3rd Person POV
By the end of the first day when the bell chimed, Arto let out a yawn as he gathered all his books and equipment "How was the first day, Arata-kun?" Rias asked with a smile. Arto put the rest of the books in his backpack before answering "Except for the basketball try-outs, history and geography, it's quite boring to say the least, I've already known all other things from my personal research for magic translation"
Everything left on the desk right now is only a piece of paper that looks nothing special "I've spent most of the time making this" he gestured towards the piece of paper, making both Rias and Akeno utterly confused as they leaned in to see a completely blank piece of paper.
"Okay, darling, what exactly do I have to look at here?" Akeno asked, her voice tilting with an amused curiosity as she leaned closer, the scent of her perfume mingling with the chalky dust of the classroom.
Arto didn't answer immediately. Instead, he looked up, scanning if there are anyone else in the class, when he could confirm there is only 3 of them here, he gently touched his right ear before doing the same to Rias and Akeno "This would keep our talk private," his voice suddenly sounded inside their heads, clear as if he were whispering directly into their ears, yet no sound escaped his lips.
"A telepathic frequency?" Rias whispered, her eyes widening. Arto's mental voice continued, calm and matter of fact. "This paper is the first prototype of the magic-tech I was talking about with your parents. Abyssgard Simulation Tech."
He leaned a little closer, keeping his expression neutral for any watching classmates. "You can safely simulate your spells here without any harm to the outside world. It will record and deliver every index regarding that spell for you to see—power output, mana consumption, casting time, stability curve, rebound risk, even projected area of effect and secondary effects. All you need to do is put your spell onto the page."
Rias stared at the innocent-looking sheet of paper in her hands. To the naked eye, it was nothing special. To her magical senses, however, it hummed with layered, impossibly dense mana circuits—thousands of micro-runes woven so finely they looked like mere texture at first glance.
She glanced up at him, eyes shining. "You built this... during class? While pretending to pay attention?" Arto's lips twitched—the smallest hint of pride. "I've had a lot of practice multitasking in worse environments."
Rias's grin turned positively predatory. "Then let's test it." She glanced around—classmates were already filing out, chattering about lunch and club meetings. No one was paying attention to the back row anymore. She focused. A tiny orb of Power of Destruction gathered in her palm—crimson, perfectly controlled, no bigger than a marble. She pressed it gently against the center of the paper.
The sheet drank it in without resistance. Instantly, the surface shimmered. Lines of silver-blue text and diagrams bloomed across the page like invisible ink revealed by heat:
Spell Type: Power of Destruction (Localized Annihilation Variant) Mana Cost: 0.47% of Rias Gremory's maximum reserve Output Energy: 1.82 × 10⁶ joules (equivalent to ~0.43 kg TNT) Casting Time: 0.62 seconds Stability: 99.8% (minimal rebound risk) Area of Effect: 0.8 m diameter sphere Secondary Effects: Thermal bloom (127°C surface temp), atmospheric ionization (trace ozone detectable) Simulation Result: Target material (concrete) → complete molecular disassembly in 0.14 seconds. No residual energy leakage.
A small 3D projection of the spell's detonation even hovered above the page—perfectly scaled, rotating slowly, showing every ripple of destruction in exquisite detail. Rias stared, mouth slightly open. "This is..."
Arto's voice continued directly in her mind—calm, steady, intimate—through the private telepathic link he'd established with a casual touch to her ear. *Accurate. Safe. Repeatable. You can iterate as many times as you want without risking the classroom... or the school... or the city.*
He leaned back slightly in his chair, expression neutral for anyone watching, but his mental tone carried quiet satisfaction. *You can even change the testing conditions by writing on the paper your settings—or just choose from the control panel that appears when you focus.*
Rias's gaze sharpened. She lifted the pen Arto had handed her earlier and—after only a second of hesitation—wrote a single line in neat, flowing script along the bottom margin:
*Target: 5-meter-thick reinforced concrete wall. Distance: 50 meters.*
The words sank into the paper like ink into water. Instantly, the simulation updated. The projection reshaped itself: the classroom backdrop vanished, replaced by a cross-section view of a massive concrete barrier.
The crimson orb reappeared—same size, same power—but now launched from 50 meters away. The detonation bloomed against the wall, cracks spiderwebbing outward in perfect, hyper-realistic detail. Chunks of simulated concrete vaporized, then reformed for the next iteration. A small side panel manifested beside the projection:
Penetration Depth: 4.87 meters Structural Failure Threshold: 92% Mana Efficiency: 0.47% → 0.51% (distance penalty) Rebound Risk: 0.02% (negligible)
Rias's breath caught. Arto's voice slipped into her mind again, soft and proud. And it never runs out of battery because it runs on Stabilizer. He paused, letting the weight of that sink in.
*Consider this the first example of magic-tech. Make sure your parents know about this, okay? Because I want to scale this up—to a facility instead of just a piece of paper.*
Rias looked from the paper to Arto, her expression shifting from amazement to a sudden, sharp realization. This wasn't just a training tool; it was a blueprint. If Arto could condense a high-fidelity combat simulator into a single sheet of parchment, the implications for the clan is...unreal.
It won't just harbor spell simulations, but machines, infrastructure, factories, gardens, training grounds, all can be generated, maintained and reconstructed endlessly with the power of Stabilizer, the manufacturing cost, training ground restoration cost, even the R&D cost....depleted to almost nothing, this could save so much money, and the speed of growth... it would be exponential.
Rias looked at the paper, then at Arto, and finally at the empty classroom. She felt a sudden, fierce protectiveness. This wasn't just a "tool" anymore; it was a strategic asset that could redefine the hierarchy of the Underworld. If Sona's parents were already circling like sharks—and Rias knew how the Sitri clan operated—then the Gremory household needed to move from "support" to "fortification" immediately.
"You're not just a strategist, are you?" Rias whispered, her voice barely audible. "You're an architect of an entirely different world." Arto shrugged, the movement casual, though his eyes remained vigilant, scanning the hallway for any lingering eavesdroppers. "It's my end of the deal, you gave me something, I give you something, I hope this is enough to prove my worth by palpable results."
Out of nowhere, Rias hugged Arto, pressing her face into his chest with a strength that nearly knocked the wind out of him. It wasn't the calculated hug of a noblewoman or the playful tease of a teammate; it was the instinctive grasp of someone who had just realized they held the winning lottery ticket to their family's survival.
Arto can feel his shirt getting wet, Rias was crying. He doesn't know why she was crying, this piece of paper was not a big deal to him, but somehow to her, it's like a lifebuoy found when drowning in the ocean. He lets out a sigh and pats her head, feeling a bit awkward.
"Don't cry on me, princess, people might get the wrong idea that I made the most famous girl in this school cry on my first day, it's really....annoying to explain," Arto murmured, his voice vibrating against her forehead. Despite the awkwardness of the physical proximity, he didn't pull away. He had spent centuries calculating the most efficient way to kill a man, but calculating the exact pressure needed to comfort a weeping noblewoman was a variable he hadn't yet mastered.
Rias eventually pulled back, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, though her expression remained one of profound relief. "You have no idea what this means to me, but thank you, a lot, for handing it to me, I'll let my parents know immediately," she said, her voice still shaky but regaining its regal composure. She carefully folded the simulation paper and tucked it into her blazer, treating it as if it were a holy relic.
Akeno, who had been watching the exchange with a soft, knowing smile, stepped forward to bridge the gap. "Well, now that the emotional crisis has passed and the world-changing technology is safely tucked away, I believe we have a more pressing matter," she teased, her eyes glittering. "The basketball team is probably wondering where their new star strategist vanished to, and Coach Tanaka is not a man who enjoys being kept waiting."
Arto let out a long, slow exhale, his gaze shifting toward the window where the afternoon sun was beginning to dip, casting long, golden shadows across the courtyard. "I suspect my 'star' status is a precarious thing," he remarked, referring back to the coach's warning about the unpredictability of real-world competition. "One bad play and I'll be back to being the clumsy giant who can't hit a layup."
