I hovered a few feet off the scorched ground of the subterranean training chamber I was using. I had already modified the room's durability enough to contain the sheer density of what I was continuously expelling out, some time ago. As for now, I was working on my pocket dimension.
My body radiated an intense, simmering heat as it adapted to the escalating temperature, but my skin wasn't burning to a crisp. Instead, a faint, silvery-platinum spark danced on my fingertips as I poured my intent into the doorway sitting right in front of me.
Using the Platinum flame—my newfound Absolute Manipulation—I was literally writing the laws of an entirely new physical space. Inside, I was ripping raw matter into existence, forming sprawling landmasses and massive chunks of earth that floated freely in the sky. I adjusted the atmospheric pressure, flooding the dimension with breathable oxygen and altering the biological laws so that anyone inside wouldn't require food or water to survive.
But as I worked, I noticed a jarring problem. My mind kept wandering.
Every time I focused too hard on manipulating the fabric of the dimension, I started hearing the subsequent secrets of the universe. A tidal wave of omniscient information would randomly flood my thoughts. One second I'd be making a mountain, and the next, my brain would be immediately flooded with the exact molecular formula required to make a single drop of water that could sustain a human being for a week straight, which would ultimately cause me to create something entirely different than what I wanted.
It was too much raw data at one time. Even when I tried to take things slowly, the universe would try to give me all the answers at once, all while forcing new information into my mind. Trying to concentrate had become a tall task.
I floated back down to the floor, my feet touching the scorched concrete.
I thought back to the pearl-white memory sphere I had given Izumo the day before. I hadn't thought about the mechanics of how it worked; I just wanted it to exist, and my power created it instantly, perfectly, and without any distracting cosmic footnotes.
Instinct, I realized, a smirk crossing my face. I operate better when I just let my desires take the wheel instead of trying to play Civilization V.
To test the theory, I closed my eyes and recalled the artificial Gehenna Gates that the Illuminati created and scattered across the world. I didn't think about the spatial equations or the dense magical formulas required to close the gates. Instead, I asked the universe for a physical object that could solve the problem of the potentially ever-expanding tears.
The universe gave me an immediate solution and I quickly reached out and pulled the object towards me— before any other thing rushed into my mind—getting a brief synopsis of how the properties functioned along the way as the object began to materialize.
When I opened my eyes, a perfectly smooth orb the size of a baseball was resting in my palm. It didn't glow or anything, but when I activated it with a tap, it started to absorb the light around it.
Whoa ho ho, I thought, tossing the orb lightly in my hand before pocketing it in my sweater. I think I'll call this the Null-Sphere.
A few hours later, I was walking down the bustling hallways of True Cross Academy, heading toward the Cram School classrooms after a painfully boring day of regular classes.
As I rounded the corner, I bumped right into Izumo and Paku.
"Oh, if it isn't Paku and Izumo-girl," I greeted casually. "How's it going?"
"Hey Rin," Paku waved cheerfully, then subtly nudged Izumo in the ribs with her elbow. "Kamiki was just about to come find you."
I raised an eyebrow. "She was? Why? I don't recall owing her any money. What's she need with me?"
Izumo stepped forward. She hesitated for a moment, but the usual fiery, defensive glare I expected was completely absent. Her expression was remarkably calm, carrying a quiet, heavy sincerity that actually threw me off guard.
"I wanted to thank you," Izumo said softly, her voice barely above a whisper.
"Huh?" I blinked. "For what?"
"The sphere you gave me," Izumo explained with a small, genuine smile adorning her face. "When I finally met my sister... I gave it to her. It allowed her to see all the good memories of us she'd forgotten. It allowed her to remember me. It gave me the closure I needed. So... thank you."
I stared at her for a second, genuinely surprised by how much she had grown since Inari.
"Oh, that," I said, waving a hand dismissively, though I offered her a small smile back. "Don't worry about it. Glad it worked out for ya."
We were just about to head to the classroom together when a figure stepped out from an intersecting hallway, and I bumped right into him.
"My fault," I said, glancing at the person.
"Oh yeah, no problem Rin," the person replied.
I took a step forward, until my mind processed exactly who I had just bumped into. I stopped. I turned my head and glanced at him. Then, I glanced at Izumo. Then, I glanced back at him.
Standing there, giving me his usual lazy grin, was Renzo Shima.
I blinked a few times, rubbed my eyes with one hand, and looked again.
I think my eyes are playing tricks on me, I thought.
"Pinky?!" I questioned. "What the hell are you doing here?! Ain't you supposed to be roaming around with those illuminators?"
"Ah, don't be like that," he sighed, scratching the back of his pink hair. "Well... some things happened, so I'm back."
Beside me, the warm, peaceful aura Izumo had just been radiating completely vanished. The temperature in the hallway plummeted. Her eyes widened, instantly replacing her gratitude with lethal, unadulterated fury as she stared at the boy who had handed her over to be tortured.
