"So, yeah," I began, fighting the urge to facepalm. "This is the situation: your Excalibur fragments are useless. Even with your English bestie fighting at your side, your combined strength simply isn't enough to face us." I turned slightly, gesturing as I introduced the girls.
"Haruka is a rare yuki-onna hybrid. She can control fire as well." On cue, the half-Chinese girl let ice and flame bloom in her palms, the elements coiling together for emphasis.
"Suzuka is a wind spirit. She leveled part of a Paris neighborhood just by awakening." The reincarnated French girl's expression darkened for a moment before she forced a thin, brittle smile.
"And that's not even touching on the biggest threat—me." I met Xenovia's eyes. "By linking my snow yōkai mana with my Sacred Gear, I can mass-produce modern weaponry. Missiles. Think Iran's ballistic program, but with a supernatural edge."
Shock rippled through the room.
Akeno's smile froze for half a second before returning, thinner, more watchful. "Ara… how dangerous," she murmured, lightning flickering once at her fingertips.
Kiba stiffened, hand hovering near his sword. His eyes flicked to Xenovia, then back to me, jaw tight. Asia sucked in a quiet breath. Koneko met my gaze—half-shocked, half-proud—her usual composure cracking just a little.
Hyoudou stared at me like I'd just rewritten the rules of reality. "W-Wait—missiles? Like, actual missiles?!" he spluttered. "That's not even—who fights like that?!"
Me.
Of course, I was exaggerating. I could only produce one missile at a time, and thanks to my half-human nature, the mana drain alone was enough to leave me completely exhausted. Genuinely.
But intimidation is something you pick up on the streets.
"Now… I get putting up a fight when you're facing devils," I continued, shrugging. "But we aren't devils. We're dangerous, and we're not bound to any faction. Dying in vain doesn't really serve a purpose here."
I shot Haruka and Suzuka a look that clearly said yeah, I'm going to hell with this.
Haruka smirked for a second, while Suzuka smiled sheepishly.
They understood. Without a word, they stepped forward, taking their battle stances at my side.
Xenovia shook her head, but her grip on Durrandal loosened—just enough to tell me I'd rattled her more than she wanted to admit.
Truth was, she could probably beat me in a straight sword fight. Icecalibur wasn't meant to last against Holy Swords—I knew that firsthand, considering how it failed against Kiba's Sword Birth. But I wasn't powerless without it. Not by a long shot.
"And what exactly are you suggesting?" she asked. "That we set aside our differences and work together with devils?"
The thought alone sent a chill down her spine.
"I mean, yeah, cooperation isn't mandatory. You'd probably be useless anyway," I shrugged.
She bristled, anger flashing across her face. Perfect.
I ignored her and continued.
"Before your oh-so-unnecessary interruption, I was explaining the nature of the cult known as the Oblivion Syndicate. Its leader is a man named Gábor LaVey, born in Hungary. Yes—he's related to Anton LaVey, the founder of the so-called Satanic Church. And he wields Alphecca Tyrant."
Fate really was a cruel mistress. A Satanist wielding a Holy Nail, leading the united cults against a world he intended to rewrite.
I let the church girls sit with that.
"This is horrible…" Irina murmured, eyes downcast.
Horrible doesn't even begin to describe it.
"A Sacred Gear—one God made for humans to defend themselves—now in the possession of the leader of a Satanic cult…" Xenovia said flatly. "That's not just horrible. It's a contradiction."
Yeah. Duh. You have two anomalies standing right in front of you.
Suzuka and I exchanged a look.
The same thought, at the same time.
Haruka noticed and let out a small chuckle.
Hyoudou watched us from his seat, thoroughly baffled. "You three are the weirdest people I know," he said.
"And you're a pervert who peeks on girls, from what I've heard," Haruka shot back with an amused grin. "Creepy~"
Suzuka visibly fought down a gag at that.
"Ise-kun is… a pervert?" Irina said, voice cracking slightly. "B-But he was so pure when we were kids…!"
She looked genuinely devastated, like a cherished memory had just been trampled.
"…I kicked his teeth in a few times for peeking," Koneko added flatly, without a hint of remorse.
Asia turned bright red and hurried to Hyoudou's side, clutching his arm. "I-Ise-san is perverted," she admitted softly, "but he's also very kind… and very brave."
She nodded as if convincing herself as much as anyone else.
"Ara ara~ this is getting interesting~" Akeno laughed, clearly enjoying the chaos a bit too much.
Haruka locked eyes with her instantly. The air between them tightened, like lightning brushing against open flame.
…Yeah. This was going downhill fast.
