The hum of the Underworld's medical equipment was the only sound in the Student Council's secret infirmary.
Sona Sitri stood before a screen of magical projections, her arms crossed and her face paler than usual. The numbers and diagrams floating before her required no complex translation; they were an irrefutable death sentence.
Yugo Hano sat on the edge of the examination table, slowly and methodically finishing buttoning his white shirt. His breathing still had that slight, wet whistling sound that Sona had grown to detest in the last few hours.
"The micro-tears in his lungs are just the beginning, Sensei," Sona said, her icy voice trying to mask the trembling of her hands. "His ligaments are calcified from kinetic stress. His heart is experiencing severe arrhythmias, and his cells are under a level of residual radiation and mutation that our healing magic can barely stabilize. If he continues to force his DNA with these alien transformations, his human body will simply… disintegrate. I give him two years to live, three if he's lucky."
Sona turned to him, expecting to see fear, denial, or at least the logical concern of a strategist who has just discovered that his time is running out.
But Yugo simply adjusted his glasses and took his tie from the back of a chair.
"Two years is longer than I calculated," Yugo replied, with crushing monotony. "It's plenty of time for my second-year students to graduate."
Sona clenched her fists. The human's apathy enraged her in a way she couldn't fully comprehend. As a demon, as a strategist, and as the woman he had defeated, she couldn't bear this silent surrender.
"Doesn't he care?!" Sona's composure cracked for a second, her voice rising. "He has power that rivals the Demon Kings, an intellect that humbles the best minds in the Underworld... and he's willing to let himself die like a sick stray dog! I could reincarnate him. We could search for Phoenix Tears, elixirs, anything!"
Yugo stopped his hands on the knot of his tie. His gray eyes, empty and cold, fixed on those of the Sitri heiress.
"We all die, Sona. I just decided to skip the line," Yugo said with unsettling calm. "My soul is too broken to be mended by your magical toys, and I'd rather die coughing up my own blood like a human than live forever as a faction's pet. Don't seek cures I didn't ask for. Focus on training your peerage."
Without another word, Yugo grabbed his jacket and left the infirmary. Sona was left alone, watching her "fiancé's" vital signs fade into thin air. She gritted her teeth until they ached.
"I won't let you die, you damned stubborn human," Sona thought, with a devotion so dark and unyielding it would frighten her own sister. "Even if I have to bind you to this world against your will."
Three days passed. Three days in which the underground of Kuoh Academy became a true Spartan hell.
The Sitri nobility was discovering that surviving Yugo Hano was harder than passing their final exams. Every night, the transformations followed one another with calculated brutality. Diamond shattered their defenses; XLR8 humiliated them with speed; Ultra T turned their own training hall into a minefield.
But in the intervals, during those sacred ten minutes when the Omnitrix blinked bright red to recharge its battery, Yugo was once again the educator.
The professor sat on a sports equipment box, breathing somewhat heavily, while the watch on his wrist emitted a soft beep... beep...
"Tsubaki," Yugo called, pointing a finger at the Queen. "Your center of gravity when you summon the mirror shield is too high. If Cannonbolt charges at you at that angle, he'll break your spine. Bend your knees three centimeters more and anchor your weight to your right heel."
Tsubaki, covered in sweat and a few scrapes, bowed deeply. "Understood, Sensei. I'll correct it immediately."
"Momo, Reya," Yugo continued, not looking directly at them, analyzing the room. "Your coordination in ranged attacks has a 0.4-second delay. Enough for Aquatic to drag you to the bottom before the second spell. Synchronize your breathing."
The two girls nodded vigorously, looking at him with a mixture of terror and adoration. The training was torture, but their skills had grown exponentially in just seventy-two hours.
Saji Genshirou, Sona's noisy Pawn, trotted up, puffed up with pride.
"Hey, Sensei!" Saji exclaimed, wiping the sweat from his brow. "I managed to dodge two of Four Arms' punches today before he smashed me against the wall! Did you see my footwork? What do you think? Any advice for your star student?"
Yugo picked up a water bottle, took a sip, and looked directly at Saji. However, his gray eyes seemed to pierce the blond boy as if he were made of transparent glass.
—Tomoe— Yugo said, completely and utterly ignoring the existence of the Pawn—. Your defensive stance is deficient. Use the environment, not just your magic.
