The atmosphere in the second-year classroom at Kuoh Academy was suffocating.
Yugo Hano stood before the blackboard, writing key dates about the French Revolution in his usual impeccable handwriting. The scraping of the chalk was the only sound in the room. Yet the tension in the air was so thick you could cut it with a katana.
In the third row, Issei Hyoudou was sweating profusely. The brown-haired boy kept his eyes glued to his notebook, visibly trembling each time the teacher's cold gray eyes scanned the classroom. To Issei, Yugo was no longer the strict educator; he was the diamond titan who had pulverized a Fallen Angel. A few seats away, Rias Gremory and Sona Sitri (who was visiting to evaluate the teachers) maintained perfect posture, taking notes with robotic diligence, acting like the most submissive and harmless schoolgirls on the planet. No one wanted to make a sound that might disturb the monster lurking beneath that cheap uniform.
Yugo, of course, noticed the absolute terror the demons radiated, but he didn't care. His mind was occupied with something else.
A sharp, intermittent pain throbbed in his chest. He had to pause, bringing a handkerchief to his mouth to stifle a cough that tasted like iron.
"Read chapter four for tomorrow," Yugo announced in a monotone voice, putting his handkerchief in his pocket just as the bell rang. "Class is over."
Issei was the first to run out, nearly tripping over his own feet. Rias and Sona bowed deeply before silently withdrawing. Yugo simply grabbed his briefcase and left the compound.
The sky over Kuoh was tinged with a leaden gray, threatening rain. Yugo walked along the commercial streets, heading toward his convenience store, "Saturn," to oversee the electrical installation. As he walked, his mind reviewed the events of the past few days. His intervention at the factory had been excessive. Now the factions knew what he was capable of.
Suddenly, his thoughts were interrupted by a dull thud.
—¡Kyaa!
Yugo stopped. Someone had bumped into his chest and fallen to the ground. When he looked down, his usually dead and calculating eyes opened with a fraction of surprise.
Sitting on the asphalt, rubbing her forehead and surrounded by some fallen leaflets, was a girl. She wore the traditional habit of a Christian nun. Her hair was a pure golden blonde, and her bright emerald-green eyes filled with tears of apology.
"I-I'm so sorry!" the girl exclaimed in halting, overly formal Japanese, hurriedly gathering her things. "I was so clumsy. Are you alright?"
It was Asia Argento.
Yugo's analytical mind worked at breakneck speed. "He shouldn't be here today. His arrival was scheduled for tomorrow. Canon has moved up."
The logical answer came almost immediately. Raynare. The Fallen Angel had survived Beast's attack, but she was wounded and, more importantly, terrified. The Grigori in Kuoh now knew that incomprehensible "monsters" were lurking in the city. In her desperation to gain power and heal her wounds quickly, Raynare had hastened the arrival of the wielder of Twilight Healing. They had brought her to Kuoh ahead of schedule to remove her Sacred Gear as soon as possible.
Yugo gazed at the very embodiment of kindness kneeling before him. The girl Issei was meant to save.
"I'm fine," Yugo replied, bending down stiffly to help her pick up a couple of pamphlets. "Be careful where you walk. This city isn't as peaceful as it seems."
Asia looked up, taking the brochures from the pale, bespectacled man. "Thank you very much, sir... Excuse me for bothering you, but do you happen to know where the church in this town is? I've been walking for hours and I'm lost."
Yugo remained motionless.
He knew the church. Of course he knew it. Years ago, when his mind had completely shattered after discovering he was trapped inside an anime, he'd combed every inch of Kuoh's outskirts looking for exorcists or priests. That same abandoned church atop the hill had been one of the places he'd watched from the shadows, searching for a weapon of light. It was a slaughterhouse disguised as a sanctuary.
She knew exactly what awaited this girl there: pain, betrayal, and an agonizing death in a profane ritual.
"Yes. I know where it is," Yugo finally said, his voice a little hoarser than usual. "It's far away and the path is confusing. I'll go with you."
"Oh, I couldn't ask that much of him!" Asia waved her hands, blushing with embarrassment. "He's probably very busy."
"I have nothing better to do," he lied, adjusting his briefcase. "Follow me."
They began walking together. The contrast between them was almost poetic. Asia skipped along, marveling at the shops, the children playing, and the stray dogs, radiating an aura of light and purity so intense it seemed to purify the air around her. And beside her walked Yugo, a tall, silent shadow, his hands stained with the blood of dozens of people, an alien watch hidden up his sleeve that held thermonuclear nightmares.