I burst out laughing.
"Coae… singur ți-ai dat muie, bă. Nu cred," I said without thinking, switching to Romanian as the absurdity hit me full force.
Xenovia blinked, then looked at Irina. Suzuka and Haruka exchanged the same confused glance.
"…What did he say?" Irina asked.
Akeno smiled sweetly. "He said Ise-kun managed to completely sabotage himself~"
Hyoudou groaned, then snapped.
"Fuck you. Fuck all of you!" he shouted—
Asia flinched, eyes welling up.
"N-not you, Asia!" he backpedaled instantly. "I didn't mean you!"
I turned my brain off, flooding it with half-remembered TikTok memes, like my mind had suddenly become my old work laptop on its last legs.
"Ballerina Cappuccina. Cappuccino Assassino. Tralalelol Tralala. Tung Tung Sahur. Nothing beats a Jet2 Holiday, and now you can save fifty pounds per person—that's five hundred pounds for a group of ten freaks."
They all stared at me like I'd lost my mind.
I held up my hands. "I'm sorry, but hearing all of you made my brain crash so hard it slipped into TikTok mode."
The absurdity of the situation finally hit them all. One by one, the tension cracked, and laughter bubbled up—Haruka snorted, Akeno's chuckle was melodic and teasing, even Koneko let out a quiet, begrudging laugh.
Everyone except me. I sat there, wearing a fallen face, like I'd somehow become the butt of the joke against my will.
And Kiba… he was glaring at the ground like it might swallow him whole. Something flickered in his posture—a buried memory, a long-forgotten trauma. It was subtle, but I saw it in the way he flinched, the way his jaw tightened when the Holy Swords were mentioned.
Eyes downcast, he finally turned toward me.
We have to talk, his gaze seemed to say.
Meet me behind the school later. I responded in Japanese sign language, careful not to let anyone else see, hoping his devil abilities would carry the message.
He answered with a simple OK sign.
Once the laughter died down, it was as if all the old grudges had softened… or at least taken a step back, giving enough breathing room for some shared understanding.
I cleared my throat.
Then I turned to the church girls.
"So… if the two of you are planning to retrieve the Excaliburs, I can't speak for Akeno and the others, but the three of us would assist you."
Kiba's eyes met mine, steady and unwavering. "I will too."
The room froze.
Even the faint smirk that sometimes danced on Akeno's lips vanished. Every gaze turned toward him, the weight of his calm certainty filling the space.
"Kiba-kun…" she breathed, a bit heavily.
"I'm sorry, Akeno-san, but I have to do this," he said, eyes burning with quiet, unshakable resolve.
There's history here. Deeper wounds. Come to think of it… his expression darkened the moment I listed the church's sins to Xenovia.
Oh… if he was groped by a priest growing up, yeah. I'd understand. Sorry you had to go through that, bro.
…No. Fuck that.
I looked up at the ceiling, as if I were speaking to Him directly.
Why do you allow these monsters to preach in Your name?
Have You so little care for us?
"I understand…" Akeno said softly, her eyes darkened too.
Shared darkness.
I glanced at her. At him. At Koneko. Even at Asia. Maybe… my temporary placement in Rias's group wasn't random after all. These people—every single one of them—were broken in their own ways.
And they'd been through worse.
I'd had a better life than any of them. And what did I do with it?
I wasted it—stuck in a town that never accepted me, doomscrolling TikTok for work, numbing everything with drugs, hookers, and cheap alcohol.
Chasing away the only woman that—
Stop. Stop right there.
Haruka and Suzuka shot me concerned glances as the thought crossed my mind. I love and hate how well they can read me.
"Yeah… I have nothing against it," I shrugged, forcing my mind elsewhere.
Best to leave it at that.
Xenovia looked like she wanted to argue, but then she remembered who she was dealing with… and her tired sigh said everything I needed to know.
And just like that—the most unlikely alliance was born.
But my work wasn't finished. There was someone I needed to see if I wanted to make sure this whole thing actually worked.
A truce that could give me a powerhouse strike force against the Oblivion Syndicate.
But first…
I went behind the school and found Kiba.
He motioned for me to come over.
I walked up slowly. Kiba didn't look at me at first — just stood there, back against the wall, eyes fixed on the ground.
I crouched beside him.
He didn't speak. Not at first.
"…Kokonoe-kun... No. Mihai," he said quietly after a long moment. Not harsh. Just measured. Polite, like that was all he had left for control.
I was startled at the mention of my real name, but I listened anyway.
"You came," he said quietly.
"You asked."
