The icy night wind cut through the air as Yugo's foot left the safety of the ledge.
For a fraction of a second, he experienced absolute freedom. Gravity, that relentless force that didn't discriminate between humans, demons, or gods, claimed him as its own. The weight of his sins, the sharp pain in his joints shattered by years of suicidal training, the suffocating guilt, and the cosmic hatred all seemed to vanish on the rooftop. He closed his eyes, surrendering to the abyss. The asphalt of the backyard awaited him dozens of meters below, promising a silent end to a story that should never have existed.
But the universe, with its chaotic and twisted irony, refused to let him go.
THUD!
A brutal, painful, and excruciating jolt shot through his right arm. The sudden impact nearly dislocated his shoulder, halting his fall with such violence that it stole his breath. His body slammed against the exterior wall of the school building, his ribs scraping against the concrete.
Yugo opened his eyes in surprise, confusion replacing his momentary peace. He wasn't falling. He was suspended in mid-air.
The black crystal on his chest remained inert; there was no magic to hold it, no Gremory magic circles, no nets of light from Fallen Angels.
He looked up, and what he saw made his heart, frozen for almost a decade, beat again with a painful force.
On the edge of the rooftop, precariously suspended over the precipice, there were no supernatural beings. There were human hands. Small, pale, trembling fingers clutching his jacket sleeve, his wrist, his forearm, with a strength born of pure desperation.
They were his students.
The class president was on her knees, her uniform stained with dust from the roof, sobbing uncontrollably as she clutched the fabric of her clothes. Beside her were the girl she had saved from bullying and the young woman to whom she had lent her umbrella that rainy afternoon. Several girls from her class committee had gone to find her after noticing her strange behavior as she left the classroom, and now they formed a human chain, pulling her with all their might, their knuckles white and their faces pale with terror.
"SENSEI!" the president cried, her voice breaking and tears streaming down her face, hitting Yugo. "Don't let go of me! Please, pull!"
Yugo stared at them in disbelief. The physical pain in his arm was nothing compared to the psychological torture he was enduring.
"Let me go..." Yugo murmured. His voice, always so stoic and controlled, now sounded fragile, like glass about to shatter. "Let me go. You'll all fall with me."
"SHUT UP!" one of the girls sobbed, digging her shoes into the cement floor to avoid slipping. "We're not letting go!"
"You don't understand..." Yugo's gaze clouded over. The two dark abysses in his soul threatened to engulf him once more. The memory of his lost family and the blood of the innocents he had massacred weighed him down like a lead anchor. He was a monster. A demon in human skin. "I have no reason to live. I have nothing left. I have no future. I simply... ruin everything I touch. Let me go. I'm not worth it."
The girls were crying, their arms trembling from the superhuman effort of holding onto a grown man, but none of them loosened their grip.
"So what if you have nothing?" shouted the class president, staring into his empty, terrified eyes. "If you have nothing, let us give you something! If you have no future, stay here and build one!"
"You saved us!" the scholarship student sobbed, gritting her teeth. "You taught us to be strong! You can't give up now! If you have no reason to live, then... try to be happy! Focus on being happy one day at a time! We beg you, Sensei!"
The words struck him harder than any magical attack. "Just try to be happy." Yugo gazed at the tear-streaked faces of those girls. Ordinary girls. Fragile humans tearing at their muscles and risking their lives on the edge of a precipice just to save a broken killer. The crystal in his chest couldn't absorb this. There was no magic here, only the raw, overwhelming force of human love.
And in that instant, suspended over the abyss of Kuoh, Yugo made a choice.
His sins wouldn't disappear. The pool of blood of the innocents he murdered would always be there, festering a part of his soul. The well of grief for the family he lost in his other universe would never be filled. He would always have nightmares. He would always be a deeply traumatized and broken man. He wasn't going to live to redeem himself, because he knew it was unforgivable. He wasn't going to live to save the world, because this world still disgusted him.
He was going to live driven by pure and utter selfishness. He was going to live to achieve his own minuscule fraction of happiness, and to make sure those girls could graduate with a smile.
