The old plastic-bladed fan of the Saturn Minimarket spun with a rhythmic squeak, slicing through the warm afternoon air. After the suffocating majesty of the Lucifer Palace, the crystal chandeliers, and Acromántula's silks, the smell of cheap detergent and instant noodles in his store felt like the embrace of a safe trench.
Exactly forty-eight hours had passed since the gala in the Underworld. Two days since the entire magical world watched the monster with the watch kneel (figuratively) before the heiress of the Sitri Clan.
Yugo was back in his natural habitat: the worn-out couch in the break room. Faithful to his priorities of survival and comfort, his head rested peacefully on the soft, angelic lap of Asia Argento. The former nun read a botany book with one hand while the other combed through the professor's unruly strands of hair, humming a melody that dispelled any post-traumatic stress.
However, the dynamics in the room had one slight variation compared to the last time. Mittelt was tending the cash register, and in her place, occupying the position of "tactical mascot," was none other than the former leader of Kuoh's Fallen Angels.
Raynare sat on the floor with her back resting against Yugo's legs. Unlike Mittelt, who quickly surrendered to affection, Raynare kept her arms crossed and her brow furrowed in a desperate attempt to preserve what remained of her pride.
But it was a losing battle. Yugo's right hand was buried in her dark hair, scratching the base of her neck with slow, calculated circular motions.
"I hate you. I hate you, I hate your watch, and I hate this stupid couch that smells like mold..." Raynare muttered, her eyes forcibly shut and her cheeks burning a furious red. "I'm a ruthless assassin... not a stray dog... mhh... a little more to the right, please... yeah, right there."
Without opening his eyes, Yugo adjusted the angle of his fingers, drawing a trembling sigh from the sadistic fallen angel that came dangerously close to a purr.
Tomorrow was Monday, and classes at Kuoh Academy would resume. Tomorrow, Yugo would have to walk through the gates of Sona Sitri's territory again. He would have to face the sharp gazes of the Student Council and, infinitely worse, the emotional consequences that his official engagement would have unleashed within the Occult Research Club and upon Rias Gremory.
But no matter how hard his hyperactive brain tried to formulate escape routes to avoid both heiresses, his thoughts continued orbiting a single, absurd point of gravity.
The balcony. The cold marble. And the dumbest teenager in the universe telling him the truth to his face.
"You're not just a pile of scars and tactics, Sensei."
Issei's voice echoed inside Yugo's skull, louder than the hum of the fan. His military logic, which for ten years had taught him to see people as threats, temporary allies, or collateral damage, was suffering a critical system error.
Yugo slowly opened one eye. From his position, he looked at Asia's peaceful face. She wasn't afraid of him. She knew those hands had incinerated a High-Class Devil, yet she still held them with the same gentleness one would use to cradle a flower. Then he looked down at Raynare. The woman who had once tried to kill him now instinctively leaned into his touch, seeking a protection that only he could provide.
Was his paranoia justifying his loneliness? Had he truly stopped being the "Monster of Kuoh" in their eyes and become... a man?
The professor's tactical intellect began processing Issei's words not as a teenage fantasy, but as a genuine logistical scenario. If he was Sona's Pawn, and his geopolitical power now rivaled that of a Supreme-Class monster, then the rules of human society no longer applied. Demonic law dictated that strength and bloodline justified polygamy to prevent the extinction of powerful lineages.
His brain, which used to calculate the blast radius of Heatblast or the impact velocity of XLR8, was now calculating romantic variables.
"A harem..." he murmured.
It was a hoarse whisper, barely audible, released purely by accident when the filter between his brain and his mouth failed for a single microsecond of mental fatigue.
But in the silence of the break room, it sounded like a cannon blast.
Asia froze mid-caress, her hand stopping halfway to Yugo's forehead. Her large green eyes widened, and an intense crimson blush spread from her neck all the way to the tips of her ears.
Below, Raynare stiffened completely, her eyes snapping open. Her Fallen Angel heart performed a somersault inside her chest.
Yugo realized his fatal mistake one second too late. He went rigid as an ironing board, feeling the cold panic run down his spine.