Saji stared, his mouth agape, blinking. "Uh... Sensei? I'm here! I'm Genshirou Saji! The wielder of Vritra!"
Yugo adjusted his glasses, looking at Sona, who was watching the scene from the upper platform.
—President, tell your imaginary relative to stop making noise, he's interfering with the tactical adjustments— Yugo commented with complete seriousness.
Saji fell to his knees, a cloud of cosmic depression hanging over his head, while Tsubaki suppressed a tiny smile and Momo patted the poor ignored boy on the back.
But the moment of rest was interrupted in the most abrupt way possible.
The thick, reinforced steel doors of the underground chamber, the ones Sona had sealed with three layers of water magic and illusion barriers, creaked. An instant later, the seals burst in a wave of crimson energy, filling the air with an unmistakable scent of ozone and destruction.
Yugo didn't get up. He just turned his head heavily, staring at the red dial of his watch. He still had three minutes before he could transform again.
The heavy door swung wide open.
Rias Gremory entered the underground training room with a determined stride and a furrowed brow, her long red hair billowing behind her. To her right walked Akeno Himejima, her smile never reaching her eyes, and Kiba and Koneko flanked the rear, their muscles tense and ready for battle.
Issei Hyoudou was conspicuously absent; Rias had probably left him doing minor contracts so as not to risk her precious and traumatized pawn to the "anomaly".
The silence in the training room was deafening.
Rias crossed her arms, letting her gaze wander over the bruised and sweaty Sitri nobility, before fixing her intense blue eyes on the man sitting on the wooden box.
"So this is where the Student Council has been disappearing every night," Rias said, her voice ringing with a mixture of indignation and authority. "I knew the kinetic energy fluctuations we felt beneath the school weren't just simple tectonic tremors."
Sona teleported down from the upper platform, appearing right between Rias and Yugo.
"Rias," Sona hissed, her tone dangerously defensive, which made Akeno raise an eyebrow. "You're trespassing on my clan's private training grounds. I warned you to stay out of it."
"On the sidelines?" Rias stepped forward, undeterred. "Sona, you're bringing a dangerous civilian into an academy base. A man who, according to my own family, atomized a Rogue Demon just days ago and kept his existence a secret from us for years. If the Demon King Sirzechs..."
—Sirzechs Lucifer doesn't care what happens in the basement of a human high school—a monotonous, harsh, and icy voice interrupted her.
They all turned towards Yugo.
The professor stood up slowly. His body was at the limit of pain, his lungs burned, and the watch on his wrist kept flashing a stubborn red, but his presence filled the room with such a dense pressure that Koneko instinctively took a half step back.
Yugo walked toward Rias, passing by Sona. He stopped two meters from the Princess of Ruin. Rias, despite being a high-class devil, had to fight the biological urge to look away from those lifeless eyes.
"Gremory," Yugo said, adjusting his chipped glasses. "You don't rule the world. Your title of nobility in the Underworld is toilet paper in my classroom. I'm here because of a business deal with the Student Council. Now, unless you have an interest in the history of the French Revolution, I suggest you turn around and leave the way you came in."
Akeno stepped forward, golden sparks dancing on her fingertips in response to the disrespect shown to her mistress.
Yugo shifted his gaze to the dark-haired woman. For a microsecond, the image of the frightened little girl who loved strawberry candy overlapped with the voluptuous Thunder Priestess. A faint, painful light flickered in the retired assassin's gray eyes, but he hid it as quickly as it appeared.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you, Himejima," Yugo murmured in a dangerously low voice. "Because I promise you, my fire is much hotter than your lightning."
BEEP.
The sharp sound cut through the air.
The Omnitrix on Yugo's wrist changed from red to a bright emerald green. The recharge time was over.
The entire room seemed to hold its breath. Yugo's finger rested gently on the clock face. Just one twist and one tap would be all it would take to turn the training room into a slaughterhouse.
Sona Sitri gritted her teeth, ready to come between her fiancé and her childhood friend. The faction war was about to erupt in the academy's basement.