"You are a very kind person, sir," Asia said suddenly, breaking the silence with a radiant smile. "God will surely bless your path."
The word "God" made Yugo clench her jaw. If this girl only knew that her beloved God had been dead for centuries, that her prayers fell into an empty mailbox, and that she was being used like livestock by the very creatures who swore to protect her...
Yugo stopped at a red light. He glanced sideways at Asia. She was everything he had ever tried to be when he came into this world: innocent, compassionate, always ready to help anyone. And the world was going to tear her apart for it. Guilt, that old friend lodged in his ravaged lungs, began to suffocate him.
He felt a sudden, twisted need. The need for this creature of pure light to see the abyss he carried. Not to frighten her, but because the weight of his sins was crushing him, and he needed to confess them to the only person in the world who represented absolution.
"I'm not nice, Asia," Yugo muttered, using the name he hadn't yet given her, though she didn't seem to mind. "Let me tell you a story. A story I heard a long time ago, in a faraway land."
Asia blinked, curious, and nodded as they resumed walking along a less traveled path that led toward the outskirts. "I like stories. What's this about?"
Yugo kept his eyes fixed on the gray asphalt. His steps were slow and rhythmic.
"It's about an ordinary young man. Someone who loved his family, who worked hard, and who was torn from his home by a cruel whim of the universe," Yugo began, his monotone voice taking on a dark, almost funereal quality. "He was thrown into a world of monsters, magic, and lies. He lost everything. And in his despair, the pain broke his mind."
Asia listened attentively, her smile fading as she noticed the deep sadness in the man's voice.
"To take revenge on that world, to destroy it completely, the young man decided he had to kill someone. A princess who was the pillar of that universe," Yugo continued, as the ghosts of his victims began to whisper in his ears. "But the princess was strong, so the young man had to prepare himself. And to do so... he became the Devil himself."
Yugo gripped the handle of his briefcase until his knuckles turned white.
"The young man in the story stole. He kidnapped entire families to lure his targets. He threatened children to extract information. He tortured men who claimed to be saints and massacred innocents who simply had the misfortune of crossing his path." The words spilled from his mouth like poison, laced with utter self-loathing. "He bathed in the blood of dozens of people who begged for mercy. He shattered his own body and extinguished his soul, solely to gain the strength necessary to bring absolute destruction to the world he so despised."
Asia stopped dead in her tracks. She brought both hands to her chest, clutching the cross that hung around her neck. Her emerald eyes were wide, reflecting horror, but not fear, toward the man before her.
"That... that's a terrible story," the nun whispered, her voice trembling. "That man did unforgivable things."
"He did it," Yugo confirmed, stopping a few steps away from her. "But, ironically, when he finally had the chance to kill the princess and exact his revenge… he chickened out. He discovered that in that rotten world there were also small, innocent lights that didn't deserve to burn. So he lowered his weapon. And now, he's just a broken monster, trapped in a world that isn't his, his hands stained with blood, without a purpose and without hope of redemption."
Yugo turned slowly towards her. His empty eyes met Asia's.
"Tell me, little nun," Yugo asked, and for the first time, his voice broke slightly, revealing the immense agony of the twenty-one-year-old who had died in that park a decade ago. "In the teachings of your God... what is a monster like him supposed to do?"
Silence fell over the forest path. The leaves of the trees rustled softly in the wind.
Asia looked into the eyes of that stranger. Even though he had told her the story in the third person, Asia's uncanny empathy, that pure goodness that had earned her the Church's scorn, allowed her to see through the mask. She didn't see a strict professor, nor a stoic man. She saw a soul drowning in its own regret.
Slowly, Asia closed her eyes, clasped her hands in front of her chest, and lowered her head.
"I will pray for him," Asia said in a sweet, firm voice, full of unwavering compassion.
Yugo frowned. "Would you pray for a murderer of innocents?"
"God teaches us that the greatest pain doesn't justify sin, but He also teaches us that sincere repentance is the first step toward the light," Asia replied, opening her eyes and giving Yugo the purest and saddest smile he had ever seen. "That man must have suffered unimaginable agony for his heart to become so dark. And the fact that he didn't kill the princess, the fact that he chose to protect those 'little lights' at the cost of his own vengeance… means that his soul isn't completely dead. There is still goodness in him."
Asia's words hit Yugo like a train. No one had ever offered him compassion for what he had done. No one, except for his students, had ever told him that there was still goodness left in him.
