat back, processing the terrifying, limitless potential of the boy sitting beside him. He looked down at the battlefield, where the first tactical maneuvers of the Rating Game were beginning to unfold.

“A scholar of war who imposes his own reality,” Sirzechs mused, an excited glint in his crimson eyes. “Tell me then, Ren. As a grandmaster of the board, how do you predict my sister’s first foray into the Rating Game will end?”

Sub Section 2: The Logic of the Board

“There is a very high probability that Rias will lose,” Ren answered straightforwardly, his eyes tracking the initial movements of the Gremory peerage on the crystalline screens.

Sirzechs paused his teacup halfway to his mouth, utterly amused by the boy’s bluntness. Most Devil nobles spent hours dancing around political niceties before daring to criticize a pureblood heiress. “Is that so? Please, continue.”

“In terms of classical chess, Rias is starting the game down a massive amount of material,” Ren explained, leaning back in his velvet chair. “She lacks a full frontline, whereas Riser commands a complete, highly experienced vanguard. Her only genuine trump cards are Issei’s Boosted Gear and Asia’s Twilight Healing. Furthermore, her tactical mindset is deeply compromised by her emotions. When Riser teleported his peerage into the clubroom to demonstrate the overwhelming imbalance, he actually gave her an out. He asked her to confirm if she truly wanted to proceed with the Rating Game. Rias did not even look at the board; she challenged him immediately out of pure passion and societal pressure.”

Ren took a sip of his tea, his tone remaining clinical. “Even Riser realized how boring a one-sided slaughter would be and offered her ten days to prepare. And initially, she refused even that. Riser actually had to lecture her on the cold reality of battlefield leadership before she accepted the grace period. Passion does not close a systemic gap in material and experience.”

Sirzechs let out a bright, booming laugh that echoed through the VIP box. He completely agreed with every single word. “A flawlessly brutal assessment! Tell me then, Ren, if you were in Rias’s shoes, what exactly would you have done?”

Before Ren could open his mouth to answer, the heavy double doors of the spectator box swung open. Two distinguished, older Devils strode into the room, both radiating immense aristocratic authority.

“Well, this is going to be quite the problem,” sighed the blonde man, Lord Phenex, as he took a seat near Sirzechs. He looked at the projection of his son, Riser, with a mixture of fondness and deep exhaustion. “I was genuinely hoping Riser would lose this match. His arrogance has grown entirely out of control, and I wanted him to experience the crushing reality of defeat for once.”

The man beside him, boasting the same vibrant crimson hair as Rias and Sirzechs, chuckled dryly. Lord Gremory settled into an armchair, keeping his eyes on his daughter on the screen. “It appears Rias will be the first to be taught the harsh lesson of humility today, my friend. She is painfully underprepared.”

Sirzechs smiled warmly at the two patriarchs before turning his attention back to the human anomaly sitting beside him. “The question stands, Ren. What would you have done?”

“First, I would have fully analyzed the board state and weaponized the blatant unfairness of the situation,” Ren answered without hesitation. “I would have argued the sheer imbalance of material and leveraged my status as the Gremory heiress to negotiate for significantly more preparation time. Thirty days, at minimum.”

Ren set his teacup down, his dark eyes sharpening as he looked at Rias’s digital projection. “However, the real battlefield is inherently unfair, and negotiations often fail. If I were locked into the ten-day limit, I would have completely restructured the training camp. Ten days of standard exercise is a waste of time. I would have put Issei and the rest of the frontline into a continuous, near-death combat loop against Akeno and Rias, relying entirely on Asia’s Sacred Gear to instantly heal their tissue damage and bypass biological recovery time. But, as Grayfia noted earlier, I was not invited to the mountains.”

Sirzechs nodded slowly, his crimson eyes gleaming with profound respect for the human’s ruthlessly pragmatic mind. He completely agreed with the tactical breakdown.

“Given that you clearly see the insurmountable imbalance in materials,” Ren asked, shifting his gaze from the screens to the Crimson Satan, “did you anticipate this outcome from the very beginning?”

“I did,” Sirzechs admitted softly, his charismatic smile fading into the calculating gaze of a multiversal ruler. “I already have a contingency plan prepared for the immediate aftermath of Rias’s defeat. Unlike you, Ren, I have the vast resources of the Underworld at my disposal, and I have been closely monitoring Issei and the shifting currents of the world.”

Sirzechs looked down at the Red Dragon Emperor, who was currently charging through the replica of the Kuoh Academy woods. “The cosmic balance is shifting. The Red Dragon Emperor is forcefully resurfacing, and my intelligence suggests it is in direct, instinctual response to the awakening of the White Dragon Emperor.”

Section 2: The Tactical Depravity and the Inevitable Defeat

The digital projection of the Kuoh Academy battlefield materialized across the crystalline screens in the VIP gallery. The official broadcast of the Rating Game had begun, and the tension in the room thickened as the initial pieces moved into position.

In the canonical timeline, the Gremory training camp had pushed Issei to a respectable threshold—allowing him to maintain several consecutive Boosts and ultimately unleash a concentrated draconic blast capable of cratering a mountainside. However, the trajectory of this timeline had been subtly warped. The rigorous posterior-chain stabilization routines and localized muscular endurance drills Rias had implemented, directly referencing Ren’s anatomical journal, had fortified Issei’s physical foundation far beyond normal parameters.

This enhancement became glaringly obvious during his first engagement against the Phenex vanguard.

Instead of desperately scrambling through the woods, continuously dodging the synchronized strikes of Mira and the twin Pawns, Ile and Nel, Issei actually held his ground. His reinforced core and improved kinetic awareness allowed him to slip beneath their roaring chainsaws and heavy metal staff. He didn’t just evade; he managed to check their momentum with precise, light counter-strikes to their joints, disrupting their formation long enough to finally land a solid, mana-infused touch on all three girls.

The battlefield fell silent for a fraction of a second.

And then, Issei unleashed the degenerate culmination of his agonizing, fruit-peeling magical training.

“Dress Break!”

With a concussive snap of demonic energy, the gym bloomers and battle armors of the three Pawns instantaneously shredded into confetti. The girls shrieked, desperately covering themselves as the sheer shock and overwhelming embarrassment completely shattered their will to fight. They collapsed to the ground in tears, effectively resigning from the match on the spot.

Back in the Gremory base, the reaction was universally horrified. Even Koneko, who had just flawlessly pinned Xuelan to the ground by exploiting the Rook’s ruptured defensive aura, stared at the projection with dead, hollow eyes. “I have officially lost all remaining respect for you,” Koneko’s voice echoed flatly over the comms.