I stared at him for a brief moment. "Ight. Not like I really care or nothin', it's just odd seeing you here like nothin' happened."
Renzo chuckled nervously, falling into step beside me as we made our way into the Cram School classroom, intentionally ignoring the death glare boring into the side of his head from Izumo. "Coming from you, it truly might be an odd sight for sore eyes."
The moment we walked through the door, the room erupted.
Bon, Konekomaru, and Shiemi were already sitting at their desks, while Yukio was preparing the lesson plan. When Bon saw Renzo casually stroll in behind me, his face went pale, and then violently red.): instead of parting ways with Kamiki she should be there when Rin bumps into Renzo, so maybe have him bump into them and instead of Rin walking away, he's just glancing from Izumo to Renzo.
"You..." Bon whispered, his voice trembling with absolute fury.
Before anyone could blink, Bon lunged across the desks, grabbing Renzo by the collar of his uniform and slamming him against the chalkboard.
"You traitorous scum!" Bon roared, his fists shaking. "You have the nerve to show your face here?! After what you did to Kamiki?! Explain yourself!"
"Whoa, Bon, wait, let me explain—!" Renzo panicked, holding his hands up.
Before Bon could throw a punch, a cloud of pink smoke violently erupted in the center of the classroom.
"Hold on now," Mephisto said, appearing from the smoke. "Before you strike him, hear what I have to say first."
He snapped his fingers. "Eins, zwei, drei!" and the scenery around us warped and twisted. Gravity shifted, and in the blink of an eye as the classroom vanished.
We were suddenly transported to the middle of Mephisto's extravagant office.
Lightning was already there, waiting for us. He was lounging on one of the chairs, completely at home with a lollipop in his mouth and a messy stack of files next to him.
"Hold your fire, Bon," Lightning said lazily, pointing the stick of his lollipop at the furious monk. "Let 'em breathe."
"What's the meaning of this?!" Bon demanded, refusing to let go of Renzo's collar, though he didn't throw the punch.
Izumo stood right behind him, her hands clenched into fists, still radiating pure hostility. "He's right, why's this traitor here?!"
"Mr. Shima is an asset," Mephisto explained smoothly, walking around to sit behind his massive desk. "He is another spy operating under my direct command to acquire inside information from the Illuminati. We made contact with him briefly after the Illuminati did long before he enrolled in this academy. And now, he's being used as a spy for both our organizations."
I crossed my arms, looking from Mephisto to the sweating pink-haired teen. "Hold up. So you're telling me this bastard's technically a triple agent?"
"Precisely," Mephisto grinned, steepling his gloved fingers.
Lightning sat up slightly, adjusting his bucket hat. "Since Shima's here, we need to authenticate if he's actually trustworthy or not. Any intel on the Illuminati's current movements would be greatly appreciated. Let's start with the obvious: how did you end up returning to the Order without getting executed by them?"
Renzo nervously peeled Bon's hands off his collar and straightened his jacket, taking a deep breath. "Honestly? They let me return because I was classmates with Rin."
Lightning raised an eyebrow, letting out a low whistle. "How come?" he asked, clearly amused.
A bead of sweat rolled down Renzo's face as he looked at me. "Because Lucifer is taking Rin's challenge completely to heart. He officially ordered his top scientists to begin splicing together the most horrific, powerful demonic entities they have in their arsenal. And they're empowering them with massive samples of the mutated blood they synthesized."
"Wait, wait, wait," Yukio interrupted, stepping forward, his analytical mind short-circuiting. "What challenge?!"
Renzo looked at me in shock. "You didn't tell them?!"
I shrugged indifferently. "I was gonna, but then you appeared."
"Tell us what?!" Bon yelled, his panic returning full force.
Renzo rubbed his temples, bracing himself for the reaction. "Rin challenged Lucifer to a winner-takes-all contest. He basically told the King of Light to take his time, build whatever massive army he wanted, and get his body to perfect condition without any intervention from him. And then, when Lucifer's at his absolute peak, they're going to engage in an all-out war."
The Exwires looked like they were going to faint. Konekomaru had to grab the back of a chair to keep his knees from buckling. Yukio gripped his hair, staring at me like I was the most terrifying monster in existence.
"Are you insane?!" Yukio shouted, completely losing his composure. "You gave the King of Light a free pass to build an army of super-demons?!"
"Hyuck, guilty," I chuckled, then shrugged.
Suddenly, a loud, booming laugh echoed across the office.
Lightning was leaning back on the couch, laughing so hard he had to hold his stomach. Mephisto was joining him, clapping his hands together in sheer delight.
"I don't see what's funny!" Bon yelled, glaring at the Arch Knight.
"Don't you kids get it?" Lightning chuckled, wiping a tear from his eye as he looked at me with deep, calculating respect. "A desperate Lucifer is a chaotic Lucifer. If he thought his body was rotting and he was out of time, there'd be no telling what he might do to force our hand. But by giving him a challenge, Rin didn't just give Lucifer a free pass."
