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The magic circle of the Sitri family, glowing with a deep ocean-blue light and loaded with ancient runes, lit up beneath Yugo's elegant polished shoes and Sona's heels.
The teacher sighed, offering his bent arm for Sona to take, adopting the role of a submissive escort. His tactical mind, however, kept replaying the conversation they had just had. The President's words floated in his head like puzzle pieces about to click into place: "you represent House Sitri," "an empire to intimidate," "the kind of monster that belongs to me."
Suddenly, Yugo's logical hyperprocessor, accustomed to calculating missile trajectories and structural weaknesses, solved the sociopolitical equation.
And the result was death.
Yugo's eyes widened, losing all their usual apathy. The color drained from his face so quickly it looked as if he had seen a ghost.
"Wait..." Yugo jerked his neck toward Sona, breaking the elegant posture. "Represent the Sitri Clan? Don't tell me you're announcing it today?!"
Sona Sitri did not answer with words. She simply gave him a smile that was half guardian angel, half imperial executioner.
Yugo entered pure panic. His free hand shot like a spring toward the Omnitrix dial on his wrist, desperate to invoke Ghostfreak and become intangible, or XLR8 to cross the wall before the magic activated. He had to run! Rias Gremory was at that party! If Sona announced the engagement in front of everyone, the redhead was going to collapse, Demon King Sirzechs was going to interrogate him, and Serafall Leviathan was going to suffocate him with a magical hug!
But it was too late.
Before his fingers could brush the watch, the blue circle erupted into a pillar of blinding light, consuming them both and cutting off the teacher's scream of terror.
One hour later. Banquet Hall of Lucifer Palace, Underworld.
Yugo was standing beside an immense table of sculpted ice, surrounded by floating crystal chandeliers, demonic classical music, and the absolute elite of magical society. The high aristocracy conversed in small groups, drinking dragon-blood champagne and laughing with that typical haughtiness of immortals.
And in the middle of all that glamour, the being capable of creating suns and destroying immortals was eating with the desperation of a condemned man at his last meal.
Yugo shoved three Underworld caviar canapés into his mouth at the same time, chewing in heavy gulps. His tie was slightly loosened, a tiny victory against asphyxiation, and he held a porcelain plate overflowing with small gourmet appetizers that he devoured without even tasting them.
"Chew, swallow. Chew, swallow," he whispered to himself, eyes fixed on the void, putting a piece of roasted griffin meat into his mouth. "If I choke and die from a piece of artisan cheese, I'll spare myself the political drama. It is an acceptable tactical death."
Anxiety was eating him alive. Sona had strategically abandoned him in the buffet area forty minutes earlier, claiming she "had to greet her sister and prepare the ground." Since then, Yugo had been standing there, feeling the curious and disdainful gazes of the High-Class nobles wondering what that unknown human, with the gaze of a traumatized dead fish, was doing devouring the appetizer table.
He knew the clock was ticking. It was a time bomb.
In the distance, he saw the Gremory peerage making their triumphant entrance. Rias shone in a crimson dress, greeting the leaders of the pillars with the grace of a true star, receiving congratulations for her impossible victory. Issei and Kiba wore immaculate white suits, and Akeno smiled mysteriously while subtly flirting with a group of young heirs.
Rias turned her head and began scanning the hall. She was looking for someone. She was looking for him.
Yugo shrank, trying to hide his nearly two meters of height behind an ice sculpture of a manticore. He shoved another canapé into his mouth.
Any second now, Yugo thought, his pulse accelerating as he watched Sona elegantly ascend the steps toward the main podium, where the Four Demon Kings were gathered. Sona approached Serafall Leviathan and whispered something into her ear. The magical-girl Maou widened her eyes, let out a squeal of excitement, and took the magical microphone from the podium.
Yugo closed his eyes, forced the food down, and clenched his fists at his sides.
"There's no other choice," the teacher murmured, letting his porcelain plate full of canapés fall. The plate did not even reach the floor; his superhuman reflexes caught it in the air and placed it back on the table with the softness of a white-glove thief. He did not want to make noise.
