In a noble demon house located obviously in Hell, a noble watched the two slave girls he had just bought with sadistic satisfaction.
Their parents had died and the girls were terrified and depressed, the younger one clung to the older one, still afraid that she would disappear as well, but he did not care about any of that. He simply ordered the servants to wash them and serve them from then on, not out of affection, kindness, or anything similar, they simply seemed like a crime to look at in their current state.
These two girls were not normal girls, they were actually Youkai Nekushou, something easy to see from the cat ears and tails both of them had.
Although both of them were confused by their current situation, the constant care they received there made their lives at least not an immediate misery.
The younger one, Shirone, a Nekushou with short white hair, two tails behind her back, and a pair of fluffy cat ears, was the one who accepted the situation the fastest, even managing to smile sometimes.
But despite this, there was something that had been worrying the little girl lately.
Her older sister was called Kuroka, a girl with long dark hair, also accompanied by a cat tail and ears.
A considerable amount of time had passed since they arrived there, but Shirone could not understand why she had not seen her older sister smile even once. Sometimes she smiled at her and said incomprehensible things like everything would be alright or that everything would improve in the end. Shirone did not understand it, Aren't things already alright? How would they improve? And above all, why did her sister's smile seem so forced while saying that?
Even so, without Shirone being able to understand it, this calm and somewhat happy life came to an abrupt end not long after.
Shirone did not know what happened, she only heard explosions throughout the house and the screams of people while she hid trembling in her room.
After a while, the house finally became completely silent and although Shirone allowed herself to relax a little, she still did not dare to leave her hiding place.
She remained like that for a few minutes until the silence was finally broken by the sounds of footsteps. Many and very heavy ones. Probably the guards of some nearby noble who had heard about the situation or some demonic security force aware of what had happened.
Before the confused Shirone, many terrifying people began entering the house.
"Investigate the entire house! Find out what happened!"
One of the demons at the front gave orders and everyone nodded in unison before following his commands and beginning to search the house diligently.
Sniff sniff
While this was happening, Shirone smelled something peculiar in the air that made her feel bad. Recognizing it, she went toward the terrifying man from before and pulled on his clothes.
"A youkai? What happened?" The man frowned, although he was not surprised either since he knew that the noble who lived there usually had many slaves.
"F-fire" Shirone finally said, daring to speak. "It smells like fire!"
"Don't worry, girl, just a simple fire..." The man did not finish speaking. The next second, the entire house exploded in an immense explosion, transforming into a sea of fire that caused the house to collapse on itself and the ruins to be consumed by the flames.
To the surprise of the small and frightened Shirone, she did not suffer even a scratch and the fire did not even reach her. At the moment of the explosion, she was surrounded by body heat that protected her.
Shirone recognized the smell of her sister and did not resist, feeling completely safe.
"Sister?! What is happening?! Everything is wrong, I am scared" Shirone asked between tears, but her sister did not answer, she only placed a small black cat-shaped brooch on her that contrasted with her white hair.
"I..." Kuroka hesitated, not knowing what to say.
"Quick! Go!"
"Search for survivors!"
"Check the entire area!"
Kuroka's words were interrupted by the voices of more demons arriving at the scene after the death of most of the previous team.
Kuroka looked at the people and clenched her fist tightly before speaking to her little sister.
"I love you" after saying those words, Kuroka started running into the distance, as if she was fleeing.
"Sister? Sister! What happened?! Why are you leaving?"
Shirone chased after Kuroka, trying to catch her, but she failed. Unlike young Shirone, Kuroka already controlled the innate energy of the youkais, the yoki, with ease, while she had not even manifested it yet.
"Don't go. No... I don't want...to be alone" Shirone murmured, falling to the ground defeated.
"Someone is there!"
"It's a Youkai!"
Although Kuroka escaped, Shirone was quickly captured by the demons and they knocked her out immediately without asking any questions.
They asked her many questions, but she had no answers. In the entire mansion that had now fallen, she was probably one of the only people who not only did not know what happened that day, but also would not know for many years.
Even so, from the conversations of the officers around her, she learned what supposedly happened.
Apparently, her sister had killed her master, becoming a fugitive, and now she was being judged as an accomplice.
If nothing went wrong, she should be executed soon.
But fortunately for her, something did go wrong, although not for her. Before she was judged, someone intervened, Shirone did not fully understand what was happening at that moment, but she would later learn that it was one of the four Maous, Sirzechs, who had intervened and prevented her death.
Not out of solidarity, but because the Maou seemed to see potential in her, besides having another hidden reason. After that, she was handed over to his younger sister as her servant, or noble as they called it, who renamed her Koneko Tojo.
