Yasaka watched quietly as Kenji's foot rapidly tapped the floorboards. His golden eyes were locked onto Amaterasu, burning with a glare so intense it felt like he was trying to physically ignite the sun goddess where she sat.
Amaterasu, however, seemed entirely too comfortable. She leaned back against the silk cushions, a small, triumphant grin playing on her lips as she watched Kenji struggle to maintain his composure. To her, this was exquisite entertainment, she didn't know why she was so frantic, but she was going to use that to her advantage.
When Kenji had stormed back into the office after Yasaka's urgent call, the atmosphere had shifted instantly. He had been in a visible, manic hurry, tense, impatient, and radiating bloodlust.
Though he had clammed himself down or at least tried to appear like nothing was wrong, all of them knew it wasn't.
It became even more baffling when he immediately demanded the whereabouts of the Governor General of the Fallen Angels. When Yasaka informed him that Azazel had already departed, Kenji hadn't relaxed as she expected.
"Can we move this along? Sign the damn thing already," Kenji growled, gesturing to the contract on the table.
They resumed the negotiations for the mana stone distribution and the territorial boundaries of Kenji's emerging faction, but it was clear his heart wasn't in the fight. Before, Kenji was a nightmare to bargain with, stubborn. Yet when he came back, he was rushing, practically skipping over everything just to get the damn thing over with.
Amaterasu, who seemed to have smelled blood in the water, decided to make use of her advantage. She subtly pushed for better terms, asking for higher yields and more frequent shipments.
To Yasaka's shock, Kenji accepted her demands without a single counteroffer. He didn't even blink at the "outrageous" deal in her eyes. He just wanted to sign and leave, his mind clearly a thousand miles away.
"Well," Yasaka finally said, clapping her hands lightly together to break the oppressive silence. "I believe we are finally in agreement."
Kenji stood immediately, his eyes still fixed on the sun goddess. "I wish to speak with you in private, Yasaka. If that's possible."
Amaterasu stood slowly, clearly tempted to stay and edge him on just to see if he would actually snap at her. But one look from Yasaka made her reconsider. Yasaka would definitely not let it slide, no matter how close they were, if she caused a situation in her city.
The Queen of Kyoto's eyes were firm, warning her that this wasn't the time for her usual games.
With a soft, melodic chuckle, the goddess walked out, leaving the scent of summer breeze. The moment the door clicked shut, Kenji turned to her.
"Can you get me to the Underworld? As quickly as possible," he asked, leaning over the table and bracing his weight on his knuckles.
Yasaka paused, her nine tails bristling in response to the sudden spike in his aura. "…Why?" She wasn't just going to say okay, sure, why not?
"Private matters," he bit out, his voice low. Then, seeing her hesitant expression, he added with a surge of frustration, "It's urgent. Something came up, and I need to be there yesterday."
Yasaka's expression softened. She had grown close to Kenji and Anastasia over the past months. She even considered him a friend or, at the very least, a valued ally. "I can't simply open a gate to the Underworld, Kenji. I am the guardian of Kyoto's ley lines. I've actually never been there myself."
Kenji clicked his tongue, his hand twitching toward the Yamato at his side. The sword hummed, vibrating in resonance with his agitation. "Do you know anyone who can?"
"Well, there is Azazel," she said, and had to physically stop herself from laughing at the soul deep grimace he made. It was no secret to her that he found the Fallen leader to be an insufferable nuisance.
"If I have no other choice, I'll deal with the crow," he muttered, his voice dropping to a dangerous register. "But is there anyone else?"
"Your options are limited from the yokai's. Perhaps...." she started speaking, only to be cut off.
BOOM!!!
A massive explosion rocked the entire estate, Then Suddenly, a thick, purple-tinged barrier shimmered into existence, draping over the entire city of Kyoto.
"Oh, come on!" Kenji growled, the floor beneath his feet cracking and splintering under a sudden, uncontrolled spike in gravity.
The doors burst open as Amaterasu rushed back in, her face serious and her golden eyes narrowed.