He raised his left wrist and, without caring in the slightest about tearing the insanely expensive silk of the custom suit Sona had put him in, pulled the sleeve upward.
Beep!
The Omnitrix core rose with a soft mechanical hiss, projecting its characteristic emerald light, tinting green the manticore ice sculpture behind which he hid.
With his eyes bulging from political panic, Yugo began turning the dial. His fingers moved at such an absurd speed that they seemed to vibrate. He spun the watch ring as if his soul depended on it, passing through the holograms of his alter egos at a frantic pace.
Four Arms... no, too loud. XLR8... no, the palace doors definitely have magical impact seals. Ghostfreak... no, the Demon King would notice the spectral aura. Goop... no, he'd leave an acid trail on the Persian carpet and Sona would kill me...
The dial spun and spun until Yugo stopped dead.
The small silhouette of a hooded humanoid being, with moth wings folded like a robe, glowed green on the watch.
Big Chill.
It was the perfect option. Absolute intangibility. He could become incorporeal, let his body temperature drop to absolute zero to hide his heat signature, pass through the floor of Lucifer Palace, and fall into the void of the Underworld until he found a cave where he could live as a hermit for the next five hundred years. An impeccable escape plan.
Yugo raised his right hand. He extended his index finger, flexing the muscles in his arm. His breathing stopped. He was a millisecond away from pressing the core and disappearing forever from the Student Council's radar.
Tap, tap, tap.
The sound of a finger gently tapping a magical microphone echoed throughout the colossal banquet hall. It was a subtle sound, but thanks to the palace's acoustics, it immediately silenced the hundreds of nobles present.
Yugo stopped his finger exactly two centimeters above the emerald dial.
"Ladies and gentlemen of the Underworld nobility..." Sona Sitri's voice, amplified by magic and distilled with an elegance and authority capable of freezing hell itself, flooded the room. "I ask for a moment of your attention."
Yugo's finger trembled above the watch.
If he pressed it now, the green flash would expose him. The entire hall would see him transform into an ice monster and flee in terror. It would be a direct insult, an act of diplomatic war against the Sitri Clan in the middle of the court of the Demon Kings. Sona would go from being a proud strategist to a nationally humiliated heiress. And Yugo knew, deep down, that as terrifying as the girl with glasses was... she did not deserve that.
Besides, if he humiliated her in front of her sister, Serafall Leviathan would hunt him to the ends of the universe and drown him in a sea of glitter and magical punishments.
"As you all know, today we celebrate the crushing victory of House Gremory..." Sona continued from the podium, her blue gaze scanning the banquet hall. Yugo could feel, with surgical precision, the exact moment Sona's eyes fixed directly on the manticore ice sculpture where he was hiding. "But tonight, with the permission of the Maous, I will also take advantage of this historic evening to make a crucial announcement about the future of the Sitri territory... and my own."
Yugo closed his eyes, defeated. The weight of his own decisions, and his defeats in chess, fell onto his shoulders like a lead anvil.
He slowly lowered his right hand, moving it away from the dial. Then, with a trembling finger, he pressed the Omnitrix core to return it to rest mode. The watch made a soft click and the emerald light went out, leaving the monster of Kuoh trapped in his fragile and condemned human body.
He leaned his forehead against the cold ice of the sculpture, feeling his freedom as a lone mercenary evaporate forever.
"I'm dead," Yugo whispered, awaiting public execution.
From the main podium, guarded by the imposing figures of the Four Demon Kings, Sona Sitri swept her gaze across the Underworld elite. The acoustics of the immense hall captured every word, amplifying them with crystal clarity.
"The crushing victory of House Gremory against the flames of the Phoenix has left many of you with questions," Sona began, her voice resonating with glacial confidence. "You saw an anonymous warrior. A nameless monster who, with his own hands, brought a pure-blooded immortal Devil to his knees and conjured a sun over our academy. I have heard the whispers. I know many pillars present here are already drafting offers and preparing bribes to recruit this mercenary into their ranks."