"Then it's a good thing you're so good at pretending to be clumsy," Rias replied, her mood shifting back to the playful, mischievous tone she shared with her close friends. She looped her arm through his, mirroring Akeno's position on his other side. "Come on, Arata-kun. Let's get you out of here before Sona finds another 'vacancy' on her council for you to fill. I can practically smell her calculating your hourly value from across the building."
[ORC Clubhouse]
While Arto is on the course with the basketball team, Rias is in her room the clubhouse, the one Arto secured the other day when he spotted the watching attempt, it's the safest place in the clubhouse at the moment, the simulating paper laying on her desk, phone in her hand as she dialed her father's numbers.
"Father, the transmission is coming through the secure line," Rias whispered, her voice tight with an urgency that would have alarmed any onlooker.
On the other end, Lord Gremory's voice was tired, the sound of a man carrying the weight of a fading legacy. "Rias? It is quite late for a social call. Is everything alright? Did the integration process with the new student go smoothly?"
"Forget the integration, Father," Rias interrupted, her eyes fixed on the simulation paper. "I need to inform you something, something about Arto's newest delivery of magic-tech, the first prototype of what he called magic-tech simulation."
There was a brief pause, the kind of silence that precedes a landslide. "Simulation? Rias, be precise. What exactly are we talking about?"
Rias didn't waste time with words. Using a specialized Gremory transmission spell, she projected a high-fidelity image of the paper's output—the data logs, the precision of the Power of Destruction's energy curves, and the simulated penetration depth. She didn't just send the image; she sent the raw mathematical logic Arto had woven into the runes.
On the other end, she heard a sharp intake of breath. Then, the sound of a chair scraping violently against a floor. "My god," her father whispered, his voice no longer tired, but vibrating with a mixture of shock and sudden, piercing hope. "The mana efficiency... the stability metrics... Rias, if this logic is scalable, he hasn't just found a way to train mages. He's rewritten the fundamental laws of magical R&D. Do you realize what this does to our reconstruction costs? We could rebuild the ancestral facilities in a fraction of the time and at a fraction of the cost."
"He wants a facility, Father," Rias said, her voice gaining a firm, protective edge. "He wants to scale this up. He's not asking for a reward; he's asking for an infrastructure." a sigh came from the other side "It's inevitable when he wants that, but the situation of our clan might not be enough to provide what he needs, Rias, the war with Phenex and their allies is still a toll too deep on us"
The silence that followed was heavy, the kind of silence that usually preceded a difficult admission. Rias looked at the paper on her desk—a small, unassuming piece of parchment that held the potential to bankrupt their enemies and bankrupt her family's stress levels all at once.
"Does this mean....we might lose him, our miracle...Papa?" She asked, her voice dropping to a whisper. The thought of Arto realizing the Gremory clan was essentially a hollow shell of its former glory—a house of gold leaf over crumbling stone—terrified her. He wasn't a man who stayed for sentiment; he stayed for a mission.
"No, not unless another came into the play" Zeoticus admits, his voice torn between joy and stress, like it was both a good and a bad news "Sitri came to us today, offering assistance in exchange for... well, it was a thinly veiled demand for a seat at the table. I thought they were merely sniffing around our remaining assets, but now I see they smelled the fire before the match was even lit."
Rias stiffened. The warmth she had felt during her hug with Arto vanished, replaced by the cold reality of the Underworld's political climate. The Sitris weren't just allies; they were creditors and calculators. If Sona had already spotted the "Stabilizer" in Arto's wake, then her father had already calculated the interest on that investment.
"They're trying to leverage us, aren't they?" Rias asked, her voice hardening. "They are offering a 'synergy,' as they call it," Zeoticus replied with a dry, weary chuckle. "They have the liquidity and the political shield we lack, and we have the man who holds the key to the next era. It is a precarious balance, Rias. If we refuse them, we risk a political breakout that could make our house disappear, if they said a word, we're dead. But if we accept, we admit we can't provide for Arto on our own."
Rias looked at her phone, the image of the simulation paper still glowing on the screen. The only thing standing between Arto and the door of this house is his lack of knowledge of this world and his own position in the currents, if he knew his employers are too poor to fund his, he might defect to another side, which might be Sitri.
"Father, if we accept the Sitri offer, it means Arto is no longer just an ally of the Gremory family; he becomes a political asset," Rias said, her voice cold. "The moment he realizes we are using Sitri's funds to build his lab, he'll know he's being used as a bargaining chip. He hates being a pawn more than anything."
Zeoticus sighed, the sound echoing with a century of fatigue. "Good thing Sora agreed on investing via us to help us keep our image in Arto's eyes, but their cut when things are done....we must take the lower part for their agreement in cooperating and their silence, even if I am his best friend, some things can't change when it comes to clan's benefits."
Rias ended the call in silence. She stared at the simulation paper, the silver-blue lines of data still shimmering with a cold, mathematical precision. Her father's words were a lifeline, but they felt like a shackle. To the Gremory clan, this was a strategic pivot; to Arto, it was a matter of trust.
He had shared his vulnerabilities with her—the horrors of the Dark Arena and the fragmented shards of his memory—and in return, she was now part of a conspiracy to mask her family's insolvency. "The cost of a miracle is always high," she whispered to the empty room, taking the paper and sending it to her father via a delivering spell, this is a big step, but the next one would require a bridge that Gremory clan can't build themselves at the moment.
[Timeskip: Brought to you by Rias sitting alone looking at the dusk]
When Arto returned from the training session with the basketball team, he saw Rias sitting alone the living room, a cup of tea clutched tightly in her hands as she looked solemnly into the wall, she didn't even realize he was home. The silence in the room was heavy, lacking the usual vibrant energy that radiated from her. He paused in the doorway, his military instincts immediately flagging the shift in atmosphere; the tension in her shoulders was a tell-tale sign of a strategic crisis.
"The tea is getting cold, Rias," Arto said softly, his voice cutting through the silence.
Rias jumped slightly, her gaze snapping toward him. She quickly tried to smooth out her expression, forcing a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. "Welcome back, Arto. How was the... tactical simulation on the court? Did you manage to avoid any unplanned injuries?"
Arto walked toward her, his movements fluid and quiet. He didn't sit down immediately, instead observing the way she avoided meeting his gaze. "The team is competent, though their spatial awareness is abysmal. I spent most of the practice explaining that a basketball court is not a chaotic battlefield where you simply fire in the general direction of the goal." He paused, his eyes narrowing. "Something's on your mind"
He took the seat next to her, his eyes gaze straight into her orbs, he looks genuine, caring, and oblivious about the storm raging inside her.
Rias hesitated, her fingers drumming against the porcelain of her teacup. She wanted to be honest—she wanted to tell him that her family was struggling, that the Gremory name was currently a gilded facade, and that the very funds she intended to use for his facility were being filtered through the Sitri clan's coffers. But Arto was a man who lived in the margins of truth and deception; he could smell a lie like a hound could scent blood.
"My father called," she began, her voice carefully neutral. "He was... floored by the simulation tech. He's already discussing the logistics of the facility you requested. He wants to ensure you have everything you need—the right materials, the privacy, the sheer scale of the mana-conduits."
Arto didn't smile. He simply watched her, his silence acting as a mirror that forced her to maintain the facade. "He sounds supportive," Arto noted, though his tone suggested he was calculating the weight of that support. "But you're not celebrating. Usually, when the Gremory clan wins a strategic victory, you're the first to brag about it to the heavens."
Rias felt a lump form in her throat. The irony was suffocating; she was trying to protect him from the truth to keep him, while the act of hiding it felt like she was pushing him away. "It's just... the pressure of it all. The scale of what you've created, Arto. It's not just a lab. It's a shift in how we exist. I'm worried about the target it puts on your back. The Underworld doesn't handle 'disruption' well."
Arto watched her for a moment, then reached out and gently took the teacup from her trembling fingers, setting it on the table with a soft *clink*. "Not anyone could handle a disruption well, especially those who have seated too long at the chair of power, scaling too big on the old system, changing means disrupting their flows of benefits and the cost of changing is too great to bear. That's an advantage of someone starting at a low point, they can change easily without much of concerns"
Rias stiffened, she knows he is just talking vaguely with the mind of a strategist, but it sounds like he has somehow known about her family's situation, 'He hasn't found out, right?' Rias thought to herself while looking at the man beside her. Arto didn't have a crystal ball, nor did he have a spy network in the Underworld, but he had something far more dangerous: an intuition for instability. To Arto, the way Rias shifted her weight, the micro-tremor in her voice, and the way she clung to the word 'disruption' were data points.