"What was that?" Yasaka asked
Amaterasu's face darkened. "The forces of Hagoromo Gitsune... it seems she's decided to launch her attack on Kyoto today of all days. They've struck the main gate."
"Fuck!" Kenji roared. Why now, why now, god damni it.. He stood up, his chair bursting into fine wood dust. He was supposed to be hunting down his reckless daughters, and now an ancient fox spirit was trying to burn down the city he was standing in, trapping them inside.
Yasaka could already feel the intruders, yokai flooding the streets, screams echoing from the lower districts as the "Ninth Tail" was hunted. She was furious, her tails swinging furiously across the room.
But her fury was a candle compared to the nova of pure, unadulterated rage radiating off Kenji.
The air around him seemed to distort from sheer bloodlust as his mana made itself know ot the world. Without another word, he leaped out into the sky, breaking the ceiling as he blasted off.
The Underworld
Aoi didn't understand how things had gone so wrong so fast. One moment, they were laughing and eating snacks on the Gremory Express, feeling like tourists on a grand adventure. The next, a blinding flash of crimson light had deposited them in a barren, craggy wasteland, and then the dragon appeared.
It was huge and scary to her, but it seemed not to her sister because the fool had been one of the first to attack as the others fought the dragon too.
They had been going for a while, but nothing was working. She, too, had joined in after a bit to calm herself, but they barely scratched it.
"Ayaka—WAIT!" Aoi screamed, her voice lost in the wind, when her sister had taken a chance to rush in to fight the dragon.
"DIE!!" she roared, as she launched a pillar of white-hot fire.
The dragon didn't even flinch. It waded through the inferno, the flames licking harmlessly against its scales. Its tail lashed out faster than any strike Ayaka had ever seen.
Ayaka was swatted out of the air like an annoying insect. Her body slammed into a jagged rock formation with a sickening, wet thud. She tried to push herself up, but her arms buckled, and she collapsed back into the rubble, gasping for air that wouldn't come.
"Ayaka...!" Aoi's heart clenched, but she was trapped. The dragon stood between her and her fallen sister.
The battlefield was like a scene from a nightmare to her. Koneko lay unconscious near a fresh crater, her small frame looking fragile against the red earth. Gasper and Asia were hovering over her, Asia's hands glowing as she tried to heal the damage.
In the sky, Akeno Himejima was in her priestess robes, fluttering as she rained down lightning, but the strikes seemed to only irritate the beast, dancing off its hide like sparks off an anvil.
Kiba and Xenovia were a blur, their swords clashing against the dragon's scales, but they were barely leaving shallow scratches.
Aoi swallowed hard, her throat dry. She had to do something. She forced her mana to flow, trying to mimic the fighting style her father had shown her in training to help with her ice.
Using the basic circle she learnt, she summoned some water, splashing it across the dragon's front legs. Then, using just the right amount of mana, she flash-froze the water into ice and then layered a lightning spell to finish off.
The dragon's leg froze for a heartbeat. Then, with a casual, bored flex of its massive muscles, the ice exploded as it was freed. It turned its head toward Aoi, its eyes seemingly staring into her depths.
"Issei!!" Asia's voice called out.
Issei Hyoudou finally charged out from behind a ridge, his Boosted Gear screaming a litany of power. "BOOST! EXPLOSION!!"
"Gasper! Hold it! Now!" Issei yelled, his face slick with sweat.
"O-Okay!" the boy stammered, his eyes turning a haunting red as he unleashed his Forbidden Balor View. The dragon froze, locked in time for a brief moment before it shattered the time-stop.
"Noooo! It's too strong!!" Gasper wailed.
The dragon let out a breath attack that sent Xenovia and Kiba tumbling back across the dirt like ragdolls. Issei fired his Dragon Shot, and Akeno unleashed her most powerful lightning strike simultaneously.
As the smoke cleared, the dragon stepped forward. It wasn't harmed, not a single scratch.
"…No way…" Issei whispered as he took a step back, looking at the dragon.
Aoi felt the cold, heavy grip of hopelessness. She looked at her trembling hands and realized they were bleeding.