A tense murmur ran through the hall. The patriarchs of the noble families exchanged nervous glances. Sona had hit the mark.
Sona smiled, and it was a smile that froze the blood of those present.
"I suggest you keep your yen and your promises of power," Sona declared, lifting her chin. "Because the warrior who annihilated Raiser Phoenix is not a free mercenary. He is not a weapon for sale. He competed in the Rating Game under a temporary loan contract. Because before lighting that blue sun, he had already sworn absolute loyalty to my family's board."
The entire hall held its breath.
"Ladies and gentlemen of the Underworld... allow me to officially introduce the new piece of House Sitri," Sona announced, and her next words fell like nuclear bombs over the aristocracy. "My Pawn. And under the direct approval of the Maous... my future husband."
CRASH!
The delicate champagne glass Rias Gremory held in her right hand shattered. The glass fell onto the Persian carpet, and champagne splashed across her crimson dress, but the redhead did not care. Her blue eyes were wide open, paralyzed by absolute horror and shock, fixed on her childhood friend.
Beside her, Issei's jaw dropped to the level of Akeno's chest, and for the first time in her life, Akeno lost her usual mysterious smile and was left open-mouthed. Kiba released a choked cry.
"F-Fiancé?!" Issei shrieked, feeling his brain short-circuit. "Sensei is going to marry Kaichou?!"
Sona extended her gloved hand toward the buffet area.
"Come here... darling. Pay your respects to the court."
Every gaze of the Underworld leaders, from Sirzechs Lucifer to the oldest and most conservative Devils, turned like spotlights toward the manticore ice sculpture.
Slowly, from behind the ice, Yugo stepped forward.
He adjusted the jacket of his million-yen midnight-blue suit. He was pale, and his empty dead-fish stare had never been more obvious, but military discipline forced him to straighten his back and walk with his head held high.
The nobles' murmurs erupted in contempt and confusion as he advanced down the central aisle that formed between the crowd.
"Is that the monster?" whispered a noble from the Bael clan. "But he doesn't have an ounce of demonic power. He's just a human in a ridiculous suit. Surely Sona Sitri is bluffing."
Yugo heard the murmurs. His pride as a lone warrior, which had been crushed beneath Sona's bureaucracy for days, ignited all at once. If he was going to be politically chained in front of the entire demonic pantheon, he was not going to let a bunch of vampires with superiority complexes look down on him.
If Sona wanted him as her war trophy to intimidate the Underworld, then he was going to give them exactly the spectacle they deserved.
Yugo stopped walking halfway down the aisle. He raised his left hand in full view of everyone and, with a theatrical movement filled with arrogance, pulled his sleeve back, revealing the extraterrestrial device.
Sirzechs Lucifer narrowed his eyes. Serafall Leviathan let out a small gasp of anticipation. Rias took a step forward, feeling as if her heart were about to burst from her chest.
CLACK!
The strike against the dial exploded through the hall in an emerald flash that forced the Devils to cover their faces. The blinding light erased Yugo's human figure.
When the glow faded, the temperature of the banquet hall plummeted, going from the warm party atmosphere to Antarctic cold in a single second.
A spectral figure, wrapped in what looked like heavy robes or ragged moth wings, floated a few centimeters above the carpet. Big Chill opened his bright, piercing green eyes, standing out against his dark bluish skin.
The alien did not walk. He slid through the air toward the podium.
With every centimeter he advanced, the moisture in the air around him solidified. The floor at his feet, including the extremely expensive magical carpet, became covered in a thick layer of permafrost and ice spikes that cracked with a threatening sound. The nobles, terrified by the lethal, lifeless aura emanating from the creature, stumbled backward over each other to clear a path.
"That is not magic..." whispered one of the elders of the Council, trembling as he felt his own protective aura prove useless against the absolute cold penetrating to his bones.
Big Chill reached the podium stairs, leaving behind a frozen winter path that crossed the entire hall. He floated upward until he was face to face with the Maous, ignored them completely, and stopped exclusively before Sona Sitri.