Rias Gremory clenched her fists. The energy of destruction began to swirl around her in small crimson sparks. Beside her, Akeno, Kiba, and Koneko braced themselves for the worst. They were about to face the anomaly that had incinerated a Rogue Demon in seconds. Sona Sitri, sweating profusely, stepped forward, ready to raise a water barrier that, deep down, she knew would be useless if Yugo decided to use Fire or Four Arms.
The air was so tense it almost crackled.
Yugo turned the dial one millimeter. He was about to crush the core.
But the universe, always twisted, decided to intervene before the apocalypse broke out in the academy's basement.
Rias gasped suddenly. Her eyes widened, and she clutched her chest with both hands, staggering backward. The energy of destruction dissipated instantly.
"Buchou!" Kiba held her up before she fell to her knees.
"Ise..." Rias whispered, her face contorted with panic. "My connection with him... is fading. It's dying!"
Yugo stopped his hand. His brow furrowed slightly. Canon dictated that Issei would be ambushed by the psychopathic exorcist at a client's house, but the timeline had become erratic since Asia's early arrival.
Before Yugo could process the situation or open his mouth to tell Rias to go save her stupid Pawn, a sharp, crystalline sound echoed inside the professor's mind. It was like hearing a crystal glass shatter in the middle of absolute silence.
Yugo's chest lit up, but not with the green light of the Omnitrix.
A light of a deep, abyssal blue, as dense as the ocean, erupted from nowhere and enveloped him completely. The runes of the Deep Water Return Crystal that Tsubaki had crafted materialized in the air around the human.
Sona stifled a gasp, recognizing her own familiar magic. Rias looked up, stunned.
In the blink of an eye, the history teacher disappeared from the underground of Kuoh Academy, leaving two entire demon clans plunged into utter confusion.
The smell of blood and ozone was the first thing that hit Yugo's senses when the blue light dissipated.
She wasn't in the forest church, as she had expected. She appeared in the middle of the living room of a wrecked traditional Japanese house. The furniture was overturned, the walls had clean cuts that were still smoking, and shards of glass littered the tatami floor.
Before him, the scene was a cruelly painted picture.
Issei Hyoudou lay on the ground, choking on his own blood, a deep gash across his body. Beside him, kneeling and trembling, was Asia Argento. Her hands, stained with the blue dust from the magic crystal she had just crushed, clutched the brown-haired boy's shirt.
Yugo looked at her. His gray eyes, those deep wells of apathy, scanned the nun's face. And then, the faint light in his gaze—that fragile spark of humanity that Sona had seen the night before—ignited.
On Asia's pale, angelic cheek was an ugly, dark bruise. Someone had hit her. Someone had taken the only purely good creature in this cursed world and struck her in the face with a weapon.
"Hahahaha! What is this? A cheap magic trick?" A histrionic and deranged voice echoed in the room.
Yugo slowly turned his head. A few feet away, wearing a white Church trench coat and wielding a smoking pistol in one hand and a lightsaber in the other, stood Father Freed Sellzen. The heretical exorcist wore a sadistic smile, observing the newcomer with maniacal amusement.
"Are you another fucking demon who's come to save the whore who cures monsters?" Freed mocked, pointing his gun at Yugo. "I kill demons for free, but I charge humans!"
Asia looked up, her eyes filled with tears, and when she saw Yugo, she sobbed.
"S-Sir...! I'm sorry... I'm so sorry..." Asia cried, awkwardly stepping between the professor and Issei's body. "I know he gave me the crystal to save me... but he... Ise-san is dying... I couldn't let him die!"
Yugo's mind stopped.
He had given her his only way out, a priceless artifact whose secrets he had painstakingly revealed to Sona Sitri, so she could escape the torture of the ritual. And this girl... this stupid, naive, and beautiful soul of light... had squandered her only salvation in the world to protect a perverted demon she barely knew.
Freed let out a raucous laugh and raised his lightsaber. "How touching! I'll kill all three of them and then have my fun with the nun's corpse!"
Something inside Yugo's head completely broke.
The cosmic hatred he used to feel for this world's narrative was replaced by a fury so primal, black, and absolute that the air around him seemed to grow heavier. He didn't turn the Omnitrix dial. He didn't press the core.
His knees buckled and, with the painful crack of his joints overworked by six years of hellish training, Yugo shot forward.
Freed barely had time to blink. The "boring professor" covered the four-meter distance in a fraction of a second.