Up in the VIP box, Sirzechs choked on his tea. Lord Phenex covered his eyes and groaned, while Lord Gremory stared at the screen in absolute, bewildered silence.

Ren, however, leaned forward in his velvet chair, his dark eyes analyzing the chaotic scene with cold, terrifying pragmatism.

“I was operating under the assumption that I had absolutely nothing to learn from Issei’s approach to combat,” Ren stated, his voice carrying clearly across the shocked silence of the gallery. “I was entirely wrong. He has just demonstrated a tactical maneuver that my logical framework never could have conceived.”

Sirzechs wiped his mouth with a silk handkerchief, looking at the boy incredulously. “You consider that a legitimate tactical maneuver?”

“Dress Break fundamentally weaponizes societal conditioning to induce a state of profound psychological shock,” Ren explained clinically, tapping a finger against his armrest. “Yes, it instantly makes him the mortal enemy of every female combatant on the board. But tactically, it is devastatingly convenient. It is entirely unprecedented, which makes it an absolute wildcard. It completely bypasses physical defense and directly targets the opponent’s psychological guard, dropping their situational awareness to zero for a critical three-second window.”

Ren’s eyes narrowed slightly as he watched Issei celebrating his victory on the screen. “However, Issei lacks the killer instinct to capitalize on it. I would have followed up the psychological shock by immediately crushing their tracheas or striking the vagus nerve to render them unconscious. Furthermore, his success here is a fluke dependent entirely on the inexperience of his opponents. Those three girls resigned purely out of embarrassment, demonstrating a severe lack of battlefield motivation. A true veteran would fight through the shame.”

As if the universe were eager to prove Ren’s theory, the battlefield shifted violently.

Koneko, having just eliminated Xuelan, was suddenly ambushed by a massive, concentrated bombardment of explosive magic. Yubelluna, Riser’s Queen, descended from the sky, her staff glowing with volatile arcane energy. Issei rushed forward, intent on activating his Boosted Gear, but the skies crackled with blinding yellow electricity. Akeno intercepted the explosive bombardment with a massive wall of lightning.

“Go, Issei! Leave the Queen to me!” Akeno commanded, her eyes burning with the thrill of battle.

Issei nodded, sprinting past the clash of the Queens and diving deeper into the replica of the school building, eventually linking up with Kiba.

The Knight of Gremory was currently locked in a blindingly fast, high-stakes duel against Karlamine. The Phenex Knight fought with fierce, honorable precision, her broadsword clashing against Kiba’s summoned blades. But Kiba’s training in the mountains had refined his kinetic tracking. In a dazzling display of speed and tactical misdirection, Kiba bypassed Karlamine’s guard by sequentially manifesting multiple, distinct Demonic Swords from his Sword Birth Sacred Gear, overwhelming her linear defense and securing the victory.

Issei, meanwhile, finally ran into a wall of pure, unadulterated physical force.

Isabela, Riser’s remaining Rook, stood in the center of the gymnasium, radiating dense, hostile aura. Unlike the twins, Isabela fought with brutal, uncompromising power. Issei was battered across the room, forced to continuously evade as he bought time for the Boosted Gear to cycle through its power multiplications.

After taking a heavy hit to the ribs, Issei finally managed to slip inside her guard, slapping his glowing gauntlet against her armor.

“Dress Break!” Issei roared.

Isabela’s heavy armor exploded into fragments. She gasped, her face flushing crimson as she instinctively crossed her arms over her chest.

“Now!” Issei cheered internally, expecting her to collapse in tears like the others.

But Ren’s cold tactical analysis from the VIP box proved absolute. Not every soldier breaks under psychological shock. Isabela’s embarrassment lasted for exactly one second before it violently mutated into pure, murderous rage.

“You filthy, degenerate little rat!” Isabela screamed, abandoning her defensive posture and charging Issei with terrifying speed, her fist pulled back for a skull-crushing strike.

Caught completely off guard by the retaliation, Issei panicked. He had successfully cycled through enough multiplications, and acting purely on survival instinct, he threw his left arm forward and released the built-up draconic energy.

“Dragon Shot!”

A massive, concentrated beam of crimson energy erupted from the gauntlet, engulfing Isabela point-blank and blasting her through three consecutive reinforced concrete walls, instantly eliminating her from the match. Issei collapsed to his knees, gasping for breath, having learned a terrifying lesson about assumptions on the battlefield.

With Isabela defeated, the remaining members of the Phenex peerage—minus Riser and Yubelluna—converged on the gymnasium, intent on overwhelming Issei and Kiba through sheer numbers.

Driven into a corner, the camaraderie forged during their brutal mountain training finally bore fruit. Issei bypassed his usual selfish applications of power and forcefully unlocked the Gift function of the Boosted Gear. He channeled his multiplied draconic aura and transferred it directly into Kiba.

Empowered by the overwhelming surge of draconic energy, Kiba’s speed transcended the limits of a standard Knight. He manifested a massive, devastating array of demonic blades, moving faster than the eye could track. In a single, fluid kinetic storm, Kiba annihilated the remaining Phenex vanguard, clearing the board of all minor pieces.

The Gremory peerage had achieved the impossible. The numbers were even.

But the victory was tragically short-lived.

A massive explosion rocked the sky above the academy. Akeno, battered and exhausted, plummeted from the sky in a shower of sparks, her lightning finally overpowered by a relentless barrage of arcane artillery. Yubelluna descended like an angel of death, instantly locking onto Kiba. Before the Knight could recover from his massive energy expenditure, the Phenex Queen unleashed a point-blank explosive spell, eliminating him from the board.

Without pausing to savor the double elimination, Yubelluna immediately cast a spatial displacement spell, teleporting directly to Riser’s location at the center of the academy roof.

Realizing the terrifying shift in momentum, Issei sprinted toward the rooftop. Knowing he was now deep within enemy territory, he utilized the Pawn’s unique trait, legally promoting himself to the Queen piece to drastically boost his overall stats. He burst onto the roof, joining Rias and Asia, completely prepared for a desperate, three-on-two final stand against Riser and his Queen.

But the reality of aristocratic warfare was about to crush him.

A magical projection flickered to life in the sky above the academy, revealing Ravel Phenex, Riser’s younger sister, sipping tea in absolute comfort.

“I have absolutely no need to dirty my own hands in this petty squabble,” Ravel announced haughtily. “But you should all be aware of exactly why Lady Yubelluna was able to defeat the powerful Priestess of Thunder. My brother provided her with a vial of Phoenix Tears.”