Yugo closed his eyes, let out a trembling breath, and for the first time in years, used the monstrous physical strength he had developed not to destroy, but to cling to life. He raised his free arm, grabbed the edge of the concrete ledge, and dug his fingers into the stone.
"Pull…!" he growled, tensing the muscles in his back. "Pull, I'll climb!"
With one last coordinated effort, the girls pulled, and Yugo shot upward. His body rolled over the edge of the rooftop, landing heavily on the cold ground. Immediately, the students rushed to his side. They surrounded him, hugging him tightly as they wept uncontrollably, burying their faces in their jackets, trembling from the adrenaline rush.
Yugo lay on his back, gazing at the stars through his fogged glasses. He felt the weight of the girls on top of him. He raised his hands, those hands that had taken so many lives, and hesitated for a second before slowly lowering them, awkwardly returning the embrace.
He wept silently. He wept for the monster he was, for the child he once was, and for the man he would have to become starting tomorrow.
...
Time, inexorable and indifferent to human suffering, continued its course.
A year has passed since that night on the rooftop. A year in which Yugo Hano learned to live with his ghosts.
Spring arrived in Kuoh City, bringing with it the characteristic cherry blossoms swaying in the breeze, but also the biggest structural change in the Academy's recent history: the transition to a co-ed school.
The atmosphere in the corridors had changed dramatically. The high-pitched voices and refined murmurs of the young ladies now mingled with the boisterous laughter, childish shouts, and chaotic energy of the male students. The boys' uniforms, with their black blazers and dress trousers, broke the visual monotony.
For Yugo, this year had been a test of stoicism. He was still the "Tsundere Professor"—strict, feared, and respected—but his eyes were no longer those lifeless, gray abysses that terrified on a subconscious level. They were still the eyes of a tired man, burdened by chronic insomnia and a deep sadness, but a glimmer of warmth shone through them, especially when his students from the previous year (now in their final year) greeted him effusively in the hallways.
He had channeled his hypervigilance into a new task. He no longer patrolled the streets at night looking for riffraff to hone his killer instinct. Now, he patrolled the school to maintain absolute order. He had become the bulwark against the raging hormones of the new students. If he saw a group of boys spying on the kendo locker room, Yugo would appear behind them like a specter from beyond the grave, imposing punishments so severe and traumatic (academically speaking) that rumors of "Hano-sensei, the Demon of Discipline" spread rapidly among the boys.
It was precisely this fanatical devotion to rules and order that brought him closer to the most influential person in the academy, apart from the director.
Sona Sitri. Or, as she became known in the human world, Souna Shitori.
The current Student Council President, a pure-blooded high-class demon and heir to the Sitri Clan, was the embodiment of logic, administration, and calculated coldness. Sona, with her short black hair and glasses that gleamed with intelligence, considered the boys' arrival at the academy a necessary logistical headache.
To Sona, Yugo Hano was a fascinating anomaly, but not in a magical sense. After discreetly investigating him (using basic magic to review his record and confirm that he had no trace of Sacred Gear or demonic energy), Sona concluded that Hano-sensei was the perfect human. She was efficient, unbribable, commanded awe, and possessed a work ethic that rivaled that of her own Queen, Tsubaki Shinra.
Their interactions had begun with simple exchanges of paperwork, but over the months, a strange and unspoken alliance had formed between them.
That April afternoon, the sun bathed the third-floor hallway in orange light. Yugo walked with a leisurely gait, carrying a stack of disciplinary committee files. Beside him, keeping pace with him, walked Souna Shitori.
"The behavior statistics for the second-year students, particularly those in Class B, have decreased by twelve percent this term, Hano-sensei," Souna said, reading a report on her clipboard without looking up. "The trio of Hyoudou Issei, Matsuda, and Motohama is a constant source of disruption."
Yugo didn't flinch at the mention of the protagonist's name. Months ago, hearing "Hyoudou Issei" would have triggered a nervous tic in his sword's hilt. Now, it only brought him profound weariness.
"They're teenagers with too much energy and an intellect inversely proportional to their testosterone levels, President," Yugo replied, his monotone voice echoing in the empty hallway. "I'll keep them in line. I'll assign them so many cleaning duties and extra history essays that they won't have time to breathe, much less harass the female students."