Yugo didn't use magic. He used the raw, brutal physics of a human body forced beyond its limits. He twisted his hip, planted his left foot on the wooden floorboards, shattering them, and threw a straight right punch, bare-handed, unrestrained, channeling every ounce of his weight and his rage.
Yugo's fist slammed into the center of Freed's face.
The sound of the exorcist's nasal septum shattering was disgustingly sharp. The kinetic force of the impact lifted Freed off the floor. The pistol and lightsaber flew from his hands as his body was thrown backward, crashing violently into the living room television and through the drywall into the adjacent hallway.
Silence returned to the room, broken only by the exorcist's groans of pain and Issei's erratic breathing.
Yugo stood there, the knuckles of his right hand mangled and dripping blood onto the floor. He felt no pain. His empty eyes stared at the hole in the wall.
"You... damned bastard..." Freed coughed, crawling through the rubble. His face was a mask of blood, his nose was sunken, and several teeth were missing. With a grimace of psychopathic fury, the exorcist reached out and picked up his lightsaber from the ground. "I'm going to cut you to pieces!"
Yugo looked down at his left hand. His face was as expressionless as a corpse's.
With a methodical movement, staining the alien device with his own blood, he turned the Omnitrix dial. The silhouette wasn't Diamondhead's, nor XLR8's. It was that of an abyssal predator, a creature designed to tear apart life in the darkest and most hostile depths of the ocean.
If that exorcist wanted to massacre, Yugo was going to show him what a real monster was.
It crushed the core.
¡FLASH!
Emerald light flooded the shattered house. Freed covered his eyes, cursing. Asia shrank back, shielding Issei.
When the light faded, a harsh, guttural hiss filled the room. The human had vanished.
Standing before the hole in the wall was Aquatic (Piscis Volann). The hunched humanoid creature had skin covered in thick, greenish scales. Its arms ended in webbed claws as sharp as butcher knives. From its forehead hung a bioluminescent antenna that emitted a spectral green glow in the gloom.
But the most terrifying thing about it was its jaws. A disproportionately immense mouth, capable of dislocating like a snake's, filled with rows of translucent teeth as sharp as razor blades that dripped viscous saliva.
Aquatic was on dry land. His gills opened and closed violently, searching for water. The air of the human world burned his alien lungs, slowly suffocating him. And that very suffocation, that agonizing pain of not being able to breathe, fueled his savage fury.
The Pisccis Volann fixed its enormous, pupil-less eyes on Freed Sellzen. It opened its monstrous jaws and unleashed a deafening roar that shook the foundations of the house, a sound that blended the shriek of a sea monster with the scream of a deranged killer.
Freed, the sadistic exorcist who enjoyed terrorizing demons, felt a trickle of cold urine run down his leg. For the first time in his miserable life, he was the prey.
The air of the human world was poison to his gills. Each inhalation was like swallowing hot sand, but that agonizing pain only served to fuel the predatory rage that simmered inside Aquatic.
The Piscis Volann hurtled down the corridor with terrifying speed, his heavy footsteps shaking the foundations of the shattered house.
"You disgusting monster! Die!" Father Freed shouted, panic cracking his histrionic voice.
The exorcist raised his pistol, aiming directly at the creature's scaly head. He pulled the trigger three times. The light bullets, designed to disintegrate demonic flesh, struck Aquatic's skull and shoulders. However, the thick alien scales, evolved to withstand the immense pressure of the deepest ocean trenches, barely chipped.
Before Freed could fire a fourth time, Aquatic slashed with his right arm. The webbed claws sliced through the air with a metallic hiss. He wasn't aiming at the exorcist, but at the weapon. The steel and magical mechanism of the gun were sliced into three perfect pieces, falling to the ground like useless scrap metal.
"Damn it...!" Freed stepped back, his eyes wide with terror, and swung his lightsaber in a downward arc toward the alien's neck.
Aquatic didn't dodge. In a move that defied all logic and sanity, the alien opened its enormous jaws. Its jaw popped open with a biological click, revealing rows of translucent teeth.
¡CRUNCH!
Aquatic caught the blade of pure light in its teeth. Sacred energy crackled violently against the jaws of the Piscis Volann, but the abyssal predator's bite exerted a pressure of tons. The sword of light shattered, exploding into a shower of golden particles that dissipated into the air.
