The world around was pretending to be normal. The school hustle, household chores, the rare, almost lazy meetings with Rias Gremory's peerage—it all created an illusion of order. But for me, Izayoi Jin, this "normalcy" was like a still pond, and at its bottom, a beast of unspent power churned. The inaction was crushing, breeding a dull, irritating unease.
...
A persistent sunbeam cut through a gap in the blinds, slashing across my eyes. I turned to the wall, pulling the blanket over my head. Futile. Sleep had evaporated, leaving behind only the taste of yesterday's cheap coffee and the familiar feeling of inner emptiness.
My apartment. That's a generous term. More like a temporary shelter, a functional box on the third floor of a faceless high-rise. Faded wallpaper, scratched laminate, minimal furniture: a bed, a table, a couple of chairs, a wardrobe, a kitchen nook. Not a single trinket, not one photograph, not a single object that suggested someone lived here. Just a place to sleep and consume food from the nearest kombini. Cleanliness? Conditional. I wasn't wallowing in filth, but I wasn't suffering from pedantry either. Empty packages might sit next to textbooks, dust with scattered clothes. It wasn't a fortress, but a transit zone. A place to wait out the time between... what? Before, there were fights. Now... only a dragging, viscous boredom.
I got up, stretching my stiff muscles. Walked to the window. Below, the morning hustle was in full swing: ikemen in suits, students in uniforms, housewives with bags. A typical human anthill. Their problems—missing a train, passing an exam, buying discounted groceries—seemed like something from another universe. They scurried around in their little world, oblivious that demons, angels, dragons, and... me... lived alongside them. A being capable of turning their world to dust with a flick of the wrist. Funny and sad at the same time.
In the kitchen—the ritual. Instant coffee, which makes you wince but helps to pry your eyes open. Yesterday's onigiri, tasteless, but satisfying a purely physiological need. My body, fueled by the internal "reactor" of nanomachines, barely needed normal food. But the process itself—chewing, swallowing—created an illusion of belonging to this world, to its simple, understandable actions.
My thoughts flowed lazily, returning to recent events. Kokabiel, the war fanatic. Asia Argento, the naive nun with the priceless gift of healing. Rias and her team had taken the girl under their wing. The right call. Alone, she was doomed. Now Gremory has a powerful healer, and Kokabiel has one more reason to be angry. The conflict isn't over; it's just retreated into the shadows, gathering strength for the next blow. And when it strikes, I'll likely be at the epicenter again. Not by my own choice, of course. Simply because types like Kokabiel can't ignore a power like mine. They'll either try to use it or destroy it. Well, let them try. It's certainly better than slowly rotting from idleness.
...
School greeted me with the usual hum of voices, the squeak of chairs, the smell of chalk and cheap pastries from the cafeteria. The lessons stretched like rubber. Teachers said things, wrote on the board, asked questions. I sat in my seat by the window, watching the clouds or staring at the cracks in the ceiling. The information settled in my head on its own—thanks, enhanced memory. But I saw no meaning in any of it. Trigonometry, the history of the shogunate, analysis of classic literature... What did any of it matter in a world where fates were decided not by formulas and dates, but by the power of Sacred Gears and the might of demonic houses?
Sometimes, Issei would enter my field of vision. Eternally agitated, forever darting between his perverted fantasies and his attempts to get stronger. One moment he'd be breathlessly telling me about a "breakthrough" in his training (which was really a minuscule step), the next he'd be fleeing from the enraged girls of the kendo club, having been caught peeping again. The guy was a walking generator of awkward situations. Watching him was... endearing, rather than funny.
Other familiar faces flashed by: Rias, with her regal posture and sharp gaze; Akeno, with her eternal smile hiding an abyss; Kiba, with his knightly restraint; Koneko, with her feline impassivity. They discussed club business, contracts, weekend plans. The typical life of demon high schoolers. Against their backdrop, I felt like a foreign body. An alien from another dimension, stuck in this strange comedy.
...