"Let's get you loosen a little, princess" Arto pulled her up by his hands on her wrists, pulling her away from the soft chair into the backyard of the clubhouse, where the ring Arto and Kiba usually spar is still presence, "I told you I will train you on hand-to-hand combat, right?" Arto asked while putting Rias into the ring and him walking towards the other side of the arena.
"When you're in the ring, you are my soldier, Rias, so leave all your concern outside the ring, because a Deadman can't speak, or think, you're here to train your muscle, not your brain," Arto said, his voice shifting. It wasn't aggressive, but it had a certain rhythmic weight to it—the voice of a commanding officer who had led men through hell and back. He stood with his feet shoulder-width apart, arms hanging loosely at his sides, looking entirely unguarded.
"From this day on, you will train under my tutelage with Abyssgard Legion training regimen, and my own hand-to-hand combat drill," Arto continued, his voice echoing in the open air. "I will make you a better warrior so that you can face the Dark Arena, so that you can face the hardships before you, because sulking in a dark room won't solve the problems, only the one who moves forward will find the solution."
Rias blinked, the transition from the suffocating weight of her family's secrets to the crisp air of the training ring leaving her momentarily breathless. She looked at Arto—really looked at him. He wasn't looking at her with pity, nor was he looking at her as a noblewoman to be protected. He was looking at her as a raw asset that needed refining. For the first time in weeks, the noise of political debts and Sitri leverage faded into the background, replaced by the simple, primal reality of the ring.
"You're very bossy for someone who isn't technically my servant," Rias retorted, though a spark of competitive fire had finally ignited in her eyes. She stepped forward, shifting her weight into a clumsy attempt at a fighting stance she had seen in old textbooks.
Arto didn't even flinch; he simply sighed, a sound of profound disappointment that seemed to echo across the courtyard. "That stance is a dinner invitation for any opponent with a basic level of cognitive function. This means you're not ready for actual combat, let's start with simple stuffs, okay?"
He released his stance, walking relaxingly towards Rias while the princess was still keeping her stance though clumsy as if he would strike her out of nowhere. Arto laughed "I can see your caution, but you needn't be that serious, we haven't gotten into actual fight" He stopped before her, just in her arm range "If you can throw a punch that actually pushes me back, I'll fight seriously"
Rias scoffed, the challenge striking a chord in her pride that outweighed her lingering melancholy. "You think I can't move you? I have the strength of a high-class devil, Arto." She didn't waste another second, pivoting her hips and throwing a sharp, straight right punch aimed squarely at his chest. It was a fast strike, backed by a sudden surge of demonic power that whistled through the air.
When the fist contacted with his chest, there was a dull *thud* that sounded more like a heavy book hitting a mattress than a punch. Arto didn't fly backward; he didn't even stumble. He stood there like a mountain, his gaze didn't waver a single bit "It did pack some force, I'll give you that, but that's not enough to wound me, princess, now, relax a little, let me fix your stance"
Arto stepped inside her guard, his movements blurring with a precision that made the air hum. Before Rias could retract her hand, he reached out, his fingers catching her wrist and twisting it slightly to pull her center of gravity forward. With a gentle but firm shove to her shoulder, he sent her stumbling past him, her momentum carrying her three steps further into the ring.
"You're relying on your demonic strength to carry your lack of form," Arto explained, his voice returning to that calm, pedagogical tone. "Power is a multiplier, Rias. If your form is a zero, the result is still zero. You're punching with your arm, not your body. You're throwing a rock; you should be launching a projectile."
Rias huffed, her face flushing—not from exhaustion, but from the sheer audacity of being lectured on mechanics. She tried to reset her footing, but Arto was already behind her. He didn't strike; instead, he placed a hand on the small of her back and another on her hip, adjusting the angle of her pelvis with a clinical efficiency.
"Your weight is too far back," he murmured, his touch brief and professional, yet sending a jolt of warmth through her that momentarily distracted her from her frustration. "Sink your weight into your heels. Imagine you are rooted into the earth, but your upper body is a whip. The power starts at the toe, travels through the knee, rotates the hip, and only then does it reach the fist."
Rias closed her eyes, focusing on the sensation. She felt the difference immediately. The shift in balance felt precarious, like she was leaning over a ledge, but as she exhaled, she felt a new kind of tension coil in her core—a spring being wound tight.
"Good, you're learning fast, now throw a punch, properly this time" Arto stepped back, giving her space, his arms returning to that deceptively loose position.
Rias didn't hesitate. She visualized the chain of motion he had just described—the rooting of the heels, the rotation of the hip, the snap of the shoulder. She didn't try to overload the strike with raw demonic energy this time; instead, she focused on the *delivery*. She lunged forward, her body moving as a single, integrated unit. The punch landed squarely against Arto's shoulder.
The sound was different this time—not a dull thud, but a sharp, cracking impact. Arto slid back a few inches on the canvas, his expression shifting from clinical to genuinely impressed.
"Better," he admitted, his voice carrying a hint of a smile. "You've stopped fighting the air and started fighting me. Now, let us continue, princess, you still have a long way to go until you're ready to face me in a real scrap."
Rias breathed heavily, her chest heaving, but for the first time in days, the tightness in her heart had loosened. The physical exertion was a solvent, scrubbing away the grime of the political anxiety that had threatened to suffocate her. She looked at Arto, who was already shifting his weight, preparing for the next sequence. He was a mystery—a man who had been broken by a thousand years of war, yet he stood before her with a clarity of purpose that she envied.
"You talk about 'the hardships before me' as if they're an inevitable tide," Rias said, her voice steadying as she settled back into the stance he had taught her. "Do you always view life as a sequence of battles, Arto? Even the quiet moments?"
Arto paused, his gaze softening as he looked at her. "That's most of my life, Rias, one battle after another, it didn't end until the day I died, but it doesn't mean we have to be on alert state in every moment, a life of battles taught me how to appreciate, small, happy moments, to enjoy the blank state of a mind that has always been running on combat instincts"
He stepped closer, the intensity of the commander fading back into the quiet presence of the companion. "You should do that sometimes, circles in thoughts take lots of energy, and it makes your mind heavy, even when you're asleep."
He flexed his muscles "Meanwhile, some physical works would help you let your mind go a little in a drill like this, when it's done, it's done, your body heals, you get to relax. That's why there are people who prefer physical labors to paperwork at a desk, the work won't follow them out of their worksites despite the better working environment in an office"
Rias let out a soft, genuine laugh, the sound echoing through the quiet courtyard. It was the first time she had felt truly light in days. "You make it sound so simple, Arto. Just punch the stress away."
[Timeskip: Brought to you by chibi Rias throwing a punch that almost blow the clubhouse away]
The backyard behind the Occult Research Club was bathed in the soft lavender of early evening. The sun had dipped below the horizon, leaving the sky bruised with purple and gold. The training dummies stood battered—splinters and dents marking where Rias's fists and elbows had struck. The grass beneath their feet was scuffed and torn in places, testifying to hours of relentless footwork, drills, and controlled falls.
Rias stood in the center of the yard, hands on her knees, breathing hard. Sweat soaked her crimson sports top and leggings, strands of hair clinging to her forehead and neck. Her arms trembled from the constant tension of maintaining perfect form. Bruises bloomed across her knuckles, her forearms, the side of one calf—ugly purple patches where Arto's open-palm blocks and light counters had landed with deliberate precision.
She had lasted longer than most beginners would have. But she had reached her limit. Arto watched her from a few paces away—arms crossed, expression calm but not unkind. He had pushed her hard: stance corrections repeated until her legs shook, shadowboxing until her shoulders screamed, basic throws that left her sprawled in the grass again and again. Every time she rose, he nodded once—small acknowledgment—and corrected the next flaw.
Now she was done. Not broken. Just... spent. Rias straightened slowly, wincing as her muscles protested. She tried to take a step toward him—then her legs buckled. Before she could hit the ground, Arto was there.