He finally looked at me. No smile. No princely charm. Just tired eyes and a jaw that hadn't relaxed in years.
"I wasn't sure you would," he admitted. "Most people… they hear 'holy sword' and they stop listening."
I walked over and leaned against the opposite railing, giving him space. "I'm not most people."
A small, bitter laugh escaped him.
"No. You're not."
Silence stretched for a moment—long enough that I could hear the distant traffic and the occasional car horn.
Then he spoke.
"I'm not Kiba Yuuto. My real name... is Isaiah."
The name sounded wrong coming from him—like a word he hadn't used in so long it had rusted.
"I don't remember my parents. I remember the Church orphanage. I remember being hungry. And I remember the day they took us."
He didn't look at me. His eyes stayed on the horizon.
"They told us we were special. That God had chosen us for something important. They gave us names like we were lab rats—Isaiah, Ezekiel, Ruth. We were children, Kokonoe. Seven, eight years old. And they put swords in our hands and told us to pray harder."
His voice stayed even, almost clinical.
"They called it the Holy Sword Project. Valper Galilei was in charge. He wanted to create artificial wielders—humans who could handle Excalibur's fragments without burning alive. We were the prototypes."
He paused.
"Most of us didn't make it past the first month. The swords rejected us. The holy power… it ate through our bodies. We bled from the eyes, from the mouth. Some of them just… stopped breathing. Valper wrote it down like it was data."
Kiba's fingers tightened on the railing.
"I was one of the lucky ones. I lasted longer. Long enough to make friends. Long enough to remember their faces when they started dying."
He swallowed once.
"Then one day Valper decided the project was a failure. No more funding. No more need for us. So they gassed the facility. Carbon monoxide. Clean. Efficient."
His voice cracked—just a bit.
"We were children. We didn't even know what was happening. My friends… they shoved me into a ventilation shaft. Told me to run. Told me I was the only one small enough to fit."
He laughed again, a hollow one, buried in the weight of his past. And I didn't know if I should feel relieved that my earlier assessment was wrong... or disgusted.
My blood boiled inside my veins.
"I ran. I made it outside. And then the poison caught up with me. I collapsed in the snow. I thought that was it."
He finally looked at me.
"But then Rias found me. She revived me. She gave me a new name. She gave me a new life. But she couldn't take the memories."
His eyes were dry, but the weight in them was crushing.
"I hated holy swords after that. Hated the Church. Hated Valper. Every time I saw Excalibur, I saw their faces. Every time someone praised the Church, I heard the gas hissing through the vents."
He pushed off the railing and turned to face me fully.
"That's why I nearly lost it when they brought the fragments to Kuoh," he continued quietly. "That's why I almost threw everything away. I want Valper dead. I want the swords gone. I want—"
"To destroy the Excaliburs," I finished for him.
"…Yes," he said after a beat, voice steady but strained.
I reached out and patted his back lightly, even as I struggled to keep my own anger from spilling over.
"I've got your back, brother," I said softly.
It felt strange saying it out loud—but I understood that darkness all too well. The pull of vengeance. The way it eats at you from the inside. It had been burning in me ever since Nagano was reduced to nothing but ash.
We looked at each other then—really looked.
Two broken people, still clinging to ideals we knew were cracked, maybe even false… but refusing to let go all the same.
That was how our friendship began.
________
(scene break)
I stepped into the Student Council room.
The shock on their faces? Worth it.
The loudest reaction came from a tall, loud idiot who looked like Hyoudou's clone in both build and volume. Genshirou Saji—if my memory served me right.
"This is that Kokonoe dude?! Bro, what the fu—"
"Language, Saji-kun," Tsubaki Shinra cut in smoothly, the Vice President's tone firm but practiced.
Figures.
Truth be told, she, the President, and that moron were the only ones I actually recognized.
The rest of the girls were unfamiliar faces—watchful, curious, tense.
Their eyes stayed on me a second too long. Whispers followed almost immediately.
"Is that the hero of Nagano?" a brunette with girlish pigtails murmured, leaning closer to her seatmate.
"I think so… but didn't he die after Rias-san and Riser's Rating Game?" another girl replied.
She had pink hair and the most aggressively strange hairstyle I'd seen in my life—tomboyish, sharp, like a punk girl from Temu.
I didn't interrupt.
Let them stare. Let them wonder.
Dead men don't usually walk into the Student Council room uninvited.
And at the head of the table stood Souna Shitori, President of the Student Council of Kuoh Academy—expression flat, glasses catching the light for a brief, assessing glint as she studied me.
Of course, I knew the truth.
That name was a front.