They shouldn't have come.
Their father was right, and now she was going to die here, in a nameless canyon, and her father wouldn't even be there to protect them.
"Enough. That will be all."
A calm, authoritative voice echoed across the canyon, cutting through the ringing in Aoi's ears. High on a ridge, Rias Gremory stood beside a man who looked like an older, more regal version of her, her brother, who she recognized from open house, Sirzech, flanked by a silver-haired maid.
Everything stopped. The dragon simply sat down, its aggressive aura vanishing as if it had never been there, leaving only the traumatized teenagers in the dirt.
Later – The Gremory Estate
"It was... a test," Rias said, her voice soft and heavy with regret as she gave a small, formal bow to the sisters. "More specifically, it was a combat evaluation for my peerages. My brother, Sirzechs, wanted to see the potential of our 'human guests' as well. I'm sorry. You weren't supposed to be part of it, but it just... escalated. " I'm sorry I should have stopped him," she said.
'You should have,' Aoi shouted angrily in her head, but didn't say it out loud." She sat on the edge of a lavish, silk-covered bed in a room larger than her entire house, her hands still gripping the sheets until her knuckles were white.
Her heart was still hammering against her ribs. This wasn't a game. It wasn't like sparring with Kiba in the schoolyard. That dragon could have ended Ayaka's life in a fraction of a second if it had been a real enemy, and she could have done nothing.
She looked at Ayaka, who sat in a chair across the room. Her sister was uncharacteristically silent, staring at her own palms.
For the first time, since she got her magic, Ayaka looked small and utterly defeated. She was realizing that in this world, her fire wasn't anything special, and she was not as strong as she thought.
Though Aoi doubted she'd ever admit that, especially to their parents, who had brought that up as one of the reasons not to come to the underworld, telling them that they were not strong.
"We'll head to my family's primary home shortly," Rias said gently. "You can rest and eat. We'll talk more tomorrow."
Aoi nodded quietly, but inside, she felt a hollow, aching void. She didn't want to be here anymore. She wanted her mother's cooking. She wanted her father's annoying, overprotective lectures. She just wanted to go home.
Kyoto
Silence.
Yasaka stood frozen at the edge of the central plaza, her nine tails stiff as a board at the scene in front of her. Beside her, Amaterasu was equally still, her golden aura flickering with an uncharacteristic, jittery tension.
Before them lay a vision of the end of the world or what the end times would look like if it ever came.
When she and Amaterasu followed after Kenji to join the fight, she could barely keep up with the man.
Everywhere he passed by, there were just dead bodies. The man didn't seem to want to talk as he killed every yokai that had attacked. Her forces had joined the fray, expecting a fight. Instead, they found a graveyard of bodies.
Hundreds of Hagoromo Gitsune's men, yokai that had lived for centuries, lay scattered across the scorched earth like broken, discarded dolls.
Kenji had killed everything that moved in his way, low class, high class, freaking ultimate class.
He had killed over 8 ultimate class yokai all at once. She didn't even know they were that much ultimate class yokai, yet here they are, or rather were, because they were no longer alive. Kenji killed them, he killed them all.
All around was nothing but destruction.
At the center of the destruction stood Kenji.
His eyes were glowing with a terrifying light that seemed to swallow the very sun. Before him, Hagoromo Gitsune, the legendary nine-tailed fox who had terrorized Japan for eras before her death and had caused trouble even after her death, was on her knees. Her black kimono was shredded, her tails were limp and bloodied, and her face was in terror. She was barely breathing as she looked at Kenji with fear.
Was this really the same fox on par with even gods. The famed evil kitsune.
Yasaka swallowed hard. She had known he was powerful. But this? This hadn't even been a fight. This man had just shown that he had more power than even most factions of the world.
'Was he....was he stronger than.....' she thought.
She slowly turned her head toward Amaterasu. The Sun Goddess was staring at Kenji, her hands clenched so tightly at her sides. The goddess's face was blank, but her body was tense as she looked at the human.
He was a monster.
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