He caught her effortlessly—one arm under her knees, the other around her back—lifting her into a bridal carry as though she weighed nothing. Rias's arms instinctively looped around his neck, face pressing against his shoulder. "I... can walk," she mumbled, pride warring with exhaustion.
"You can barely stand, and your center of gravity is currently malfunctioning," Arto replied, his voice devoid of mockery, replaced instead by a quiet, grounding steadiness. He didn't set her down as he walked toward the clubhouse. "Your eyes have brightened, no more gloomy anxiety of before, so I can say this training session was a success."
Rias let out a tired huff, her head resting against his collarbone. The scent of him—something like old leather and a faint, metallic tang of ozone—was oddly comforting. "You're an insufferable teacher," she whispered, though she tightened her grip on his shoulder. For a moment, the hierarchy of the Underworld ceased to exist. She wasn't the heiress to a struggling house, and he wasn't a mercenary with a fragmented soul. They were simply two people, exhausted and breathing in the cooling evening air.
He carried her into the living room, carefully depositing her onto the plush sofa. As he stepped away to find a towel, Rias looked at her hands. The bruising was superficial, but the feeling in her muscles was profound; she felt a strange, electric clarity. By forcing her body to the brink of collapse, Arto had effectively silenced the noise of the Sitri negotiations. He had given her a gift: the luxury of a mind that was too tired to worry.
"Here," Arto said, returning with a damp cloth and a bottle of water. He knelt beside her, not to serve, but with the pragmatic care of a field medic. He handed her the water and then, without asking, took the damp cloth and began to gently dab the grime and sweat from her forehead.
Rias watched him, her gaze softening. "Arto...I want to ask you something." She paused, her heart hammering against her ribs. This was the precipice. "What would happen if you received a better deal? Would you leave us if a more powerful clan—or a more stable one—offered you the resources you need for your research?"
The question hung in the air, fragile and dangerous. Arto didn't stop his movements; he continued to dab the cloth against her temple with steady, rhythmic pressure. He didn't look surprised, nor did he look calculating. He simply looked at her, his eyes reflecting a depth of experience that made the political squabbles of the Underworld seem like children playing house.
"On our first day as companions, what did I say about our contract?" He asked, his voice a low hum that seemed to vibrate in the small space between them. He set the cloth aside, his hand lingering for a moment near her cheek, not touching, but close enough that she could feel the warmth of his skin. "I told you that once both sides satisfy their end of the deal, we can talk about emotional bonds. And you have delivered me what I want, resources, though they are just books, but more importantly, your trust, trust in a man you know nothing of, a man who has no past, no records, nothing to call his own in a world he barely knows."
Rias searched his eyes for any hint of hesitation, any glimmer of the mercenary who might be weighing the Gremory name against a Sitri checkbook. But there was only a quiet, immovable certainty. "I have somewhat guessed your family's situation, I know they are struggling, I just don't know the magnitude of it. Your action in trying to secure me in your peerage with a Piece of yours told me that you're not confident in keeping me in my current state or there are ways to break our contracts, this brought me to a conclusion, your family is not in a position of wealth and politic, but of desperation."
Rias felt her breath hitch. She had spent days meticulously building a wall of lies, and he had simply walked around it using basic deduction. The shame of her family's decline flared up for a moment, but it was quickly eclipsed by a profound sense of relief. The secret was no longer a wedge between them; it was a bridge.
"But, there is a thing about small, desperate clan in hardships, I told you, right? They are willing and ready to change. They don't cling to the old, rotting traditions because they have nothing to lose," Arto said, his voice dropping to a comforting murmur.
He didn't pull his hand away; instead, he allowed his thumb to graze her cheekbone, a gesture of intimacy that felt earned through the sweat and bruises of the afternoon. "If I agreed to follow a bigger clan, would I ever have my freedom like this again? Or I'll get leashed down for my knowledge to be squeezed out of my brain until I am just an empty husk. Your family quick agreement in letting me keep the core architect of Stabilizer is another sign of desperation, they were not in the place where pride could save them, so they chose trust."
Rias let out a shaky breath, the tension that had lived in her shoulders for weeks finally dissolving. "You... you don't feel betrayed? That we didn't tell you?"
"No, I didn't feel betrayed because your clan's state was never my care in the first place, for a man who just arrived from another world, a shelter and food are more than enough, not mentioning I am a soldier before a leader, and soldiers don't care about the gold on the walls, only if the walls can hold the enemy," Arto replied, his thumb still tracing a slow, calming line across her cheek.
"Betrayal is when you promise a destination and lead me into an ambush. You gave me a home and a goal. That's your end of the deal delivered, and I delivered what I promised, knowledge, training, innovations. That's both ends satisfied, now we can talk about emotions, right?"
Rias leaned into his hand, her eyes shimmering. The weight of her secret had been a mountain she carried alone; to have Arto simply acknowledge it as a strategic variable—something to be managed rather than mourned—was an immense relief. She felt a surge of affection for this man who viewed the world through a lens of cold logic yet treated her with a tenderness that felt warmer than any nobility's formal courtesy.
"And when talking about emotions, you all cared about me, genuinely, that's the thing I cherished the most in my time here," Arto murmured, his gaze softening as he looked at her. "Especially you, Rias, you cared for me when I overworked translating magic, you came into my Dark Arena and fought with me there, you kept being there and even took on training like this to accompany me knowing too well your growth is not fast enough to pace with the Arena's learning speed, but you did it anyway"
A hand of his is now on her head, rubbing affectionately "I've never in my life seen a person who would endure pain, stress, sleep loss, and maybe PTSD in an endless battles for a person they just met, no scheme or malice could keep a person putting on such act for that long, Rias"
Rias didn't respond with words. Instead, she leaned forward, closing the small gap between them and burying her face in the crook of his neck. She let out a long, shaky sigh, the sound of a woman who had finally stopped pretending to be an unbreakable pillar for everyone else. The silence of the clubhouse wrapped around them, warm and insulating, shielding them from the expectations of the Gremory name and the calculations of the Sitri clan.
Arto didn't pull away. He shifted slightly, wrapping his other arm around her to hold her close, his steady heartbeat acting as a metronome for her slowing breath. "That's a thing about you that I like, your compassion as a leader, and maybe, it would have subsided if your parents have had more time teaching you."
Rias shuddered hearing that, he never told him that, how could he possibly know about her distance with her parents when the clan was healing and works were piling up their head to a point that they rarely saw each other? "How....how could you know?"
Arto chuckled slightly, patting the back of her head, running his fingers through her crimson hair tenderly "2 factors, how you reacted to me and how your parents did, it gave me a perception that your strategic and calculating parents....never taught you their mindsets, their vision of the world, combined with your clan's struggle, it's easy to understand that you almost grew up on your own, with a distance that only a few servants filled in."
Rias pulled back just enough to look at him, her eyes wide. The realization hit her—Arto didn't just read combat patterns or political shifts; he read people. He had diagnosed the emotional void in her upbringing as easily as he had diagnosed the flaw in her punching stance.
To anyone else, she was the poised heiress of the Gremory clan, a paragon of nobility. To Arto, she was simply a girl who had been left to figure out the world by herself while her parents were buried in the ruins of their own administrative nightmares.
"But that lonely growing, surprisingly, birthed something your parents didn't expect, compassion," Arto added, his voice barely above a whisper. He shifted his grip, his hand sliding from her hair to cup the back of her neck, holding her gaze with a piercing clarity. "If your parents had brought you up by their own teachings, you'll end up like Sona, cold, strategic, and seeing people as pieces on a board. Instead, you're a heart that bleeds for others. In a world of monsters and nobility, that's the rarest resource there is."
Rias felt a lump form in her throat. For years, she had viewed the distance between herself and her parents as a failure of her own ability to connect—a gap she needed to bridge through perfection and duty. To hear Arto frame it as the very thing that made her capable of reaching him was a revelation. She didn't feel the need to be the Great Gremory in this moment; she just wanted to be Rias.
