[The Hachiman Household, Living Room]
After working hard the entire night, Hachiman arrived in the living room. Looking at Raphiel, who had been tightly bound and placed where the coffee table used to be, he casually picked up the small and adorable Iris from the sofa, sat down between Kaede and Lala with Iris in his lap, then looked toward Gabriel and Vignette standing beside Raphiel in confusion.
"How are you guys only just getting back? School's about to start soon. Was Raphiel really that troublesome?"
He'd assumed that with Gabriel and Vignette joining forces alongside Iris, Ursula, Kaede Bell, and the others, dealing with someone like Raphiel would've been effortless. He'd wanted to wait for Lala and the others to return so Lala could have a proper sisterly talk with Momo and Nana before moving on to the remaining "sisters united in heart" steps.
But he hadn't expected Lala and the others to spend so long chasing Raphiel outside without catching her. Because of that, Momo and Nana had only been allowed to watch from the sidelines instead of actually participating, right up until they passed out.
"Hehe! Miss Raphiel is still an angel in the end. We shouldn't push her too harshly."
Iris naturally wrapped her arms around Hachiman's neck and kissed the corner of his lips. Gently rubbing her cheek against his as well, she let out a soft laugh.
"In a direct fight, Raphiel definitely wouldn't be our opponent. But she's way too good at running."
"Yeah. And to avoid affecting ordinary people, we couldn't casually start fighting either, so catching Raphiel wasn't exactly easy."
Seeing Iris skillfully kissing Hachiman, Kaede and Lala also immediately hugged him, the three girls clinging to him together and greedily soaking him in.
Their perfectly good nightlife had been interrupted by Raphiel. They had to make up for it during the daytime now.
"We even ran into angels from other regions who'd descended to Earth."
"There were even demons involved. Honestly, I have no idea what Raphiel usually does to know so much about demon movements."
"She's even better at causing trouble than I am. Once she joins us, we can go raid those evil organizations' territories."
"Mhm! Raphiel. Hard to catch."
Gabriel, Vignette, Ursula, and the others all started complaining about how difficult Raphiel had been to capture. Even Suzu, who normally barely spoke when others were around, couldn't help chiming in.
They'd wanted to hurry back too and join the hide-and-seek game, to see exactly how Hachiman tried feeling around to distinguish the real Yukari from the fake one. If he really couldn't tell them apart, they could've even helped by yanking off his blindfold and giving him a little hint.
Unfortunately, Raphiel truly deserved her reputation as an angel. Unlike Gabriel and Vignette, who tried their best to avoid using their powers and disrupting the human world's order, Raphiel's "bottom line" was a lot more flexible.
Once she realized she not only couldn't beat Gabriel and the others, but couldn't even escape properly, Raphiel started fleeing either toward residences where angels and demons hid their identities, or straight into the bases of various evil organizations, constantly dragging things out.
Over the course of one night, countless factions had their territories swept through by them. Nobody knew how many groups had been alarmed.
Angels who didn't know the situation naturally chose to help Raphiel when they saw her being "hunted down."
After all, besides Iris, Ursula, Kaede, and the other elves, dragons, and magical girls, there was even the demon Vignette among the pursuers. Any angel would instinctively side with Raphiel.
Fortunately, they had Gabriel there to step in and explain things to the angels who misunderstood the situation.
Even so, it still took them an incredibly long time to finally capture Raphiel after she exhausted herself fleeing with everything she had.
They weren't worried that Raphiel would truly fight them seriously, and Raphiel wasn't worried they'd actually go all-out against her either. That mutual restraint had instead given Raphiel room to stall for time.
If they recklessly unleashed their powers and accidentally triggered chaos among the major factions, then Planet Earth would really be in danger.
"Um... can we reconcile?"
Seeing Hachiman looking at her while listening to everyone complain, Raphiel, well aware she wouldn't escape getting "claimed", swallowed hard. Forcing herself to stay composed, she squeezed out a sweet, adorable smile and tried persuading Hachiman to spare her for today.
"There's no conflict between us, right?"
Logically speaking, she shouldn't have been afraid of a human from the mortal world at all.
Even with Gabriel and Vignette helping him, she was still a dignified angel. There was no way a mere mortal could violate her. Even if she lay still and did nothing, holy light would protect her body automatically.
But she had "personally" witnessed Hachiman ignore holy light entirely. Even Gabriel and Vignette couldn't stop his corruption, so there was no point expecting she could.
Just thinking about the humiliation she might suffer shortly, something she'd never be able to wash away for the rest of her life, made Raphiel tremble uncontrollably. She even felt like her angelic halo was already starting to turn white before it had even been tainted by impurity.
"Hehe! Conflict?"
Seeing Raphiel immediately lower her head and admit fault without hesitation, trying to get Hachiman to let her off, Gabriel almost laughed from sheer disbelief.
"At this point, Raphiel, do you seriously think that's still possible?"
True enough, there wasn't really any conflict between Raphiel and Hachiman. Aside from occasionally spying on him, she barely had any direct interaction with him at all.
But she and Raphiel definitely had issues with each other. Not just her, Vignette too.