"Forgiveness is a long road," Asia added, taking a step toward him. "But if that man dedicates the rest of his life to protecting the innocent, instead of destroying them... I believe that, one day, he will find the peace that was stolen from him."
Yugo felt his throat close up. A brutal oppression squeezed his chest, and this time it wasn't cellular damage; it was his own humanity, tearing itself apart before such purity. He wanted to hug that girl. He wanted to tell her to run, to leave that city, that the real monsters were waiting for her.
But the canon was an unshakeable force. If Asia didn't suffer in that church, Issei wouldn't awaken his true power, Rias wouldn't reincarnate her, and she would never find a true family that valued her in the Occult Club. If Yugo transformed into Beast or Fire now and destroyed the church, he would have Asia under his care, making her an eternal target for the Fallen Angels and the Church, and he, with his lungs bleeding and his days numbered, wouldn't be able to protect her forever.
With a superhuman effort, Yugo swallowed the lump in his throat and rebuilt his ice mask.
"That's a nice answer," Yugo murmured, turning away to hide the moist glimmer that threatened to appear in his gray eyes. "Come on. We're almost there."
They walked in silence for another ten minutes, until the trees parted and revealed the decrepit structure of the abandoned church atop the hill. The place reeked of death and dark magic. The Omnitrix on Yugo's wrist seemed to throb, responding to the hostile instincts of the surroundings.
They stopped in front of the rusty iron gate.
"It's here," Yugo said, nodding towards the building.
"Thank you so much for guiding me!" Asia bowed deeply, her face lighting up with hope. "You have been a true angel on my path."
"If you only knew," Yugo thought bitterly.
Asia turned around and began walking toward the large wooden doors of the church. Each step she took was a step toward her own torture, toward the painful extraction of her soul, toward her own death.
Yugo stood before the gate, watching her walk away. His fists were clenched so tightly that his nails dug into his palms, drawing small drops of blood. His logical mind screamed at him to leave, to go back to his tent, to let the Gremorys do their heroic work.
But Asia's voice echoed in her head. "There is still goodness in him."
Just as Asia's hand touched the enormous bronze doorknob of the church, Yugo's monotonous, deep voice cut through the cold wind from the hill.
—Asia.
The nun stopped and turned her head, looking at him curiously.
Yugo adjusted his glasses with his index finger, his gray eyes fixed on hers with an intensity that made the girl hold her breath.
"If the god you pray to decides to ignore you when you're in there..." Yugo's words were slow, heavy with a terrifying, dark promise, "...don't close your eyes. Just scream. Scream as loud as you can. And I swear the monsters of hell will come and drag you out."
Asia looked at him, confused and a little scared by the intensity of his gaze, but nodded slowly before pushing open the door and being swallowed by the darkness of the church.
Yugo was left alone outside. His left hand caressed the cold face of his alien watch. He wasn't going to his tent to sleep. He was going to wait in the forest. And if that stupid brown-haired protagonist and the demon princess failed to protect the only person who had offered him redemption... the church, Raynare, Dohnaseek, and the entire damned forest would become a crater of radioactive waste.
...
The wind blew with icy force high on the hill, shaking the treetops that surrounded the abandoned church.
Hidden in the shadows of an ancient oak tree, Yugo Hano watched the heavy wooden doors through which Asia Argento had vanished moments before. His left hand rested on the bezel of the Omnitrix. All it took was a turn of the dial and a crush of the core. He could burst in as Cannonbolt, smash through walls as if they were made of papier-mâché, or enter as XLR8 and pull the girl out before the Fallen Angels could even blink.
But his mind, that calculating and cynical machine that had kept him alive for ten years, stopped him in his tracks.
If he saved her now, he would ruin Asia's only chance at a real life. If he got her out of there, she would still be a human fugitive. Raynare would hunt her. The Church would hunt her. And he… he was a man with rotting lungs, whose days were numbered and whose blood had already stained too many handkerchiefs. He couldn't protect her forever. Asia needed Rias Gremory. She needed to be reincarnated as a demon to gain the protection of one of the most powerful houses in the Underworld. Undergoing the extraction of Twilight Healing was a canonical event indispensable for her long-term salvation.
However, leaving everything to the "protagonist" Issei Hyoudou's fate was a risk that Yugo's newfound, fragile humanity refused to accept. What if Issei arrived late? What if Raynare decided to kill her prematurely?