Freed froze, holding the empty hilt of his sword.
The monster didn't give him time to process that he had just devoured a sacred weapon. Aquatic lunged forward, opening his jaws again, this time aiming directly for the exorcist's forearms. Freed let out a scream of terror and yanked his arms back just in time, but Aquatic's teeth tore through the white trench coat and ripped deep chunks of flesh from his wrists, nearly severing both hands in the process.
While carnage raged in the hallway, Asia Argento worked desperately in the living room. Ignoring the beast's roar and the priest's screams, the nun kept her hands pressed against Issei's bloodied abdomen. The emerald light of her Sacred Gear, Twilight Healing, enveloped the chestnut-haired boy's mortal wound, stabilizing his vital signs and sealing the torn tissue. She wept silently, terrified by the sounds of bones breaking just feet away, but refusing to let go of her first friend.
In the hallway, Freed fell to his knees, sobbing and cradling his mutilated arms.
Aquatic looked down at him with its cold, pupil-less eyes. The creature raised its right arm and, with a brutal movement, sank its claws deep into the exorcist's abdomen.
Freed spat out a mouthful of blood, his eyes nearly bulging from their sockets in agony. Aquatic raised his arm, lifting the exorcist's twisted body into the air like a rag doll. He was about to open his jaws one last time and tear the heretic's head off.
Suddenly, an intense crimson glow flooded the living room.
Aquatic halted his attack, turning his heavy head toward the light. In the center of the room, a magic circle bearing the emblem of the Gremory Clan had just materialized.
Rias Gremory emerged from the portal, immediately followed by Akeno, Kiba, and Koneko. The demons arrived with their weapons drawn and magic crackling in their hands, but upon seeing the scene before them, they all froze.
They saw a scaly, terrifying humanoid holding a bloodied exorcist impaled in its claws, while Asia Argento healed her dying Pawn. Rias instantly noticed the hourglass symbol on the monster's chest. Sona had warned her: Don't provoke him. He's untouchable.
"Buchou..." Issei stammered weakly from the ground, barely opening his eyes as he sensed his mistress's presence. "Help... help Asia..."
Aquatic let out a low hiss, hurling Freed's dying body against the hallway wall. The exorcist collapsed in a pool of his own blood, unconscious or feigning unconsciousness to survive. The sea beast stomped into the living room, positioning itself protectively a couple of feet from Asia, staring intently at the demons.
Rias Gremory didn't look at Yugo. She did exactly what the strategist Sitri had advised: ignore the anomaly.
"Kiba, Koneko, take Ise. We're leaving," Rias ordered in a firm, cold voice.
The two servants quickly approached. Kiba and Koneko lifted Issei's body, moving it out of reach of Asia's healing hands.
"W-Wait!" Asia pleaded, her hands still glowing faintly with her power. "I haven't finished healing him yet..."
"Buchou!" Issei exclaimed, fighting back the pain as Kiba held him up. "We can't leave her! She's my friend! We have to take Asia with us."
Rias Gremory looked at the nun kneeling on the floor with an icy expression, devoid of any compassion.
"That girl was originally from God's faction. She's someone we can't coexist with." Rias's words fell like blocks of ice in the room. "Even if she went with the Fallen Angels, she's still an enemy to us Demons."
"Asia is not our enemy!" Issei shouted, struggling weakly, with tears in his eyes.
"It has nothing to do with us. Ise, you have to forget about her," Rias declared, turning her back on the nun and the scaly monster guarding her. "Akeno, prepare the teleportation circle back."
"No! Please!" Issei extended his hand toward the blonde. "ASIA!"
Asia looked at him, heartbroken, thick tears rolling down her cheeks stained with dust and blood.
The crimson magic circle shone brightly, and in the blink of an eye, the entire Gremory nobility vanished, taking Issei with them and abandoning the renegade nun to her fate amidst the ruins.
Silence returned to the wrecked house, broken only by Asia's sobs. She was alone. The boy she had healed had been dragged away by demons, and the Church wanted her dead. She huddled on the floor, waiting for the scaly creature to finish its work and devour her.
BEEP... BEEP... BEEP...
Electronic sound echoed in the room. An intense red light flashed.