Both she and Vignette had practically been shoved toward Hachiman by Raphiel's scheming.
Although the true mastermind was probably still the otherworld elf princess Iris, with Raphiel merely giving the initial push. If Raphiel had apologized or shown herself back then, they wouldn't have been this angry.
Instead, Raphiel's solution had been to keep hiding over and over again while secretly laughing at them from the shadows.
They seriously suspected Raphiel had already recorded all their embarrassing black history and planned to mock them with it later.
"Gab, stop wasting time. Before school starts, let Hachiman feed Raphiel some breakfast."
Still maintaining her demon form, Vignette looked expressionlessly at Raphiel while tightly gripping her trident and urged impatiently.
As an honor student, skipping class wasn't acceptable. To prevent Raphiel from taking advantage of school hours to stage another great escape, they had to make her accept punishment first. Once she got used to things, they wouldn't need to watch her constantly anymore.
"Exactly! If we don't hurry, there won't be enough time left. Hachiman, punish Raphiel properly. No need to hold back."
After checking the time, Gabriel immediately nodded in agreement. Together with Vignette, she carried Raphiel over in front of Hachiman while reminding him, who already had one girl in his arms and another on each side, not to go easy on her.
Every ounce of humiliation she and Vignette had experienced back then, Raphiel now had to experience all of it too.
"Wait! Didn't you say you were feeding me breakfast? Why are you feeding me like this?"
When Gabriel and Vignette brought her over in front of Hachiman, Raphiel initially didn't think much of it. Feeding breakfast was just feeding breakfast, right? At worst it'd be a little embarrassing.
But when she saw Gabriel and Vignette not even bothering to untie her, one pinning her down while the other loosened her necktie and started undoing her shirt buttons, Raphiel instantly panicked.
"You two only got spoon-fed, didn't you? At most, maybe mouth-to-mouth feeding too! Why do I have to do something like this?"
Back then, Vignette and Gabriel had only played simple feeding punishment games with Hachiman. The more intimate acts had only happened gradually after their relationships deepened.
So why was she being thrown straight into something this intense right from the start?
Even Vignette and Gabriel themselves had never done this with Hachiman before, had they?
Although neither Vignette nor Gabriel explicitly said it, Raphiel immediately understood from experience exactly how they intended her punishment to proceed.
"Just as I thought... Raphiel, you really were spying the whole time. You knew everything and still pretended not to."
Hearing the Raphiel's words, Gabriel, who had been slowly undoing Raphiel's shirt buttons, immediately moved behind her. With a face full of disgust, she used her little hands to push Raphiel's soft body closer against Hachiman.
Originally, Gabriel had still been hesitating over whether this punishment was a little too excessive. After all, Raphiel really hadn't seemed to have any intimate interactions with Hachiman, nor secretly gotten close to him behind their backs. Suddenly making her do something this intimate with Hachiman, even as punishment, did seem a bit much.
But now, seeing Raphiel shift from completely fearless to utterly panicked, Gabriel lost every trace of guilt.
Raphiel had never once considered helping her or Vignette. She'd hidden in the shadows watching the show, calmly observing them suffer.
So now it was only natural that it became Raphiel's turn.
"We can't do this ourselves, so we'll leave it to you, Raphiel. There's still half an hour before school starts. As long as you endure for thirty minutes, this punishment will be over."
Vignette looked at Raphiel, who was already lightly braced against Hachiman's thigh, then lowered her gaze toward herself and Gabriel. Her expression turned complicated as she spoke quietly.
Although thirty minutes was far shorter than the punishments they themselves had endured, she also understood that they couldn't go too far on the first time. Otherwise Raphiel's resistance would become far too intense.
"..."
Raphiel silently stared at Gabriel and Vignette, who looked like they were practically on the verge of becoming fallen angels, and said nothing for a long while.
She already knew she wouldn't escape getting "claimed." Otherwise she wouldn't have desperately stalled all night long, even exposing angelic powers to buy time.
But she never expected the deciding factor behind her punishment would be her figure.
Did Gabriel and Vignette think ordinary feeding punishment wasn't enough, so they were going all-in on something ruthless right from the first round?
Still... who told her to enjoy watching Gabriel and Vignette suffer back then? The entertainment had merely shifted from them onto herself now.
Knowing she was in the wrong and unable to continue running, Raphiel could only take a deep breath and slowly lower her head.
"Gab... Vigne... just you wait... I'll make you regret this..."
While serving Hachiman, who pretended nothing was happening in order to spare her embarrassment, Raphiel glared sideways at Gabriel and Vignette beside her. In her mind, she could already picture the miserable state they'd be in someday, soaked through and trembling.
Although Vignette and Gabriel's relationships with Hachiman still hadn't progressed further, leaving them somewhat special within the Service Club, now that she herself had reached this point, with her assistance, how far away could it really be before Vignette and Gabriel truly integrated into Iris and the others' circle?
And not just Vignette and Gabriel.
There were also those other angels and demons, like Poporon, who'd watched her get "hunted down" and done absolutely nothing to help.
Maybe she didn't need to search for entertainment anymore.