Sona, though she maintained her firm and stoic posture before the public, could not stop a gleam of pure fascination and extreme pride from crossing her eyes.
Big Chill looked at her. The alien did not kneel; he bowed to no one. Instead, he raised both clawed hands, took the thick fabric forming his robe, and opened it in a sudden motion, unfurling enormous wings of icy moth-like membrane that cast an imposing shadow over the entire podium.
Yugo opened his lipless mouth. Instead of releasing a sonic scream or a devastating attack, he exhaled a soft, concentrated burst of bluish mist directly over his own hands.
The mist lowered the temperature to molecular levels. With artisanal precision dictated by an alien mind, the frost crystallized in the air, intertwining until it formed a solid and dazzling crown of perpetual ice. The crown's points were sharp and elegant, shining with sapphire-blue light.
Big Chill lowered his hands, holding the frigid tiara, and with a delicacy that brutally contrasted with his lethal nature, placed the ice crown directly on Sona Sitri's head.
"Fire is for destruction, President," Big Chill's voice resonated through the hall, whispering, guttural, and wrapped in a ghostly echo that gave every person present goosebumps. "But ice is for ruling."
The alien crossed his arms over his chest and stood at Sona's right side, assuming his role as her personal guard, her Pawn, and her ultimate weapon.
The image was worthy of a historical painting. Sona Sitri, crowned in ice, with Demon King Leviathan smiling proudly behind her, and an invincible monster guarding her flank, declaring his eternal loyalty to the element she controlled.
Rias Gremory fell to her knees in the middle of the hall, her heart shattered into a thousand pieces, while the entire Underworld erupted into thunderous applause, recognizing the birth of the most terrifying and politically indestructible couple of the new generation.
Yugo closed his green eyes behind Big Chill's mask. He had surrendered to the bureaucratic slavery of the girl with glasses, yes... but at least he had made it very clear in front of all those pompous nobles that he was the kind of monster who crowned his queens.
...
The exterior balcony of Lucifer Palace offered a breathtaking view of the Underworld capital, with its Gothic skyscrapers illuminated beneath a perpetually purple sky. However, for the man leaning against the ornate marble railing, the majesty of the landscape was completely irrelevant.
Yugo had gotten rid of his million-yen suit jacket, thrown it over a wrought-iron chair, and loosened his tie to the very limit of aristocratic decency. He was exhausted. The adrenaline from his spectacular triumphant entrance as Big Chill, crowning Sona Sitri in front of the demonic elite, had evaporated, leaving behind the terrifying weight of the bureaucratic and marital reality awaiting him.
Around him, seeking refuge from the suffocating political atmosphere of the main hall, the male contingent of Houses Gremory and Sitri had gathered.
Kiba Yuto held a carved crystal glass of mineral water, maintaining his knightly posture. Genshirou Saji, sweating profusely inside his tuxedo, tried to calm his nerves by drinking exotic fruit juice in quick gulps. And Issei Hyoudou leaned at his side, looking into the hall with shining eyes as he observed the low-cut dresses of the Underworld noblewomen.
They were, by all appearances, a strange brotherhood forged in the fire of serving terrifying women.
Yugo let his forehead fall directly against the cold marble of the railing. The impact produced a dull and pathetic sound.
"Hyoudou..." the teacher murmured, his voice sounding like that of a dying man who had just received his last rites. "Take a knife from the buffet table and drive it directly into my heart. Do it with surgical precision, between the fourth and fifth rib."
"Huh?! Sensei, don't say crazy things!" Issei exclaimed, tearing his eyes away from the Devil ladies and looking at him in panic.
"I don't want to do more paperwork..." Yugo continued, ignoring the brown-haired boy's alarm. The image of the three towers of documents he had stamped at superspeed hours earlier flashed in his mind like a Vietnam War trauma. "I refuse to spend the rest of my immortality calculating inflation of demonic currency in Sitri territory. Let Saji suffer with it. He is the secretary of the Council. That is his evolutionary purpose."