Issei’s eyes went wide with fury. “That’s cheating! You used a consumable to instantly heal your Queen mid-battle!”

“It is entirely within the official rules of the Rating Game, you ignorant low-class,” Ravel scoffed. “A team is permitted to bring a maximum of two vials. Considering your master possesses a dedicated, living healer in the form of Asia Argento, the tactical advantage was actually yours. You simply failed to utilize it effectively.”

The psychological blow was heavy, but the physical reality of the board was about to become infinitely worse.

Yubelluna didn’t launch an explosive barrage at Rias. She didn’t engage Issei. Instead, she pointed her staff directly at Asia, unleashing a highly specialized, localized arcane binding spell. The magic wrapped around the young nun, completely sealing her ability to access her Sacred Gear.

Yubelluna then stepped back, bowing respectfully to her master. Her job was done. She had neutralized the Gremory healing factor.

Riser Phenex stepped forward, his eyes burning with the cold, arrogant fury he had been harboring since his humiliation in the clubroom. He unfurled his massive wings of fire.

He fought Rias and Issei completely alone.

It wasn’t a battle. It was a systematic, agonizing slaughter. Riser bypassed Rias’s destructive demonic bursts with his sheer physical speed and regenerative capabilities, forcing Issei to take the brunt of his flaming assaults.

Issei was beaten, burned, and broken. He was smashed against the concrete, his ribs fracturing under Riser’s heavy boots. Yet, defying all biological logic, Issei kept standing back up. His eyes were glossed over, his consciousness completely faded, but his body continued to fight entirely on instinct, driven by his deeply ingrained desire to protect his master.

In the VIP box, Ren watched the brutal display. It wasn’t the cinematic, awe-inspiring perseverance of Rock Lee standing up to Gaara with shattered limbs. It lacked that martial grace. This was a raw, pathetic, horrifyingly human struggle—a boy whose body refused to accept the reality of his own death, twitching and swinging wildly at shadows while a pureblood Devil slowly beat him into a bloody pulp.

The sheer, agonizing desperation of the scene finally broke the King’s resolve.

Unable to watch her Pawn be tortured to death for the sake of her pride, Rias sprinted across the roof, throwing her arms around Issei’s battered, unconscious body to shield him from Riser’s final, killing blow.

With tears streaming down her face, Rias looked up at the sky and shattered her own future.

“I resign!” Rias cried out, her voice echoing across the dimension. “The House of Gremory formally surrenders!”

Section 3: The Price of Power and the Empty Room

Sub Section 1: Departures

The word “resign” echoed through the VIP viewing gallery, hanging heavily in the air. On the crystalline screens, the pocket dimension dissolved, showing Rias clutching Issei’s broken body as the medical teams rushed the field.

Sirzechs Lucifer let out a quiet, measured sigh, his crimson eyes reflecting a complex mixture of familial sorrow and calculating foresight. “It is over,” the Crimson Satan stated softly. He turned away from the glass. “It is time to proceed to the next phase of the plan.”

Grayfia materialized silently beside him, holding a silver datapad. “The medical teams have successfully secured the wounded, Lord Sirzechs. Lady Rias and her peerage are being stabilized.”

Ren stood up from his velvet chair, casually brushing a speck of dust from his coat. “If the exhibition is concluded, then it is time for my departure as well.”

Grayfia turned to him, her posture immaculate. “I can teleport you back to your residence in Kuoh, Ren.”

“That will be unnecessary, but I appreciate the offer,” Ren replied. He turned and offered a deep, perfectly executed bow of respect to the assembled nobility. “Lord Sirzechs, Lord Gremory, Lord Phenex, Grayfia. Thank you for the hospitality and the insightful conversation. It was a genuine honor to spectate alongside you all.”

“The pleasure was ours, Ren,” Sirzechs smiled warmly. “I look forward to our next meeting.”

Ren straightened up. Instead of walking toward the door, he simply closed his eyes and synchronized his three Dantians. The VIP box, fortified by the highest tier of Devil defensive magic, suddenly shuddered. The temperature plummeted to absolute zero as Ren imposed his will upon the fabric of reality.

With a sickening tear, the air in the center of the luxurious room ripped open.

A portal to the Harrowing Interstice materialized, bleeding pitch-black mist and the terrifying scent of ozone, ash, and multiversal decay. The distant, agonizing wails of forgotten entities echoed into the VIP box. Without a second glance, Ren stepped through the violent, violet tear. The portal snapped shut behind him, leaving no trace he had ever been there.

A profound, stunned silence fell over the gallery.

Lord Gremory stared at the empty space, his aristocratic composure entirely shattered. Lord Phenex swallowed hard. Even Sirzechs and Grayfia, who had thoroughly enjoyed the boy’s polite and intellectual conversation, felt a cold knot form in their stomachs. The polite, respectful human scholar had just casually ripped a hole into a dimension of pure, concentrated nightmare and walked into it like he was taking a stroll through a park.

While Ren plunged into the abyss, Issei plunged into his own subconscious.

He was floating in a dark, empty void. It wasn’t the first time he had been here. After the church raid, during a particularly vivid, degenerate dream about finally sleeping with Rias, he had heard a deep, ancient sigh echo through his mind. A voice had spoken from the darkness: “Finally. You are strong enough to hear my voice.”

Now, the voice returned. But this time, the darkness parted.

Two massive, glowing green eyes ignited in the void. A gargantuan red dragon, exuding an aura of primordial, world-ending power, materialized before him. Ddraig, the Welsh Dragon, the Heavenly Dragon of Domination.

“You have grown much stronger, partner,” Ddraig rumbled, his voice shaking the very foundations of Issei’s soul. “Yet, I feel your despair. The agonizing regret of losing your master. The frustration of your own weakness.”

“I couldn’t protect her,” Issei wept, floating in the dark. “I wasn’t strong enough. Riser took her, and I couldn’t do a damn thing!”

“Do you desire the power to change this reality?” Ddraig asked, leaning his massive, scaled snout closer. “The power to shatter the Balance? I can force an incomplete awakening of your Scale Mail. I can give you ten seconds of absolute, transcendent power. Enough to crush that burning bird.”

“Give it to me!” Issei begged desperately. “I’ll do anything!”

“Power of this magnitude cannot simply be given, Issei. It requires a sacrifice of equal weight,” Ddraig warned, his green eyes narrowing. “To forge the armor, I require a piece of your humanity. Give me your left arm. Permanently.”