Staying beside Hachiman alone was already enough.
After spending so long in the human world, nowhere had more incidents or more interesting developments than around Hachiman. Besides angels and demons, there was also a huge collection of abnormal humans constantly providing amusement.
Actually, being dragged into all this by Gabriel and Vignette wasn't so bad.
From now on, she wouldn't need to keep hiding anymore. Instead, she could work together with Iris and the others to study how to deal with Gabriel's older sister, or even that... Lord.
Hachiman could actually ignore angelic holy light entirely. Who knew whether that would attract the interest of the ruler of Heaven herself?
'If...'
'If Hachiman could even tempt Heaven's ruler into falling.'
'Then things will really become obscene.'
Having decided to personally step onto the board in pursuit of the ultimate entertainment, Raphiel lowered her head deeply. Feeling that Hachiman was still incredibly energetic, she copied the movements she'd once secretly observed from Lala and the others and slowly tightened her hands.
["Ding~"]
["Character mission 'The Teasing Angel Classmate' completed."]
["Shiraha Raphiel Ainsworth. Written as angel, read as demon. Although she graduated as the second-ranked angel of her class behind only Gabriel and maintained excellent relationships with many angels, she had actually already fallen into sadistic tendencies before even leaving Heaven, using teasing others to relieve boredom."]
["She has now found the ultimate entertainment capable of satisfying her."]
["Mission completion reward, Halo of the Pleasure Angel."]
"Hm? Halo of the Pleasure Angel?"
Hachiman had just wrapped an arm around Iris's slender waist and lifted her slightly higher onto his lap, not wanting the Iris sitting in his embrace to interfere with Raphiel, when the system completion notification suddenly sounded again.
He'd triggered the fun-loving angel mission a long time ago already. He simply never intended to become Raphiel's source of amusement, which was why he'd avoided proactively interacting with her.
So what was going on now? Why had Raphiel's entertainment mission suddenly completed?
Had Raphiel realized that she herself had become the entertainment? The teasing angel becoming the joke herself.
Muttering inwardly, Hachiman curiously checked the effects of the Halo of the Pleasure Angel.
[Halo of the Pleasure Angel: Builds happiness upon everyone's happiness. Enhances the pleasure and mental strength of all angel-type units nearby. The greater the pleasure level, the stronger the bonus and the larger the area of effect. (PS: Pleasure level is positively correlated with the number of pleasure angels and their happiness.)]
As expected of the teasing angel. The mission reward ability could actually increase pleasure itself, and even enhance mental strength.
Combined with the Service Halo, this Halo of the Pleasure Angel was terrifyingly powerful. The more angels serving him, the stronger they became. The happier they were, the stronger they became.
The only unfortunate part was that the Halo of the Pleasure Angel only affected angel-type units rather than all service-type units like the Service Halo did.
There weren't only angels around him. There were demons too, along with countless demi-human races. It would've been perfect if the effect applied to all serving units.
Mm... speaking of which, did Vignette, the holy-light demon even more angelic than Gabriel herself, count as an angel?
Stealing a moment amid the chaos, Hachiman freed one hand and gently brushed aside the silver-white hair of the teasing angel Raphiel. Pressing lightly against the back of her head, he glanced toward Vignette nearby, who had just put away her trident, dismissed her demon form, and changed into her school uniform.
"Hm? Mmph?"
The instant Hachiman obtained the Halo of the Pleasure Angel ability, Raphiel, who was focused on "eating breakfast", immediately sensed a change in him with startling sensitivity.
Hachiman's life aura seemed to have undergone some subtle transformation.
If she hadn't been experiencing him from such intimate proximity right now, she probably never would've noticed.
'Mm... could this be Hachiman's true special trait?'
As if realizing something, Raphiel's eyes suddenly widened. Her amber-colored pupils stared blankly at Hachiman. Then she noticed Iris, whom Hachiman had just released from his embrace, turning around and giving her a playful wink.
Back at the beginning, his life aura had only been slightly stronger than that of an ordinary human.
But now, even she found his dense and overflowing life energy astonishing.
And this had only happened over such a short period of time. He'd somehow become stronger again as though he didn't even possess bottlenecks.
Even though all Hachiman did was assist various beautiful girls at home and at school.
The more Raphiel contemplated it, the more incomprehensible Hachiman's existence became to her.
Yet although she couldn't understand what Hachiman was, she could understand why so many girls fell for him after receiving his help.
Hachiman... gave her the feeling of a Lord.
No, an even greater feeling than the Lord herself.
Not even the Lord could strengthen others so effortlessly and without side effects. Nor could she silently inspire devotion in others like this.
Raphiel slowly brought her hands together around Hachiman, closed her eyes, and knelt quietly on the floor, silently savoring the radiance emanating from him.
"Gulp!"
Watching the hesitant Raphiel suddenly become utterly intoxicated while accepting punishment, almost as though she was actually enjoying being punished by Hachiman, to the point where even her angelic halo had appeared, Gabriel and Vignette exchanged glances.
Both could see the shock in each other's eyes.
Unconsciously, they swallowed as well.
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