She shifted her weight, moving closer until her chest pressed against his. The heat radiating from him was an anchor, pulling her away from the floating anxiety of her family's debts and the looming shadow of the Sitri clan's "generosity." "You're far too good at this, Arto," she murmured, a small, playful smile finally returning to her lips. "Diagnosing my flaws, fixing my stance, reading my heart... you're starting to sound like a therapist who charges by the hour."
Arto smiled, flicking her forehead with his finger "Giving me some money and I will bring that psychological therapist diploma back by tomorrow, princess." He eased his grip, though he didn't pull away entirely, leaving a lingering warmth that bridged the small gap between them.
The air in the room had shifted; the heavy, suffocating tension of the past few weeks hadn't just been lifted—it had been replaced by something far more potent. For the first time, the silence between them wasn't filled with the unspoken words of a master and a partner, but with the quiet understanding of two people who had finally stopped performing for the world.
"Now, get up," Arto commanded, his voice regaining a hint of that playful officer's edge. "You're shaking like a newborn calf and you still smell like a gym locker. If Akeno walks in here and sees you in this state, she'll spend the next three hours teasing you about your 'passionate' training session with me, and frankly, I don't have the mental stamina to deal with her commentary tonight."
Rias laughed, a genuine, melodic sound that filled the living room. She allowed herself to be guided toward the bathroom, leaning against him more than was strictly necessary. As she walked, she felt a sudden, sharp clarity.
The Sitri deal was still a problem, and her family was still struggling, but the fear was gone. She realized that Arto didn't see her financial instability as a weakness; he saw it as a catalyst. By stripping away the facade of Gremory prestige, she had become something he actually respected: someone honest.
When Rias is in the shower, Arto is sitting right outside, leaning his back against the wall "So Sitri clan has known more about me than expected, is this a mistake from your end, Rias?" He asked, his voice muffled by the sound of the water, but his tone was devoid of accusation.
Rias answered from inside the bathroom "It's a deal between us, Arto, Sona and I are managing in this town together, so we had an agreement of transparency in intels, but in my talk with her, I didn't mention anything about your work aside from categorizing you as a plain warrior I found, what's left I think it's on her own curiosity"
Arto let out a soft hum, the sound vibrating against the wall. "And it might have led her into spying on us on the day I talked to your parents, is that her power?" he asked, thinking about the eye he found trying to read his encrypted books "No, that's not her power, Sona's power is water magic, it doesn't help much in surveilling people."
This answer makes Arto even more concerned, this means there is a third side knowing about his existence and maybe Stabilizer, "If it's Sona's effort and the watcher is the person she had in stock, the problem won't be as hard since Sitri would know not to spill it out. But if it's a person from the third side, we are in an even bigger trouble"
The shower cut off with a sudden, metallic thud. The silence that followed was heavy, echoing the shift in Arto's tone. Rias stepped out of the bathroom, wrapped in a thick robe, her damp crimson hair clinging to her shoulders. She saw him leaning against the wall, his arms crossed, his eyes narrowed in that specific way that meant he was no longer thinking about the present, but calculating the next ten possible threats.
"A third side?" Rias asked, her voice cautious. "Arto, Sona is meticulous, but she isn't reckless. She wouldn't hire an outside mercenary to spy on a fellow High-Class Devil's peerage. The political fallout would be catastrophic."
Arto pushed off the wall, stepping toward her. "In my experience, Rias, the people who claim they wouldn't be 'reckless' are usually the ones who hire the most dangerous ghosts. If Sona is using a proxy, it means she doesn't trust the official channels—she believed that you're hiding something from her, and that belief led her to a decision. But that's if Sona was the one behind it, if not, we are facing an unknown threat who with one sentence, could send Gremory directly to grave and me to a prison somewhere in the Underworld."
Rias frowned, the warmth of their previous intimacy cooling under the weight of his tactical assessment. "I haven't gotten what you meant" She asked as Arto slowly moved into the bathroom
"What I meant was that with just one sentence 'Gremory is holding the solution to ambient mana flow', it would get every faction to work up, especially your family's enemies, they will have their cause to attack you and seize that 'secret'. no matter if it's true or not" Arto lingered at the opened door, his hand checking the water for the right temperature
When doing so, he continued with his analysis "And I think they have already gotten the existence of Stabilizer confirmed, the only matter we should care about is what they are going to do with that piece of information," Arto said, his voice dropping into a low, rhythmic cadence before closing the door of the bathroom and the water started running.
"So, what do we do now?" Rias asked from the closed bathroom door "Do we call the Sitri's side to confirm their surveilling attempts, or we look for the spy and deal with them, or....whatever you can think of? It's really urgent, right?"
The sound of the rushing water acting as a white noise screen as Arto answered from inside the shower. "Yep, it's urgent and one of your measures sounds good, we need to meet Sitri side to confirm their prying attempt, maybe we can even get the identity of the one who was hired to spy on us. It's also a good chance to re-deal that contract of your clan because right now, it looks like you're just a proxy channel for Sitri clan to approach me and my work."
Rias leaned against the doorframe, the plush fabric of her robe absorbing the chill of the room. The transition from emotional vulnerability to strategic crisis happened with a speed that only Arto could facilitate. "But what advantage we have against them, Arto? They hold the existence of yours and Stabilizer in their hand, if they speak it out, we're doomed."
"There is another thing I still have against them, Sitri clan doesn't know about it, your parents don't know about it, but you know it," Arto's voice came through the steam, muffled but carrying a sharp, confident edge. Rias' head tilted a little, her mind started thinking about what Arto meant by his second trump card.....until "Systematic Magic?" She whispered.
From inside, Arto heard that whisper, and a small, knowing smile touched his lips. "Exactly" he said, getting some shampoo into his palm "Stabilizer when standing on its own is just a big battery, it could churn out an absurd amount of energy, but utilizing it meaningfully, only Systematic Magic has the power and versitility to manage that"
As he washed his head, Arto continued "Stabilizer's raw power output would overload any spell they use with it, and to adjust the flow of energy for the intended mana usage at the current rate of spellcrafting of this world would take them years for simple spells, and decades or more for more complicated magical constructs, all the while with Systematic Magic, it would only take a few moments to a few days at most, and a small amount of effort for any magic that could be conceptualized into a logical system."
Rias leaned her head against the wall, her eyes widening. She had seen glimpses of the prototypes, but she hadn't fully grasped the synergy. Arto wasn't just providing a power source; he was providing the operating system. The Sitri clan might have the funding and the curiosity, but they were essentially trying to run a supercomputer with a manual typewriter. Without the Systematic Magic to bridge the gap, the Stabilizer was a dormant volcano—immense potential, but useless unless you knew how to direct the eruption.
"They can't simply steal the device and use it," Rias realized, her voice gaining a new level of confidence. "They'd have the fuel tank, but they completely lack the engine."
"Precisely," Arto's voice drifted through the steam. "Which puts us in a position to move from a defensive posture to an offensive one. If they don't agree to my terms, I'll only provide Systematic Magic constructs for Gremory magic-tech machines, and they would have to buy them from you with the price....of your demand."
Rias stood straight, her expression shifting from a worried heiress to a cunning strategist. The fear that had plagued her for weeks—the feeling of being a pawn in Sona's game—evaporated. She wasn't just a middleman anymore; she was the sole distributor of the only interface that made the Stabilizer viable. A slow, predatory smile curved her lips. "You're suggesting we stop playing the victim of a financial crisis and start acting like a monopoly."
"The most effective way to handle a predator is to make yourself too expensive to eat," Arto replied. The shower stopped with a definitive click. A moment later, he stepped out, wrapped in a towel and radiating a calm, focused energy.
He didn't look like a man who had just survived a traumatic memory or a grueling workout; he looked like a general reviewing a map. "Now, will you arrange me that meeting with Sitri side? Maybe pull Sona's parents into this as well, I want them to know I am not to be tossed around like a ball between two children."
'This man....' Rias thought to herself as she looked at Arto, 'is truly a monster in a human shell.' The man who just comforted her heart, now laying out a plan to turn the table for her family against Sitri clan in just one afternoon.
Rias took a deep breath, her mind already racing. She knew Sona's father, a man of rigid logic and high expectations. He viewed the world through the lens of a grand chessboard, and the Gremory clan's current instability was a weakness he intended to exploit. But the one thing a strategist hates more than a loss is an unpredictable variable. Arto was that variable—a ghost with the knowledge of an ancient empire and the pragmatism of a mercenary.