He had promised that if she screamed, the monsters of Hell would come and get her. But Yugo couldn't use magic circles. He couldn't teleport. And running from the city to the hill would take too long, even if he used XLR8; the risk of being intercepted or detected by Grigori's barriers in his alien form was too high.
I needed a shortcut. A magic safe-conduct.
He released the Omnitrix dial. He turned and walked into the forest, his steps swift and purposeful, toward the only place in Kuoh where logic and cold, hard dealings worked better than magic: the Student Council office.
...
Night enveloped Kuoh Academy. In the Student Council room, Sona Sitri massaged her temples with her fingers. On her desk lay damage reports from the industrial zone and an old glass chessboard that, since yesterday, seemed to mock her.
Sona was exhausted. Her high-class demon mind, usually a glacier of calm and strategy, was a whirlwind of contradictions. She had declared Yugo Hano "untouchable." She had ordered her peerage to stay away from him. But deep down, the unyielding tradition of the Sitri house pulsed in her blood with a force that both terrified and fascinated her.
That human with no past... that monster capable of atomizing demons and summoning intellects that made her feel like a child... was her fiancé. By law and by pride. And he didn't even know it.
The mere thought of it made an uncontrollable blush creep up Sona's neck. She hated herself for the weakness of her own culture, but she couldn't help staring at the chair in front of her desk, recalling the professor's icy demeanor, his ruthless efficiency, and wondering what other secrets that device on his wrist held.
Two sharp knocks on the door pulled her from her thoughts.
Tsubaki, who was filing documents near the window, immediately tensed, summoning an imperceptible trace of magic. No human should be in the academy at this hour.
—Go ahead —said Sona, retrieving her Iron President mask.
The door opened, and the temperature in the room seemed to drop several degrees. Yugo Hano entered, wearing his usual dark suit, briefcase in one hand, and with his usual expression of chronic boredom. The dark circles under his eyes seemed deeper, and his skin paler than normal, but his presence was still as overwhelming as that of a Demon King.
Sona's heart lurched painfully. Her survival instincts screamed "Danger," while a treacherous part of her psyche whispered "Promise." She had to dig her fingernails into her palms under the desk to keep her hands still.
"Hano-sensei," Sona greeted, her voice perfectly even. "The academy closed two hours ago. If this is about the clubs' budgets, I already authorized the transfer, as we agreed after our... departure."
"I'm not here for the budget, Sona," Yugo replied, closing the door behind him. He walked until he stood in front of the desk. "I'm here to make a new deal."
Sona raised an eyebrow. Tsubaki took a subtle step forward, protective.
"A deal?" asked the Sitri heiress. "I thought I made it clear you weren't interested in our faction war, Sensei."
"And I'm not interested," Yugo interjected, adjusting his glasses with a mechanical movement. "But I need something only your nobility can provide. I need an emergency teleportation device. A one-time-use seal or a return beacon. Something physical that can be broken and, when broken, will instantly transport me to the exact location of whoever broke it. No chants, no need for the user's mana reserves."
Sona and Tsubaki exchanged a look of utter bewilderment.
"Sensei, creating a teleportation device without mana anchoring is high-level magic," Sona explained, narrowing her eyes. "These are highly regulated objects. Besides, why would you want a teleportation beacon? You're not a demon; you can't use magic circles."
"That's my problem," Yugo replied, unwavering. "I just need to know if you can do it."
Sona leaned back in her chair, her analytical mind weighing the variables. The man in front of her was a complete mystery, and in her world, information was worth more than gold.
"I could ask Tsubaki to craft one using her clan's magical heritage," Sona admitted slowly. "But as you know, Sensei, nothing in this world is free. And requesting a magical favor of this magnitude requires an equivalent payment. You rejected my Evil Pieces. You have no money that would interest us. What could you offer me in return?"
Yugo didn't hesitate for even a fraction of a second.
—I will train your nobility.
The words fell in the room like stones.
"Train my peerage?" Sona frowned, unable to hide her skepticism. "With all due respect, Sensei, you possess overwhelming destructive power and an incomprehensible artifact, but my servants are demons. Their methods of battle and magic..."
"I'll teach you how to survive," Yugo interrupted, his voice so dark and heavy that Sona gasped. "I'll teach you how a weaker, magicless target can ambush and take down superior beings. I'll teach you the tactics I've used to stay alive. And… in exchange for the artifact, I'll show you my entire arsenal."
Sona's eyes widened. "Her arsenal?"
