"To think you got rejected, Rias. Are you losing your charm?" Sona teased with a smile at her childhood friend and fellow devil.
Rias looked at her and replied indignantly, "Don't be ridiculous. You'll see how I manage to convince him sooner or later"
"Do you want him that badly? Doesn't he only have a simple Adam lineage?" Sona asked, surprised to see that her friend had not given up on him.
"His strength doesn't matter. He's Koneko's partner, he gets along well with everyone, and he cooks well. You know that my peerage is a family, so it makes no sense for him not to be there"
Faced with such a Rias-like response, Sona could only sigh helplessly. "I know you treat your peerage well, Rias, but even so, you should consider strength when gathering members. Don't you need him to break your engagement anyway?"
"That... It's fine. I have a good feeling about Issei, you know? Although he has some personality issues, I had to use all eight of my pawns on him" Rias explained, excited at the thought of her new pawn's potential.
"Eight pawns, huh? That's incredible"
"That reaction" Rias said, narrowing her eyes "You're hiding something from me, aren't you? Your reaction was way too boring"
"Rias, I didn't want to tell you because I didn't want to lower your self-esteem, but..." Sona began, showing a clear display of her usual arrogance before speaking. "Hitori also cost me eight entire pawns"
"Seriously? What kind of Sacred Gear does she have?!" the red-haired devil asked excitedly.
"She doesn't have one. I'm still not sure, but it should be some kind of magical lineage" Sona said after thinking for a moment.
"I see. Now that I remember, Goto is also like Kaito, right? Completely normal, too normal. It was only because you defended her earlier that my brother didn't take her.
If it weren't for the fact that she cost eight entire pawns, I would even believe she also had the Adam lineage" Rias recalled.
"Yes, really strange.
Anyway, it's already getting dark, so it's time for me to leave. Remember what I told you before, and be careful" Sona said as she said goodbye.
"Sure, I'll walk you out"
...
Once the meeting ended, Kaito also left, claiming that it was getting dark as well.
Of course, he did not actually go home. He rose into the air and concealed himself, following Sona's group until Hitori finally separated from them.
Thanks to one of the many abilities of his eyes, he was able to see Hitori's status, from her identity, level, and abilities to anything else displayed there. She was fairly average, but she had one rather special ability. Based on what he knew about her, this was probably the one she had obtained in the first world and the reason she had temporarily become the number two Lord on the server.
"Ah, it's already nighttime. I have to get home quickly" Hitori muttered to herself as she walked. "I met so many people today. It was really difficul," she sighed.
"Solo"
"W-what? Who?" Hitori immediately reacted upon hearing her Lord name. Anyone who saw her react that quickly might have thought they were the reflexes of someone trained, but in reality, they were simply those of someone with social anxiety.
"Relax, it's just me" Kaito said, appearing in front of her with the same appearance he had before at the club.
"Y-y-y-you're the one from before? This... Kaito!"
"It's me. I just wanted to talk to you, Lord to Lord" Kaito nodded with a kind smile.
"N-no, you... you're scary!" Hitori said, immediately refusing and shaking her head vigorously.
"Wow, you have good instincts" Kaito said, surprised.
Seeing that Kaito was making absolutely no attempt to hide his intentions, Hitori shuddered and backed away in fear.
"Stop!" she shouted, not with her normal voice, but with a voice resembling a robotic echo. At the same time, the area around them seemed to become enveloped in red energy as soon as she spoke, surrounding them both.
Seeing that Kaito simply ignored her and continued approaching, her eyes widened in surprise and disbelief.
She moved her hands, and the scattered red energy around them swirled until it concentrated around Kaito. Her face showed just how hard she was struggling, yet no matter how much she tried, this energy failed to enter Kaito or have any influence over him.
"I-I'm sorry. Please don't hurt me" she pleaded upon realizing that she could do nothing, with Kaito already only a meter away from her.
Kaito remained silent for a second, surprised.
"Why would I hurt you? Just surrender" Kaito said.
"A-aren't you going to beat me until I agree? Leaving me almost dead and, and..."
"Maybe others do that, but people normally surrender quickly when they see me, so I don't usually need to do that" Kaito said.
Normally, there was no need to fight. If they saw him, they surrendered, knowing they had no chance.
"I-I... won't! I-I'd rather die"
"Really?" Kaito raised an eyebrow in surprise. Even though it had come out through stammering and unclear words, she had shown her determination.
But a second later, Kaito realized what was happening and smiled.
"I see. You think you have a way out" Kaito said mockingly.
The next moment, his form changed, leaving Kaito behind and transforming into Lucifer. He spoke again with the same kind smile, though it carried a completely different weight on this face.
"Then, Bocchi, why don't you surrender right now?"
"H-how..." For a second, Hitori was surprised, wanting to know how he knew that nickname, one that had been given to her and was only known by her few friends. But upon recognizing the person in front of her, there was no need to finish the question.
With no other choice and almost in tears, she simply surrendered.
[Lord Solo wants to voluntarily subordinate herself to you.
Accept?
Yes/No]
'Voluntarily' Kaito grimaced at the system's choice of words before accepting.
The ability received from subordinating Hitori was quite good. It was a magical enhancement ability. The more agitated the user became, the more powerful their magical abilities that affected the enemy would become.
In other words, a fireball would not become more powerful, but an ability that directly inflicted burning on the target would.
The maximum limit of this ability was to double the level of the user's ability, so Hitori's original version could become even more powerful. However, Yuuji had already decided to focus on a single path to become stronger, and that path was physical strength and Motion, not magic, so this ability would be wasted on him.