"I can arrange it," Rias said, her voice regaining the authoritative resonance of a High-Class Devil. "But Arto, if we bring the Sitri parents into this, we are no longer dealing with student politics. This becomes a formal diplomatic encounter. The stakes will be higher, and the scrutiny will be absolute. And they are still holding the card of your existence in their hand...."
"I know" Arto answered, drying his hair with a towel "and I also know they won't use it unless I go overboard with my terms, because they too love this innovations, and letting more people come into the play would only make more enemies for them to out-bargain, so I'll be..."
Arto made a 'small' gesture with his thumb and index fingers "...a little less arrogant than usual. Just to talk easier and not to get them reckless with my existence."
He paused, looking at her with an expression that was neither cold nor warm, but purely analytical. "But let's be clear: the moment we step into that room, the dynamic changes. You are no longer the desperate daughter seeking a lifeline, and I am no longer the mysterious tutor. We are the owners of the only functional future for mana-tech. I want you to walk in there not as a Gremory seeking a favor, but as the only person who can grant the Sitri clan the keys to the kingdom."
Rias felt a thrill of electricity run down her spine. Without a warning, she hugged Arto again, this time with a fierce, sudden intensity that nearly knocked the towel off his shoulders. She buried her face into his bare chest, all the turmoils within and without, from inside her heart to the situation of her family, finally feeling as though she had found a rock to lean on. "You really are a terrifying man, Arto," she murmured, her voice muffled against his skin.
Arto sighed, placing a hand on her head "You really enjoy hugging me out of nowhere, huh, Rias? You're becoming quite the affectionate cling-wrap." Rias chuckled against his chest, "It's because you're the only thing in my life right now that doesn't feel like a complicated equation," she admitted softly. "Thank you, Arto. For everything."
"Don't thank me yet. Go rest and appoint the Sitri for me, okay? As soon as possible, I need to know exactly who I am dealing with, both the clan and the spy, unless they don't know who watched us, then we can talk about trouble" He took a step back, the warmth on his face is still presenced "Don't think too much about the meeting, okay? Your mind has take enough today"
With that final word, Arto turned to leave to his room, his silhouette receding into the hallway with a practiced, silent gait. Rias stayed frozen for a moment, the silence of the clubhouse final made her notice how hot her face is. She cupped her cheeks with both hands, her heart still drumming against her ribs when she thought about the moment she shared with Arto 'Am I really.....'
[Timeskip: Brought to you by chibi Rias sitting next to chibi Arto asking him something]
Arto and Rias are on their way to the meeting with Sitri clan as appointed with Sona under the reason that was said to be 'consultation of a new academic project' by Rias, "Where are we meeting, Rias?" Arto asked while adjusting his tuxedo for the meeting, the tux Rias bought for him the first time they went out together on a shopping trip.
"At a meeting room in the central building of Kuoh, that is usually the neutral ground when 2 clans need discussions" Rias answered while adjusting her own attire as well, not the usual Kuoh Academy uniform anymore, she wore something to match her companion and the importance of the meeting.
She looked at him, her eyes tracing the sharp lines of the tuxedo. "You look like you belong in the Underworld's high society, Arto. If you weren't so stubbornly humble, you'd actually be a terrifying presence in a ballroom."
Arto let out a dry snort, his gaze remaining focused on the road. "Tuxedos are just uniforms for a different kind of war, Rias. The battlefield is just smaller, and instead of artillery, people use etiquette and subtle insults to destroy each other. It's far more tedious than a trench, but the objective is the same: survival and leverage."
The car glided to a stop in front of a tall, modern building at the central zone of Kuoh, the door opened as Arto and Rias stepped out of it, marching inside towards the place where their war is about to start. The air inside the building was sterilized and quiet, a stark contrast to the humid air outside.
Rias came to the receptionist and showed the employee presence a card "Meeting Room floor 34", hearing that, the employee's face get serious as she initiated some kind of procedure with the first step of taking up her phone "Protocol A-1 confirmed," she said before pressing another button to start something that Arto immediately noticed.
'Wards, shields, firewalls,....seems like they really took this meeting seriously' Arto thought to himself as the countless security layers being laid one upon another. After about 5 minutes, the building is completely sealed shut with magic as the receptionist looked at the guests "Please, follow me"
She took the card Rias gave her and led them into a hidden corridor where a discreet elevator is installed. Scanning the card, the elevator is opened for them to head inside, Arto and Rias got into the elevator as the scanning procedure started with a warning form the receptionist "Please stand still,"
A thin beam of iridescent light swept from the ceiling to the floor, passing through Arto's body. He didn't flinch, though he could feel the probe attempting to map his internal mana conduits and detect any concealed weaponry. It was a standard high-level security sweep, designed to strip a visitor of their secrets before they ever touched the carpet of a meeting room.
Arto kept his breathing steady, his presence dampened to a dull hum, allowing the scan to register him as a "low-output anomaly" rather than a tactical powerhouse. Beside him, Rias remained poised, her expression a mask of noble indifference, though her fingers were tightly entwined with his.
The elevator ascended with a stomach-churning speed, the pressure changing rapidly as they climbed. When the doors slid open on the 34th floor, they weren't greeted by a receptionist, but by a phalanx of Sitri guards, their spears held at a precise forty-five-degree angle. At the end of the hall, through a pair of towering mahogany doors, sat the decision-makers.
As they entered the room, the atmosphere was stiflingly formal. Sona was there, standing to the side with her arms crossed, her expression unreadable but her eyes sharp. Next to her sat her father, Lord Sitri, a man whose presence felt like a cold current of water—calm, deep, and capable of drowning anyone who lost their footing. He didn't stand when they entered; he simply watched them with a clinical gaze that seemed to be dissecting Arto's very soul.
"Greeting, Rias dear, and you" his pink gaze that Sona took after pinned on Arto "you must be the Arto Abyssgard my daughter has been talking about" Before Arto could answer, a presence came in from behind them, a cheerful voice of a woman was what welcomed them "My dear Rias, it's been a long time"
Rias stiffened, her posture shifting from a strategist's poise to that of a surprised daughter. She turned to see Lady Sitri, Sona's mother, stepping into the room with a grace that seemed to glide over the floor. Unlike her husband's oppressive chill, Lady Sitri radiated a warmth that felt carefully curated—the kind of warmth a predator uses to lure prey into a false sense of security.
"Aunt Sena, it's really been a while" Rias answered as she took the hands of the woman into hers before performing a French greeting kiss with the matriarch of Sitri clan. The air in the room, previously as stagnant as a tomb, suddenly shifted toward a deceptive warmth. Lady Sitri's eyes, however, didn't linger on Rias; they drifted toward Arto, scanning him with a curiosity that was far more invasive than the electronic security beams in the elevator.
"And this," Lady Sitri murmured, her voice like silk over steel, "is the man who has caused such a stir in my daughter's reports. Arto Abyssgard, wasn't it?" She smiled at him, but the expression didn't reach her eyes, which remained as calculating as a jeweler appraising a rough diamond. "What you showed us these last few weeks, nothing short from remarkable, my dear. Come, sit, let us talk about our further cooperation"
She didn't even look at Rias when saying that sentence, the intimacy of relatives shifted quickly to cold business with that same gentle tone of a warm mother, 'This woman is not simple...' Arto's mind took a note as he took Rias's wrist into his hand "Yes, my lady, but I believed you meant the Gremory also in our 'further cooperation'?"
The silence that followed was surgical. Lord Sitri's gaze sharpened, his eyes narrowing as he observed Arto's hand gripping Rias's wrist. It was a small gesture—a simple act of support—but in the rigid hierarchy of the Underworld, it was a loud statement of possession and partnership. Arto wasn't acting like a servant or a hired hand; he was acting like an equal to the Gremory heiress.
"A fair point," Lord Sitri replied, his voice a low rumble that seemed to vibrate the very mahogany of the table. "However, the Gremory family's current... precariousness... makes them a silent partner in this arrangement. The funding, the resources, and the political shield provided by the Sitri clan are the pillars upon which this project stands. Naturally, the direction of that project is decided by the pillars."