Yugo raised his left arm and rolled up his shirt sleeves slightly, revealing the green and metallic Omnitrix.
"In that park you saw the indestructible crystal golem. In the alley, you saw the blind, tracking beast. In the factory, you saw the pyrokinetic titan capable of atomizing demons… and on this very desk, you were defeated by the intellect of a gray creature," Yugo enumerated, with clinical coldness, not a trace of arrogance, merely spitting out the facts. "I will show you those forms in detail. And I will show you the other six."
The silence that followed was deafening.
Tsubaki gasped slightly. Sona froze, a chill running down her spine. Ten? Did this man, already an apocalyptic anomaly with the four forms they knew, conceal six more monsters of the same caliber on his wrist? The offer was a treasure trove of incalculable tactical and military intelligence. Knowing the weaknesses and capabilities of Yugo Hano's ten transformations was the Holy Grail of information in Kuoh.
"Aquatic, XLR8, Four Arms, Cannonbolt, Insectoid, and Ultra T," Yugo said, revealing the names in his native tongue to add more weight to the offer. "I will be your combat instructor, solely and exclusively for your nobility. But I need that lighthouse tonight."
Sona looked at Yugo, searching for a trap. Her fiancé was offering her the deepest secrets of his power, revealing his greatest tactical advantages, handing her the keys to his own mystery in exchange for a simple transportation device. It was a deal so unevenly stacked in Sona's favor that her intellect screamed that something was wrong.
Sona interlaced her fingers on the desk, her eyes shining with deductive acuity.
"Yesterday, the Fallen Angels brought a renegade nun to the city," Sona said slowly, measuring each word, observing the micro-reactions on Yugo's face. "The wielder of Twilight Healing. They have her locked away in the abandoned church in the forest."
Yugo's jaw muscles tensed imperceptibly, but he didn't say a word. He didn't mention Asia's name.
Sona leaned forward. "You demand an emergency teleportation beacon that works regardless of barriers... on the very night that an exile from the Church, a highly guarded target of Grigori, arrives in Kuoh."
The Sitri heiress looked him straight in the eyes. Behind her leader's facade, Sona's heart beat with a strange mixture of bewilderment and a hint of irrational jealousy, which she immediately tried to suppress.
"You're willing to give me the greatest secrets of your Sacred Gear, risk your precious tactical 'invisibility,' and train demons... just to give a rogue nun a panic button?" Sona frowned. "Why would you go to so much trouble, Sensei? Why would someone as cold as you risk starting a war against the Fallen Angels for a mere human you probably just met?"
Sona expected a tactical justification. She expected Yugo to say that the nun's Sacred Gear was necessary for his plans, or that it was a key piece in some hidden game he was playing.
But Yugo said nothing about that.
At the implicit mention of Asia, the professor's unyielding, cold, and lifeless facade suffered a tiny but profound crack. Sona, who was scanning his face, saw it with absolute clarity.
Yugo's eyes, usually two unfathomable, apathetic, and empty gray wells—those same eyes that had seen innocents die and had incinerated a Renegade Demon without blinking—changed. A faint light, warm, fragile, and painfully sad, ignited in his pupils. It was like seeing a small candle struggling to survive in the midst of an endless blizzard.
That light wasn't tactical. It wasn't cold. It was pure devotion, born from the repentance of a man who had just found his own absolution in a little girl's smile.
Sona's breath caught in her throat.
The man before her was no apathetic psychopath. Beneath that armor of ice and blood beat a human heart willing to burn the world, or sell his own soul, to protect a single spark of goodness. That look laid bare Yugo's soul before Sona more than any alien transformation ever could.
"Because she's worth it," was Yugo's only reply. His voice wasn't a threatening roar, but a whisper filled with absolute and unwavering conviction.
Sona stared at him, her lips slightly parted. A blush threatened to creep up her cheeks again, but this time it wasn't from the shame of family tradition, but from a deep and immense admiration for the broken man who was willing to be a monster to the world, yet a guardian to the innocent.
She swallowed hard, regaining her composure with a titanic effort, and nodded.
"Tsubaki," Sona ordered, without taking her eyes off Yugo's gray ones. "Go to the clan storehouse. Bring me the Deep Water Return Crystal. Configure it to bypass Grigori's anchors and attach it to Hano-sensei's biosignature."
Tsubaki, still surprised by her King's quick concession, nodded and bowed before hurrying out of the office.
Sona stood up from her chair and walked around the desk, stopping a safe distance from Yugo. She looked up at him, adjusting her glasses.
