The Rating Game arena shimmered under the illusionary moonlight, built to resemble the school grounds. Rias Gremory's peerage stood spread across the battlefield, bruised and battered—but unyielding. Kiba wiped a trail of blood from his lip. Koneko steadied her breathing. Akeno hovered above, wings crackling with electricity. And Issei stood beside Rias, Boosted Gear glowing fiercely.
Across from them, the enemy was no longer Riser Phenex.
Not truly.
Where once stood the proud Phenex heir, there now hovered something far more unsettling. Riser's flame-clad body pulsed with black and crimson hues. His wings were twisted—one a Phenex's elegant arc of fire, the other a malformed stretch of dark threads stitched to burning feathers.
And in his eyes… there was no Riser.
Only Amon.
Rias grit her teeth. "You're not Riser. I don't know what you are, but I'll stop you."
Amon tilted his head. "A noble declaration. It will taste well."
He raised his arm—and reality bent.
A pillar of fire and glass burst beneath Kiba, sending him flying skyward. Before he landed, chains of shadow erupted from thin air, yanking him sideways into a collapsing wall. He vanished behind a rain of rubble.
"Kiba!" Rias cried.
Amon didn't wait. He stepped forward—and the ground beneath Issei liquefied.
"Boost!"
"Boost!"
"Boost!"
Issei activated Boosted Gear, leaping back, his hand glowing as he charged a crimson energy blast. He aimed for center mass.
"Dragon Impact!"
The blast surged forward—but never hit.
Amon stepped aside before the beam was even fired. It was as if he reacted before time itself permitted the motion.
A dark clock hovered faintly behind him, ticking in reverse.
Amon flicked his wrist, and a shockwave of unstable magic slammed into Issei. The boy tumbled backward, crashing through the school gates.
Akeno screamed and hurled thunderbolts. "Begone, aberration!"
Electricity rained down like divine wrath.
Amon raised his hand—and caught a bolt.
It crackled and twisted, forming a spear of inverted lightning. With one smooth motion, he hurled it toward the sky. The clouds split open, revealing a sky of writhing red script.
The world itself seemed to rebel against his presence.
Koneko came next. She blurred forward in a flash of strength, fists glowing with ki. "You hurt my friends!"
She struck his side—a direct hit.
Amon didn't move.
Instead, her fist stopped mid-impact, surrounded by layers of reality slipping away like peeling skin. Koneko gasped as visions assaulted her—mirror versions of herself screaming, fighting, failing.
"Fear," Amon whispered, voice pressing against her mind.
She staggered back, shaking, biting her lip to hold on.
"Enough!" Rias raised her hand. Crimson magic circles erupted beneath her. "This is my game. I will protect my peerage!"
She released a barrage of Power of Destruction orbs, hurling them toward Amon.
He snapped his fingers.
The orbs halted mid-air—then turned, one by one, and reversed direction.
"Return to sender," he murmured.
Rias barely had time to raise a shield. The backlash knocked her to her knees.
Issei crawled back onto the battlefield, one arm dislocated, eyes burning with fury.
"Damn you… I don't care what you are, but I'm not gonna lose to some cosmic freak possessing a chicken!"
Amon paused—and laughed.
It was the first true emotion he showed.
"You amuse me, Red Dragon. Perhaps I'll keep your soul intact after all…"
But then—his expression twitched.
The laugh stopped.
He looked down at his hand. Flames flickered, unstable.
Cracks had begun to form along his host's arms. Riser's skin was breaking, burning from within.
"...Tch. The vessel… falters."
Within the depths of Riser's soul, Amon felt resistance. Riser's consciousness, feeble but persistent, clawed against the corruption. The Phenex bloodline fought to regenerate—but it wasn't enough.
Amon clutched his chest, staggering slightly.
Rias saw it.
"He's weakening!"
"Now!" Akeno shouted.
She and Issei launched in unison—thunder and boosted punches crashing toward Amon.
He parried Akeno's strike with a twist of probability, but Issei's fist broke through his guard. The Red Dragon's blow struck Amon square in the face.
He reeled.
Amon's illusion fractured.
The reality around him wavered—revealing Riser's real body beneath the corruption. Burned, blistered, eyes bloodshot.
Amon's voice rippled.
"Still… too early. But you will all serve… in time…"
With a hiss of black flame, he raised a hand to the sky.
"Rewind."
The air screamed.
But nothing happened.
Riser's body collapsed.
The flames vanished. The shadows fled. Amon's presence recoiled inward, pulled like smoke into a cracked mirror inside Riser's chest.
Riser fell to his knees, body steaming, unconscious.
Silence.
The battlefield stood still.
Rias slowly approached, eyes wary, magic charged. But Riser didn't move.
A moment passed. Then two.
Grayfia's voice echoed from above.
"Riser Phenex is unable to continue. Victory: Rias Gremory."
But no one celebrated.
They had not just fought Riser.
They had fought something else—something greater.
Rias looked to Issei, who stood panting, bloodied but alive.
Akeno descended beside her.
"What was that?" she whispered.
Rias shook her head.
"I don't know," she murmured. "But it's not over."
And far beneath Riser's skin, buried in the folds of his dying flames, Amon whispered one final word:
"Soon."