Arto didn't let go of Rias. Instead, he led her into the meeting room, which has shifted into a more intimate scene with 2 couches surrounding a table with a chessboard in the middle, white on Sitri's side and black on the visitor's side, and placed her right in the position opposite to Lord Sitri, an heiress sitting as equals to a patriarch, a declaration of the position of Gremory in this talk.
Arto sat down right next to her as Sena Sitri sat down next to her husband, the positioning has settled the status of both sides in this conversation. Sona noticed as well, her role in this meeting as the appointment maker has been done. Nodding to her father, Sona started preparing tea for both sides, the steam from the porcelain cups acting as a momentary veil between the opposing parties.
When the tea is served, Sona remained standing, waiting for the initial side, the white to start. Lord Sitri nodded courtly before moving the first piece on the board—a simple pawn's opening, but the movement was deliberate, an assertion of the space.
"Let us dispense with the social theater," Lord Sitri began, his voice devoid of warmth. "The Stabilizer is a marvel of engineering, Arto. The reports of its output are staggering. However, as we discussed with Rias, the Gremory family is currently unable to sustain the research costs. We are more than happy to absorb those expenses, provided the intellectual property is transferred to the Sitri archives for 'safekeeping'."
Arto didn't look at the board. He looked at Rias, who still seems confused about why Arto put her into this position while the main topic of the negotiation is him 'Move the piece, Rias, tell them who they are negotiating with, they are trying to push you out of this talk' Arto told Rias using the telepathic link he established with her before the meeting.
Rias blinked, the fog in her mind clearing. She looked at the pawn Lord Sitri had moved. The realization hit her: he wasn't just asking for the intellectual property; he was attempting to erase her from the equation entirely. He was treating her as a mere courier for Arto, a temporary vessel for a prize that now belonged to the Sitri clan by right of financial dominance.
Rias picked up her black piece and placed it down with a louder than usual *thumb*, a call for attention that cut through Lord Sitri's composure. "The contract both sides have signed has stated clearly, Lord Sitri, the core architecture of Stabilizer remains under Arto's personal possession, we are allowed to eat the fruit it produces, but the seeds belong to him," she said, her voice gaining that steel edge Arto had coached her to find. "Therefore, transferring the intellectual property to your archives would violate the term both clans signed. You aren't asking for safekeeping; you're asking for a forfeiture."
Lord Sitri's eyes flickered toward Arto, his expression shifting from clinical to mildly irritated. He didn't like being corrected by a girl he considered a debtor. "The 'seeds' are useless without the soil to plant them in, Rias. The resources—the rare ores, the mana-capacitors, the high-density arrays—are all being provided by my house. Without us, the Stabilizer is a heavy paperweight." Another piece is moved on the board.
Rias didn't hesitate "It's only when Gremory house can't provide what it promised him, Lord Sitri" She moved her piece "The project of scaling up the Simulation Paper is still in preparation phase with no materials listed from Arto here, so there is no guarantee that we would need you in funding him, right, Arto?"
Arto noticed the fire in Rias' eyes, it's his turn to speak "That's true, milord, I was planning to scale up the Simulation Tech into a research facility that would serve multiple purposes like manufacturing, military training, R&D works, etc. The material list is still in progress, so what Lady Gremory said was true, there is no guarantee that Sitri will have a say in this if Gremory could fund this on their own."
Lord Sitri paused, his hand hovering over a bishop. The silence stretched, heavy with the sound of an ego bruising in real-time. He looked at Arto, not as a tool, but as a competitor. "A bold claim, Abyssgard. But let us be realistic. The Gremory coffers are leaking, and your 'Simulation Tech' requires a level of investment that would make a king blink. You are playing a game of bluffing with a hand that is empty."
"And while that is the case," Lady Sitri added, her gaze sharp, but still on Arto as she took the piece from her husband's hand "are you sure Gremory could stay afloat long enough for the change to take effect?" She placed the piece down decisively "the change will come fast and astounding, perfect recipe for attention, and attentions doesn't care about friends or foes"
Annoyed, Rias took the piece into her hand, she knows those two are not putting her in the corners of their eyes, their focus was on Arto, and solely him. "You're right" She spoke, pulling the attention back on her "Stabilizer could bring growth, growth at a rate that no one could imagine, even you have agreed with that, right?"
Her black chess piece is hovering over the board as she continued "And it would attract people towards the growth, but would it mean Sitri will have more enemies to fight over the right to own the future? King Houses would jump in, Grigori would jump in...Church would jump in. By that point, it doesn't matter who holds the right to use Stabilizer anymore, they will all get trampled on like stairsteps to reach Arto's brain, and I am sure you don't want that."
Lord Sitri leaned back, the leather of the couch creaking under the shift of his weight. For the first time, his clinical gaze wavered. Rias had hit the center of the target: the danger of a monopoly isn't the competition, but the desperation of the losers.
If the Stabilizer became a known asset of the Sitri clan, the political pressure would be immense. The Grigori would demand a share for their "neutrality," and the Church might view such an imbalance of power as a heresy against the divine order.
"A compelling argument," Lord Sitri admitted, his voice regaining its cold neutrality. "The growth of us both is more important than meaningless external squabble, and Sitri is willing to provide the necessary political shield for Gremory to heal and grow along with the funding if needed, but to attain that, a better share of the harvest should be in order, not just for the coming innovations, but for the past supports as well."
The leader of Sitri made his move on the board, a calculated repositioning of a knight that threatened Rias's defenses. "We are willing to drop the request for intellectual property, provided we get a direct percentage of the dividends from any commercial applications of the Stabilizer. A 'management fee,' if you will, for our role as the primary venture capitalists."
Arto watched the piece land. It was a classic pivot—retreating from an impossible demand to a sustainable one, all while maintaining the illusion of generosity. He could see Rias waver; the offer was reasonable, perhaps even too reasonable. It was the kind of deal that felt like a victory until you realized the fine print had turned you into a vassal.
"Let's make things more simple" Rias spoke plainly as she picked up a black knight, her eyes flickering toward Arto, and he nodded "Gremory and Sitri operate on 2 different strong points, we on heavy industry and agriculture, you on medic and light industry, so instead of charging each other. We pay Arto for the innovations we made using the Stabilizer, that way, both clans can grow independently without intertwining their core benefits with each other, releasing pressures to pursue from us and the pressures to wait from you."
Lady Sitri stared at the board, then at Arto. "You are proposing a third-party hub. You want Arto to act as the central bank of technology, where we both purchase licenses?" Another move is made on the board
Rias shook her head while answering with a counter on the chessboard "While that is true on the core, we are protecting Arto's identity and works from outside world, meaning we are the one taking the role as the owner of magic-tech, that would spread the target range on a scale large enough our enemies can't pinpoint who was the actual person behind the innovation."
Lord Sitri looked at the board, then at Arto, then back to Rias. He didn't move a piece. The silence in the room became heavy, not with tension, but with the sound of a gear clicking into place. He realized that Rias wasn't just negotiating for her family; she was building a fortress around Arto.
By positioning Arto as a ghost and the two clans as the public faces of the technology, they created a buffer zone. If the Church or the Grigori came knocking, they would find two powerful houses fighting over percentages and licenses, while the actual source of the power remained an invisible, untouchable variable.
"A clever obfuscation," Lord Sitri murmured, a ghost of a smile touching his lips. "You are suggesting a joint venture of plausible deniability. We provide the shield, and the industrial scale, and the 'ghost' provides the genius. It minimizes the risk of a direct assassination or kidnapping of the creator, as the world won't even know a single creator exists."
"Exactly," Arto interjected, his voice calm and steady. "It's a distributed risk model. You get the prestige and the profit of the 'innovation,' and I get to work in peace without having to worry about which High-Class Devil decided my brain would look better in a jar on their desk. It's a win-win, provided the 'management fee' is adjusted to reflect the fact that I am the one doing the heavy lifting."
Lady Sitri let out a soft, melodic laugh, though her eyes remained as sharp as needles. "But I must ask, does that 'management fee' include the construct that could help us adjust the power distribution of Stabilizer?" Arto and Rias' eyes both went wide, so the leaders of Sitri clan have taken notice of their lack of engine to operate Stabilizer, the 'Systematic Magic' Arto mentioned to Rias.
