As the silence stretched on, thick and suffocating. Algernon's hand finally moved.
Clack.
He placed his Queen on a new square, his expression unreadable. He motioned Sona to continue playing with a slight flick of his wrist. Sona, pale and realizing she might have just walked onto a landmine, forced her trembling hand to move a Bishop.
The game continued, but the intellectual joy was gone, replaced by a terrifying tension where every move felt like a step toward the gallows.
While playing, Algernon didn't look at the board. Instead, he casually looked at Saji, who was standing at the back of the room.
The moment his eyes landed on him, Saji nearly had a heart attack. He stopped breathing, his back pressing against the wall as if trying to phase through it to escape. He was certain he was about to be executed for his earlier outburst.
Sona, noticing his gaze, felt a spike of ice in her chest. She assumed Algernon was contemplating punishment for Saji's disrespect.
"Your Majesty, please," Sona pleaded, her voice cracking slightly as she bowed her head over the board. "Saji is new to the peerage. He is ignorant of proper etiquette, but he is loyal. I beg you to overlook his rudeness—"
But Algernon ignored her. He didn't even blink or acknowledge her plea. He kept his eyes locked on Saji.
"You have a Sacred Gear," Algernon spoke out, his voice cutting through Sona's words like a knife.
Saji flinched. "I... uh... y-yes?"
Algernon tilted his head, analyzing the aura radiating from Saji's left hand.
"Holding a piece of Vritra," Algernon continued, his tone clinical. "One of the Five Dragon Kings. The Prison Dragon."
Algernon's fingers deftly captured one of Sona's pawns, removing it from the board with a sharp clack.
"Instead of wasting your time here playing in the human world," Algernon critiqued, his tone dripping with a harsh, imperial truth, "you should visit the Underworld."
"The Demon Academy need potential candidates. It can help you unleash the potential of a Dragon King that is currently rotting inside you."
Saji opened his mouth to stammer an excuse, but Algernon cut him off with a brutal comparison.
"You saw the devastation today, didn't you? The apocalyptic power that nearly erased this town?"
Algernon leaned forward slightly, resting his chin on his hand.
"You should know that the Red and White Dragon Emperors who fought some time ago... the monsters who have ascended to the realm of Super Devils... are your age."
The words hit Saji harder than Kiba's slam. He looked over at Sona, who was still tense over the chessboard, and then down at his own trembling hands.
The memories of that rainy night rushed back—the screech of tires, the shattered glass, and the silence that followed. His parents died in that vehicular accident, leaving him and his two younger siblings alone. It was Sona who had extended a hand, offering him not just a home, but a purpose.
She saved me, Saji thought, his fists clenching until the knuckles turned white. She gave me a life.
But today, when the sky broke ... he had done nothing.
"Think about that," Algernon finished, turning his attention back to the game. "While you play student council here, your peers are influencing the world."
He placed a Bishop on the board, checking Sona's King, before shifting his attention to the only person in the room who had remained standing during his entrance.
"And you," Algernon spoke, his eyes locking onto hers. "Xenovia Quarta."
Xenovia stiffened, her hand tightening reflexively around the cloth-wrapped hilt of Durandal on her back.
"You are talented," he stated simply. "A natural-born Holy Sword wielder capable of handling Durandal without it rejecting you. That is a rare gift, even among the faithful. And now, you have reincarnated into a Devil, becoming a walking contradiction of light and shadow."
Xenovia remained silent, unsure how to respond to the compliment from the supreme ruler of her new species.
"However," Algernon continued, his tone shifting to one of assessment. "You rely too much on brute force. You swing that legendary blade like a club. Staying here can give you warmth it can't teach you how to truly maximize that contradiction inside you."
"I offer you the same treatment I offered the boy," Algernon declared. "Admission to the Demon Academy."
Xenovia's eyes widened. "The Academy? But... I am a former exorcist. I wield a Holy Sword."
Algernon's smirked, his voice low and mocking. "That is small thinking, Xenovia. I don't care about the nature of power as long as it can be used by me."
He raised his right hand, palm open.
"Observe."
For a single heartbeat, the atmosphere in the clubroom inverted. The heavy, dark pressure of his demonic aura vanished, replaced instantly by a sensation that was searingly bright and pure.
WAAAAAOM.
A blinding divine golden light erupted from Algernon's hand.
It was pure, concentrated Holy Power—the kind that usually descended from the Heavens to burn demons to ash.
"Guh!"
The effect on the room was immediate and violent.
Kiba and Akeno flinched back, instinctively raising their arms to shield their faces. Even Rias and Sona frowned deeply, squeezing their eyes shut as the Holy frequency grated against their demonic physiology like sandpaper on raw nerves.
It lasted only a second.
Algernon closed his hand, and the light vanished as if it had never existed.
"I am the Demon Emperor," Algernon stated, lowering his hand. "Yet I hold the Holy Law in my palm. I do not burn."
He looked at the stunned Xenovia, whose mouth was slightly agape same as everyone else in the room.
She had felt it that was the same purity she had spent her life worshipping, yet it came from a demon.
"Power is not good or evil. It is simply energy waiting for a will strong enough to command it. If I can master the light that was made to kill me... what is your excuse?"
