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The night sky over the city of Kuoh presented an astronomical anomaly that defied any meteorological explanation.
The thick gray clouds that had foretold rain had been cleanly pierced. A gigantic circular hole, its edges swirling from the thermal force of an upward impact, revealed the starry abyss and the full moon shining in all its splendor.
Directly beneath that eye in the sky, on a quiet residential street, two magic circles lit up on the shattered asphalt. From a crimson flash emerged the Gremory peerage, and from a navy-blue glow, Sona Sitri's Student Council.
Both groups arrived in complete silence, weapons drawn and magical senses operating at their limit. They expected to find a god of war, an ancient dragon, or the end of the world.
But the street was empty.
The one responsible for the chaos had already left, leaving behind a scene that looked like something from a disaster zone.
"By all devils..." Rias murmured, letting her red aura slowly dissipate as her blue eyes scanned the place.
Akeno Himejima, who always maintained a sadistic and unshakable smile, was unusually serious. She looked upward, awed and terrified.
"President... that sapphire-blue beam of light we saw from the club building... It wasn't magic. I don't sense any mana residue, holiness, or demonic power. It's just... pure life force. A concentration of vital energy so overwhelming that the air is still vibrating."
Sona Sitri walked toward the center of the street, adjusting her glasses while trying to keep her hands from trembling. Tsubaki followed closely behind her with her notebook.
"It isn't just the energy of the beam, Rias. Look at the ground," Sona indicated, pointing at the cracks beneath her feet.
Kiba and Koneko moved closer to inspect. The residential street looked as if it had been shaken by a focused earthquake. The asphalt had been lifted, stones were scattered everywhere, and the nearby light poles were slightly tilted.
"This wasn't caused by the impact of an attack," Kiba said, running his gloved fingers along the edges of a deep crack. "This is pressure damage. Whoever was standing here emitted an aura so dense and heavy that gravity itself collapsed around them. Just releasing their power destroyed the terrain."
Koneko crouched a couple of meters farther ahead, right at the edge of a perfectly circular crater five meters in diameter. The exact spot where Kaiju had crushed Dohnaseek with an elbow strike.
"There was a fight," Koneko reported, her voice flat and emotionless, though her feline pupils were dilated. "Someone was struck into the ground with massive force right here. But... it's strange."
"Strange? What do you mean, Koneko?" Rias asked, approaching her Rook.
The small white-haired girl took a handful of dust from the crater and let it fall.
"There's no blood. No trace of the victim. It's as if the person who received the blow was erased from existence. There aren't even ashes. Just... nothing."
The silence that followed was suffocating. Sona crossed her arms, her analytical mind trying to fit together the pieces of a puzzle that had no edges.
"Let's recap," Sona said, her voice cold and calculating. "We have an entity, whom we will call the 'Ghost.' It annihilates renegades without leaving magical traces, using colossal beasts. A few days ago, it launched a golden energy dragon into the night sky. And tonight, in the middle of a residential area, it raises its aura enough to fracture the street and fires a pillar of light capable of altering the atmosphere."
Rias nodded, clenching her fists.
"And apparently, it annihilated someone else here. Someone who left no trace. Sona, this level of power... if this entity decides Kuoh is no longer under our control, we do not have the military strength to stop it. Not even my brother could arrive in time if this being decided to erase Kuoh Academy from the map with one of those beams."
The Gremory heiress brought her right hand to her chest, right over her heart, instinctively seeking comfort from the connection with her demonic chess pieces. She felt Akeno's heartbeat, Kiba's, Koneko's...
And then, she felt that of her newly reincarnated Pawn.
Rias's eyes opened wide, and she froze. Her breath caught in her throat.
"Buchou, what's wrong?" Akeno asked, noticing the sudden change in the redhead's expression.
Rias looked around, observing the nearby houses and the route of the shattered street. Her mind began rewinding the events of the last thirty minutes. She had been in the club, feeling Issei Hyoudou's energy signature moving through the city while he returned home.
"The connection..." Rias murmured, more to herself than to the others. "I lost the connection with my new piece a few minutes ago. It was a strange pulse, as if his energy signature had been masked or temporarily suppressed by something much larger..."