Saji, upon hearing his name, choked on his juice and began coughing violently. "Hey! Don't dump that curse on me!" the blond protested, striking his chest. "Ever since you proved you can process a thousand documents per hour using that alien with wheels on his feet, Kaichou has looked at me as if I were a waste of oxygen! You ruined the efficiency curve for all of us! You're a monster!"
Kiba let out a discreet laugh, giving the hyperventilating Saji a few pats on the back. "I believe Sensei is experiencing what humans call 'fear of commitment,' Saji. After all, Lady Sona just bound him with unbreakable chains of ice in front of the Four Demon Kings."
Yugo turned his head against the marble to glare at the blond Knight.
"My tactical mind can process strategies to annihilate squads of Fallen Angels, Yuto. What it cannot process is Serafall Leviathan calling me 'cute little brother-in-law' every five minutes while suffocating me with her chest and threatening to destroy my city if I make her sister cry. My life expectancy has just been reduced to a couple of weeks."
It was then that Issei, the Red Dragon Emperor and the most hormone-driven teenager in the entire existential plane, took a step forward. His gaze was no longer that of a terrified student, but that of a prophet illuminated by a divine revelation.
"Sensei... you're seeing everything from the wrong perspective," Issei said, placing both hands on the railing beside the teacher and lowering his voice in a conspiratorial tone. "You're so blinded by the terror of paperwork and President Sitri that you haven't noticed the immense, gigantic, glorious benefit of your new political position."
Yugo raised an eyebrow, slowly straightening. "What benefit, lizard? Enlighten me before I jump off this balcony."
"The Harem, Sensei! The glorious Harem of the King of the Underworld!" Issei announced, spreading his arms as if presenting the Holy Grail. "High-Class Devils are allowed, and sometimes expected, to have multiple wives or concubines to secure a powerful lineage! You have just proven yourself to be the ultimate alpha male before the entire universe. Yes, President Sona is the official wife... but the field is open for you to build your own harem!"
Yugo hardened his expression. His right hand rose instinctively, knuckles tightening, preparing a karate chop directly to the back of the brown-haired boy's neck to reboot his brain through cranial trauma.
"Hyoudou, I am going to transform into Four Arms and crush you until your perverted thoughts come out of your..." Yugo began threatening, but suddenly, his hand stopped in the air.
The lethal, cold, calculating logic that defined Yugo made an unexpected turn. Issei's words echoed in his mind.
He remembered Rias Gremory's gaze of absolute devotion when he had protected her on the dinosaur's head. He remembered the hypnotic warmth and malicious invitation in Akeno Himejima's neckline. He remembered Asia Argento's unconditional sweetness as she stroked his hair, and even the strange, though aggressive, submission of his employees at Minimarket Saturn.
The blow never came. Yugo slowly lowered his hand, blinking with genuine confusion. He turned his face toward Issei, his dark eyes showing a hint of existential doubt.
"You think so?" Yugo said, lowering his guard, allowing himself to be influenced, for the first time in his life, by the worst and most depraved individual of the servant trio.
Saji opened his mouth, scandalized to see the stoic and terrifying war veteran of Kuoh seriously considering the philosophy of his idiot friend. Kiba simply smiled, adjusting the collar of his suit, amused by the professor's sudden anthropological interest in romance.
Issei nodded furiously, his eyes burning with passion. "Of course I do, Sensei! Buchou was devastated in there when you crowned Kaichou! Akeno-senpai looks at you like she wants to devour you! Asia-chan idolizes you like a god! You already have the pieces for an S-Class harem, you just have to claim it!"
Despite Issei's vehement exposition, Yugo felt the shadow of his own reality crush the fantasy. He looked at his hands, the ones that had burned flesh, fractured bones, and killed in cold blood during his decade of darkness. Then he looked at his blurred reflection in one of the palace's enormous glass windows.
He was not a shounen anime hero. He did not have Kiba's angelic and immaculate face. His hair was messy and dull. He had deep dark circles beneath empty eyes that had seen too much human and extraterrestrial horror. His body, though muscular and sculpted by deathmatches, was covered in pale scars that even magic could not erase completely.