Lightning pointed a finger at the Exwires. "He inadvertently trapped the Illuminati in a Cold War. He forced them to pull all their active resources off the front lines and dump them entirely into research and development. He just bought the True Cross Order months of vital prep time to train and fortify."
Yukio, Bon, and Konekomaru blinked, the strategic genius of the situation slowly dawning on them.
Once the panic finally died down, Mephisto leaned over his desk. "Now that the air is clear, what was the incredibly important thing you needed from me, Rin?"
I cleared my throat, stepping forward. "Now that you know about the challenge, I'm going to gather an army of demons myself. And when I say 'me,' I really mean 'you.' You're going to gather my army."
Lightning stopped laughing. Mephisto's eyes widened with manic curiosity.
"An army?!" Renzo exclaimed, looking around the room. "Where're you going to even put them?! The Academy doesn't have the facilities to house hundreds of wild demons!"
"The Academy?" I repeated, shooting Renzo a deadpan look. "Please. Who do you think you're talking to?"
I tapped into my power, my halo manifesting. The silvery-platinum color glowed brightly on the wheel. I rolled my sleeves up, showing the sleek, black, square-shaped tattoo on my right forearm and tapped it. The ink levitated itself off my arm, and started to expand in the center of the office.
Lightning shot up from the couch, his jaw dropping so fast his lollipop nearly fell out.
The 2D ink expanded, shifted and warped reality until a massive, freestanding doorway made of frozen silver light stood in the middle of Mephisto's rug.
"Take a look inside," I offered casually.
Hesitantly, Yukio, Bon, and Lightning stepped up to the doorway and peered inside. The moment they looked past the threshold, I saw the color drain from their faces. The air bleeding out of the door was suffocatingly dense. They didn't just see a room; they saw a sprawling, infinite expanse of floating landmasses, churning skies, and heavy, manipulated gravity.
"You... you built a world," Lightning whispered, his analytical mind completely broken by the sheer impossibility of what he was looking at. "You literally forged a pocket dimension out of a skin pigment."
"It's a training ground," I corrected, pointing two fingers towards the doorway.
With a swift, downward motion, I split the massive door perfectly in half. I reverted both back to their 2D forms, calling one back to my arm, while I sent the other directly onto Mephisto's forearm. The silver light seared into his skin, leaving a permanent, square tattoo.
"Use that to deposit whatever demons you can catch directly into the dimension," I instructed the stunned Demon King. "Just a simple tap like I did, should do to activate it."
Before they could recover, I reached into my pocket and pulled out the pitch-black Null-Sphere. I tossed it through the air.
Lightning caught it instinctively, nearly dropping it due to its unnatural density.
"Use this for those artificial Gehenna Gates," I told him. "Throw it at the tears, and it'll completely absorb the spatial anomaly and close them permanently."
Lightning stared at the Null-Sphere like he was holding the Holy Grail. "This is... conceptually impossible," he muttered, his eyes glued to the dark orb.
"Have fun figuring it out," I smirked. I turned to the rest of the Exwires. "I suggest y'all use this time to start training out of your minds while I'm gone. Because when Lucifer is ready, I'm probably not gonna be there to hold your hands."
"While you're gone?" Yukio asked, tearing his eyes away from the sphere in Lightning's hand. "Where are you going?"
"I'll be with Shura," I said, then placed a hand to my chin. "We're going to the place where that demon that cursed her ancestors lives so I can get rid of her curse mark. What's his name again? Hachimaru?"
Lightning snapped his head up, carefully pocketing the Null-Sphere. "You're going after the Hydra?"
"Hachirotaro," Mephisto corrected smoothly, though his eyes were gleaming with entertainment. "And he resides in Aomori, at the Towada Shrine, near Lake Towada."
"Man, whatever," I waved off the correction. "His name won't matter after I'm through with him."
"If you're engaging an ancient, immortal Hydra, I highly suggest taking backup," Lightning interjected, stepping forward. "I'd love to observe this myself, but since I have to go close the Gehenna Gates now, Yukio should accompany you."
Yukio nodded firmly, his resolve hardening. "I'll pack my gear."
"Suit yourselves," I said, deactivating my power and turning toward the door. "I'm going to grab Shura."
I left the office, making a beeline through the dorms to the second floor where Shura's room was located. I was expecting to have to drag her out of bed, but when I pushed the door open, I stopped dead in my tracks.
The room was completely empty.
Her bed was made—a very dangerous sign—her closet was open, and the few personal belongings she kept were completely gone.
I stared at the empty room, letting out a slow, heavy sigh.
She said he'd go to great lengths to keep the mark from being taken off, I thought, stepping into the room. For a split second, I wondered if the snake had sent something to kidnap her. But as I looked at the perfectly packed room, I realized the truth.
She didn't get kidnapped, I realized, a small, amused smirk crossing my face. She ran off to face the immortal snake alone because she didn't want any of us getting caught in her "mess."
I let out a low whistle. It seems I'm going to be even busier today.