Kiba slightly unsheathed his sword. "Do you mean Issei-kun?"
Rias slowly nodded, her face paling as the revelation struck her.
"Before the blue beam of light. Before we felt this earthquake of aura... Issei's signature was exactly in this neighborhood. He was walking through this very route to return home."
Sona quickly approached, her gaze sharpening behind the lenses of her glasses.
"Rias, are you telling me that your new servant, a Pawn who has barely been in the supernatural world for one day, was at the ground zero of an attack by a being with Supreme-Class power?"
"His signature is at his house now. He is safe and resting," Rias confirmed, closing her eyes to concentrate on the magical thread that connected her to the brown-haired boy. "But yes, Sona. He was here when it all happened."
The Student Council and the Occult Club exchanged looks filled with tension.
The conclusion was logical, inevitable, and terrifying. Issei Hyoudou, the human turned devil, the perverted boy Rias had just saved from a Fallen Angel the previous night, had been in the exact place and moment of the incident.
"He may have been attacked, and this 'Ghost' saved him," Tsubaki suggested.
"Or maybe the Ghost was simply fighting someone else, and Issei got caught in the crossfire," Kiba added, looking at the cracks in the ground.
Rias Gremory straightened her posture, regaining her composure as a leader and noble of the Underworld. Her crimson hair waved in the night breeze.
"Whatever happened, Issei was here. If he was nearby when that barrier broke and that beam of light was fired... it means he saw the monster."
Sona adjusted her glasses with one finger. "Then we have our first real clue. Your Pawn is the only eyewitness to the most dangerous entity in the city."
"Tomorrow first thing in the morning," Rias declared, her gaze filled with determination. "Tomorrow at the academy, I'll bring him to the club. I'll ask him exactly what he saw on this street. If anyone knows who or what this god of destruction is, it's Issei Hyoudou."
As the devils abandoned the scene through their magic circles, preparing to interrogate the brown-haired boy the next day, they were completely unaware of the cosmic irony of the situation.
Rias was going to demand answers from Issei about the terrifying "Ghost," without knowing that the aforementioned god of destruction, the monster who had split the heavens and terrified two entire peerages, was at that precise moment sitting on the floor of Issei's own room, stealing his potato chips and beating him at Mario Kart.
...
Issei's Perspective
The atmosphere inside the Occult Research Club room was heavy, or at least that was how it felt to me. I was sitting on one of the luxurious sofas in the old building, still trying to process all the chaos my life had become since the previous sunset.
I remembered how I had felt when I left my house that very morning; lately, the sun had given me a bad feeling, and the sunlight felt as if it were penetrating through my skin, and I could not stand it. Now I understood perfectly why I felt so sick. My body was no longer that of a normal human.
In front of me, sitting behind her elegant mahogany desk, was Rias Gremory. Every time I saw her, my eyes were drawn to her crimson-red hair. She was unquestionably the most beautiful girl in the entire academy, but now I knew that her beauty hid something far beyond my understanding.
"As I told you before, Issei, you are no longer human. You are a devil, and from now on, you are my servant," Rias explained in a calm and polite voice, crossing her legs in a way that almost gave me a stroke right there.
I swallowed, feeling a knot in my throat. Her voice made me remember exactly her words from that night, when I was agonizing on the park ground: "If you are dying, then I will take care of you. Your life belongs to me, and you will live for me."
"S-So... Yuuma-chan really killed me?" I asked, hugging my stomach by pure instinct. "It wasn't a nightmare?"
Rias nodded gently, though her gaze became sharper.
"Her real name is Raynare, and she is a Fallen Angel. She approached you with one single purpose: to eliminate you before you became a threat to them."
My mind traveled to the exact moment when the girl I had believed was my girlfriend pulled out that terrifying spear of light. Her voice had been very cold, with the tone of an adult, and she had told me: "The short time I spent with you was fun. It was like playing with a small child." But what echoed most in my head, what would not let me sleep, were her final words before she left the crime scene.