Souna stopped reading for a second and glanced at him. A tiny, almost imperceptible smile of approval formed on her lips.
"I appreciate your diligence, Sensei. Honestly, the transition to a co-ed school would be a disaster without your intervention in the disciplinary area. The Student Council has its hands full with… other extracurricular responsibilities."
"Maintaining magical barriers, hunting stray demons, and sucking up to your sister Serafall," Yugo translated in his mind, though his face remained expressionless.
"It's my job, Shitori," Yugo said, adjusting his glasses with his index finger. "The safety and peace of this school are my only priority."
They walked a few more meters in silence, a comfortable, professional silence. It was ironic. Yugo, the broken human with a sword capable of massacring the entire Sona nobility hidden beneath his jacket, walked peacefully beside the demonic strategist who could incinerate his mind with a snap of her fingers. They were both playing house in a human world, mutually unaware of each other's inner turmoil.
They reached the end of the corridor, near the stairs leading to the first floor. Souna gave a small bow, ready to say goodbye and head to the Student Council room, where Tsubaki was surely waiting with tea ready.
"I'll give you the signed reports first thing tomorrow morning, Sensei. Have a good afternoon."
"President," Yugo interrupted suddenly.
Souna stopped and turned to face him. She noticed Hano-sensei staring out the window, watching the old Occult Research Club building in the distance. Rias Gremory had already begun recruiting. Akeno Himejima was already the club's Vice President. Kiba and Koneko were already wandering the halls. And that very day, Yugo had seen Hyoudou Issei looking at a black-haired girl on the park bridge... Raynare.
The hourglass had run out of grains. The ten years of grace were over.
Yugo slowly turned his face to look at Souna. His eyes, though no longer lifeless, had acquired a terrifying density, an oppressive weight that had nothing to do with magic, but rather with the intuition of a bloodthirsty predator sensing an approaching storm.
"Shitori..." Yugo said, his tone so grave and somber that it made the demon heiress tense instinctively. From now on, only trouble will appear.
Souna frowned, confused. Was he referring to perverted boys? Budget problems?
"Trouble, Sensei? Are you referring to the parents' complaints about Hyoudou and his friends' behavior? We're already designing a protocol for..."
"I'm not talking about complaints, Souna," Yugo interrupted, using her human first name so curtly it disconcerted her. "I'm talking about storms. Things that disrupt the normalcy. The school has been very quiet. Too quiet. That tends to attract the worst kinds of... pests."
Souna stared at him. For a microsecond, the young Sitri's brilliant mind tried to decipher whether this ordinary human had just issued a warning about the supernatural world. But no, it was impossible. Her demonic senses detected nothing but the smell of cheap coffee, aftershave, and chalk emanating from the teacher.
However, Hano-sensei's words resonated deeply with her instincts.
"I'll take note of your warning, Sensei," Souna replied, adjusting her glasses to conceal her discomfort. "The Student Council will be prepared for any eventuality. Excuse me."
Souna hurried down the stairs, her mind racing, wondering why that human's gaze had sent a chill through her that was colder than her own sister's ice magic.
Yugo stood alone in the upper hallway, bathed in the light of the setting sun. He reached inside his jacket, feeling the metal cylinder that had lain silent for the past year.
The Canon had begun. The Fallen Angels were about to spill blood in his city. Issei was going to die and be reborn. The demons would begin their turf war.
Yugo sighed, feeling the immense weight of his trauma throbbing in the back of his mind, but this time, he didn't let it control him. He glanced toward the classrooms, hearing the distant laughter of the girls in the music club.
"I don't care about their war," the retired assassin thought, his jaw hardening. "I don't care about Ddraig, or God, or Sirzechs. Kill each other if you want."
His knuckles cracked as he clenched his fists.
"But if even one of you—angel, demon, or dragon—dares to drag my students into your cursed crossfire… I'll behead you all."
…
The steady scratching of the red pen on the paper was the only physical sound in the small faculty office as the sun set.
Yugo Hano sat at his desk, grading second-year history exams with mechanical precision. His face, illuminated by the pale fluorescent light, showed not a trace of emotion. He crossed out mistakes, tallied points, and scribbled marginal notes in impeccable handwriting. To anyone who peeked through the door, he was the perfect image of the diligent, bored educator.