"Uh..." Yugo swallowed, desperately searching for a tactical excuse. "I meant... 'a frying pan.' Yeah. I was thinking about buying a harem—I mean, a frying pan! To cook the noodles. The old one is losing its Teflon coating and..."
"Sensei..." Asia's sweet voice interrupted him. She didn't sound angry. Or frightened. In fact, she sounded strangely warm, with a hint of shyness that threatened to melt the professor's icy core. The former nun lowered her gaze to him, intertwining her fingers with Yugo's free hand—the one that wasn't petting Raynare.
"I... read in a book from the Gremory library that very strong devils can have big families so that no one has to feel lonely. If Sensei wanted that... I wouldn't have any problem sharing your happiness. As long as you let me stay by your side."
Yugo's brain suffered a full Windows Blue Screen. His healer—the purest being on the planet—had just validated the perverted theory of the Red Dragon Emperor with an angelic smile.
Raynare, however, was far less diplomatic. The fallen angel turned her face upward, glaring at him with burning cheeks and slightly bared fangs, her expression a mixture of embarrassment and territorial indignation.
"Hah! As if a stupid human like me would ever be part of the harem of a mutant human like you!" Raynare barked, crossing her arms even tighter and looking away toward the wall. "Though... I suppose somebody has to make sure those other stupid devil girls don't stab you in the back! B-But I'd only do it for tactical security reasons, so don't get the wrong idea, idiot!"
Yugo was speechless. Lying on the couch of his secondhand minimarket, with a nun willing to share him and a tsundere fallen angel justifying her loyalty, the veteran of ten years of darkness realized one absolute truth.
Sona Sitri had chained him with a marriage contract, and Rias Gremory desired him with all the intensity of the Power of Destruction. The barriers had fallen.
"Damn you, Hyoudou," Yugo thought, covering his face with one hand to hide the absurd and sudden blush betraying his dead-fish façade. "You were right."
...
Monday morning at Kuoh Academy arrived with the brutality of a slap from reality. Gone were the violet skies, the thermonuclear explosions, and the formal dances with the aristocracy of the Underworld. In the Student Council office, the war was far more mundane, silent, and crushing: the fiscal closing of the magical quarter.
The sound inside the room followed a monotonous, hypnotic rhythm.
Thump... shhh... thump... shhh...
Yugo sat at a small auxiliary desk, with a stack of demonic customs forms on his left and a pile of approved documents on his right. In his right hand, he held a heavy bronze seal bearing the emblem of House Sitri. He wasn't even using XLR8's speed or Grey Matter's intellect; his human brain, overloaded by the events of the weekend, had entered a state of absolute autopilot.
While his body worked with the efficiency of an industrial machine, his mind wandered light-years away from phoenix tear export reports.
Issei's words about alpha male status were still embedded in his cerebral cortex, but what had truly shattered his ironclad defenses of cynicism was the memory of the previous afternoon. Asia Argento's dazzling, pure, unconditional smile shone in his mind like a lighthouse amid his usual psychological darkness.
"I wouldn't have any problem sharing your happiness... as long as you let me stay by your side."
The professor let out a faint sigh, a tiny, almost imperceptible curve softening his usual dead-fish expression. He had completely ignored Raynare's tsundere outbursts; the poor fallen angel never stood a chance against the lethal level of tenderness and acceptance of the former nun.
Yugo picked up another official scroll from the stack. As he brought the seal closer, his eyes mechanically scanned the text. It was the registry of a noble from the Agares Clan, detailing the allocation of territorial resources for his three wives and five pure-blood concubines.
His tactical mind, always seeking to optimize resources and analyze the rules of the game, processed that legal information. Demonic canon was clear: preserving strong bloodlines through polygamy was not only legal, but encouraged. And he, according to Sona and the Maous, was now the Supreme-Class Pawn of an Original Pillar.
The safety filter between the war veteran's brain and mouth—the very filter that had kept him alive through ten years of infiltration and combat—suffered a catastrophic failure due to accumulated emotional exhaustion.
The bronze seal stopped a millimeter above the paper.
"Sona..."
Yugo's voice broke the sepulchral silence of the office. His tone was flat, analytical, and casual, completely devoid of lust, as though he were asking about the weather forecast.
"I've seen several documents about the marital structure of the nobility... Can I have a harem too?"