Asia closed her eyes, bracing herself for the end. But when the light went out, the monster's guttural hiss was gone.
Instead, the sound of heavy, human footsteps approached her. Yugo Hano dropped to one knee in front of the nun. He was drenched in sweat and breathing with alarming difficulty. The exertion of using his aquatic form in a dry environment had further damaged his lungs. He covered his mouth with his shirtsleeve to stifle a violent cough, staining the white fabric with black blood.
But when he managed to stabilize his breathing, he extended his right hand, with bandaged knuckles and bruised skin, towards the crying girl.
Asia slowly opened her eyes. Seeing the "boring professor" in front of her, the same person who had given her the crystal of salvation and who had transformed into a monster to protect her from the priest, her sobs intensified, but this time out of pure relief.
"I told you this world was full of monsters, Asia," Yugo murmured, his monotone voice softened by an exhausted hoarseness. "The heroes you were hoping for have just abandoned you."
Asia looked at Yugo's outstretched hand, then raised her gaze to his gray eyes. The same cold stare that frightened demons conveyed to her the greatest sense of security.
"Come with me," Yugo said, without looking away. "I won't promise you a castle, or the protection of the Demon Kings. But I promise you that, as long as I keep breathing, no one on this damned planet will ever lay a hand on you again."
Asia Argento didn't hesitate. She raised her small, trembling hand and gripped Yugo's tightly.
...
The silence in the "Saturn" minimarket was heavy, broken only by the hum of an old generator and the rhythmic drip of a loosely fitted pipe in the remodeling area. In the back room, Asia Argento was finally resting. Yugo had treated her bruise with a basic ointment; the girl was fast asleep, her face still marked by exhaustion, but safe from the darkness that had haunted her in the church.
Upon entering the main area of the shop, Yugo Hano was not surprised to find the room occupied. Sona Sitri sat cross-legged on one of the wooden vendor crates, her back straight. Tsubaki and the rest of her peerage were scattered among the shadows of the empty shelves, watching him with a mixture of caution and a new kind of respect tinged with awe.
"You came in without knocking, Sitri," Yugo said, his monotone voice echoing in the empty room. "I suppose that's the privilege of the owner of the device that allowed me to arrive on time."
Sona adjusted her glasses, her eyes reflecting the dim light from the store.
"You used the Return Crystal, Sensei. My peerage sensed its immediate activation. Considering the carnage you left in that house and the fact that Sirzechs Lucifer's sister abandoned that child, it was obvious you'd end up here."
Yugo walked to the counter, resting his bandaged hands on the metal surface. His lungs reminded him of his audacity with a sharp, burning pain. He knew that night's actions would have consequences. He had attacked a Church envoy, humiliated an exorcist under the protection of the Fallen Angels, and directly interfered in Gremory territory. He had become a beacon for the troubles of all three factions.
He looked at Sona with an inner conflict he rarely allowed to show on his face. She was watching him not as a teacher, but with an intensity he still couldn't fully decipher.
"Thank you," Yugo murmured, the words sounding strange on his lips. "For the glass. Without it, she'd be dead."
Sona blinked, surprised by the genuine gratitude of that man who always seemed to be above everything else.
"Hano-sensei... you know you're a target now," Sona said, her tone softening slightly. "The Fallen Angels won't forget what you did to Freed Sellzen. And Rias... Rias doesn't understand why you protected someone she considers an enemy. You're on your own."
Yugo let out a heavy sigh, followed by a cough that stained his handkerchief scarlet. His body was crumbling; the suicidal training and the stress of the Omnitrix had sealed his fate. He was dying, and he knew it. But now he had Asia under his roof, and he had hundreds of students who depended on his discipline to keep them from being consumed by the madness of Kuoh.
If protecting Asia and her students meant selling her soul to the devil, she would do it as many times as necessary.
"Sitri," Yugo said, fixing his lifeless gaze on the Sitri heiress. "Your offer from a few days ago... to make me part of your group of servants. Does it still stand?"
Sona stood up slowly, her heart beating with a force that threatened to break her composure.
-Always.
"I accept," Yugo declared. "But on my terms. I don't want to be a Knight or a Rook. I want to be a Pawn."
Tsubaki took a step forward, confused. "A Pawn, Sensei? It's the lowest-ranking piece."