But inside his head, reality was a slaughterhouse.
"Please, I beg you! I have a family!"
"God, help me!"
"Why…?"
The screams of the dozens of people he had murdered during his six years of training overlapped in an agonized chorus, echoing against the walls of his skull. The black crystal in his chest kept his aura hidden and suppressed energy leaks, but it had no power to erase his memories. The trauma was a dark, deep well in which he drowned every day.
Yugo's right hand paused over an exam. He gripped the pen so tightly the plastic creaked dangerously. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, a slow, controlled flow he had perfected to calm his racing heart.
"They're dead," he told himself, his inner voice cold and sharp. "I can't change that. Scream all you want, I won't bring you back to life."
He opened his eyes, ignoring the ghosts clawing at his sanity, and finished grading the last exam. He stacked the papers, adjusted his glasses, and stood up. The dull, familiar ache in his knee joints greeted him; a constant reminder that his body was no longer that of a normal human, but an overused weapon.
He left the office and began walking through the wide corridors of Kuoh Academy. He needed to deliver some budget reports to the Student Council before heading home.
The bell signaling the end of club activities echoed through the building. The hallways began to fill with students heading for the exit, chatting and laughing. Yugo walked like an icebreaker through the sea; the students, intimidated by his presence, instinctively stepped back, bowing slightly and murmuring, "Good afternoon, Hano-sensei." He barely nodded.
That's when he saw her.
Walking in the opposite direction, wearing the elegant academy uniform, was the Vice President of the Occult Research Club. Her long black hair, tied back in a ponytail with an orange ribbon, swayed gracefully with every step. Her violet eyes, the same eyes that had once been bloodshot with terror in a damp back room, now shone with a mysterious and seductive kindness.
Akeno Himejima.
Time seemed to stop for Yugo. His heart lurched painfully, and for a split second, the image of the voluptuous teenager was replaced by that of the dirty little girl who clung to a giant broom in his convenience store, the one he used to give strawberry candies to ward off her nightmares.
Akeno walked past him. The demon detected nothing. Yugo's black crystal absorbed any trace of magic, and the ten years that had passed, combined with the radical change in his appearance—from a malnourished foreigner to an imposing Japanese professor with glasses and a stern gaze—made it impossible for her to recognize him.
"Good afternoon, Hano-sensei." "Good work today," Akeno murmured with a polite smile, bowing her head slightly.
Yugo's throat went dry. Every fiber of his being, the human part that his students had resurrected on the rooftop, screamed at him to speak to her. He wanted to ask if she was alright. He wanted to tell her he was sorry he hadn't been strong enough to protect her that stormy night.
But Yugo kept his gaze fixed straight ahead, his face a mask of stone.
"Good afternoon, Himejima," he replied in an icy tone, without breaking stride, treating her like a complete stranger.
As he walked away from her, the weight of his own misery crushed him a little more. He couldn't go near Akeno. That kind, clumsy, and gentle young man with clean hands who had saved her from the streets was gone. He had died long ago. The man who walked these halls now had hands stained with innocent blood. If Akeno knew the kind of monster her former savior had become, she would be disgusted. He was darkness itself, and he had to stay away so as not to taint her again.
He continued on his way until he reached the Student Council room. He knocked twice and entered.
Souna Shitori sat behind her desk, surrounded by stacks of perfectly aligned folders. Tsubaki Shinra, always silent, was organizing some documents on a nearby table.
"President," Yugo said, placing the budget folder on the desk. "Here are the projected expenses for the men's sports club equipment. I've removed the unnecessary requests. We don't need three new ball-throwing machines."
Sona looked up and adjusted her glasses, taking the folder. She scanned it quickly and nodded, satisfied with the human's impeccable efficiency.
"Excellent work, Sensei. As always, your management is impeccable." Sona sighed softly, leaning back in her chair. "With the addition of the boys, minor disciplinary incidents have increased, as well as unnecessary expenses. We need to maintain strict control."