"Wait, how do you know about the power distribution issue?" Rias asked, her voice laced with surprise. Lord Sitri didn't move a muscle, but his presence expanded, filling the room with a heavy, oppressive weight. "My dear Rias, do you truly believe we would invest in a piece of technology without analyzing its blueprints? We have the finest mana-engineers in the Underworld. While we cannot replicate Arto's design, we can see where the pipes are clogged."
Lady Sena added "The Stabilizer provides an ocean of power, but to make 'valves' suitable for each machinery, that would take a lot of time, especially in experimenting, trying those 'valves' on would cost.... many lives if not done correctly and safely."
Arto leaned forwards, his face relaxed after the slight surprise to how quickly Sitri noticed the problem between the energy pool and the actual usage 'Nothing left to hide anymore' he thought "Your engineers are indeed perceptive, milord, milady, I didn't expect them to notice that quickly, I thought they would have drown in crazy ambitions the moment they had Stabilizer presented to them. That's why I have this proposal, are you interested to hear?"
Lord Sitri signaled for Sona to pause the tea service. The room fell into a vacuum of silence, the kind that usually precedes a thunderclap. "You have the floor, Abyssgard," the patriarch commanded, his gaze locking onto Arto with an intensity that would have made a lesser man stammer.
"The proposal is simple, I will bridge the gap, but not via normal means" He gestured towards Rias and Sona "I will teach Systematic Magic, the only magical mean that could bridge the gap between Stabilizer power output and the practical use of magic-tech, to Rias, Sona, and those I deem worthy of the knowledge, and close to me enough to manage."
The reaction was instantaneous. Sona, who had been the picture of composed neutrality, nearly dropped the porcelain teapot. Her eyes widened, her mind already racing through the implications. "Can you elaborate further?" She asked with sheer curiosity, the term 'Systematic Magic' seems foreign and almost impossible to grasp.
"Systematic Magic is my version of magic, one where magic, or mana usage is treated as a type of science instead of mystical arts. It operates on an 'alphabet' of standardized glyphs using a set of formulas that could help you create spells to desire in the matter of seconds instead of years, days instead of generations" Arto explained simply.
Lord Sitri eyed Arto closely to find any signs of deception, or bloating "You are proposing to teach a specialized magical system—one that is entirely your own—to the heirs of two Great Houses?" Lady Sena asked, her voice now carrying a genuine note of disbelief. "The political value of such a gift is astronomical. Why would you offer this as part of a business negotiation?"
Arto shifted his gaze to Rias, his expression softening. "Because I alone can't handle all the works of creating magical constructs for machines, that would be too much for me, so I chose to spread it to a close circle around me so that they can assist the work of their own families. It also discards the risk of betrayal from within the clan when the only people who know how to bridge gaps between the endless energy and the machinery operation are the people tied closely to the benefits of the clans like the direct heiresses and their peerages."
Sena Sitri nodded courtly to Arto's explanation "So the R&D division would only deliver their desired construct requirements to the heiresses, who would then 'compile' the requirements into magical constructs. A firewall of knowledge."
"Precisely," Arto replied, leaning back into the plush couch. "The power remains concentrated at the top, while the labor is distributed. Your engineers provide the blueprint, but Rias and Sona hold the keys to the engine. It ensures that the technology cannot be stolen by a disgruntled employee or leaked through a breach in security, because the 'code' only makes sense to those who have been taught the alphabet."
Lord Sitri remained silent for a long moment, his gaze shifting from the chessboard to the iridescent light filtering through the room's high windows. The offer was staggering. To grant his daughter a new paradigm of magic—one that treated the mystical as a science—would not only elevate Sona's standing among the nobility but would fundamentally alter the Sitri clan's strategic value in the Underworld.
"And the cost?" Lord Sitri asked, though his voice had lost its oppressive chill. He sounded now like a man who had realized he was no longer negotiating for a prize, but for an invitation.
"The 'cost' is the agreement we just reached," Arto answered smoothly. "The joint venture of plausible deniability, the removal of the intellectual property demands, and a revised management fee that reflects the value of the innovation. About how much, I'll leave it until I could create something meaningful for both my supporters."
Lord Sitri let out a short, appreciative huff—almost a laugh. He didn't move a piece on the board; instead, he stood up, signaling the end of the game. "You aren't just a soldier, Abyssgard. You are a merchant of the highest order. Very well. The Sitri clan accepts these terms. The 'firewall' of knowledge is a risk we are willing to entrust to our daughter and the Gremory heiress."
Lady Sena rose as well, her gaze lingering on Arto with a new level of respect. "Sona, dear, it seems your 'academic project' has evolved into something far more significant. I believe the training of our daughters in this... Systematic Magic... should begin immediately. The sooner the keys are in their hands, the sooner our investment pays off."
Sona, who had finally regained her composure, nodded slowly, though her eyes were sparkling with an intensity Arto had rarely seen in her. She was a scholar at heart, and the prospect of a magic that functioned like a science was an intoxicating lure. "I will coordinate with Rias to set a schedule," she said, her voice regaining its professional clip, though she couldn't help but look at Arto with a flicker of genuine curiosity.
Rias let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. She looked at Arto, her heart swelling with a mixture of relief and awe. He hadn't just saved her family's financial standing; he had effectively rewritten the political map of their immediate future. "Now, are we done?" She asked plainly.
And to answer that, Lord Sitri let out a smile, betraying the serious stance of his earlier and opened his arms to Rias "We're done, Rias, now come here, my sweet crimson, it's been a while since the last time we met after all"
Rias didn't wait any moment as she threw herself into Lord Sitr's embrace "Uncle Sora!" The transition was jarring. In the span of a heartbeat, the cold, calculating patriarch had vanished, replaced by a doting uncle who laughed heartily, his booming voice filling the room. He hugged Rias with a genuine warmth that contrasted sharply with the surgical precision of the negotiations.
"Seriously, little strawberry" Sena smiled as well, petting Rias's hair in the process "Who taught you to deliver such clear and precise arguments? I know for certain you can't do that on your own"
Rias beamed, glancing back at Arto with a look of pure pride. She didn't try to hide it, leaning into her aunt's touch while gesturing toward the man standing beside her. "Arto has been my mentor in more than just combat efficiency, Aunt Sena. He taught me that the most effective weapon in a room isn't always a spell or a sword; sometimes, it's the way you frame the question."
Meanwhile, Arto is standing next to Sona, he turned to her to see she is smiling as well "This seems to be a usual scene between 2 families" Arto commented with a slight chuckle. Sona nodded "Well, our fathers are best friends, and to my family, Rias is like my twin sister, the same can be said when I am at Gremory house. Business is business, and family is family. They are two different worlds."
Arto can feel a pang of jealousy inside of him seeing such familial love like this, he has never had it before, but he quickly pushes it away, because he has another matter to ask Sona "Sona, did you hire a person to spy on me?"
Sona's smile didn't falter, but her eyes shifted, a momentary flicker of the strategist returning to the surface. She didn't flinch or look away; instead, she took a slow sip of her tea, the porcelain clicking softly against the saucer. The warmth of the family reunion continued a few feet away, creating a surreal contrast to the sudden chill in the air between the two of them.
"So you've noticed, but yes, it was me, that's why we're having this conversation, there was an agreement between us of not putting any intel between us on the shelf" She explained with a slight chuckle. Sona placed her tea cup down with a precise, rhythmic click.
Arto's eyes have been drifting around the room before asking Sona again "Do you know anything about this one you hired?" Sona's expression tightened, the scholarly curiosity replaced by a sudden, sharp crease between her brows.
She looked at Arto, then glanced toward the heavy mahogany doors of the meeting room. "Not much, all we know is that person is the best intel broker in the world, working under the name of The Spy. Why? Did something happen?"
Out of nowhere, Arto shot his hand towards Sona, catching something near her head before presenting it to her "I hope this conversation of ours is also within your agreement with the Spy, Sona" He opened his palm, revealing an ear made of a foreign mana signature "Because this one is definitely listening"