Algernon turned his gaze from the stunned Xenovia to Rias.
"Rias," Algernon ordered. "Release your other Bishop."
Rias froze, her eyes widening in alarm. "You mean... Gasper? But his power is uncontrollable! He is sealed for his own safety and the safety of—"
"I care more about utility, and I don't think he will ever be safe if he can't control Forbidden Balor View," Algernon cut her off, his voice sharp.
He stood up, gently lifting Koneko off his lap and setting her on the sofa.
"Unseal him immediately. And do not keep him here coddling him." Algernon's eyes narrowed. "Send him to the Bael territory. I have already instructed Sairaorg to take him in."
"Sairaorg?!" Rias gasped. Sending a shut-in vampire to the embodiment of brute physical training sounded like torture.
"I can't see him wasting a potential Longinus rotting in a locker," Algernon stated coldly.
Algernon then looked down at the chessboard one last time. He picked up his piece and placed it decisively before standing up.
Everyone sitting there followed instantly, standing on their feet.
He adjusted his uniform collar and moved toward the exit, his boots echoing in the quiet room.
But just as his hand touched the brass handle of the double doors, he stopped.
With his back turned to everyone.
"You are more intelligent than I thought, Sona," Algernon spoke, his voice low but perfectly audible.
Sona flinched, her breath catching in her throat as he addressed the dangerous question she had asked earlier.
"About your doubt..." Algernon paused.
"Yes. Your assumptions are right."
The blood drained from Rias and Sona's faces.
"Kokabiel's attack. The danger to your lives." Algernon listed them off casually. "Everything happened here because I allowed it."
He glanced over his shoulder, his eye gleaming with a terrifying light.
"I used everyone here as bait."
The silence that followed his confession was brittle, threatening to snap under the weight of the betrayal. Rias's hands clenched into fists at her sides, her nails digging into her palms.
"Whether you like it or not, Rias." Algernon spoke again, his voice cutting through the heavy air like a cold blade. "This is the reality. You can hate the method. You can curse my name for the danger I placed you in."
He turned his head slightly more, revealing a profile that looked more and more like an ancient, untouchable existence.
"But understand this," he said, his tone dropping an octave, vibrating with a dark, absolute promise.
"Everyone that comes under me... can't die unless I allow it."
The statement hung in the air, arrogant and absolute.
"I am a greedy Emperor, Rias. I do not like losing my property. Kokabiel could have thrown a thousand light spears. The White Dragon could have cast a hundred Divides."
Algernon's eye narrowed, glowing with a terrifying intensity.
"It wouldn't have mattered. Because I had not given permission for any of you to fall."
He turned back to the door, his hand gripping the handle.
"Your lives are no longer subject to fate or luck. They belong to me. And I do not squander my assets."
With a final click, the latch released.
The heavy oak door had cracked open, allowing a sliver of hallway light to cut across the floor.
"Ah, yes," Algernon murmured, his voice carrying clearly through the tense silence. "Akeno."
Akeno, who had just stepped back, blinked in surprise. Her violet eyes widened slightly. "Ara? Me?"
"Come," Algernon commanded, pushing the door fully open. "We have work to do."
"Understood... Dear," Akeno whispered, a dark, intrigued smile returning to her lips as she walked past her stunned King and followed him out into the hallway.
The heavy door clicked shut, severing the connection between the clubroom and the terrifying presence of Algernon.
With Algernon gone, Rias was still shaken.
She stood facing the door. It wasn't fear. It was a cocktail of humiliation, relief, and a sharp, stinging sense of betrayal. She had fought desperately to protect her town, her peerage, and her pride, only to learn that her desperate struggle was merely Act One of a play written by her own man.
The shaking of her shoulder was stopped when Sona put a firm hand on her shoulder.
Sona adjusted her glasses with her free hand, her expression serious and pragmatic.
"Rias, you don't need to be disappointed," Sona said quietly, her voice low so the others wouldn't overhear.
Rias didn't turn around. She bit her lip, trying to steady her breathing.
"If you truly love him," Sona continued, her tone hardening slightly, delivering the necessary medicine, "you need to support what he does as Emperor of our race."
Rias turned her head toward her. Her crimson eyes were shimmering, not with tears of sadness, but with the raw frustration.
"How am I supposed to do that?" Rias asked, her voice cracking with emotion. "How am I supposed to support him... when he did that to me?"
She gestured helplessly to the room, to the window overlooking the repaired school.
"He used us, Sona. He treated us like pawns. He didn't trust me to handle the truth. He just... moved me on a board."
Sona sighed, removing her hand from Rias's shoulder and crossing her arms.
"Because he is a King, Rias. And right now... you are still acting like a Princess."
Sona looked her childhood friend dead in the eye.
"He didn't let you die. He said it himself that he claimed ownership of your life. It is twisted, yes. It is arrogant, absolutely. But Rias... he meant what he said.
Sona stepped closer, lowering her voice to a whisper.
"If you want to stand beside a monster who defies the world... you cannot expect him to hold your hand and ask for permission. You either rise to be the Queen who understands his board, or you remain the piece he moves to protect."
Rias stared at Sona, the harsh truth settling in her chest. Her romantic fantasy of a normal high school love was shattered by this truth.
(END OF CHAPTER)
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