"As long as I'm in charge of discipline, no one will cross the line, Sona. I give you my word," Yugo replied in an expressionless voice, but with a conviction that left no room for doubt.
"I know." Thank you, Sensei. You may go and rest.
Yugo gave a slight bow and left the room. His relationship with Sona was perfect in its simplicity: mutual respect based on pure efficiency. There was no need to pry into each other's secrets.
As he left the academy, the sun began to set, painting the Kuoh sky a melancholic reddish-orange. Yugo picked up his briefcase and walked through the city streets, heading towards the shopping district.
He decided to take a shortcut through the main park, a place he usually avoided, but which today seemed to be calling to him. He was walking along the paved path when he stopped abruptly, instinctively hiding behind the thick trunk of an old oak tree.
About twenty meters away, near the pedestrian bridge, there he was.
Issei Hyoudou. The wielder of the Red Dragon Emperor. The brown-haired boy walked with his back to the sunset, looking distracted, probably thinking about some perverted nonsense.
And then, running in the opposite direction, came a girl with black hair, dressed in the uniform of a neighboring school. The collision was inevitable.
The girl tripped and dropped her things. Issei, clumsy but helpful, bent down to help her.
Yugo watched the scene with a cold gaze. He recognized the girl instantly. Yuuma Amano. Raynare. The fallen angel in disguise. He was witnessing the spark that would ignite the powder keg. In a matter of days, that boy would die, reincarnate as Rias Gremory, and the entire universe would begin to revolve around him.
"The canon has begun," Yugo thought.
Years ago, in this very park, he would have plotted a hundred ways to kill Raynare or behead Issei to ruin Rias's life. But now, he simply turned around and silently continued on his way. That was no longer his world. That was no longer his war. He had chosen to live for his own peace and for his students.
...
As night fell, Yugo reached an alley in a residential area somewhat removed from the bustle of the city. He stopped in front of a ruined structure.
It was the old "Saturn" convenience store.
It had been closed for ten years. The paint on the walls was peeling, the neon sign was broken and dirty, and the front windows—the same ones he had smashed with a baseball bat in a fit of existential madness—had been boarded up with rotten wooden planks.
Despite its central location, no one had bought the property. Ironically, the aura of utter squalor that Yugo had instilled there, coupled with rumors of an old murder nearby (that of the original boss) and the subsequent disappearance of the foreigner who managed it, had turned the place into a black hole for the real estate market. No one wanted anything to do with that property.
Yugo pulled out a bunch of rusty keys he had kept for a decade. He unlocked the back door and stepped into the darkness.
The smell of dust, dampness, and stagnant time immediately enveloped him. He turned on a flashlight. The interior was a graveyard of his own despair. The bookshelves were overturned, and the dark, dried bloodstains from his knuckles were still visible on the floor.
He went to the back room. There, covered in cobwebs, was the old safe, open. Strangely, no one in this country had ever broken into it. The bundles of yen, the money he had earned through hard work trying to return to a home that no longer existed, were still there, scattered on the floor and half-rotted from the damp, but they were still legal tender and could be exchanged at the bank.
Yugo knelt down and began to collect the money with methodical movements.
He wanted to rebuild this place. He didn't know exactly why. Perhaps it was a form of penance, a way to reconnect with the human being who had tried to survive honestly before becoming a serial killer of the supernatural. He took out his cell phone, a discreet model, and began calling the numbers he had written down hours earlier.
Am I speaking with Hayashi Construction? Yes. I need a commercial deep cleaning crew tomorrow. I also need an estimate for an interior remodel... and I'd like to add a small habitable annex. A prefabricated second floor in the back. Yes, I have the original property permits. I'll pay the deposit in cash.
He hung up and dialed another business number, contacting wholesale food and beverage suppliers. He was going to reopen the Saturn. He would run it himself in the evenings, after his classes at the academy. Keeping himself busy to the point of exhaustion was the only way to avoid going mad. The small second-floor apartment would be his fortress, his refuge from demonic factions and fallen angels.
He sat down on an old soda crate, illuminated only by the beam of his flashlight. He dropped the stacks of bills beside him and let out a long, deep sigh.
Suddenly, a sharp, burning, and brutal stab wound pierced his chest.