Between what I'd learned about the 72 Pillars and Azazel's very thorough briefings, there was no mistaking her. The heiress of the Sitri clan. A Devil.
Sona Sitri.
Younger sister of Serafall Leviathan. Another figure born from the reshuffling of power after the Devil Civil War—one of the new pillars holding up a broken system.
Yeah. I'd done my homework.
Devil history wasn't that different from human history when you stripped away the wings and magic—cycles of rise and collapse, ideological purges, wars that rewrote the rules and crowned new winners.
Evolution through conflict. Same shit, different species.
"You're all dismissed," Sona said coolly. "Tsubaki, you stay."
"But Kaichou, this could be danger—" Saji started.
"I said you're all dismissed, Saji."
A thin, dangerous smile slipped through her composure.
Saji recoiled with a weak, startled noise. The rest of them didn't need to be told twice. Chairs scraped back. Footsteps hurried out. One by one, the room emptied.
Soon, only three of us remained.
Sona Sitri.
Tsubaki Shinra.
And me.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Kokonoe Takashi-kun," Sona said evenly. "Former Rook of Rias Gremory… or so it would seem."
Her gaze didn't waver as she adjusted her glasses, eyes sharp and analytical.
"Your presence is inconsistent with that of a Devil," she continued. "There is a distinctly human element to your aura—yet it hasn't fully returned to normal."
A pause. Deliberate.
"…I take it your circumstances have changed."
I let out a long sigh I hadn't realized I was holding.
"I really have no idea how I should feel about that."
I didn't let the silence linger long enough for them to speculate.
"My Evil Piece broke during the fight with Riser," I said evenly.
The words landed heavier than I expected.
Sona's expression didn't change—but something behind her glasses sharpened, the faintest tightening at the corner of her eyes. Tsubaki inhaled quietly, posture stiffening.
"…Broke," Sona repeated, carefully. "Not removed. Not sealed."
"No," I confirmed. "Broke."
Another pause. This one wasn't for effect—it was calculation.
"That would explain the instability," she said at last. "And why you're no longer registered within the Gremory peerage system."
Her gaze lifted fully to mine.
"You are neither Devil nor human in the conventional sense," Sona concluded. "Which makes your current status… problematic."
I shrugged faintly. "That's one way to put it."
Silence settled over the room again—thick, measured, dangerous in the way only smart people could make it.
Sona folded her hands on the table.
"…Then this meeting," she said, "is far more important than I initially assumed."
I nodded—then stopped as she raised a finger slightly, signaling she wasn't finished.
"I've heard about what happened in Paris," Sona continued. Her tone remained composed, but her mouth tightened almost imperceptibly. "And my sister…"
She hesitated, just a fraction. "…advised me to exercise caution."
Tsubaki's eyes flicked between us.
"Because you are currently under the protection of the Grigori," Sona finished, adjusting her glasses. The lenses caught the light briefly. "Azazel is not known for extending that courtesy without reason."
I exhaled through my nose. "Trust me. I didn't ask for it."
"That is precisely what concerns us," Sona replied calmly.
Her gaze sharpened.
"A former member of a Gremory peerage, no longer bound by Evil Pieces, aligned with fallen angels, and involved in an international supernatural incident…"
She folded her hands.
"…is not a variable we can afford to misunderstand."
She studied me in silence for a moment longer, then spoke again—quiet, deliberate.
"So tell me, Kokonoe-kun," Sona said. "Are you here as a liability… or as a potential ally?"
Yeah. That summed it up perfectly.
She wasn't probing out of curiosity, or emotion, or misplaced concern. This was a calculation.
Up until now, I'd played the teenage rebel. It worked—against people who led with sentiment, pride, or guilt.
But with her?
That approach would backfire.
I straightened slightly, letting the silence breathe instead of rushing to fill it. If I wanted to be taken seriously here, I had to stop acting.
I had to show her who the adult in the room was.
I smirked.
"You know… I took the time to look into the history of the Three Factions," I said calmly. "The similarities with human world wars are… striking."
That did it.
It wasn't much—just the faintest narrowing of her eyes—but I'd caught her off guard.
She didn't interrupt.
Good.
"Foolish rulers overextending. Chasing supremacy. Convincing themselves the world would bend if they pushed hard enough," I continued. "It's a pattern. Devils, angels, fallen, humans—doesn't matter."
I took a step forward, stopping well short of her desk. Close enough to be intentional. Far enough to be respectful.
"And then there's the moment when the balance is threatened for real," I said. "When Germany tried to overextend. When it aimed too high, too fast."
I met her gaze directly.
"What happened?"