"We have a deal, Hano-sensei," Sona said, her tone much softer than usual. "I will hand over the artifact. And starting next Monday, I expect my peerage's training to begin. I expect you to be ready to fulfill your part of the bargain."
Yugo closed his eyes for a second, and when he opened them again, the dim light had been locked away once more, replaced by the calculating gray emptiness of the history professor.
"I don't usually break my deals, President," Yugo replied, a slight cough grating his throat. "Prepare a secluded area. The training will be brutal."
Sona nodded. As she waited for Tsubaki to return with the lighthouse that could save the golden nun's life, the Sitri heiress silently observed the man before her.
The "ghost," the "crystal monster," the betrothed. Yugo Hano was all of those things. But Sona now knew that, above all else, he was a man who could still be saved. And in some twisted, secret way, Sona Sitri decided in that very instant that she would uncover every single secret of his human heart, even if it meant surviving ten alien monsters to do it.
...
The clock in the Kuoh Academy teachers' lounge struck eight in the morning. For the first time in four years, Yugo Hano's seat was empty.
The news spread through the halls like wildfire. The unflappable, strict, and intimidating Hano-sensei, the man who had never been sick or taken a day off, had called in first thing in the morning to report an absence for "personal reasons." For the regular students, it was an unexpected day off. For the Student Council and the Occult Research Club, it was a deafening wake-up call.
But Yugo wasn't resting. He was hidden among the dense undergrowth of the forest, a few meters from the abandoned church, camouflaged by the black crystal that hung from his chest.
He had stood motionless for hours, observing. He knew that the Fallen Angels—Dohnaseek, Raynare, and the rest—operated primarily at night or were busy monitoring Issei Hyoudou's movements in the city. However, he couldn't afford to make a mistake.
Around noon, the heavy wooden doors of the church creaked.
Asia Argento went outside, carrying a small straw broom. Her task, entrusted to her by the "priests" who guarded her, was to sweep the dry leaves from the steps. Her face reflected weariness and a deep sadness, but she continued to do it with the same blind devotion as always.
Yugo waited until she reached the edge of the woods to throw away the accumulated leaves. The moment Asia disappeared from view through the church windows, a gloved hand emerged from the shadows and gently covered her mouth, pulling her into the thicket.
Asia tried to scream, but the monotonous, familiar voice stopped her instantly.
—Silence. It's me.
Yugo let go of her and took a step back. Asia turned around, her eyes wide, and upon recognizing the bespectacled professor, she let out a trembling sigh of relief.
"Sir! What are you doing here? It's dangerous, the priests said that..."
"They're not priests, Asia. And this place isn't a church," Yugo cut her off coldly. "We don't have time."
Yugo reached into his pocket and pulled out a small pendant. At the end of a silver chain rested the Deep Water Return Crystal that Tsubaki had crafted the night before. It was a blue gem, about the size of a marble, that pulsed with a magical energy imperceptible to ordinary humans.
He took Asia's hand and placed the crystal in her palm, closing the girl's fingers over the stone.
"Listen to me carefully," Yugo said, looking her straight in the eyes. "The people in there aren't your friends. They're going to hurt you. They're going to try to take away what makes you special, and when they do, they'll kill you."
Asia took a step back, shaking her head, her eyes filling with tears. "No... that's not true. They took me in. God wouldn't allow..."
"Forget God!" Yugo hissed, gripping her shoulders with an unyielding firmness, yet careful not to hurt her. "I warned you yesterday. The monsters are real. When the time comes, when the pain becomes unbearable and you realize there's no divine salvation... break this glass. Smash it against the floor. And I'll get you out of here."
Asia stared at the blue stone in her hand. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She knew, deep in her heart, that the "priests" looked at her with greed, not pity. And as she gazed into the cold, gray wells of this man's eyes, she saw that small, fragile, and sorrowful light of devotion again. A murderer who had sacrificed his perfect life just to give her a chance to live.
Asia clutched the glass to her chest and nodded, sobbing.
—I will... Thank you.
Yugo released her, stepped into the shadows, and disappeared into the forest as silently as he had arrived. His part was done. Now, the clock started ticking.
The following night, the atmosphere in the basement of Kuoh Academy was electric.
In an immense underground training hall, fortified with dozens of magical shock-absorbing barriers, stood the entire nobility of Sona Sitri. Tsubaki, Momo, Reya, Tomoe, and the newly reincarnated Saji lined up with expressions that mixed extreme nervousness with warrior-like resolve.