'A rather weak name, but at least it is pretty' Koneko would think later with irony.
Koneko should have been happy for surviving, perhaps sad about the bigger situation, perhaps even angry. But somehow, after going through so many emotions in one day, she became much calmer and did not react excessively.
Something she thought would only be temporary and that she was simply tired, but that would actually last for her entire life.
Even so, that night, while sleeping, she remembered a black cat she had seen during the trial and that seemed to stare at her.
She found it curious that the cat never sat down, it remained still watching her but never lying down, as if it was ready to move at any moment.
"Could it be?...No" Koneko interrupted her own train of thought, not daring to think any further.
After that day, Koneko's daily life could be said to have improved, although she had to serve Rias Gremory, she was a good person.
She also learned the reason why her normally calm and reliable sister had killed her master, the yoki, the innate power of all youkais, had gone out of control and driven her insane.
Or at least that was what she was told.
It was not only her who learned that, the news spread throughout the entire demon nobility and the youkais in the Demon Realm faced a great hunt that ended with the deaths of thousands.
The fact that the sister of a Maou had a beast as a member of her peerage that could lose control at any moment caused public rejection for a while, but Sirzechs' words easily silenced all complaints.
Without any shame, he declared that even if Koneko went insane, she would not cause any problems under his supervision, because the difference in power was simply too great.
Over time, the fact that Koneko never lost control, something many people knew since Rias was a kind of celebrity due to several factors such as being the sister of a Maou or her incredible beauty, caused the Youkai hunt to end.
Although the demons realized they had been wrong, they would never admit it, but at least the hunt ended. Many Yokai died for nothing, but at least they did not become a race that was eternally persecuted.
Perhaps that had been Sirzechs' plan from the beginning, perhaps, seeing that he could not prevent what was happening, he devised a way to at least minimize the situation as much as possible. Koneko would never know, since she was never interested in that kind of political intrigue.
Even so, leaving the intrigues aside, from that day Koneko not only decided to give up using yoki, never studying it, but also her identity as a Nekushou.
Meanwhile, Kuroka became an S-rank demonic fugitive whom she would never see again.
...
"That dream again" Koneko woke up on the sofa in the Occult Research Club room.
They had held a brief celebration party because Rias had finally managed to break her arranged engagement, the one she had hated since childhood, and there had been a lot of food.
Koneko, of course, ended up eating almost half of it by herself, making her sleepy and causing her to sleep through most of the party while lying on the sofa.
By the time she woke up, it was already night, she had been covered with a warm blanket and they had left her a late-night snack in case she was hungry.
After yawning and stretching quickly, Koneko took the small popsicle they had left for her and licked it.
"Apple, how delicious" she said after the first lick.
Although she could simply stay and play video games as always, that night she felt like going outside and feeling the night air, so she left the club room.
A while later, Koneko arrived at a nearby plaza, it was night so it was empty, barely illuminated by a street lamp, and a pleasant night breeze was blowing.
Koneko sat on one of the swings while continuing to eat her ice cream.
In the silence of the night, Koneko enjoyed the starry sky and the cool breeze against her face, she closed her eyes and smiled, thinking 'Everything has gotten better'
"Meow"
She opened her eyes again upon hearing the sound of a nearby meow.
"A black cat" she murmured when she saw the small cat approaching her and rubbing itself against her leg.
Actually, when she was little, Koneko hated black cats, they reminded her of her sister and that black cat that stared at her when she was about to die, as if it was waiting for her death with amusement. Koneko had even had recurring nightmares about that cat. But for some reason, she was very popular with them, it was not strange for at least one black cat to approach her every week, refusing to leave no matter what Koneko did for several hours.
In the end, she could only get used to them until she stopped caring about their resemblance to her sister.
Koneko finished the ice cream before lowering her hand and beginning to pet the small feline, the cat rubbed itself against her affectionately as if it had known her for years, and Koneko could not help but smile when she saw it.
Cr-Cr-Cr-Crash!
But the peaceful moment was interrupted by a sudden sound. The noise was similar to glass breaking after force had been applied from the other side, but Koneko, with her experience in the supernatural, knew it was the sound a barrier made when it was forcibly broken through.
She had no time to think about why there would be a barrier nearby, why she had not sensed it, or who had broken it, because a wolf several meters long lunged at her, causing Koneko to quickly push the cat away before striking the wolf hard with her right fist.
To Koneko's surprise, although she had put almost all her strength into that blow, the wolf was barely affected, only being pushed back about two meters while she herself was sent several meters backward just from the recoil.
She used her incredible reflexes and agility to turn herself around in midair quickly and hold onto the ground, not only stopping her momentum but also crouching down and barely dodging the wolf that had lunged at her again.