Issei didn’t even hesitate. The image of Rias crying as she surrendered flashed in his mind.

“Take it!” Issei roared, thrusting his left arm forward. “Take my arm, take whatever you need! Just give me the power to save the President!”

The dragon roared in approval, and a blinding crimson light engulfed the void.

Issei’s eyes snapped open. He gasped, sitting bolt upright in his bed in the Kuoh Academy infirmary. His body screamed in agony from Riser’s beating, but his left arm felt incredibly strange, thrumming with a dormant, terrifying heat.

“You are awake,” a calm voice noted.

Issei turned his head. Grayfia Lucifuge was standing beside his bed.

“Where is Rias?!” Issei demanded, scrambling to get up.

“She has returned to the Underworld. The engagement party is being held tonight,” Grayfia explained smoothly. She reached into her apron and placed a piece of parchment bearing a glowing, crimson teleportation seal on his bedside table. It bore the crest of a Griffin.

“Lord Sirzechs asked me to deliver this to you, along with a message,” Grayfia said, her silver eyes locking onto Issei’s. “He said: If you want to save my sister, then crash the party.”

Issei gripped the seal, his heart pounding in his chest. Sirzechs was giving him a backdoor.

“I need backup,” Issei muttered, ignoring the pain in his fractured ribs. He threw on his clothes and sprinted out of the infirmary, heading straight for Ren’s apartment. If there was anyone who could help him assassinate Riser Phenex and ruin an aristocratic wedding, it was the human anomaly who had single-handedly broken Riser’s vanguard.

Issei reached the apartment complex and pounded on Ren’s door. No answer. He forced the lock, bursting inside.

The apartment was dark, cold, and entirely empty. The tactical gear was gone. The canvas duffel bags were gone. It looked as though nobody had lived there for months.

“Dammit, Ren, where did you go?!” Issei panicked. He grabbed a pen and scribbled a frantic, desperate message on a piece of paper, slamming it onto the kitchen counter. Ren - Going to the Underworld to save Rias. Meet us at the ORC clubroom immediately. We need you! - Issei.

Issei sprinted all the way back to the academy. When he burst into the Occult Research Club, the rest of the peerage—Akeno, Kiba, Koneko, and Asia—were already gathered, fully armed and radiating fierce determination.

“Issei,” Akeno smiled, though her eyes were sharp. “Are you ready?”

“I left a message for Ren,” Issei panted, clutching the Griffin seal. “We just need to wait for him. With his combat skills, we can easily bypass Riser’s security.”

They waited. The clock on the clubroom wall ticked mercilessly. Five minutes. Ten minutes. Fifteen minutes.

The silence in the room grew heavy. The engagement party was starting. They were running out of time.

“He isn’t coming, Issei,” Kiba said quietly, his hand resting on his sword hilt. “He is a human. He has no obligation to this House.”

Issei stared at the door, his heart sinking, before his expression hardened into pure resolve. Ren had told him to forge himself into a weapon. Now, he had to prove he could be one without having his hand held.

“Fine,” Issei growled, channeling his draconic aura into the Griffin seal. “We do this ourselves. Let’s go save the President.”

The crimson circle flared, and the Occult Research Club vanished from the human world.

Sub Section 2: Return to Basic

The crushing gravity of the Harrowing Interstice pressed against Ren’s physical form, an endless expanse of ashen wasteland beneath a sky bleeding with violet nebulas. For hours, he had sat in a perfect lotus position, cycling the agonizing, heavy dark energy of the void through his newly unblocked major chakras. It was a terrifying, infinite power source, but as Ren analyzed the flow of the cosmic current, his analytical mind caught a fundamental discrepancy. He was acting solely as a conduit for an external force. He was borrowing the universe’s despair, but he had entirely neglected his own biological engine.

What about my own internal energy? Ren questioned silently into the roaring storms of the abyss. What about my own Qi?

The Harrowing Interstice did not answer with words, but with a profound, resonant vibration that shook the marrow of his bones. It was a sensation of ancient, cosmic acknowledgment. Slowly, the overwhelming pressure of the void’s multiversal despair—the screaming wails, the horrifying visions of shattered empires—receded. The dark energy did not vanish; it simply took a respectful step back, creating an absolute, frictionless vacuum within his meridians, inviting him to ignite his own core.

Ren focused inward, diving past the external darkness to the very center of his being. He commanded his three synchronized Dantians to generate their own internal kinetic force.

A new energy flared to life inside him.

It was a manifestation of pure, unadulterated Qi. True to his nature, its affinity was absolute darkness—a deep, consuming blackness that mirrored the void. Yet, unlike the energy of the Interstice, this internal power was completely silent. There were no weeping souls, no echoes of multiversal tragedy, and no chaotic malice. It was pristine, obedient, and entirely his own. Ren exhaled a neuro-somatic breath, seamlessly weaving his own pitch-black Qi with the infinitely dense, chaotic energy of the Harrowing Interstice. He embraced both: the perfect, silent engine of his human soul, and the limitless, roaring fuel of the void. He had achieved true, terrifying equilibrium.

Sensing the stabilization of his power, Ren forced the fabric of the dimension to rupture, stepping back into the quiet darkness of his Kuoh apartment.

The moment his boots touched the floorboards, he saw the frantic, scribbled note illuminated by the streetlights streaming through his window. Going to the Underworld to save Rias. Meet us at the ORC clubroom immediately. We need you! - Issei.

Ren checked the digital clock on his nightstand. It had been hours since the Rating Game concluded. The Occult Research Club was long gone, and the aristocratic engagement party in the Underworld was undoubtedly already underway. Standard transportation magic was out of the question; the Devil King’s security grid would incinerate any unauthorized teleportation circles.

“Inefficient,” Ren murmured, tossing the note aside.

He didn’t need Devil magic. He closed his eyes, tapping into the newly harmonized, pitch-black Qi circulating through his spine. He reached through the veil of the human world, grasped the spatial coordinates of the Underworld through the sheer density of its demonic pressure, and ripped a jagged shortcut straight through the Harrowing Interstice.

In the heart of the Underworld, the grand, opulent ballroom of the Phenex estate was in utter chaos.

Issei, Kiba, Koneko, and Asia had just violently breached the heavy mahogany doors, weapons drawn and demonic auras flaring. High-class nobles gasped in aristocratic outrage. Riser Phenex, dressed in an immaculate white tuxedo, glared down from the grand staircase, his eyes burning with lethal fury at the sight of the low-class Devils ruining his victory celebration.