Facing them, dressed in a simple black t-shirt and combat pants, was Yugo Hano.
Sona Sitri stood on a high observation platform, a notebook and a stopwatch in hand. Her heart pounded. She was about to witness her "fiancé's" best-kept secret.
"The rules are simple," Yugo announced, his voice echoing in the vast hall. "Ten transformations. Each will last between ten and fifteen minutes of active combat, followed by exactly ten minutes of biological recharge in my human form, time you will use to heal and reassess your strategy. If you manage to land a killing blow, you win. If not, you will learn why demons die."
Yugo raised his left arm. The Omnitrix glowed a blinding green in the dimness of the room.
—Let's begin.
He turned the dial and crushed the core.
¡FLASH!
The room lit up. Yugo's human body expanded grotesquely and violently. The Sitri nobility instinctively recoiled.
Standing before them was Four Arms. But he wasn't just the simple red gladiator from the comics; he was a colossus three and a half meters tall, with tanned, scarred red skin. Two fangs protruded from his lower jaw, and his body was protected by a natural armor of bony spikes on his shoulders and forearms. The muscle density was so absurd that the mere act of breathing made the air crackle.
"Attack!" roared the adult Tetramand in a voice that shook the ground.
Tsubaki and Tomoe charged forward, summoning magical swords and spears. Their attacks slammed into Yugo's torso. The weapons shattered. The red colossus didn't even flinch. He raised his four enormous hands and clapped them sonically. The kinetic shockwave was so devastating that it ripped the linoleum from the floor and sent the entire Sitri nobility flying against the barrier walls.
For ten agonizing minutes, Four Arms used them like rag dolls. He used no magic, only immeasurable brute force, demonstrating that defensive magic was useless against physical torque superior to that of a supreme-class demon.
¡BEEP, BEEP, BEEP!
A flash of red. Yugo fell to his knees in the center of the room, panting. His black T-shirt was already soaked with sweat.
"Ten minutes," Yugo said with difficulty, sitting down on the ground. "They've failed to cover their flanks. Physical force is countered with evasion, not blocking."
Sona was frantically scoring from above.
When the time was up, the clock shone green again.
¡FLASH!
This time, the figure was slender, with a long tail and an aerodynamic head. XLR8.
The Sitri nobility tried to surround him, but the Kineceleran vanished. Literally. There was no sound, only a black and blue blur. In less than a second, the five demons' weapons were snatched from their hands and flung across the room. Yugo appeared and disappeared, delivering precise blows to the pressure points on their knees and necks, incapacitating them before pain signals even reached their brains. Ten minutes of supersonic humiliation.
BEEP! Yugo, transformed back, coughing dryly.
Ten minutes of rest.
Third round. FLASH!
Insectoid. The nobility stared with disgust and terror at the adult Lepidopterran. It was a flying, armored monstrosity with a thick exoskeleton and pincer-like mandibles. Yugo soared toward the ceiling and began a chemical bombardment. A corrosive, sticky acid melted their magical water shields instantly. It showed them the terror of area control and biological warfare.
¡BEEP!
Yugo returned, spitting out a trickle of blood which he quickly concealed by wiping it with his sleeve. The stress of the adult transformations was killing him, but he didn't stop.
Fourth round. FLASH!
Diamond. The immovable tank. Tsubaki used her best offensive spell, but the Petrosapien reflected and dispersed it with his faceted arms. He showed them that light magic and projectiles bounced off a dense silicon shield.
Fifth round. Sona flooded the room, creating a giant pool. FLASH!
Aquatic. In the water, the jaws of the Piscis Volann shattered Momo's illusions and broke through Reya's aquatic defenses. It was abyssal ferocity in its purest form.
Sixth round. FLASH!
Cannonbolt. The Arburian Pelarota encased itself in an armored sphere and began bouncing around the room at projectile speeds. The demons couldn't follow the chaotic trajectory. The kinetic impact shattered three layers of Sona's barrier.
Seventh round. FLASH!
Ultra T. The Galvanic Mechamorph merged with the room's automated training system, controlling the holographic magic cannons and turning them against the demons. He demonstrated how vulnerable they were when someone hijacked their own tools.
Eighth round. FLASH!
Beast. The massive, striped adult Vulpimancer stalked in the pitch darkness. It turned off the lights and used its biological blindness to track their heartbeats and the sweat of their fear, immobilizing them one by one with pure, instinctive brutality.