"She mentioned something before leaving me lying there..." I murmured, frowning. "She said: 'If you wish to hold a grudge, then hate God, who placed the Sacred Gear inside you.' Rias-senpai... What the hell is a Sacred Gear?"
Rias leaned forward, resting her elbows on the desk.
"Sacred Gears are artifacts with extraordinary powers that God granted to certain humans. There are many types and levels of power. Fallen Angels constantly monitor the city, searching for those who possess dangerous Sacred Gears. Yours must be rare or something exceptional for them to decide to murder you in cold blood before you even discovered you had it."
"And how do I awaken it?" I asked, feeling a chill at the thought that I had a mystical weapon sealed somewhere inside my body.
"You have to concentrate, Issei," she instructed, standing up and slowly walking toward me. Her figure was simply perfect. "Close your eyes. Visualize the deepest part of your being. Think of the moment of greatest danger you have ever felt, or of a desire stronger than anything else in the world. Imagine that you take that power into your hands."
I did what she asked and squeezed my eyes shut. I tried to think about the light spear piercing my abdomen. I tried to think about the pain and the crimson blood covering my hand that night. I tried to search the depths of my soul to find that supposed hidden power.
But then, Rias stood right in front of me. I could smell the fragrance of her perfume, a sweet, floral, and extremely elegant scent.
I opened one eye just a little. Rias was very close. Her school uniform blouse could barely contain her immense and perfect breasts. My teenage brain immediately disconnected "survival" mode and activated "puberty at maximum power" mode.
I remembered what had gone through my head even while I was bleeding to death in the park: "But if I was going to die, I would have liked to grope her breasts." Man, I couldn't stop thinking about perverted things even before my death. And now she was only a few centimeters away, alive and breathing in front of me!
"Concentrate, Issei. Do you feel something emerging inside you?" Rias asked, leaning a little closer to me.
"Yes, I feel like my blood pressure is going to make my head explode!" I screamed in my mind, feeling my face burn like a stove. My magical concentration was completely blank, replaced by the hypnotic image of her feminine attributes.
"I-I... can't!" I stammered, snapping my eyes open and nervously scratching the back of my neck to hide my blush. "My mind is... uh... wandering a little to other things."
Rias let out a small, elegant sigh, closing her eyes for a second and crossing her arms.
"I suppose it won't be that easy at first. The Sacred Gear responds directly to your emotions and willpower, but I can see you're too distracted for now," she said, giving a small smile that made me feel as fortunate as I was pathetic. "Don't worry, Issei. We'll keep trying calmly. You are my precious Pawn now, and I will personally make sure you are ready."
I sank back into the sofa, sighing with equal parts relief and frustration. Fallen Angels? Devils? A mystical artifact sealed inside me? It was too much information for one day.
But as I watched Rias Gremory walk back to her desk with that breathtaking elegance, I knew one thing with absolute certainty: if my new and strange life as a devil meant being surrounded every day by beauties of her caliber in this club, maybe getting murdered on my first date had not been such a bad deal after all.
...
The atmosphere inside the Occult Research Club had taken a drastic turn. The warmth and patience that Rias Gremory had shown only a few minutes earlier while trying to awaken her new servant's hidden power vanished completely. The temperature in the room seemed to drop several degrees. Rias crossed her arms, her blue gaze becoming so sharp and piercing that Issei felt the air leave his lungs.
"Let us leave Sacred Gear training for another time, Issei," Rias said, her voice losing any trace of sweetness. "Now I need us to talk about something extremely important. Something that happened last night, in the same park where you nearly died."
Issei swallowed loudly. Cold sweat began gathering at the back of his neck. He remembered the scarred boy's warning perfectly: "And you'd better not say a single word about this on Monday at school, or next time I'll let you get impaled."
"L-Last night?" Issei stammered, pretending ignorance and looking away. I avoided eye contact. "I don't know what you're talking about, Buchou. After you saved me, I went straight to sleep. I woke up in my bed without remembering almost anything."
Rias narrowed her eyes. She rose from her seat and began walking slowly around her desk, approaching the brown-haired boy.