"Don't say stupid things, Hyoudou," Yugo whispered, his voice tinged with a deep, dark, bitter resignation as he crossed his arms. "I don't think anyone would want to join my 'harem' anyway. I have the appearance, mental wear, and cynicism of a thirty-year-old man, even if biologically my watch now catalogs me as a hybrid or whatever Devils see in me."
Yugo turned around, resting his back against the marble railing, looking toward the floor with a self-deprecating grimace.
"They aren't in love with me, brat," Yugo declared, applying his cold and mistaken tactical logic to feelings. "They are amazed by the destructive power of the watch. They are confusing survival instinct and the relief of having been saved with romantic affection. I am a military weapon that happened to get them out of a political mess. Once peace settles in, they will realize I am not a knight in shining armor. I am a broken, paranoid mercenary who sleeps with a knife under his pillow. No one willingly falls in love with the ruins of a war."
Silence fell over the balcony. Yugo's raw and painfully honest words cut the festive mood at the root. Issei lost his perverted smile. Kiba frowned sadly, recognizing survivor's syndrome in his teacher's eyes.
"Sensei..." Issei took a step forward, unusually serious, and clenched his fists. "You are the smartest and strongest person I know. You taught us not to give up before an immortal monster. But with all due respect... you are an absolute and complete idiot when it comes to understanding women."
Yugo raised an eyebrow, surprised by the crimson Pawn's audacity.
"Buchou didn't cry in there because you are a powerful weapon," Issei continued, pointing at him. "She cried because the man she opened herself to, the man who gave her the strength to fly on her own, just got engaged to someone else. Asia doesn't stroke your hair because she fears your aliens; she does it because you gave her a home when she was alone in the world. You are not just a pile of scars and tactics, Sensei. And if you don't realize that soon..."
"If you don't realize it soon, you'll lose something far more valuable than a battle in the Rating Game," Kiba completed in a soft but firm tone.
Yugo fell silent. For the first time, the brilliant intellect that could hack intergalactic technology and decipher magical patterns found itself before a wall he could not break with punches. Was it possible? Had he stopped being a monster in their eyes?
Before he could keep digging into his emotional wound or admit that the dirty-minded teenager was right, the immense double glass door connecting the balcony to the hall opened wide, releasing a crackle of frost.
Sona Sitri stood in the threshold, flanked by Tsubaki. Her face was an inscrutable mask of ice, but the dangerous aura emanating from her made Issei, Kiba, and Saji instinctively stand straight.
"Am I interrupting something, gentlemen?" Sona asked, her cold blue eyes scanning the quartet of men. "It seemed you were debating very... passionate geopolitical tactics."
"Not at all, Kaichou!" Saji shrieked, sweating rivers. "Sensei was only instructing us about... the importance of marital fidelity in the demonic ecosystem! Right, Sensei?"
Yugo swallowed, internally grateful for the blond's quick, though treacherous, answer.
"That is correct, my King," Yugo replied, picking up his jacket from the chair and adopting his best stoic general posture. "I was explaining how the administrative logistics of a single territory are burden enough, and that diversifying emotional risk is tactical suicide."
Sona stared at him for three seconds. A period of time during which Yugo saw his entire life flash before his eyes. Finally, the Sitri heiress smiled, a small, satisfied, absolutely possessive smile.
"I am pleased to know your logical reasoning remains intact, darling," Sona said, extending her hand to him. "Now, if you have finished your gentlemen's meeting... my sister wants us to dance the opening waltz to officialize the announcement. And I will not accept a 'no' as an answer."
Yugo took his fiancée's delicate gloved hand, feeling the cold touch that was now part of his fate. He glanced at Issei and Kiba from the corner of his eye, whispering low enough for only them to hear.
"If I survive the dance without stepping on her dress and ending up frozen... maybe I'll reconsider the harem thing. But if I die, tell the Fallen to throw my remains into the sea."
With firm steps and his heart beating at an unfamiliar rhythm, the monster of Kuoh allowed himself to be dragged back into the glittering hell of aristocracy, ready to fight the hardest war of his life: the waltz and human emotions.