After weighing it for a moment, he decided not to fuse the ability with himself, instead allowing the system to transform it into fragments of divinity and add them to the mysterious orb.
However, while the moment he accepted it an invisible bond formed between Kaito and Hitori, another one disappeared.
A luminous magic circle formed on the floor, and several people appeared through it.
"Hitori, are you okay?!" Sona asked as soon as she appeared.
"P-President, yes, just..." Hitori did not know what to say.
Sona looked away and focused on the person in front of them.
"Who are you? How did you remove the Evil Piece from my subordinate? What are your objectives?" Sona asked, taking a defensive stance, followed by her entire peerage behind her.
"I'm Lucifer. I broke your bond by binding her to me as my new subordinate. My objective is to make my faction stronger, so I recruited her" Kaito answered honestly.
"How do I know you're telling the truth?" Sona narrowed her eyes, doubting that the enemy was actually being honest with her.
"I have no reason to lie. Besides, it doesn't affect me if you know" Kaito shrugged.
"You seem very confident"
Fwoosh!
"I have the abilities to back it up"
Sona turned around in surprise. The voice had not come from in front of her, but had been a whisper beside her ear.
Kaito was now in the center of all of them. He had reached the middle of several middle-class devils and one high-class devil, all of them on alert, yet none of them had noticed him. That alone was unsettling enough for everyone, even without knowing the rest of his abilities.
"President!" The group reacted quickly, not worrying about themselves but about Sona, and attacked.
But the moment they attacked, Kaito had already disappeared, returning to Hitori's side.
"W-where is he?"
"He's over there!"
"Attack!"
"W-wait, President!" Hitori stopped them.
"Hitori? Are you..."
"I'm fine. This... is difficult to explain, b-but I'm fine" Hitori tried to convince them.
Sona frowned, feeling that the situation was more complicated than it appeared at first glance.
"You heard her. Then we'll leave" Kaito said goodbye with a smile and placed a hand on Hitori's shoulder, disappearing from the area at incredible speed the moment he made contact.
"They're gone," Sona muttered with her eyes wide in disbelief. The enemy did not even consider them enemies. He simply ignored them and left without anyone being able to stop him.
"What just happened?"
"Should we follow them?"
"But we don't know where they went"
"Even if we did, could we catch them?"
"Sona" The student council vice president and Sona's Queen, Tsubaki Shinra, approached her. "Do you think they have something to do with the ones from last night?"
"Impossible" Sona denied.
"How are you so sure?"
"They're on completely different levels. Even if someone as powerful as that Lucifer guy had subordinates with such low strength, they wouldn't act as arrogantly as they did" she explained.
"Then you think this is another new faction? He said something about strengthening his faction"
"It's possible. We have to warn Rias about this. Besides, I'll check the demonic records"
"The demonic records? Why?" Tsubaki asked in surprise.
"Lucifer... had demonic energy."
"Demonic energy?!" Tsubaki's eyes widened in disbelief.
"Yes, and not just any kind. It was even purer than mine, that of a high-level devil who is a member of one of the 72 noble devil families.
Someone like that wouldn't just appear out of nowhere"
"The name, could it have something to do with 'that' Lucifer?"
Tsubaki asked with a little fear, hesitant to even say it, but upon hearing her, Sona laughed as if she had just heard the funniest joke.
"Pfft. Of course not" Sona said, believing it to be ridiculous. "We're talking about the original devil. He died long ago in the Great War, disappearing completely.
I don't think it could be that he has some connection to him either. All devils are his descendants except reincarnated devils, so technically everyone is related to him. That wouldn't explain anything.
As for a direct relation, that's even less possible, or it would be known. The only known direct descendant is part of the Old Maou faction"
...
While Sona discussed his possible origins and informed Rias, Kaito had already taken Hitori to his base.
When they saw him arrive with a new girl, none of them were surprised. Instead, they simply sighed helplessly as if they were used to it.
Kaito had to spend some time explaining to them that it wasn't like that and who she was.
"Solo" Kaguya said with interest. "I didn't think we'd run into her here. Although, since her ranking in this world was second only to yours in Japan, I suppose I should have figured it out"
"H-how do you know that?" Hitori asked nervously.
"Do you know how popular and sought after you are?" Kaguya said disdainfully at the question. "Every aspect of you has been analyzed. You're someone who stayed at the top of the server for several worlds without any alliance with anyone, a complete mystery"
"Yes" Ai nodded from the side. She had been one of those assigned to investigate her at the time. "I thought she would be super mysterious and discreet, but it seems..."
"You don't match your image" Mashiro said bluntly.
"Kughhh!" Hitori felt as if those words had struck her directly. "I-I'm sorry I'm not what you expected. I'm truly a disgrace of a human being, no, I shouldn't even consider myself human"
She said this while bowing several times in apology, confusing everyone.
"Kaito, could this girl be a complete introvert?" Heekapoo realized upon seeing her attitude.
As soon as everyone heard this, they realized that she was probably right.
"That's right" Kaito nodded. "You can try to become her friend if you want. Her nickname is Bocchi"
"Hitori Bocchi, huh? Whoever gave her that nickname is either very good or very cruel" Ai laughed upon hearing the nickname that literally means loner.
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+15 chapters in advance on Patreon.
p-atreon.com/IAMME26
(just delete the hyphen)
80 power stones = 1 extra chapter (cumulative)