It wasn't a panic attack. It was real physical pain, like an icy dagger twisting in his lungs. The glass embedded in his chest had nothing to do with it.
Yugo doubled over in pain, clutching his sternum. A violent spasm shook his body.
"Cough... cough... Throat clearing!"
He coughed with a force that tore at his throat. The cough echoed in the abandoned shop like the bark of a dying dog. He brought his free hand to his mouth to stifle the sound.
When the attack stopped a few seconds later, Yugo gasped, hearing a wet hiss in his own breath. He took his hand away from his face and shone the flashlight into his palm.
Under the white light, a thick pool of dark, lumpy blood stained his skin.
He stared at the scarlet liquid for long seconds. The diagnosis didn't require a doctor. Six years of suicidal Battojutsu training hadn't just torn the ligaments in his shoulders and elbows. The immense kinetic pressure, the forced breathing to explode at high speed, and the massive consumption of illegal painkillers to numb the pain had wreaked irreparable havoc on his internal organs. His lungs and cardiovascular system were failing. His human body was paying the price for trying to emulate the power of monsters.
She knew her life expectancy had been drastically reduced. Perhaps she wouldn't even reach forty.
With an expression of utter indifference, not a single emotion crossing his cold face, Yugo took a cloth handkerchief from his trouser pocket. He wiped the blood from his mouth, then from the palm of his hand, and threw the bloodstained rag into a dark corner of the tent.
"It doesn't matter," he murmured to himself in the silence of the ruins.
He stood up, adjusted his glasses, and began planning the layout of the new store shelves, completely ignoring the biological clock that had just announced that his time was running out.
...
For the first time in almost a decade, Yugo Hano walked the streets of Kuoh without a fixed destination, without a tactical objective, and without measuring the distances between alleyways for possible escape routes.
It was a Friday evening, and the business district was buzzing with life. The bustle of passersby, the aroma of street food, the laughter of teenagers pouring out of the arcades—it all composed a mundane symphony that he had sworn to protect from the shadows. He wore casual clothes, a long, dark coat that concealed the bandages on his shoulder and the metallic bulge of the lightsaber that never left his side.
She walked with her hands in her pockets, observing the world around her through eyes that were desperately trying to relearn how to see beauty.
His mind, partially freed from the yoke of absolute revenge, had presented him with a new and imposing mission: To be happy .
But how on earth was a monster supposed to find happiness? Yugo watched a group of office workers sharing beers and laughter on a bar terrace. Should he make friends? The idea died before it was even born. No one in their right mind could befriend the abyss he concealed. Meet a girl? His gaze fell on a young couple walking hand in hand, sharing an ice cream. Fall in love? Get married? Start a family of his own in this fictional universe...
Yugo let out a nasal, bitter, and silent laugh, shaking his head. All of this was an absurd denial of his own reality.
Chronologically, his body was thirty-one years old. He was a grown man. Yet his emotional development had been brutally amputated at twenty-one, the day he was ripped from his bed and thrown into the streets of Japan to starve to death. His mind had been trapped for ten years in a spiral of survival, hatred, inhuman training, and serial killing. He hadn't had time to mature like a normal person. Deep inside that shell of a calculating killer, he was still a terrified twenty-one-year-old, longing for a youth that simply no longer existed. His hands were too stained with innocent blood to dare touch a woman's life with romantic intentions. He was broken. And some things, once broken into so many pieces, never fit together again.
His only happiness, he concluded as the sky began to turn a violent crimson, lay in the well-being of his students. To see them grow up, graduate, and live the normal lives that had been stolen from him. That would have to be enough.
The sun grazed the horizon, and then, the world changed.
Yugo stopped dead in his tracks. His senses, sharpened to the point of paranoia, detected the anomaly before it was visible. The noise of traffic abruptly ceased, as if someone had cut the wires of a giant loudspeaker. The chatter of people, the sound of footsteps on the pavement... everything was swallowed up by a sepulchral silence, thick and unnatural.
The orange sky took on a sickly, purplish hue. Yugo looked around. The street, which a second ago had been teeming with people, was now completely deserted. The people had vanished into thin air.