"Don't lie to me, Issei. I felt a serious interference in my connection with you last night, right in the forest park area. And mere minutes later, an immense pillar of blue light destroyed Kuoh's sky and devastated the entire zone." Rias stopped right in front of him, placing one hand on the back of the sofa. "I know you were there. I know you saw something. Whoever launched that attack has destructive power that puts the entire city and our peerages at risk. I need to know who it is."
Issei clenched his fists and lips. He swore to himself, by everything sacred and profane, that he would not open his mouth. Kaiju was much scarier than any devil. That boy had erased a Fallen Angel from existence just by pronouncing one word. If Kaiju found out he had ratted him out, his newly acquired demonic life would end faster than it had begun.
"I swear, Rias-senpai, I didn't see anyth..." Issei began, maintaining his best poker face.
But then, Rias made her master move.
In an attempt to persuade him, the Gremory heiress leaned forward. As she did, gravity did its work on her school uniform blouse. The neckline opened enough to reveal the astonishing, immaculate, and perfect curve of her breasts, only centimeters from the teenager's face.
Issei's brain experienced an immediate system collapse. All his loyalty, fear of death, and vows of silence were annihilated by the absolute power of puberty and lust. His face turned an intense shade of red, a thread of blood threatened to spill from his nose, and his reasoning capacity was reduced to that of a primate.
"Are you completely sure, Issei?" Rias whispered in a sweet and persuasive voice, moving one millimeter closer. "You can trust me..."
"IT WAS KAIJU!" Issei shouted at the top of his lungs, jumping to his feet, unable to resist the carnal pressure and spilling the truth like a waterfall. "The transfer student! Kaiju Hano! He disintegrated the guy with the hat and then shouted Kaio-ken and launched a damn Kamehameha into the sky!"
The silence that followed the confession was so deep that the ticking of the wall clock could be heard.
Rias blinked, completely stunned. Akeno, who was preparing a new cup of tea, froze with the teapot in the air. Kiba and Koneko looked at each other from the corner of the room, incredulous.
Issei covered his mouth with both hands, realizing one second too late the monstrosity he had just committed. He had just sold out the deadliest guy on the planet for a simple glimpse at a neckline.
"Damn it! He's going to kill me! He's going to disintegrate me like Dohnaseek!" Issei whined, falling to his knees and grabbing his head.
Rias straightened, subtly buttoning her blouse with an expression of extreme gravity. The name echoed in her head. Kaiju Hano. The stoic and quiet boy who hung around with the academy's trio of perverts.
"Akeno, Kiba, Koneko... prepare yourselves. We're going to the Student Council," Rias ordered firmly, her crimson aura crackling. "All of Kuoh must know this immediately."
The Student Council room, usually a sanctuary of order and tranquility, became a crisis room the instant the double doors burst open.
Sona Sitri looked up from her documents, frowning at the hurried entrance of the Gremory peerage. Her vice president, Tsubaki Shinra, instinctively positioned herself beside her, while Genshirou Saji, Sona's Pawn, looked at Issei in confusion.
"Rias, I hope you have a very good reason for barging in like this," Sona said, adjusting her glasses with her index finger.
"I do, Sona. I discovered the Ghost's identity," Rias declared, standing before the president's desk. "The entity that massacred the renegade devils, the one who summoned the golden dragon, and the one who fired the blue pillar of light last night... is a student of this very academy."
Sona remained motionless. Her analytical mind tried to process the statement, searching for logical flaws. "A student? Rias, that is impossible. I know the energy signatures of every member of the staff and student body. If someone had even one-tenth of the destructive power we have witnessed, we would have detected them instantly the moment they crossed the school gate."
"Tell her yourself, Issei." Rias stepped aside, pointing at her Pawn, who was trembling from head to toe.
Issei swallowed, feeling the penetrating gazes of the two high-class devils on him. The students I was not familiar with would say, "Isn't that Issei?", making me wonder how they knew my name. But now, having the attention of the most popular girls in school was terrifying.
