Inside the luxurious limousine, Leo's voice did nothing to ease the tension.
Kaguya Shinomiya looked like a block of ice that would never melt, her gaze on him devoid of emotion.
She knew he hadn't come with good intentions. And anyone who could slip into this car without being noticed by Ai Hayasaka was clearly no ordinary man. Her life might already be in his hands—one wrong move, and she could disappear from this world forever.
Yet she wasn't especially afraid.
Because if he wanted her dead, he would've done it already. The fact that he hadn't meant he wanted something. And whatever that was, it meant she still had value to him. As long as that was true, she wasn't in immediate danger.
"Eligos… I've heard that surname before," Kaguya said calmly. "One of the Seventy-Two Pillars. Ranked fifteenth. A Duke-class devil family that once commanded sixty devil legions. An ancient lineage."
She paused, her expression unchanged.
"But I also heard that the family died out."
Leo merely smiled, unconcerned.
"Miss Shinomiya might want to keep an eye on recent developments in the Underworld. If you did, you'd know that the once-extinct Eligos Family has been reborn. And I happen to be its surviving descendant."
As he spoke, he casually flipped his hand. At some point, a steaming cup of black tea appeared in his palm, which he set down in front of her.
"Of course, for now I've only inherited a family that had already fallen. The Eligos Family hasn't officially returned yet. But if you're interested, you can follow the Underworld's Rating Games. I'll be attending as the current head of the Eligos Family."
Kaguya glanced at the tea but didn't reach for it.
"I'm not interested in devil affairs," she said flatly. "And you're not here to promote yourself, are you, Head Eligos?"
"That's hard to say." Leo blinked. "Maybe I came all this way to Tokyo to win the support of the Shinomiya Family—the so-called heart of the nation."
"Then you're in the wrong place," Kaguya replied coldly. "You should be talking to the main house, not me. I'm not favored. I don't have anything you want."
"That's where you're mistaken." Leo shrugged. "You definitely have something I want. Otherwise, why would I go through the trouble of getting stuck in Tokyo traffic to see you?"
"Or maybe you've just lost your mind," she shot back, her sharp tongue rivaling even Yukinoshita Yukino's. "I can tell you this clearly: I don't have what you're looking for. If you think you can use me to pressure the Shinomiya Family into giving you something, you've miscalculated."
"I may be the Shinomiya Family's eldest daughter, but I'm nowhere near as important as you think."
"Taking me hostage won't help you in the slightest."
Her voice was perfectly calm.
It was the tone of someone who had already given up on that family—someone who clearly understood her place and no longer harbored any expectations.
Her father was indifferent to her existence. Her so-called siblings didn't welcome her either; some of them would probably be happier if she were driven out and left to fend for herself.
It wasn't hard to imagine how she'd been treated all these years.
So in her mind, even if Leo kidnapped her, it wouldn't accomplish anything. Her father and siblings would never sacrifice the family's interests to save her.
Leo could more or less guess what she was thinking. He changed tack abruptly.
"Do you know what I did before entering this car?"
The sudden question made her frown.
"I cleared away some obstacles," Leo continued, as if he hadn't noticed her reaction. "Along the route this car travels, there were twelve highly skilled exorcists lying in wait."
"Some were hidden in nearby buildings. Others along the roadside. A few had been tailing this car the whole time, acting as its protection."
"Who do you think sent them?"
At those words, Kaguya's arms tightened against herself, her fingers digging into her sleeves.
"Relax. I didn't kill them," Leo said with a smile. "I just knocked them out. It wasn't easy. They clearly hadn't just started hiding around you recently."
"To stay concealed from your maid—who has one-quarter exorcist blood—for that long says a lot about their ability."
"An average person wouldn't be able to subdue them all while holding back."
"A team like that would have at least a twenty percent chance of successfully hunting an Ultimate-Class Devil. And yet they were stationed near you the whole time, unnoticed by either you or your maid."
"So tell me—who would go to such lengths?"
"Who cares that much about whether you live or die?"
Her grip tightened further, the icy mask on her face finally starting to crack.
"What are you trying to say?" she demanded, her voice wavering for the first time.
"It's simple," Leo said with a narrow-eyed smile. "You're far more important than you think."
"And I'm not saying this to prove you wrong, or to use you to extract something from the Shinomiya Family. What I want isn't with them."
"It's with you."
"…What is it?"
After a long silence, she finally asked.
"A stone tablet," Leo answered without hesitation. "A tablet said to possess the power to foresee the future—one that records the rising and setting of the stars."
"Foresee the future?" Kaguya frowned. "I'm afraid I don't have any such—"
She froze mid-sentence.
It was as if she'd suddenly remembered something crucial, her entire body going rigid.