Before Riser could order his royal guards to execute the intruders, the temperature in the center of the grand ballroom plummeted to absolute zero.

A terrifying, violent tearing sound drowned out the orchestral music. Between the furious Gremory peerage and the shocked Devil nobility, reality simply shattered. A jagged, violet rift bled into the pristine ballroom, exuding a suffocating, hostile atmospheric pressure that forced several high-class Devils to their knees in sheer panic.

Ren stepped out of the void, his dark coat billowing against the dimensional winds. The tear snapped shut behind him, leaving a deathly, horrified silence in its wake. The nobles stared at the human anomaly, their magical senses screaming in confusion at the absolute lack of mana and the terrifying density of his presence.

Issei’s face lit up with overwhelming relief. “Ren! You made it! Let’s tear this place apart and get the President back!”

Ren did not summon his dense gravitational pressure. He did not drop into a martial stance. Instead, his dark eyes casually scanned the perimeter of the grand ballroom until he spotted the seventy-foot-long, lavishly decorated aristocratic buffet table.

Without a word, Ren walked right past a bewildered squad of Phenex royal guards, picked up a pristine porcelain plate, and began meticulously loading it with high-end Underworld delicacies. He selected a generous portion of roasted griffin flank, a cluster of glowing spectral grapes, and poured himself a glass of vintage elven wine.

Finding a plush velvet chair near the ice sculpture, Ren sat down, crossed his legs, and took a bite of the roast, chewing thoughtfully.

Issei’s jaw practically unhinged. Kiba nearly dropped his demonic sword.

“What the hell are you doing?!” Issei shrieked, sprinting over to the buffet table. “We are in the middle of a suicide mission to rescue Rias! Why are you eating the hors d’oeuvres?!”

Ren took a sip of his wine, looking at Issei with cold, absolute calm. “Because the griffin flank is exceptionally well-seasoned, Issei. Furthermore, you do not need my assistance to rescue the President. We are not crashing a party; we are performing on a stage.”

“What are you talking about?!” Issei demanded, waving his red, draconically-empowered left arm in the air.

“I was sitting directly next to Lord Sirzechs in the VIP gallery during your Rating Game,” Ren answered smoothly, cutting another piece of meat. “I already read the script for tonight’s performance. We are all fully authorized, invited guests. So, lower your voice and enjoy the catering before the main event begins.”

“The human is entirely correct,” a booming, charismatic voice echoed through the grand hall.

The crowd of panicked nobles instantly parted, bowing deeply in absolute reverence as Sirzechs Lucifer, the Crimson Satan, strode down the grand staircase. He ignored the furious sputtering of Lord Phenex and the enraged glare of Riser, walking directly toward the center of the ballroom with a theatrical smile.

“A wedding ceremony following a one-sided surrender is horribly dull, don’t you all agree?” Sirzechs projected his voice to the gallery of nobles, weaving a masterful web of political manipulation and aristocratic pride. “The Underworld is a realm built on power and spectacle. I promised you all a show tonight, and what better entertainment could there possibly be than a mythic clash of titans?”

Sirzechs turned his piercing crimson eyes toward Riser. “Riser Phenex. You claim to be the immortal bird, a pureblood noble worthy of inheriting the Gremory legacy. If your absolute superiority is genuine, then a low-class, fledgling dragon should pose absolutely no threat to you. I propose a final, public duel. The Dragon against the Phoenix.”

Riser gritted his teeth, the sheer pressure of the Crimson Satan’s taunt forcing his hand. To refuse a duel from a low-class Devil in front of the entire Underworld aristocracy would permanently shatter the Phenex family’s pride.

Sirzechs then turned to Issei, his smile widening as he felt the terrifying, dormant heat radiating from the boy’s sacrificed left arm. “And for you, Red Dragon Emperor. If you can achieve the impossible and defeat an immortal noble, the Underworld will grant you whatever your heart desires. Do you want ultimate political power? Infinite, unfathomable wealth? Or perhaps a harem of the most beautiful succubi in existence?”

Ren paused his meal, watching Issei over the rim of his wine glass. He knew exactly what the Pawn would say.

Issei didn’t hesitate. He didn’t look at the gold, the nobles, or the promise of infinite women. He raised his draconic gauntlet, pointing it directly at Riser Phenex.

“I don’t care about the wealth, and I don’t care about the power!” Issei roared, his voice echoing with the primal, world-ending fury of the Welsh Dragon. “I just want my President back!”

Section 4: The Dragon and the Phoenix

The grand ballroom of the Phenex estate violently transformed into a coliseum of scorched marble and shattered crystal. Riser Phenex, wreathed in the immortal flames of his lineage, stared down at the low-class Pawn who dared to challenge him. But this time, Issei was not a broken, bleeding victim. A blinding crimson light erupted from his sacrificed left arm, instantly encasing his entire body in the jagged, terrifyingly heavy draconic plating of the incomplete Scale Mail.

The sheer density of the aura radiating from the armor forced the surrounding high-class nobles to erect hasty defensive barriers.

Riser’s eyes widened, a genuine spark of warrior’s respect flashing through his aristocratic arrogance. He unleashed a massive torrent of hellfire, but Issei stepped right through the inferno, the draconic armor absorbing the heat entirely.

“Incredible,” Riser murmured, parrying a devastating right hook from Issei that cracked the floorboards beneath them. “To unlock the armor of the Heavenly Dragon through sheer force of will… you are a genuine anomaly, Hyoudou Issei. When Rias and I are married, I will take you into my own peerage. I will personally guide you. I will forge you into the greatest warrior the Underworld has ever seen.”

“I don’t want your guidance, and I don’t give a damn about your peerage!” Issei roared, his voice metallic and deep through the dragon helm. He swung a heavy, mana-infused kick that sent Riser skidding across the room. “I am here to save Rias!”

Riser recovered instantly, his wounds sealing in a burst of healing fire. His expression hardened into grim, absolute duty. “You are acting like a spoiled child playing hero! Look around you! Look at the empty seats of the Great King Houses!” Riser summoned a massive halberd made of pure, concentrated flame. “The Great War nearly drove Devil-kind to extinction! This marriage is not a whim; it is a biological and political necessity. The Gremory and Phenex lines must merge to secure the future of the Underworld! You are trying to destroy our entire society for a selfish crush!”

The two clashed again, a shockwave of fire and draconic power shattering the grand chandelier above.