Asia Argento's presence in the old club building had become commonplace, but it never stopped creating dissonance. Rias Gremory had given her sanctuary, but for the exiled nun, the company of demons remained torture. She moved about the room almost silently, trying not to draw attention, flinching at Issei's loud remarks and paling at the sight of Akeno, whose demonic aura, mixed with her showy politeness, clearly got on her nerves.
She was useful. Her power worked miracles, healing wounds and easing fatigue after training or patrols. Issei, it seemed, was genuinely grateful and awkwardly tried to befriend her. The others also showed her feigned sympathy or restrained politeness. Rias saw her as a valuable asset; Akeno, as an object for her ambiguous jokes; Kiba, as just another soul in need of protection; Koneko, it seemed, simply ignored her unless she was offering sweets.
I, however, watched this theater from the sidelines. Asia feared me most of all. And she was right to. I was neither kind nor compassionate. Her naive faith and her tears only brought on a dull irritation. When she tried to timidly thank me for saving her at the church, I cut her off mid-sentence or just walked past. I didn't need her gratitude. I had acted for my own reasons, and her fate didn't concern me. But her presence here, under Gremory's wing, was just one more factor complicating an already tangled situation.
...
It seemed that with every passing day, the body felt more like my own. As if the soul itself was putting down roots in new soil. I was growing stronger, and this created new problems.
The hardest part wasn't fighting, but holding back. Restraining the power seething inside me was like trying to hold a red-hot cannonball. Every step on the street, every accidental touch, every sharp noise—it all required conscious effort not to react instinctively, not to unleash that destructive energy. This constant internal battle was exhausting.
So I looked for ways to let off steam. Not in combat—there were no worthy opponents on the horizon. But in a different kind of training. In an attempt to understand and tame what I had become.
I went to deserted places—abandoned construction sites, the empty banks of the river, deep into the old forest. Places where an accidental slip-up wouldn't lead to casualties and destruction.
I wasn't just crushing rocks anymore. I was trying to sculpt them with the power of thought and touch. To take a boulder and not turn it to dust, but to carve a complex pattern on it, one requiring surgical precision. It was agonizingly difficult. My power, by default, strove for annihilation. Forcing it to create, or even to just alter matter in a controlled way, was like teaching a hurricane to cross-stitch. Rocks exploded, crumbled, turned to sand. But sometimes… sometimes, it worked. For a second. And this fleeting victory over my own destructive nature brought a strange, bitter satisfaction.
I worked on speed. Not just moving faster than sound—that was easy. But moving at that speed consciously. For example, tossing a handful of sand and catching every single grain in the air before they fell. Or running through a dense thicket without touching a single leaf. It required inhuman coordination and reaction. My senses, heightened to their limit, were overwhelmed by a flood of information—every rustle, every scent, every shift in the air. I had to learn to filter this chaos, to concentrate on the goal while ignoring everything else.
And, of course, "Code: Unknown." The mysterious gift of annihilation. I would sit in a lotus position, close my eyes, and try to "feel" its source. What was it? A field? An energy? A distortion of reality? I tried directing it at different objects: at the water in the river, making it "vanish" in a small radius for a moment; at the flame of a lighter, extinguishing it not with a puff of air, but with pure "negation"; at the weak magical emanations that sometimes hung in the air. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. I couldn't grasp a pattern. There was only a feeling... of emptiness. As if I could touch primordial nothingness and direct it outward. But how to control it? How to amplify it? How to use it for more than just destruction? There were more questions than answers. Nanomachines? A different Cosmology? Empty words that offered no key to understanding.
These hours of training were the only thing saving me from sinking completely into apathy. They gave me a purpose, however ephemeral. They reminded me that I wasn't just a bored schoolboy, but something else. Something strong. And dangerous. Primarily to myself, if I lost control.
...
The return to the empty apartment. A cold shower, washing away the sweat and fatigue—not physical, but mental. Kombini food, eaten without taste in front of the dark window. Silence, broken only by the ticking of a clock.
I lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling. Thoughts flowed sluggishly. What next? Wait for Kokabiel's next move? Wait for some other demon or angel to decide to test my strength? Or go looking for trouble myself?