"So you do know," Leo said lightly, having caught her reaction.
After another long silence, Kaguya replied,
"I don't have that thing. You've come to the wrong place."
"That's not what your reaction just now suggested." Leo stared at her intently.
"I don't have it," she repeated, forcing herself to stay calm. "If I really possessed a treasure like that, I wouldn't be nothing more than an unfavored eldest daughter."
That argument wasn't unreasonable.
Throughout history, powers like prophecy and foresight had always been mysterious, rare, and immensely powerful—abilities even gods didn't necessarily possess, let alone objects.
Artifacts with such powers were coveted even by gods. It wouldn't be strange for multiple factions to go to war over them.
Of course, not all treasures were equal. Even prophetic artifacts varied in strength. The most powerful could draw divine intervention; the weaker ones weren't enough to tempt those lofty beings.
The Tablet of Destiny fell into the former category. Otherwise, even Tiamat—the Chaos Karma Dragon—wouldn't be so fixated on it. If Kaguya truly possessed such an artifact, using it to change her fate wouldn't be difficult.
Assuming she could use it at all.
"Powerful artifacts are rarely easy to use," Leo said slowly, watching her. "Even if someone owns the Tablet of Destiny, they might not know how to activate it. Or they might not be able to use it at all, leaving it to gather dust."
"Judging from your reaction earlier, you know that such a tablet exists in your possession. You just didn't connect the dots at first—or you didn't know it had that kind of power."
"That's why you were so certain at the start… and why you froze afterward."
"But then you changed your stance and firmly denied having it. Why?"
"Because you realized how extraordinary its power is, and you don't want to hand it over?"
"Or…" He paused. "Is that tablet something extremely important to you?"
At the end of his sentence, he noticed her biting her lip.
That alone gave him the answer.
"So it really is important to you," Leo sighed. "Even if you don't know its true nature or power. That complicates things. I'd rather not walk away empty-handed."
"So?" Kaguya said after regaining her composure. "Are you going to take it by force?"
"I'm a devil, not a bandit," Leo replied calmly. "If I can help it, I prefer a fair trade."
Which meant that if necessary, he would still take it.
She didn't bother saying that out loud. It wouldn't change anything.
Even setting aside whether the hidden exorcist team really existed, the fact that he could slip past Ai Hayasaka without a sound already proved they couldn't stop him.
So Kaguya chose the smarter approach.
"Then let's hear it," she said. "How do you plan to make this a fair trade?"
She didn't believe he could persuade her.
Because that tablet really was important to her.
She didn't know it was the Tablet of Destiny, nor did she know about its power. But it was the only thing her father had ever given her.
As Sirzechs had said, the Tablet of Destiny was originally a Shinomiya Family heirloom, stored in the main house.
Shinomiya Gan'an had studied it for a time and even brought it to the Five Great Clans for appraisal. No one could figure out how to use it. They could only tell from its material that it was extremely valuable—nothing more.
After all, it had once belonged to Tiamat and had been lent to the original Red Dragon Emperor. That emperor's defeat dated back thousands of years. The tablet had passed through countless hands since then, its true nature and method of use long forgotten.
Only because the Maous had mobilized the entire Underworld to investigate for Leo did its whereabouts finally come to light. Otherwise, it might have remained buried in obscurity forever.
Unable to learn anything from it, Shinomiya Gan'an tossed it into the family collection. Later, when Kaguya wandered in by chance and unknowingly took it out, he never reclaimed it.
More accurately, he simply didn't take it back.
Perhaps he chose to pretend the matter didn't exist. Or perhaps he truly intended to give it to her.
Kaguya didn't know. All she knew was that he hadn't taken it back. So she treated it as a gift from her father.
Given how indifferent he'd always been, receiving even something like this meant a lot to her. She wasn't particularly attached to it as a treasure—but she didn't want to give it away.
That was, until Leo said something that shattered her composure.
"I can let you see your mother," he said softly. "Or speak with her."
Kaguya snapped her head up, staring at him.
"Are you mocking me?"
For once, anger bled into her voice.
"Do I look like I'm joking?" Leo replied coolly. "Would there be any point?"
"My mother—"
She tried to speak, furious, but he cut her off.
"I know. Your mother passed away shortly after giving birth to you," Leo said bluntly. "But don't forget—I'm a devil. A devil who lives in the Underworld."
"As long as a soul didn't go to Heaven or the Realm of the Dead, and is still lingering in Hell, I have a chance of finding it."
"And if I do… then you'll have your chance to speak with her."
Kaguya was stunned into silence, her breathing stopping altogether.
Her heart descended into complete turmoil at his words.
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You can read up to chapter 190 on patreon.com/NiaXD.