“You think I care about the politics of a world I didn’t even know existed a month ago?!” Issei screamed, forcefully breaking Riser’s guard and burying a gauntleted fist directly into the pureblood’s chest. “I saw her face, Riser! When you were beating me to death on that roof, I saw Rias throw away all her pride, her dreams, and her freedom just to stop my pain! I saw her cry!”

From the sidelines, Rias gasped, her hands flying to her mouth as tears welled in her eyes once more.

“There is absolutely nothing in this universe more important to me than fighting for her happiness!” Issei roared, channeling every ounce of his soul into his engines. “I will shatter your society if it means making her smile!”

The sheer, raw conviction in Issei’s voice resonated through the entire ballroom. But passion alone could not sustain the impossible. The ten-second timer of the forcefully awakened Scale Mail struck zero.

With the sound of shattering glass, the crimson armor violently fractured and dissolved, leaving Issei battered and exposed in his school uniform.

Riser exhaled a breath of fire, raising his flaming halberd for the executioner’s blow. “Your time is up, Dragon. You fought beautifully, but a Devil cannot outlast an immortal.”

“Who said I was fighting like a Devil?” Issei grinned, his left arm—now permanently scaled and glowing with raw, untamed draconic heat—reaching into his pocket.

Because his left arm had been sacrificed to Ddraig, it was no longer bound by the demonic biology of a Devil. It was the limb of a Heavenly Dragon. Issei pulled out a heavy silver cross and a crystal vial of highly concentrated, church-blessed holy water. The surrounding Devils gasped in absolute horror at the presence of the lethal artifacts.

“Boost!” the gauntlet announced. Issei shattered the vial over the silver cross, gripping it tightly.

Instead of burning him to ash, Issei channeled the Boosted Gift directly into the holy artifacts. The ambient holy energy, lethal to any creature of the Underworld, was multiplied exponentially. A blinding, pure white light erupted from the cross.

“This is for the President!” Issei yelled, lunging forward with a speed Riser could not track.

He slammed the drastically overpowered holy cross directly into Riser’s chest. The holy energy violently bypassed the Phenex regeneration, entirely neutralizing the immortal flames. Riser let out a breathless gasp of shock as the holy explosion engulfed him, launching him across the ballroom and crashing into the far wall, completely unconscious.

The Underworld fell deathly silent. A low-class Pawn had just defeated a pureblood heir.

Breathing heavily, Issei ignored the stunned aristocracy and limped directly toward Rias. He reached into his jacket and pulled out the teleportation scroll Grayfia had secretly given him. He crushed it in his hand. A massive, glowing magic circle expanded across the shattered floor, and with a deafening screech, a majestic, fully armored Griffon materialized in the center of the ballroom.

Issei hopped onto the beast, extending his hand to Rias. She took it without hesitation, pulling herself up behind him and wrapping her arms tightly around his waist.

“Lord Gremory, Lord Phenex,” Issei announced, looking up at the shocked patriarchs on the balcony. “We are leaving!”

Before anyone could object, the Griffon flapped its massive wings, shattering the grand stained-glass windows and launching into the crimson sky of the Underworld.

High above the chaotic estate, the cold night air rushed past them. Rias leaned against Issei’s back, the overwhelming relief washing away the nightmare of the past ten days. She gently urged Issei to turn around. When he did, she pulled him in by the collar and kissed him deeply under the glow of the purple moon.

It was a profound, paradigm-shifting moment. As they broke apart, the aristocratic mask was gone. She was no longer looking at him as her loyal servant or her disposable Pawn. She was looking at a man who had ripped a hole in reality to save her.

“Issei,” Rias whispered, a playful, incredibly genuine smile dancing on her lips. “If you wish, tonight… I could offer you my virginity.”

“Yes!” Issei answered instantly, his draconic aura flaring in pure, unadulterated excitement.

Rias burst into genuine, musical laughter. His complete lack of tact, his utter honesty, and his ridiculous perversion were the most comforting things in the world to her at that moment. He hadn’t changed; he was just uniquely, fiercely hers.

Back in the ruined ballroom, the silence broke. Ravel Phenex sprinted across the rubble, tears streaming down her face as she reached her unconscious brother. Riser slowly opened his eyes, groaning as the lingering holy damage stung his chest.

“Lord Brother, please, let me help you!” Ravel pleaded, reaching for him.

Riser gently raised a hand, stopping her. His arrogant fire was entirely gone, replaced by a quiet, hollow realization. “It’s okay, Ravel. Let me be.” He slowly pulled himself up, turning his back on the crowd, and walked quietly out of the hall alone, the crushing weight of his first true defeat sealing the doors of his pride.

Up on the balcony, Lord Phenex watched his son walk away. Slowly, a warm, relieved smile spread across his face. He turned to Sirzechs and Lord Gremory.

“Thank you, both of you,” Lord Phenex said softly. “This is exactly what Riser desperately needed. He has never known the taste of dirt, and his arrogance was poisoning his potential. This defeat will finally teach him what it means to grow.”

Lord Gremory nodded, swirling a glass of wine. “It seems we have all learned a lesson tonight. Our intelligence ministries have finalized their demographic reassessments. The Devil population has stabilized far better than our post-war estimates projected. The era of panic is over.” Zeoticus looked out the shattered window, tracking the distant silhouette of the Griffon. “We no longer need to force our children into loveless, desperate engagements just to ensure the survival of purebloods. I must admit… waking up from that nightmare of fear, and seeing my daughter truly free, is the greatest relief a father could ask for.”

Down on the main floor, the Occult Research Club was packing up. Akeno, Kiba, Koneko, and Asia stood near Grayfia, ready to return to the human world.

Ren walked up to the group, casually wiping his mouth with a linen napkin, having successfully finished his plate of Underworld delicacies during the chaos of Issei’s victory.

“Ren?” Akeno blinked. “I thought you would have ripped open another terrifying dimension to go home by now.”

“Standard teleportation is significantly less taxing on the metaphysical state of my soul after a heavy meal,” Ren replied calmly, taking his place in the center of Grayfia’s transportation circle. “Furthermore, I need you all to deliver a message.”

“To Issei?” Kiba asked, sheathing his sword.

“Correct. I am riding with you because I refuse to be the third wheel interrupting a profoundly overdue romantic flight,” Ren stated, folding his arms as the silver magic circle began to glow. “When lover boy finally returns to Kuoh, inform him that there is something of absolute, critical importance I must speak with him about.”

Life Ending

Section 1: Farewell Matsuda and Motohama

The weekend morning air in Kuoh was crisp and deceptively normal, completely betraying the multiversal upheaval that had occurred just days prior. Ren sat by the window of his sparsely furnished apartment, meditating on the silent, pitch-black Qi circulating through his Dantians, when a rapid, energetic knocking shattered the quiet.

