Morning sunlight came through the window, warm and easy.
Leo woke up more comfortable than he'd ever been. He tried to stretch.
The next second, he realized he couldn't.
Both his arms were pinned under someone's head.
Asuna lay on his left, his arm as her pillow. Her breath was soft and warm against his face.
A thin blanket barely covered her. Her shoulders were bare, hands resting outside the covers.
Her cheeks were flushed, skin almost glowing.
He watched her for a while before turning his head.
Yukino lay on his right. Same blanket, same bare shoulders.
"You're feeling pretty pleased with yourself right now, aren't you?"
Yukino was already awake. The moment his gaze landed on her, she glared back.
But her eyes were wet, glistening, and the usual calm was nowhere to be found. She looked almost pouty. It was cute.
Leo grinned. The kind of grin you wanted to punch off someone's face.
"Shouldn't I be?" He pulled her close by her bare shoulder. "The famous Ice Queen of Sobu High, in my bed. I think I've earned the right to be smug."
"I didn't give you anything," Yukino said sharply. "You took it."
"Did I?" Leo grinned. "Because the way I remember it, you stopped struggling the moment I carried you to bed."
Yukino went red.
"Would struggling have helped?" she said through gritted teeth. "I'm not exactly a match for you."
"But if you really didn't want it, I wouldn't have pushed that hard." Leo snorted. "Admit it, Yukino. You just didn't want to fall behind. You couldn't stand being second. That's why you went along with it."
Yukino genuinely wanted to beat him up right now.
She couldn't deny it. That was exactly what she'd been thinking. So when Leo carried her off, she'd barely struggled before going still and letting that animal have his way.
But now, she regretted it.
She felt she never should have let this scum of a master have it so easy.
"There should be some kind of forbidden ritual or powerful artifact in this world that can reverse time, right?"
She said it like she was making conversation.
"Maybe, but I've never seen one. Never even heard of one." Leo was having the time of his life. "And if even I haven't heard of it, you definitely won't find it. So give it up, Yukino."
"You're mine now."
Leo hummed a tune. Yukino snorted and dropped the subject.
She tossed aside the arm she'd been using as a pillow and sat up.
She held the blanket against her chest, but it only covered the front. Her back was bare, the line from waist to hip smooth and pale. He stared.
"Put away that disgusting stare. I don't need my entire body licked by your perverted eyes first thing in the morning."
Leo didn't care.
"Looking at you is my god-given right. If I can't look at you, who else would I look at?"
He reached toward her pale back, but before he could touch her, Yukino slapped his hand away.
"Haven't you had enough?" Yukino glared at him. "Don't touch me. Go touch your Asuna."
"Seriously? You're still jealous?" Leo blinked. "It was only an hour head start. You're really going to hold that against me?"
"I'm not holding anything against you." Yukino frowned. "Forget it. I can't reason with a devil whose brain is nothing but lust. I have something to do right now, so don't touch me."
"Something to do?" Leo was confused. "What could you possibly have to do right now?"
Yukino didn't answer. Instead, she raised both hands and let the blanket she'd been holding against her chest fall away.
Leo's eyes dropped. Yukino had already stopped paying him attention.
She stared at her own hands for a moment.
Then she spoke.
"Ice Princess."
At her call, the three-meter-tall inhuman princess materialized beside the bed.
Her arrival was silent. No disturbance, no sound. Unlike before, she wasn't radiating her usual freezing aura. She simply stood there, as if she had been present all along.
"As I thought. The Sacred Gear's transformation is complete."
Yukino looked at the crystalline Ice Princess and exhaled softly, as if confirming something she'd already suspected.
"Sacred Gear transformation?" Leo still looked lost. "What do you mean? What happened to your Sacred Gear?"
Yukino glanced at him, then explained in a level tone.
"Not long ago, my Sacred Gear started acting up."
She told him everything. How Absolute Demise had reached a fork in the road, caught between the path of simple enhancement and the path toward Balance Breaker. How, unable to choose, it had stalled. Its functions had become unstable.
Leo's reaction caught her off guard.
"You too?"
Yukino froze. "What do you mean? Someone else ran into this?"
The answer was yes.
Setting aside others, in the original story, Hyoudou Issei had encountered this exact situation right before achieving Balance Breaker. He'd ultimately succeeded by subjecting himself to an intense enough stimulus to trigger the breakthrough, unlocking Boosted Gear Scale Mail.
That was the turning point when Issei stopped being dead weight and gained the strength to fight High-Class and even Ultimate-Class devils.
But that wasn't who Leo was referring to.
He was talking about another one of his servants.
"Utaha reached this stage a week ago. She touched the threshold of Balance Breaker."
The blunt statement left Yukino stunned.
Utaha?
She'd reached this stage too?
And... she'd gotten there faster?