I didn't wait for an answer.
"Everyone united against them. Former enemies. Ideological opposites. People who would've killed each other a year earlier."
A pause. Let it sink in.
"Not because they trusted each other," I added. "But because the alternative was annihilation."
The room felt colder somehow—sharper.
"The Khaos Brigade. Oblivion. Longinus-class threats. Forced reincarnation. Slavery on a conceptual level," I said evenly. "That's your overextension."
I let the smirk fade, replaced by something flatter.
"So no," I finished. "I'm not here as a liability."
A beat.
"I'm here because history says what comes next."
Sona remained silent for a fraction of a second. Like she was evaluating me.
"…So," she said at last, voice level and precise, "you're proposing that the Three Factions—and Kuoh by extension—unite against the Oblivion Syndicate."
I didn't rush my answer. I let the quiet sit between us, let the implication settle.
"That's precisely what I'm saying," I replied calmly.
I straightened, meeting her gaze head-on.
Then I told her. About LaVey. About the Syndicate. About the Holy Nail.
Her eyes widened—just for a moment—before the mask of composure snapped back into place.
Sona adjusted her glasses. The faint clink cut through the silence like a blade.
"You're asking a great deal," she said. "Trust. Coordination. The suspension of long-standing hostilities."
"I know," I replied simply. "Which is why I'm not asking as a Devil. Or a rebel."
I held her gaze, unwavering.
"I'm asking as someone who's already faced them," I said. "In Nagano. In Brașov. In Budapest. Oblivion won't stop at Kuoh—or at Devils. LaVey wants the whole world to become a Devil nest."
"Before I can fully trust you… I need to know," she said, voice flat. "Why did you run off to Romania? Rias complained about it—constantly."
It was like she was trying to solve a puzzle and every answer she found just raised more questions.
This was my moment.
"Pentru că sunt român," I said, switching languages deliberately. "Pentru că nici măcar nu pot spune că sunt 100% aliat al umanității, întrucât aș face orice pentru țara mea."
The words landed between us, heavy and final.
"Romanian," she repeated, as if testing the weight of the word.
She leaned forward slightly, the smallest motion, but enough to show she was now actively engaged.
"Your language," she said, "your choice to speak it… indicates you are not merely a visitor to that country."
She paused.
Her eyes flicked up to mine, steady and cold.
"You are attached to it."
Sona's voice remained even, but there was a new edge to it—less polite, more precise.
"And yet," she continued, "you carry a Japanese name and have lived in Japan your whole life."
Sona tilted her head, eyes narrowing slightly.
"How is that possible?"
I told her everything, but I didn't make a habit of it. Not again. The less people knew, the better.
And yet the list was growing.
I gave her the facts in a clean line, the way you do when you're trying to survive a negotiation.
"My kid self exists in this world," I said. "Meeting him is what shattered the Evil Piece."
Sona's gaze didn't waver. But the silence after my words was different—like she'd just stepped onto a chessboard with new rules.
"I see," she continued. "This is not a simple case of rebellion. This is… something else."
Then she looked up again, staring me dead in the eyes.
"I will not trust you blindly. But I will not ignore the danger either. Therefore, I will act."
Her gaze remained steady, unblinking.
"However," she added, "your actions from this moment forward will determine whether you remain an asset or become a threat."
I nodded once.
"To our collaboration," I said, extending my hand.
Sona blinked for a fraction of a second—then took my hand with a firm grip, her expression unchanged.
"Then we have an agreement," she said.
The air in the room felt colder afterward. Like a decision had been sealed.
______
(meanwhile, in Nagano...)
Gábor LaVey stepped into the hideout, each movement deliberate. Hooded figures acknowledged him, reporting on troop movements. The Fallen Angels' reconstruction of the city had come just a moment too late—the power vacuum had already swallowed it, bending it entirely to their control.
"Our forces have embedded themselves within the civilian population, Supreme Leader. Nagano is firmly under our control," a subordinate reported.
"First Nagano, then Japan… then the entire world," LaVey said with a smirk.
He was maneuvering to become Prime Minister of Hungary, challenging Viktor Orbán from the shadows of the Nemzeti Egység Pártja. The moment he assumed power, he would wipe out the vampires in Romania and reclaim Transylvania for the Motherland.
It was just one step in his plan to reshape reincarnated devils as Earth's dominant species—and to make Hungarians the dominant nation.
On the screen, Kokonoe Takashi's face appeared.
"Remember, this kid is your top priority. Bring him to me… alive or dead," LaVey ordered.
It had begun.
A force of 4,200 was already en route to attack Kuoh.