Time, space, and thermodynamics inside the Student Council office collapsed during that exact microsecond.
Saji Genshirou, who had been organizing folders on the bookshelf in the back, dropped every file in his hands. The sound of papers scattering across the floor became the only noise that followed.
Tsubaki Shinra froze with her fountain pen pressed so hard against a scroll that the metal nib snapped, splattering black ink across the page.
And at the main desk, Sona Sitri, the cold, unshakable heiress of water and ice, stopped breathing. Microscopic frost began forming across the lenses of her glasses. Her fiancé. Her exclusive, untamable monster, who had barely been bound to her by contract for forty-eight hours, had just requested legal permission to expand his market of affection.
But the universe, in its infinite and twisted irony, decided that Yugo's humiliation wasn't sufficient.
Clack... Creak...
The heavy double doors of the Student Council office swung wide open at the exact moment the final syllable of the word "harem" left the professor's lips.
Yugo still had his eyes fixed on the customs document, the seal suspended in midair, completely oblivious to his imminent public execution.
Standing in the doorway, the nobility of the Gremory Clan froze in place.
They had come seeking answers, demanding explanations after the devastating revelation at the Underworld gala. Rias had arrived prepared to fight for the man she loved, ready to diplomatically challenge Sona's claim.
But instead of a political battlefield, they found their stoic, terrifying, traumatized Sensei calmly requesting polygamy in the tone of a bureaucrat.
The silence that followed was so dense it could have been cut with a chainsaw.
Issei Hyoudou was the first to react.
Tears of pride and pure devotion burst from his brown eyes like waterfalls. He dropped to his knees in the doorway, raising both hands toward the ceiling in silent worship.
"Sensei! He understands! The lone wolf has finally awakened as the Harem King! He's a god among men!"
The Pawn screamed internally, trembling with ecstasy.
Behind him, Akeno Himejima brought a hand to her cheek. The initial shock was quickly replaced by a deep blush and a smile bordering on dangerous.
"Ara, ara..." the Queen of Lightning purred, imperceptibly licking her lower lip. "So the ice professor is actually quite a greedy man. What a... delicious proposal."
Koneko Toujou, holding a half-eaten box of cookies, narrowed her golden eyes, directing her expressionless gaze straight at the back of Yugo's head.
"Disgusting mutant pervert," the nekomata muttered, though her hidden ears twitched with strange curiosity.
Kiba Yuuto coughed into his fist, trying to hide a gentlemanly smile in anticipation of the coming political massacre, while Asia Argento, peeking from behind Issei, simply smiled with the same angelic warmth that had caused this entire disaster in the first place.
The reaction that threatened to destroy the entire school came from the Princess of Ruin.
Rias Gremory was frozen in place. Her face shifted from the pallor of sorrow to a crimson red that rivaled the color of her own hair. Her brain was processing two contradictory emotions at lightning speed. On one hand, the jealous anger that her instructor was asking for a harem right in front of the woman who had claimed him as her fiancé. On the other, a massive, burning spark of hope; if he wanted a harem... that meant she, despite the Sitri contract, still had a chance to be his!
Rias's aura began to crackle red, seeping through the edges of the door, while Sona Sitri's icy blue aura began freezing the windows from inside the office.
Yugo, feeling the sudden and overwhelming clash of murderous instincts and magical pressure behind him, slowly lowered the bronze seal. The chill of realization flooded his veins. He realized he had not used his inner voice. He realized the door was open.
Slowly, with the stiffness of a robot whose gears had rusted, the man who annihilated gods turned his head over his shoulder.
Seeing the Gremory entourage at the door, and Sona's murderous glare in front of him, Yugo made the only tactical calculation possible in his situation.
He dropped the bronze seal. He raised both hands, palms up, in unconditional surrender and muttered, in his best and most authentic dead-fish tone: "I request diplomatic asylum in the alien dimension. Or a quick execution. Whichever is cheaper."
Yugo closed his eyes, mentally preparing himself for pain. He was used to being hit, punished, and dragged around by greater forces. Surrender was the easiest way out for a man who only wanted a little peace. He was about to drop to his knees and accept whatever frozen or incinerated torture fate had in store for him.