An isolating barrier. Yugo's pulse slowed instinctively. His breathing became undetectable. The black crystal beneath his shirt chilled his chest, completely erasing his signature presence on the astral plane. With fluid, silent movements, he glided into the dense shadow of an alleyway bordering the central park.
From his vantage point, between some garbage containers and a brick wall, he peered out. There, near the park's central fountain, which now emitted not even the sound of falling water, were they.
Issei Hyoudou, the Pawn. And in front of him, the girl who called herself Yuuma Amano.
Yugo observed the scene with the same coldness an entomologist uses to study insects. He saw the confused expression on the brown-haired boy's face when Yuuma began to speak, revealing her true nature. He saw the girl's clothes transform, giving way to a revealing, dominatrix-like outfit, while immense wings of obsidian-black feathers sprouted from her back.
Raynare. A fallen angel.
Issei stumbled backward, tripping over his own feet, babbling incoherently through paralyzing terror. Yugo knew exactly what was going to happen. A spear of light would pierce the boy's stomach. Issei would writhe in agony in a pool of his own blood, the summoning pamphlet would activate, and Rias Gremory would appear to reincarnate him. It was the unchangeable canonical event. The cornerstone of the universe.
"Die for your story, kid ," Yugo thought, his gaze unwavering, his mind operating with cold, impeccable logic. "Your death guarantees the script will run its course. I just have to wait and..."
¡Clanc!
The metallic sound of something falling to the ground broke the silence of the barrier.
Yugo turned his head so fast the tendons in his neck cracked. The sound wasn't coming from the center of the park, but from a side path, barely ten meters from where he was hiding.
There, paralyzed by the most primal and absolute fear, stood a girl in the Kuoh Academy uniform. A plastic bag of groceries had slipped from her trembling hands, scattering apples and juice boxes onto the cobblestones.
Yugo felt the ground disappear beneath his feet.
It was her. The class president. The same student who, crying and with her hands raw and bleeding, had held his arm on the school rooftop, saving him from falling into the abyss of his own suicide.
"What's she doing here? Why wasn't she expelled by the barrier?" Yugo's mind raced. Sometimes, low-level magical barriers failed to expel humans who possessed a slightly higher level of latent spiritual energy, or simply those who were too close to the epicenter at the moment of activation. It had been an accident. A disgusting and macabre coincidence.
Raynare, in the center of the park, looked up. Her sadistic eyes sharpened as she detected the sound.
"Well, well," purred the fallen angel, a cruel smile curving his lips. In his right hand, particles of light began to condense rapidly, forming a lance of crackling divine energy. "Looks like a little human rat got caught in my cage. Sorry, sweetheart, but we can't leave any witnesses alive, can we?"
The fallen angel threw his spear towards Issei, and in his other hand another spear appeared and he pointed it at the terrified student, who was so petrified that she couldn't even scream.
Yugo's world stopped.
The cold logic that had governed her life for ten years screamed at her. "Don't interfere! She's just a human! If you interfere, you reveal your power. If you reveal your power, the demons will hunt you down. Rias won't revive her because she doesn't possess a Sacred Gear. It's unacceptable collateral damage, but necessary."
But while logic screamed at him to stay put, the professor's rebuilt heart rebelled with volcanic fury. She had saved him. She had given him back his will to live. If he allowed her to die before his eyes, the last vestige of his humanity would die with her.
Raynare launched the light spear with a fluid movement of her arm. The deadly projectile shot toward the girl's chest at supersonic speed.
Yugo Hano abandoned logic. He abandoned the shadows. He abandoned his damned anonymity.
With a burst of muscular strength that cracked the bricks beneath his boots, he shot out of the alley. His left hand tore open the inside of his coat, extracting the heavy sacred cylinder.
¡FSSSHH!
A blade of pure light energy erupted from the hilt at the exact moment Yugo stepped between the student and death. He gritted his teeth, drawing on his arduous Iaijutsu training , and unleashed a perfect upward slash.
¡CRAAACK!
The lightsaber clashed with Raynare's spear. The impact generated a shockwave that kicked up dust and cracked the cobblestones. Yugo managed to deflect the deadly projectile into the sky, where it exploded harmlessly, but the recoil nearly tore off his arm.