"What is that?" Koneko frowned, she had never heard of such a creature. It looked like an abnormally large wolf, but it was surrounded by what seemed like fire, although it definitely was not fire. But at that moment she had no time to think about that, her mind was racing as she dodged every one of the wolf's movements, which were accompanied by claw strikes and bites that were even harder to evade.
Over time, Koneko began to grow tired, no matter what attacks she used, the wolf was not injured, barely even being pushed back, while the wolf's attacks had already left her covered in wounds and light bruises all over her body.
If they continued like this, although she could endure for a while longer by only dodging, she would eventually lose.
Even so, she had no other option, the wolf was almost as fast as her, so escaping was out of the question.
The decisive moment came not long after. Koneko saw an opening in the wolf, which seemed to have an internal injury, the cat girl theorized that perhaps the attacks did hurt it, but only internally.
Koneko decided to take advantage of it and got much closer than before, delivering a kick to its neck. It was risky, yes, but she would die anyway if things continued like this, so it was better to take the risk.
Unfortunately, this time taking the risk ended terribly.
Her attack was caught by the beast's mouth, which bit her leg. Pulling her in and throwing her against a nearby wall.
Boom!
The wall was destroyed by the impact and the debris fell on top of Koneko.
And although the impact itself did not hurt her, Koneko could barely move her right leg because of the injury, making dodging impossible from now on.
Not only that, the feint, the impossible movement, and the wolf's sinister smile before biting made Koneko realize that it had only been playing with her, it was not only much stronger than her, but also intelligent.
As the wolf lunged at her again, Koneko did not even try anymore, she could not escape in any way, she closed her eyes and prepared to die.
While she had her eyes closed and had accepted death, a warmth enveloped her, a familiar warmth that made her feel safe and calm.
But although she enjoyed it for a second, she opened her eyes in astonishment upon realizing what it was.
"K-Kuroka? What are you doing here?" She asked upon seeing her sister hugging her.
"Cough" Kuroka did not answer, she only spat out a mouthful of blood. Koneko realized that she was being bitten on the shoulder by the shadowy wolf. "Shirone, run" she said in a weak voice.
"W-what? No... I can't" Shirone did not know how to react for a moment, but she finally remembered her injury and lamented.
"It's okay, you will be fine, I am here" Kuroka said weakly, almost in a whisper, but to Koneko those words sounded so loud and clear that she would remember them forever.
When she looked at her leg, she saw that it was being healed by Yoki, used by her sister.
"No, what are you doing? If you do that, how will..."
'How will you fight?' Koneko wanted to ask, but upon seeing Kuroka's expression, she realized that she had no intention of leaving there alive.
"No, Kuroka... sister, why? Why now? Why do you come back only to do this?" Koneko shed tears for the first time in years... and it was because of the same person as the last time.
"I'm sorry, I am a terrible sister. I do not know how to be an older sister, even though I always try to protect you, I always end up sacrificing myself to do it."
"'Always', sister, what are you talking about?"
"There is no time, run."
"B-but..."
"RUN!"
Finally, Koneko listened to her and ran away. She ran without looking back, and she did not dare to stop until she reached the Occult Research Club.
...
"I found you"
Years had passed since the first time Koneko saw her first shadow wolf. The creature that she had been unaware of back then was now common knowledge for everyone.
And it was only the weakest of them all.
That same night, the night Koneko recovered her sister only to lose her the very next second, the entire world fell into chaos.
The barrier Koneko had heard breaking was not an ordinary barrier, it was the dimensional barrier itself, and creatures like that wolf began appearing all over the world.
They were not only wolves, as more time passed, more powerful creatures began appearing.
During these years, countless things happened.
The world fell into chaos, the supernatural world was forced to become public, the world came close to being destroyed several times, people found a way to grow stronger through something called a system, monsters became more and more dangerous, and now even the weakest of beasts was difficult to resist.
If someone publicly said that the world would end tomorrow, no one would call them crazy, no one would dare contradict them either for fear of being wrong, that was how bad the world had become.
But Koneko did not care about any of this, she already knew the truth about her sister's story, she knew that not only once but twice she had sacrificed herself to protect her.
And she only wanted revenge.
Behind the so-called four Maous existed a council of elders, people without real power who controlled the masses and the most powerful through nothing more than pompous words, foolish hierarchies, and damned connections.
The kind of people who would dare give orders to and shout at Sirzechs Lucifer while saying they had the right because of their surname and position. A position they had created themselves.
The kind of people who could decide to experiment on girls and when that went wrong one day, take advantage of it to weaken another faction while obtaining benefits.