But then, before lowering his head, his gaze crossed with Asia Argento's.
The former nun was not furious. She was not emitting murderous auras. She was looking at him with a mixture of genuine concern and that pure devotion that completely disarmed him. In his mind, the words she had told him in the past echoed, when he had told her his story disguised as a "tale." She did not hate him. Her green eyes filled with tears for the pain of that "character," and she vowed she would pray for his soul so that it might find peace.
Yugo felt a stab in his chest. It was not a magical attack. It was his humanity, the one he had tried to suffocate with his own bloodstained hands for a decade, beating strongly.
For ten years he had run from himself. He had run from the pain of knowing the truth of this world, he had run from the guilt of the innocent lives he had cut down in order to kill his own empathy, and he had run from death when he failed in his nihilistic mission. And now, he was about to run from his own feelings, hiding behind bad jokes and feigned apathy.
No more.
The professor's expression changed. The comedic panic and lazy-office-worker façade evaporated in a millisecond. His back straightened, and the temperature in the room seemed to drop not because of Sona's magic, but because of the overwhelming, lethal presence the thirty-one-year-old man began to emanate. It was the aura of a veteran killer, of someone who had looked the apocalypse in the eye and been willing to press the button.
Issei, who was about to keep praising him, choked on his own saliva. Rias and Sona instinctively halted their magical clash, sensing the raw, pure danger.
Yugo raised his left arm. There were no tactical shouts, no hesitation.
CLACK!
The emerald flash blinded everyone in the room.
In place of the tall, tired human, an imposing crystalline, faceted figure made of pure, indestructible taydenite rose in the center of the office. Diamondhead.
Before anyone could utter a word, the Petrosapien drove both fists into the office's wooden floor.
A seismic boom shook the building. From the foundations, a colossal barrier of translucent, pale green crystal burst upward with unprecedented violence. The solid diamond wall split the office exactly in half, stretching from wall to wall and from the floor all the way into the ceiling, sealing the space airtight.
The cut was so precise that it completely isolated the Gremory nobility, along with Saji and Tsubaki, in the half near the door.
On the other side of the crystal, in the inner half of the office, only Sona Sitri and the alien remained.
Rias pounded the crystal with fists burning with the Power of Destruction, but the taydenite did not even budge. Issei and Kiba tried to find cracks, but it was useless. The wall was absolute, impenetrable, designed to withstand intergalactic bombardment. They were soundproofed and blocked off.
Sona, who had stepped back from the shockwave, looked at the barrier and then at her fiancé. For the first time in her life, the Student Council President had no idea what was happening in that man's mind.
Diamondhead stood in the silence of the isolated half of the office. He placed his hand over his chest and pressed the Omnitrix symbol.
The green light returned him to human form.
Yugo remained standing there, in front of the shattered desk. His face showed no trace of humor, cynicism, or laziness. He lifted his gaze toward Sona. His dark eyes were completely dead, devoid of light, reflecting the emptiness of an abyss the young demon had never imagined could exist inside him. They were the eyes of a man who hated himself far more than he hated the world.
The silence between them was heavy, nearly suffocating, broken only by the muffled sound of Rias pounding the crystal on the other side.
Yugo let out a trembling sigh, letting his shoulders fall, completely disarmed in front of the woman who had signed a contract with him.
"Sona..." His voice was a rough whisper, broken, carrying the weight of ten years of unconfessable darkness. "I think it's time I told you my story."
Sona did not answer immediately. Her strategist's mind analyzed the face of the man before her and understood, with silent terror, that the true monster of Kuoh was not the alien watch, but the human who wore it. She lowered her guard completely, forgetting jealousy, bureaucracy, and the contract, slowly nodding for him to continue.
Yugo looked at his own hands, which on the surface looked clean, but in his mind were drenched in a blood no magic could wash away.
"I'm not blaming you if, after what I tell you..." Yugo lifted his gaze, locking it onto the demon's blue eyes, with brutal and heartbreaking honesty. "...you send me out of Japan, even. Or if you decide the contract was a mistake and condemn me to death. Because what you're about to hear is not the story of a hero, or of a soldier who saved his students... It's the confession of the man who planned to destroy your world."