"Sensei...?!" gasped the student, falling to her knees, unable to process that her strict history teacher had just appeared out of nowhere blocking a magic attack.
Raynare blinked, genuinely surprised. Her wings flapped, lifting her a few feet off the ground.
"A lightsaber? A human?" Raynare let out a shrill, malicious laugh. "A church stray! How charming! But you look rather tired to be an exorcist."
Yugo didn't respond. He couldn't. Barely five seconds of holding the ignited divine weapon were wreaking havoc on his magic-less body. He felt as if he were holding a block of radioactive uranium; his human stamina was being aggressively drained by the blade. His veins bulged, and cold sweat beaded on his forehead.
"Run!" Yugo roared at the student, his eyes never leaving Raynare. "RUN NOW!"
But before the girl could stand up, Raynare stopped laughing. Her face contorted into a mask of utter contempt.
"Humans are so annoying when they play at being heroes," he hissed.
In a split second, the fallen angel vanished from sight. Yugo, trained to anticipate human movements, couldn't keep up with the speed of an enraged supernatural being. Before he could even swing his sword to defend himself, Raynare materialized right in front of him.
There was no time to dodge. There was no time for a second cut.
The sound of tearing flesh drowned out the student's scream.
Yugo felt a brutal impact in his abdomen, followed by an indescribable, agonizing heat that burned his insides. He looked down, his eyes wide. A second spear of bright, solid light had pierced his stomach cleanly, protruding from his back. The smell of charred flesh and the coppery taste of his own blood filled his throat.
Raynare kicked Yugo in the chest, cruelly ripping the spear from his abdomen.
The professor collapsed onto the cobblestones. The sword's cylindrical blade rolled from his hand, instantly going dark. The pain was absolute, a supernova of agony that threatened to extinguish his consciousness. He vomited a mouthful of dark blood onto the cobblestones, feeling his life force rapidly drain from the hole in his torso.
"SENSEI! NO, NO, SENSEI!" The student crawled towards him, crying loudly, her face pale with terror, ignoring the winged monster to try to press her hands onto Yugo's steaming wound.
"Pathetic," Raynare spat, floating above them, forming a third spear in her hand, pointing it directly at the head of the sobbing girl. "How touching. They'll die together, then."
Yugo lay on his side, his vision blurring at the edges. The sound grew distant. He felt his student's small, trembling hands on his wound, and heard her desperate pleas.
"No..." Impotence crushed him like a mountain. All his preparation. All his years of torture and murdering innocents to become an undetectable killer. All his training to break his body's limits... it had been utterly useless against the true power of this world. He was still the same weak, useless foreigner begging in the streets. He was still an ordinary, disposable, pathetic human being.
He was going to die here. And what was infinitely worse, he was going to watch the girl who had given him back his humanity die.
«NO.»
An immense, ancient, and overwhelming fury boiled in the depths of his shattered soul. It was the purest hatred, not for the world, not for demons, but for his own weakness. A desperate, irrational, and absolute desire for power. He wanted power. He needed power to destroy the winged monster that dared threaten his family. He wanted to tear it apart, to devour it, to crush the very sky if it meant saving the girl who wept beside him.
"I refuse!" he screamed in his mind, a primal howl that echoed on the spiritual plane, shaking the very foundations of his existence.
And the universe, for the first time in thirty-one years, responded to his agony.
A sharp, deafening thump echoed through the park, so powerful that even Raynare stopped her attack, frowning and looking around in confusion. The air suddenly became so thick it was hard to breathe.
The girl, her hands stained with the professor's blood, took a step back, surprised.
From Yugo's left wrist, the one lying limp on the blood-soaked pavement, a pulse of light began to emerge. It wasn't the warm, sacred light of the Church. It was a deep, emerald light.
The green light shone with a blinding intensity, dispelling the shadows of dusk and bathing the entire park in a ghostly glow, devouring the vision of all those present.
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Okay, here's the chapter; if you're wondering why it took me so long, it's because I'd forgotten about it, I was more focused on chapter 20. Anyway, see you later.
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( ̳• · • ̳) ~ ♡ Thanks for reading ♡
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