Issei stood in the hallway, practically vibrating with a chaotic mixture of leftover draconic adrenaline and sheer teenage euphoria. He was no longer the desperate, beaten Pawn. He carried himself with the subtle but undeniable weight of a dragon who had successfully hoarded his treasure.

“Akeno passed on your message,” Issei said, leaning against the doorframe with a wide grin. “Said it was super important. But honestly, man, my schedule is completely booked today. The President—well, Rias—is throwing a massive celebration party at the Occult Research Club this evening to officially welcome me back and celebrate the broken engagement. You have to come. We can talk about whatever it is there, over a mountain of high-end Underworld steak.”

Ren studied the boy for a moment, noting the relaxed set of his shoulders and the lingering spark of raw affection in his eyes when he said Rias’s name. The urgency of Ren’s impending departure could wait a few more hours.

“Very well,” Ren agreed calmly, stepping back to close the door. “Enjoy your preparations, Issei. I will see you at the clubroom tonight.”

With the evening secured, Ren turned his attention to the loose ends he had left tethered to the mundane world. If he was truly going to step fully into the abyss to forge his own reality, he owed his former comrades a proper severance.

An hour later, Ren was standing in the neon-drenched cacophony of the local arcade, handing a massive stack of tokens to Matsuda and Motohama.

“I am funding this entirely,” Ren announced, his tone flat but his eyes carrying a rare, genuine amusement. “Whatever games you wish to play, whatever food you wish to consume, consider it handled.”

The remaining half of Kuoh Academy’s infamous perverted quartet did not need to be told twice. What followed was a marathon of absolute, unregulated teenage indulgence. Ren watched with quiet analytical detachment as Matsuda violently mashed buttons on a fighting game cabinet, while Motohama calculated absolute frame data and still managed to lose. They moved from the arcade to a karaoke parlor, where Ren sat on a leather sofa, sipping cold green tea while the two boys butchered pop anthems with tone-deaf enthusiasm.

As the sun began to set, casting long orange shadows over the city, Ren guided them to a bustling, smoke-filled all-you-can-drink barbecue restaurant. The grills sizzled with cheap, fatty cuts of pork, and the table was quickly littered with empty soda and low-tier beer glasses.

The alcohol and heavy food eventually unraveled their inhibitions, bringing the underlying tension to the surface.

“It’s just not fair, man,” Matsuda slurred slightly, aggressively flipping a piece of meat on the grill. “First Issei gets scouted by the most beautiful girls in the entire school. Then you start hanging out with them too! You two totally abandoned us for the Occult Research Club!”

“Statistically speaking, the probability of both of you infiltrating that social circle while we remain ostracized is completely absurd,” Motohama added, pushing his glasses up his nose with a pout. “We know you’ve been going to their clubroom, Ren. Are you holding out on us? Is Issei actually living the dream?”

Ren rested his chin on his hand, letting out a soft, genuine laugh. It was a rare sound, devoid of his usual tactical coldness. He looked at the two normal boys—petty, perverted, but fiercely loyal to their own mundane desires. He was about to leave this world behind forever. He could easily tell them he was transferring schools or moving overseas, wrapping his departure in a comfortable, easily digestible lie.

But looking at his oldest friends, Ren decided that a polite lie was an insult to their shared history.

“I am leaving Kuoh,” Ren stated smoothly, his voice slicing through the noisy ambient chatter of the restaurant. “I will be going very far away, and I will not be returning.”

Matsuda dropped his tongs. Motohama blinked, the alcohol haze instantly clearing from his eyes. “Wait, what? Like… moving? Where?”

“To answer your earlier question,” Ren continued, ignoring the interruption and leaning forward. “Yes. Issei has completely fulfilled the dream. He is living in a reality that far exceeds your wildest, most degenerate imaginations. He is experiencing mixed baths, undivided loyalty, and the absolute affection of the most beautiful women in this city.”

Matsuda’s face contorted into an expression of profound, agonizing jealousy, but Ren raised a single, commanding finger, freezing him in place.

“However,” Ren’s voice dropped an octave, the temperature around their booth noticeably chilling. “The Occult Research Club is not what it appears to be. It is not a harem comedy. It is an active battlefield. The things lurking in Issei’s shadow would snap your minds just by looking at them.”

Ren met their confused, terrified eyes with absolute sincerity. “If you truly desire to stand beside Issei and enter that club, you must completely forge yourselves into weapons. You must become strong enough to survive lethal encounters, and more importantly, strong enough to not become a liability that gets Issei killed protecting you. If you cannot do that, remain exactly where you are.”

Matsuda and Motohama stared at him, their mouths hanging open in utter bewilderment.

“What… what the hell are you talking about, Ren?” Motohama stammered. “Battlefields? Weapons? You’re not making any sense.”

“I am providing the answer to your puzzle,” Ren said simply. He stood up from the booth, dropping a thick stack of yen on the table to cover the exorbitant bill.

Rather than walking toward the exit, Ren turned toward the solid brick wall beside their table. He closed his eyes, synchronized his Dantians, and casually reached his hand forward.

Reality tore open like wet paper.

A jagged portal to the Harrowing Interstice violently manifested right inside the restaurant. The smell of grilled meat was instantly overwhelmed by the horrifying scent of ozone, ash, and multiversal decay. The distant, agonizing wails of forgotten entities bled through the violet rift, creating a suffocating pressure that made Matsuda and Motohama fall backward out of their chairs in sheer, unadulterated terror.

“Farewell, my friends,” Ren said, glancing over his shoulder one last time.

Without another word, he stepped directly into the nightmare dimension. The portal snapped shut behind him, the brick wall sealing seamlessly, leaving Matsuda and Motohama trembling on the restaurant floor, desperately questioning their own sanity.

Minutes later, the violent tearing of space echoed in the woods behind Kuoh Academy. Ren stepped out of the Interstice, his dark coat settling as he approached the old school building.

The Occult Research Club was practically vibrating with life. Music pulsed through the thick wooden doors, and the scent of high-end Underworld cuisine wafted into the night air. Ren opened the door and stepped inside, instantly enveloped in the warmth of the celebration.

The room was draped in banners. Akeno was playfully feeding Issei a piece of steak, much to the Pawn’s bright red embarrassment, while Rias watched them with a serene, genuinely happy smile. Kiba and Koneko were quietly enjoying the buffet, the heavy tension of the past two weeks completely erased from their shoulders.