"It's... it's Kaiju Hano," Issei confessed in a trembling voice. "I saw it with my own eyes, Souna-kaichou. A Fallen Angel named Dohnaseek was going to kill me, but Kaiju appeared out of nowhere. He destroyed a light spear with his bare hand, broke a magical barrier with a kick, and then... then he put his hand in front of the Fallen Angel's face, said one word, and the guy simply turned to dust. Disappeared. And then, to show me it wasn't magic, he started glowing red and fired that blue laser into the sky."
The fountain pen Sona was holding snapped in half with a dull crack, staining her fingers with black ink.
"Kaiju Hano?" Tsubaki repeated, quickly opening a folder of holographic files on her magical tablet. "Second-year transfer student. His grades are average. He does not participate in clubs. Lives with his sister, Sylvie Hano. Perfect attendance record. President, according to his medical and spiritual records, he is one hundred percent ordinary human."
"The records lie, or we have been blind." Sona slowly rose from her chair, beginning to walk around the room while her brain tried to make sense of the tactical nightmare. "If what Hyoudou says is true, we are facing a cataclysmic anomaly."
"But Sona, how is it possible that he walks through our hallways without us detecting his immense power?" Akeno asked, with genuine concern in her tone. "Even gods or Supreme-Class devils emit aura fluctuations."
Sona stopped in front of the window, looking toward the school courtyard. "He must possess an extreme passive ability. Perfect concealment. This ability allows the user to hide any type of non-human energy emanating from their body, whether divine, demonic, or other supernatural power. This allows them to pass unnoticed as common humans, avoiding detection by divine beings, supernatural entities, and any magical or spiritual surveillance system. He has been playing with us since day one."
"He's a monster!" Saji, Sona's blond Pawn, intervened, crossing his arms and trembling slightly. "If that guy sneezes too hard, he could erase the high school building! What the hell are we going to do?!"
Kiba stepped forward, his expression grim. "Yesterday, when I approached him and Issei in the courtyard, I felt irrational hostility from him. At the time, I thought it was only high school jealousy... but if he has that level of power, maybe he was evaluating my demonic signature. He could be deciding when to execute us."
"And don't forget the girl," Koneko added, eating a sweet to calm her nerves. "Sylvie Hano. She is always with him. If he is a monster capable of disintegrating Fallen Angels, the girl accompanying him cannot be a simple timid student."
Rias and Sona looked at each other. Paranoia seized the Student Council room. They had been searching for threats in the shadows, patrolling Kuoh's streets at night, completely ignoring that the most lethal being on the planet was probably sitting in the cafeteria, complaining about math class and fighting over the last melon bread.
"Should we inform our brothers?" Rias asked, referring to Sirzechs Lucifer and Serafall Leviathan, the current Maous of the Underworld.
Sona slowly shook her head. "Not yet. If we alert the Underworld and bring troops to Kuoh, Kaiju Hano might interpret it as a declaration of war. If he wanted to destroy us, he would have done so already. He has been hunting renegades and eliminating Fallen Angels; technically, he has been doing our job."
"But we cannot simply ignore him, Sona. He knows what we are," Rias insisted, remembering Issei's account of the rooftop conversation.
"We will not ignore him," Sona declared, with a gleam of tactical determination in her eyes. "Starting tomorrow, we will launch an extreme but passive covert surveillance operation. We need to understand his psychology, his motives, and his weaknesses. If he is human on any level, he must have attachments. Issei, you are his friend, correct?"
Issei swallowed loudly, feeling every gaze pin him down. "Well, I wouldn't say friends! We sit near each other and sometimes share lunch... but after I ratted him out today, I'm sure he's going to use me as a mop!"
"You will have to take that risk for the good of the city, Issei," Rias said, placing a comforting but firm hand on his shoulder. "Watch him closely. Act normal. Find out what he likes, what he hates, and what he plans."
Both peerages nodded solemnly. They had drawn up their contingency plan. The heiresses of the devils were prepared to play the most dangerous and delicate chess match of their immortal lives, planning every move with millimetric care.
Meanwhile, in an empty classroom a couple of hallways away, Kuoh's supreme and cataclysmic threat, Kaiju Hano, was deeply asleep on his desk, drooling over his history notes, completely unaware that his "peaceful and boring" life had just ended in the stupidest possible way.