Yugo gave a cold, calculating half-smile. "A Pawn is the most versatile piece because of its Promotion ability. If I can reach enemy territory, I can become whatever is necessary to win the game. And given the nature of my 'Sacred Gear,' I need that flexibility."
Sona pulled out the velvet box containing the Evil Pieces. She observed the Omnitrix on Yugo's wrist, which still emitted a faint red glow as it recharged. She knew that the artifact's energy and the deteriorated state of his human body would require a greater effort for reincarnation.
"Your body is wrecked, Yugo," Sona said, calling him by his first name for the first time.
"Reincarnating as a demon could repair much of that cellular damage, giving you a new lease on life. But because of the power of your soul and that clock, you'll consume more than one piece."
"Use two," Yugo ordered, without taking his eyes off the table. "Two Pawns. Save the rest for those who really need them."
Sona nodded. She approached him, holding the crimson pieces that glowed with the power of the Sitri clan. The ritual began, and a flow of magical power surrounded the room.
Yugo felt the pieces melt into his chest. For the first time in years, the fire in his lungs cooled. He felt his calcified ligaments relax and his heart find a steady rhythm. He was ceasing to be the human who had crossed dimensions and becoming the servant of the woman who had defeated him at chess.
The deal was done. The history teacher had just sold his soul to become the shield of the innocent. Yugo Hano, now Sona Sitri's Pawn, closed his eyes as the new demonic life coursed through his veins, ready to play the most dangerous game of his existence.
...
Humidity and the smell of dust and mold permeated the air of the sanctuary in the abandoned church of Kuoh.
The candles flickered weakly, casting long shadows across the broken pews and the shattered statue of Christ on the cross. Before the altar, the atmosphere among the Fallen Angels was grim, tense, and bordering on paranoia.
Raynare paced back and forth, clutching her right side. The healing power of the light had mended her fractured ribs, but the phantom pain of that blind, feline beast's crushing weight still tormented her with every breath. A few feet away, Mittelt sat on a bench, swinging her legs, her gaze unfocused, while Kalawarner leaned against a column, arms crossed, his expression one of utter frustration.
Dohnaseek, in his trench coat and felt hat, watched the three women with growing irritation.
"The plan is being delayed," the male Fallen Angel growled, breaking the silence. "We've moved up the nun's arrival to extract the Twilight Healing as soon as possible. We need that Sacred Gear to secure our standing with Azazel-sama, but you three are still trembling over a supposed monster that doesn't even use magic."
"You weren't there, Dohnaseek!" Raynare hissed, stopping abruptly and glaring at him with fury and hysteria. "That thing... wasn't a demon! It didn't even emit an aura! First it was an impenetrable crystal giant, and then... a savage beast that tore us to pieces in seconds. That human with the watch is a nightmare!"
Dohnaseek opened his mouth to reply, fed up with his subordinates' excuses, when a shrill noise from the heavy church doors interrupted him.
¡BAM!
The wooden doors burst open, crashing violently against the stone walls.
The four Fallen Angels instantly summoned their spears of light, preparing for an attack from the Gremorys or the dreaded anomaly. But the figure that crossed the threshold caused them to lower their weapons in shock.
He wasn't a monster. He was Father Freed Sellzen.
Or at least, what was left of him.
The psychopathic exorcist staggered into the sanctuary. His pristine white trench coat was stained a dark, nauseating red. His face was a gore-mask; his nose was completely mangled, sunk into his face at an unnatural angle, and his lip was split. But most gruesome were his arms. The fabric of his sleeves was in tatters, and his forearms and wrists bore deep bite marks, jagged cuts that looked as if they had been made by rows of razor blades. Flesh hung in bloody strips.
Freed fell to his knees in the middle of the main hall, spitting out a tooth and a mouthful of blood onto the stone slabs.
"Heal me... heal me, damn it!" roared the exorcist, his voice distorted by his broken nose, raising his trembling arms toward them. "Get me out or I'll kill you all!"
Raynare lowered her light spear, approaching him with wide eyes in disbelief. She knew Freed's skill; the human was a lethal killer, fast and sadistic enough to corner mid-level demons. To see him reduced to this pathetic state was unthinkable.