Round nine. FLASH!
Fire. The adult magma titan. The heat was so intense that the nobility collapsed from dehydration within three minutes. Sona had to intervene from the upper barrier, sweating profusely, to prevent her servants from suffocating.
¡BEEP!
The red flash illuminated the room for the ninth time.
Yugo Hano collapsed face-first onto the shattered ground. His body convulsed. He brought both hands to his mouth, and this time he couldn't hide it. A pool of black blood formed on the floor. His lungs were failing. The abuse of subjecting his human DNA to nine alien biologies in less than four hours, including four massively energy-consuming adult variants, had pushed him to his absolute biological limit.
"Hano-sensei!" Sona broke her cold demeanor, leaping from the observation platform and running towards him with a desperation that surprised all of his servants.
She knelt beside him, ignoring the blood, and tried to use water healing magic on his chest.
Yugo, trembling, roughly pushed the demon's hand away.
"Don't... use your magic on me," Yugo gasped, sitting down in agony, wiping his mouth. "I'm fine. There's... one more."
"That's enough!" Sona shouted, her eyes blazing with anger and worry. "His body can't take it! He's coughing up blood, by Lucifer! Why are they doing this?"
Yugo looked at her. His face was as pale as a corpse, but his gray eyes burned with a conviction that Sona had never seen before.
"Because out there... there is no mercy," Yugo whispered. "If they don't learn to deal with the terror here, they'll die when they face the real monsters."
The Omnitrix glowed green for the tenth time.
Yugo crushed the dial.
¡FLASH!
The human colossus vanished. And in its place, the small amphibious creature, Grey Matter, fell to the blood-stained ground.
Sona, who was on her knees, came face to face with the tiny Galvan.
The servants, bruised, burned, and exhausted, stared at the small creature. They had expected another destructive monster, and instead they saw a six-inch tadpole.
"Come closer," Grey Matter ordered, his sharp, buzzing voice echoing in the silence of the room. "Stand up. The tenth lesson is not physical. It is intellectual."
Tsubaki, Saji and the other girls crawled until they formed a circle around the Galvan and its King.
For the next fifteen minutes, the little alien dissected every move they had made in the previous nine rounds. There were no screams, no punches. It was psychological surgery.
He dismantled Tsubaki's formations, calculated the millisecond delay in Momo's spells, exposed Saji's reliance on his physical abilities, and shattered the combined defenses Sona had planned. He gave them formulas, trajectories, and inertial calculations that would revolutionize their fighting style forever.
When the fifteen minutes were over, the Sitri nobility felt no physical pain; they felt absolute awe. They had been broken by force, and now, rebuilt by a divine intellect.
¡BEEP!
Yugo Hano returned.
This time, his eyes closed before he hit the ground. Utter exhaustion extinguished his consciousness. He fell heavily, unconscious.
Sona Sitri threw herself forward, catching the human's head before it hit the floor. Her own uniform was stained with Yugo's sweat and blood. She gazed at the peaceful, almost broken face of her teacher. The man who had destroyed himself tonight just to teach them how to survive, all for a teleportation beacon to protect a stranger.
"President..." Tsubaki murmured, kneeling beside her. "This man... is a monster. But... I've never seen anyone give so much for us."
Sona gently stroked Yugo's hair, brushing it away from his sweaty forehead. The flush on his cheeks was no longer from the room's temperature, nor from the humiliation of the chess game. It was a deep devotion. Tactical respect had transformed into something far more dangerous and intense.
"Take him to the secret infirmary at our base," Sona ordered in an icy but possessive whisper. "No one, not even Rias Gremory, will know of his condition. He entrusted his power to us tonight. And from this day forward, we will protect his vulnerability."
As they carefully lifted him, the pocket watch in Yugo's sack, forgotten in a corner of the room, continued its relentless ticking. Far away, in the abandoned church in the forest, the Deep Water Return Crystal rested in the hands of a golden girl, awaiting the moment of tragedy.
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Well, unfortunately, I have to say that the new Gemini update screwed me up. I can't make any more chapters with the few chances it gives me; the good thing is that I've already finished the first season; but the second one I was planning to do will take a long time. I thought about using ChatGPT, but it's rubbish. Grock is okay, even for the R-18 material I was planning to use, but I only get about 22 attempts a day and it's useless with my frequent failures. It'll be slow, but I'll do what I can. With that said, see you later. Take care.
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( ̳• · • ̳) ~ ♡ Thanks for reading ♡
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