"It's not that strange," Leo said, seeing Yukino freeze up. "Balance Breaker is the ultimate domain of Sacred Gears. Normal wielders can't touch it at all. But with Utaha's talent, reaching it this quickly makes perfect sense."
Every member of the Eligos peerage was someone who played a pivotal role in their own story. Every one of them excelled in ways far beyond ordinary people.
Yukino was extraordinarily talented in demonic power. Upon reincarnation, she'd already possessed magic on par with pureblood devils. Now her demonic power had fully reached High-Class Devil level, even surpassing Leo's own magic back when he'd first been promoted. Her growth showed no signs of slowing.
Asuna's talent lay in the sword. Even Miyamoto Musashi, the so-called strongest swordsman, had praised her endlessly. She had essentially graduated from her training now, no longer the beginner she'd been. Even Yuuto Kiba, who had sparred with her before, admitted with amazement that Asuna's swordsmanship was no longer inferior to his own.
Mahiru, like Yukino, had triggered a violent reaction from the Bishop piece upon reincarnation, and her talent in demonic power was nearly as high. But she'd focused more on Sacred Gear training, so her magic hadn't yet broken through to High-Class level. Her mastery of her Sacred Gear, however, had improved by leaps and bounds.
But among all of the Eligos peerage's Sacred Gear wielders, the most talented in that regard was still Utaha.
Even Leo hadn't expected it. Utaha had been quietly unassuming about it, then one week ago, she suddenly told him she was about to reach the Balance Breaker threshold. Leo had almost thought she was joking.
After verifying it, though, he was convinced. Utaha had genuinely touched the edge of Balance Breaker. One intense emotional shock, and she'd step right in.
Once the initial surprise wore off, Leo accepted it.
Because even though Balance Breaker was the ultimate domain, and normal wielders could never come close, there were always geniuses in this world who reached it at speeds that defied imagination.
The Two Heavenly Dragons were the best example. Their hosts almost always achieved Balance Breaker in absurdly short timeframes. Even Hyoudou Issei, the so-called weakest Red Dragon Emperor, the least talented host in the history of the Two Heavenly Dragons, had managed it in just a few months in the original story. That was how broken the Heavenly Dragon wielders were.
Granted, that was partly because the Two Heavenly Dragons were eternal rivals. Their hosts were deeply influenced by the Sacred Gears themselves, drawn irresistibly toward power and practically cursed into awakening it. That was how they reached Balance Breaker so quickly, some even reaching Juggernaut Drive.
But among the wielders of other Sacred Gears, there were also genuine prodigies who grew at jaw-dropping rates.
Especially the Longinus holders. As living violations of the world's power balance, if they couldn't grow fast enough to touch the ultimate domain, that would be the real anomaly.
And that wasn't even the most absurd part.
In this world, there were people who were natural-born Balance Breaker wielders. The moment their Sacred Gear awakened, they could already use its Balance Breaker form.
Canis Lycaon, the tenth-ranked Longinus. Its current wielder was one such natural-born user. Incredibly powerful, the only human besides Cao Cao who had ever forced Vali to use Juggernaut Drive in the original story. One of the candidates for the title of strongest human.
Compared to monsters like that, Utaha's talent with Sacred Gears was practically ordinary.
But as long as you didn't compare her to those outliers, Utaha's Sacred Gear talent was world-class. Like the Heavenly Dragon hosts, she could reach Balance Breaker in an extremely short time.
A month of grueling training in the Underworld, followed by tireless effort in the pocket dimension, had allowed Utaha's talent to bear fruit. She had officially touched the Balance Breaker threshold one week ago.
"Right now, she's also looking for a way to trigger a violent emotional shift and push herself over the final step," Leo told Yukino. "Haven't you noticed she's barely been going to the pocket dimension lately? That's why. She's been busy with this."
"...Has she succeeded?" Yukino was quiet for a moment before asking.
"No." Leo shrugged. "She's still a little short."
Utaha had actually found her method already.
She'd gone back to reading the online reviews of her light novel, Love Metronome, which had nearly been axed.
The reception was sharply divided. Most people acknowledged that volume one was genuinely compelling. But those same people kept predicting volume two would be cancelled.
Utaha had been bitter about this for a long time. After becoming Leo's servant, she'd gradually let it go. But now that she needed intense emotions to push through to Balance Breaker, she'd gone back to dredge up those old feelings.
Apparently, she'd also written volume two and brought it to her publisher to get her editor's opinion.
All Leo could say to that was: good luck, soldier.
He, for his part, had read volume two and done what he always did. Ripped it to shreds. Utaha's fists had stayed clenched the entire time. She'd barely held herself back from punching him in the face.
Utaha later claimed that she had genuinely been this close to reaching the Balance Breaker threshold at that moment...
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