“Ren! You made it!” Issei called out, gently pushing Akeno’s hand away and jogging over.

“I told you I would,” Ren replied, grabbing a glass of sparkling cider from a passing tray.

He integrated himself into the party seamlessly, observing the joyous interactions and partaking in the exorbitant feast. He watched Rias laugh freely, unburdened by the chains of her lineage, and he watched Issei bask in the glow of the family he had fought so brutally to protect. Ren allowed the warmth of the room to wash over him for a long, quiet hour, perfectly memorizing the peace he had helped orchestrate.

Eventually, the music lulled, and the group settled into a comfortable, deeply contented downtime. Ren set his empty glass on a mahogany side table. His dark eyes locked onto the Red Dragon Emperor.

“Issei,” Ren said, his voice cutting through the relaxed atmosphere with a sharp, undeniable gravity. “Are you ready to talk?”

Section 2: Farewell ORC

“Remember the portal I opened in the VIP gallery? The tear in the fabric of space?” Ren began, his dark eyes locking onto the Red Dragon Emperor, his tone devoid of its usual casual cadence. “It leads to a dimension called the Harrowing Interstice. I will be leaving Kuoh, Issei. I am going there.”

Issei physically jolted, the joyous, relaxed posture he had carried all evening instantly vanishing. His draconic aura flared with sudden, erratic anxiety. “Wait, what?! Why? Did I do something wrong, man? Did we alienate you after the Rating Game? Because if this is about me hogging all the glory, or if you feel left out—”

“Issei, calm down,” Ren interrupted, though his voice held a rare, reassuring warmth. “I had not finished my statement.”

The sudden tension in Issei’s voice had acted like a magnet, drawing the attention of the entire clubroom. The music seemed to fade into the background as Akeno, Kiba, Koneko, Asia, and Rias all turned toward the two boys, the celebratory atmosphere giving way to a heavy, respectful silence.

Rias stepped forward, her crimson hair catching the ambient light of the room. She looked at Ren not as a high-class Devil looking down on a human, but as a commander assessing an equal.

“If you are leaving because you feel you have no place here, Ren, then you are mistaken,” Rias said, her voice projecting the absolute authority and newfound maturity of the Gremory House. “I am formally inviting you to join the Occult Research Club. Not as a servant, and not as a reincarnated Devil bound to my pieces, but as a human member of our family.”

She paused, offering him a soft, apologetic smile. “Previously, I maintained a strict barrier regarding humans. It was not out of arrogance, but out of fear. The enemies we face are lethal, and I was terrified of accepting members who could not survive the crossfire, or whose presence would force my peerage into fatal, defensive compromises. But you have proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you are not a liability. You are a vanguard in your own right.”

Ren looked at the crimson-haired president, a slow, genuine smile spreading across his face. “I know, Rias. And I appreciate the tactical logic behind your previous hesitations.”

Ren turned his gaze back to Issei, and then swept his eyes over the rest of the peerage. “Rias likely extended this invitation tonight because she remembers the conversation we had after the church raid. When you were training, Issei, I pointed out the sheer, absurd disparity in our realities. We all shared the exact same degenerate, mundane dreams—Matsuda, Motohama, and myself. Yet, by some stroke of multiversal luck, you were the one who was revived. You were the one granted the ‘protagonist’s’ harem paradise, while the rest of us were left to rot in the background of your story.”

Issei looked down, a flash of guilt crossing his face, but Ren raised a hand.

“Do not misunderstand me,” Ren continued, his voice echoing with philosophical weight. “I hold no jealousy toward your life, Issei. The difference between myself and the others is that my ambitions do not end at the boundaries of a harem. If the universe refuses to hand me a paradise, then I will carve my own path. I will pursue the absolute pinnacle of scholarship, martial perfection, and multiversal strength.”

“You certainly have the terrifying intellect for it,” Akeno chimed in, a fond, teasing smile on her lips, though her violet eyes held deep respect. “Though we will miss having such a ruthlessly pragmatic mind around to keep Issei in check.”

“You are a true warrior, Ren,” Kiba added, resting a hand on the hilt of his wooden practice sword. “You walk a different path than the sword, but your dedication to your craft is something I deeply admire. You have my respect, wherever you go.”

Koneko took a slow bite of her chocolate crepe, looking directly at Ren with her usual deadpan expression, though the hostility that used to define their interactions was entirely gone. “You’re less of a creep than I thought. Don’t die out there.”

“Please be careful, Ren-san,” Asia said softly, clutching her hands together in prayer. “We will always pray for your safety.”

Ren bowed his head slightly in acknowledgment of their words before turning back to Issei. “What I said after the church raid remains true, but my departure is not born from resentment. I am not leaving forever, nor am I leaving because I dislike Kuoh or the company in this room. I am going to the Harrowing Interstice because the nature of my Qi demands a crucible. It is a place I simply must go to forge my reality.”

Ren looked at Rias, his dark eyes reflecting the warm light of the clubroom. “That being said, I do not require a Devil Piece, nor do I require a physical token. But I gladly accept your verbal invitation, President. I am officially a member of the Occult Research Club.”

A collective breath of relief and joy washed over the room. Issei’s draconic aura settled into a warm, thrumming hum, and a massive grin broke across his face. “You hear that? You’re stuck with us now, Ren! Which means you have to come back eventually so we can make you pay club dues!”

“I look forward to the invoice,” Ren replied dryly.

He stepped back from the group, moving toward the center of the spacious clubroom. He closed his eyes, inhaling a deep, stabilizing breath. He synchronized his three Dantians, merging his silent, pitch-black human Qi with the latent memory of the void.

He raised his hand and sliced downward.

The fabric of reality within the Occult Research Club violently tore open. The warm, festive air of the room was instantly sucked toward the jagged, violet rift. The horrifying, sub-zero atmospheric pressure of the Harrowing Interstice bled through, carrying the faint, distant wails of forgotten entities and the scent of cosmic ash.

Rias and her peerage stood their ground, their demonic auras flaring instinctively against the oppressive, multiversal dread pouring from the portal. They watched in silent, profound awe as the human anomaly stood perfectly unaffected before the abyss.

Ren cast one final look over his shoulder, locking eyes with Issei, Rias, and the found family that had anchored his humanity. He offered them a sharp, respectful salute.

Without another word, Ren stepped through the tear. The dimensional rift snapped shut behind him with a deafening crack, instantly restoring the peace, warmth, and quiet of the Occult Research Club, leaving nothing behind but the lingering memory of a human who had chosen to conquer the dark.