Koneko had been constantly fighting and becoming stronger for years, and when she was strong enough, she went after them.
She did not care about politics, factions, or any intrigue. She did not care about their words that the world would hunt her if she did that, that the world needed unity at that moment, or that they would give her anything if she forgave them. She did not care about what they could give her, she was only angry about what they had taken from her.
Now there was only one target left for her revenge.
Although he could have been dead, could have disappeared, or could have been on another continent, Koneko kept searching anyway, because she had no other reason to live. And today, after decades of searching for him, she had finally found him.
In front of her was a shadowy black wolf, with a scar over one eye and limping. It had probably fought someone stronger and ended up like this.
That was the level the enemy that had almost killed her once and killed her sister was at now, simple cannon fodder.
Koneko approached it, walking slowly, the wolf quickly noticed her and growled, trying to threaten her.
She ignored it.
She did not expect the wolf to remember her or anything like that, but knowing that this thing had no idea why it was dying still caused her some dissatisfaction.
Unable to judge its level due to the difference in power, the wolf jumped, opening its enormous jaws toward her. Koneko opened her arms and grabbed its upper and lower fangs before lifting it above her head and slamming it into the ground with force.
The wolf exploded into what would have been flesh for a normal living being, but for it, it was an unknown black substance. Before it could regenerate, something she knew they could do, Koneko pierced through its chest and ripped out its heart.
While the wolf slowly died on the ground, Koneko squeezed the organ in her hands and violet blood fell over her.
With her objective completed, the Nekushou finally sat down on a nearby bench and breathed calmly.
"I am a mess" she muttered to herself. Dirty and ragged clothes, they did not even look like normal clothes before being torn apart, honestly, her white hair reached the end of her back and was completely dirty and messy, her face looked like it had not been washed in weeks, and on top of that she was now covered in monster blood.
But of course, in the current world, nobody cared about that. Among everyone else, she could even be considered one of the more well-kept people.
"GRAAAAAAAH!!!"
While looking at the sky again, a habit she had picked up recently, a great roar sounded as an enormous creature appeared there.
Koneko was not surprised, things like this happened every day in this world, if there was anything strange, it was that the creature was too large and that it did not seem to be made of fire or shadows, and of course, its roar was the strangest thing Koneko had ever heard in her life, it did not seem to come from any creature while at the same time seeming to come from all of them.
Its appearance was extremely strange, being a deformed mixture of different creatures such as dragons, bears, gorillas, and more. It had seven heads and ten horns, four arms and two legs.
Honestly, Koneko stopped trying to figure out what that thing was after a while.
However, when this thing seemed like it was about to attack, something happened. A person completely dressed in black appeared in front of it, he was so small that he barely deserved mention compared to the creature, but the fact that the creature paid attention to him showed that his strength deserved such attention.
Without even flinching at the sudden and strange attacks that the creature launched from its entire body, the man in black raised a sword and attacked.
"GHHHHHEEEEEE!"
Although he did not kill it, the sword caused an injury that interrupted its attacks and made it release a cry of pain.
Immediately, a battle began between these two that resonated throughout the sky and the earth, space seemed to ripple and break while the ground trembled as if someone was moving the earth from within.
Seeing this, Koneko knew there was not much time left, she opened the dirty and torn brown bag she carried and took out an old snack she had saved for a special occasion.
At that moment Koneko was certain that it would probably be the last thing she would ever see in the world, so she decided that she should at least enjoy it.
Remembering when she used to eat while playing video games, watching movies, reading manga, or simply watching her friends fool around.
A smile spread across her face as she ate.
After a while, finally, with a sword slash that stripped the beast of all its heads, the battle ended with the man in black as the winner.
The body of the hundreds of meters tall beast began falling to the ground, but it never reached it before being consumed by a black purplish fire that Koneko knew well.
The next second, the creature came back to life, this time as a shadowy creature that stood behind the man in black with absolute respect.
"Now it actually matches the rest" Koneko joked upon seeing this before throwing away the wrapper of her last snack and becoming serious. "We are so dead."
The man disappeared after that, but the beast remained there, its roars now directed toward the earth and its attacks even stronger.
While the sky itself seemed to be falling from its attacks, Koneko caught sight of some stars, and she even thought she saw one falling.
She closed her eyes and made a wish.
'I wish for an opportunity to be back with the people I love.
I wish I could live a peaceful life where I can play video games and watch television with the people I love.
I wish...'
The third wish was never spoken, Koneko never opened her eyes again, the beast of the apocalypse had descended.
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+15 chapters in advance on Patreon.
p-atreon.com/IAMME26
(just delete the hyphen)
80 power stones = 1 extra chapter (cumulative)