When Genichi regained consciousness, the first thing he registered was the soft give of a bed beneath him, and the familiar scent at his nose, layered with a faint, delicate fragrance.
He slowly opened his eyes.
The first thing he saw was a familiar ceiling.
The chaos in his thoughts cleared in an instant, like rocks revealed after the tide receded.
Fragments of memory snapped together: the abandoned warehouse, the grotesque spider monster, the agony of being pierced through the chest, the cold despair, and that final rage that felt like it could burn the world down.
Genichi jolted upright. The movement tugged at his body and left a lingering soreness, but the lethal, gaping pain he expected in his chest never came.
He instinctively reached to the spot slightly off-center from his heart.
The place where that black spider leg had punched straight through him last night.
Under his palm was smooth, intact skin.
No wound. No scar. Not even the faintest bump or depression.
Only a steady, powerful heartbeat, proof that he was very much alive.
As if that bone-deep, gut-churning injury, the freezing numbness and agony at death's door, had all been nothing but an overly realistic nightmare.
But Genichi knew it wasn't a dream.
He looked down at himself. He was naked, with only a thin blanket tossed over his waist.
His skin was clean. His muscles were defined. Not only was there no wound, there wasn't even a bruise or scrape left from the fight. It was as if someone had used the most meticulous healing spell to restore him perfectly.
That, combined with the faint, even breathing beside him and the familiar elegant scent, made the situation clear immediately.
He turned his head slightly.
As expected, Rias Gremory was lying on her side beside him. Her wine-red hair spilled across the pillow. Her eyes were closed, her breathing even, still asleep.
She wore only a light silk nightgown. The neckline sat slightly open, revealing a graceful collarbone and a small stretch of pale skin.
After the first two times, Genichi's resistance to scenes like this had improved significantly.
Once the initial surprise passed, calm returned quickly.
He didn't wake Rias. Moving as quietly as possible, he lifted the blanket and got out of bed. From the chair by the bedside, he picked up his Kuoh Academy uniform, clearly washed and neatly pressed, and put it on with unhurried composure.
The feel of fabric against his skin made the fact of his intact body even more real.
Just as he fastened the last button on his shirt, a faint sound came from behind him.
Rias had sat up. Her emerald eyes, hazy with sleep for a moment, quickly sharpened as she looked at him.
There was no tiredness on her face. Instead, she carried a strange glow, a mixture of curiosity, excitement, and something more complicated he couldn't easily name.
"Morning. Or I suppose I should say, good afternoon, Genichi," she said. Her voice was slightly husky from waking, softer than usual.
Genichi turned to face her. His dark eyes were calm and unreadable.
"So you saved me again?"
Rias shook her head lightly.
She brushed her hair off her shoulder in an elegant motion.
"This time, it wasn't entirely me saving you."
Her gaze held his, her tone serious.
"More accurately, you killed that Stray Devil yourself. By the time Akeno, Yuuto, Koneko, and I arrived, the fight, or rather, the one-sided crushing, was already close to over. All I did was bring you back after you collapsed from exhausting your demonic power, and treat the few remaining injuries from the battle."
Genichi gave a small nod, neither agreeing nor disputing.
"How long was I out?"
"About twenty hours." Rias glanced at the antique clock on the wall. "It's the afternoon of the second day. Your recovery is much better than I expected."
Genichi didn't get hung up on recovery. He steered directly to the most important point.
"How did I kill it? After I was pierced, my memory is fuzzy. The last thing I remember is being angry."
At the word angry, Rias's eyes visibly lit up. It was the look of someone who had found an enormous treasure, excitement she could barely hold back.
She threw the blanket aside and stepped barefoot onto the carpet, walking up close to him.
"Genichi."
She lowered her voice, as if announcing a secret of great weight.
"The Sacred Gear on your left hand isn't some low-tier dragon arm. What you have is one of the Longinus. You possess the Boosted Gear of the Red Dragon Emperor."
The truth, spoken from her lips, carried absolute certainty.
But the shock, the elation, the confusion he should have shown never appeared on Genichi's face.
He only nodded, small and calm, as if he had just heard a fact he already knew.
"Yeah."
Then he pressed on, still steady.
"So what happened after I lost consciousness? How did I use the Boosted Gear to kill the target?"
His calm reaction made a flicker of surprise pass through Rias's eyes, but more than that was approval.
She didn't ask him why he was so composed. Instead, she answered his question, describing what she had witnessed in detail.
"When we arrived, you were already impaled by that Stray Devil's leg. You were badly hurt."
Her voice carried lingering fear mixed with awe.
"But then you erupted with a demonic power surge I can't even describe. It was unbelievably violent. You started chanting."
Word by word, she repeated the incantation that had shaken her to the core.
"I awaken as the Heavenly Dragon who stole the principle of domination from God. I laugh at the infinite, and I grieve over the dream. I shall become the Red Dragon of Domination, and sink you into the crimson purgatory."
Genichi listened in silence, his brows tightening.
He had no memory of any of it.
"When the chant ended," Rias continued, her eyes reflecting the scene as if replaying it, "you were swallowed by a crimson demonic power eruption, like a volcano. It was filled with brutality and destruction, completely different from your usual aura. Then an extremely savage, crimson full-body armor covered you, and after that, the armor expanded and transformed…"
Her description grew difficult, as if she were struggling to find words for something that broke common sense.
"In the end, you became a red dragon."
"In that state, your power was terrifying. That Stray Devil was as fragile as paper in front of you. It was torn apart almost instantly. After that, you seemed to fall into an unconscious frenzy and caused significant damage to the warehouse."
"Only when your demonic power was completely exhausted did that form finally release. You reverted to normal and fell into a deep coma. That was when we could safely bring you back."
When she finished, the room fell quiet for a moment.
Genichi processed the information.
So in the instant he was pierced, at the edge of death, swallowed by extreme rage, his refusal and fury had ignited the resentment embedded in the Boosted Gear through generations of Red Dragon Emperors.
It was that residue, pure negative energy and battle obsession left behind by previous hosts, detonating when his mind was slipping and his emotions were at their most extreme. It forced the Sacred Gear into that state known as Balance Breaker, or rather, the Juggernaut Drive?
No. What Rias described was beyond ordinary Balance Breaker. It sounded like the Juggernaut Drive. A forced, destructive form that hijacked its host.
Meaning he hadn't controlled it.
In that life-or-death moment, he had been seized by the accumulated grudges inside the Sacred Gear and used as a vessel, releasing catastrophic power on instinct alone.
And his coma, his depleted demonic power, were the price of a body that couldn't endure that kind of forced eruption.
It all fit.
"So that's how it was…"
Genichi murmured, a trace of understanding flashing through his eyes, but what dominated was cold, after-the-fact analysis.
The Juggernaut Drive was terrifying, but losing himself, turning into a beast that only knew destruction, was not what he wanted.
This time, he had survived by luck and eliminated the enemy. But next time?
If he lost control again, would that rampage destroy his allies, or even himself?
He had to find a way to control it.
Real control.
Not being controlled by power.
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