"What the hell happened to you, Freed?" Kalawarner asked, cautiously approaching. "Was it the Gremory clan? Did that red-haired princess ambush you?"
"To hell with the Gremorys!" Freed shouted, laughing hysterically and maniacally as tears of pain streamed down his bloodied face. "Those stupid demons came later! It was that damned civilian! The boring human with the glasses!"
Raynare's breathing stopped. The color drained from her face completely. Mittelt stifled a squeal and shrank back on her bench.
"Human...?" Dohnaseek muttered, frowning. "What are you talking about, trash? Where's the nun? You had orders to bring Asia Argento here!"
"They took her away!" roared Freed, banging his forehead against the stone floor. "That bastard broke my face with one damn human punch! And then... then there was a green light!"
Upon hearing the mention of the green light, Raynare's legs trembled. She instinctively took a step back.
"What... what was it this time?" the leader of the Fallen Angels whispered in terror. "A diamond giant? A blind orange beast?"
Freed raised his deformed face, staring at her with his single open eye, bloodshot and filled with a madness born of pure terror.
"NO! It was a damned sea monster!" the exorcist sobbed and laughed at the same time. "A scaly abomination with a mouth that opened all the way to its chest! I fired! I emptied my weapon into its damned head, and the light bullets just bounced off its scales! It slashed my weapon in half!"
Freed raised his mutilated arms for all to see.
"I slit his throat with my lightsaber!" the priest continued, his voice rising to a high, desperate tone. "And the bastard opened his mouth and ate my lightsaber! He chewed the holy light like it was damned glass! Look at me! He nearly tore my hands off! He would have swallowed me whole if the Gremorys hadn't shown up to distract him!"
Absolute silence fell over the church.
Dohnaseek looked at Freed's arms. The wounds weren't burns from demonic magic, nor cuts from knights' swords. They were biological marks, made by the jaws of an apex predator.
Raynare brought both hands to her head, her fingers gripping her black hair. Her mind was collapsing under the weight of paranoia.
"Three..." Raynare whispered, her voice breaking. "A crystal golem, a hellhound, and now an abomination from the depths... How many of them does he have? What the hell is that man?"
"The Gremorys took the brown-haired boy," Freed continued, coughing up blood. "And the scaly monster kept the nun's dog. He didn't abandon her. He was protecting her."
Kalawarner looked at Raynare, despair becoming evident on his face.
—Raynare... if that human, that anomaly, is protecting the nun... it's over. We can't get near her. We've lost our advantage. If Azazel-sama finds out...
"Shut up!" Raynare shrieked, a maniacal gleam igniting in her eyes.
The pressure and terror were pushing her to the edge of the abyss. If she returned to the Underworld without Twilight Healing, she would be a disgrace, a weakling, trash in the eyes of the leader she adored.
"I will not surrender!" the Fallen Angel shouted, unfurling her black wings and striding furiously toward the altar. "That healing artifact is mine! It belongs to me! With it, I will be untouchable!"
Dohnaseek grabbed her arm tightly. "Raynare, snap out of it. If that thing devoured a lightsaber and tore your squad apart, it's suicide to go looking for the girl if he's nearby."
"Then we'll force him to leave her!" Raynare spat, wragging herself out of her partner's grasp. "Freed said he's a professor, right? A human hiding behind glasses and a civilian life! He must have a weakness. If he's in this city, we'll find it."
Raynare stared at the dark stained-glass windows of the church, her fists clenched until her knuckles cracked. Fear was consuming her, but ambition was her only lifeline.
"The extraction ritual is complete," Raynare declared, her voice dripping with venom. "I don't care if I have to burn this entire human city to the ground to distract that damned shapeshifter. Asia Argento will die on this altar, and I will become the deity I was always meant to be. Heal this useless priest. We have a hunt to plan."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Here's another chapter. I regret to inform you that Grok Free has a deplorable memory, and don't even get me started on CHATGPT, which is garbage. For now, only the completed chapters of the first season will be uploaded until I somehow manage to continue it, maybe by converting them to PDFs and uploading them and using them as a backup; I don't know yet. With that said, see you in the next chapter. See you.
∧,,,∧ ~ ┏━━━━━━━━━┓
( ̳• · • ̳) ~ ♡ Thanks for reading ♡
/ づ ~ ┗━━━━━━━━━┛