April 14th, 2012, Old School Building, After School
The afternoon sun beat down on the secluded courtyard behind Kuoh Academy's old school building, baking the cracked concrete and throwing long shadows from the surrounding trees.
The air was still and heavy, filled with the rhythmic, punishing sounds of mock combat.
Thwack. Thwack. THWACK.
Yuuto Kiba moved with a fluid, desperate grace, his body a coiled spring of focused tension. He was drenched in sweat, his blonde hair plastered to his forehead, his school shirt clinging to his back. In his hands, he wielded not one of his Demonic Swords, but a simple, unadorned wooden practice blade.
His target was a heavily scarred training mannequin, its straw-stuffed body bearing the marks of countless previous sessions.
Each strike was precise, aimed at vulnerable points—the joints, the throat, the solar plexus. But with every impact, a fresh wave of frustration washed over him.
Akeno's revelation from the day before echoed in his mind, a constant, oppressive drumbeat: Rias's marriage to Riser Phenex has been moved up. The Rating Game is our only chance. Our only hope.
"Aaagh!" The guttural cry was torn from his throat as he unleashed a final, furious combination, the wooden sword becoming a blur.
Then, with a sound of pure exasperation, he hurled the practice weapon across the courtyard. It clattered against the far wall, a pathetic, impotent sound.
'This is useless!' The thought was a poison in his veins. 'Swinging a stick at a dummy… how will this ever be enough against Riser Phenex's entire peerage? Or against something like him?'
The memory of his humiliating, one-sided defeat at the hands of Sothillis was a deep wound in his pride. He had been outclassed, outmaneuvered, and utterly crushed.
The shame of that failure, compounded by the terror of nearly losing Akeno and the helplessness he felt during Kazan's attack, was a fire burning him up from the inside.
He drove his foot into the ground, sending a small cloud of dust into the air. The brief, physical outburst did little to quell the storm within. With a sharp, resigned sigh, he stalked over, picked up the discarded sword, and resumed his assault on the helpless dummy. His expression was grim, his jaw set.
'I lost once. It will not happen again. I am the Sword of the Gremory. I will not be the weak link. I will show everyone—Rias, the Phenex, myself—why I am the President's Knight.' Each thwack of wood on straw was a vow, a promise forged in sweat and frustration.
Inside the old building, in a forgotten, sunlit classroom on the first floor, a different kind of battle was being waged. Here, the air was still and silent, thick with dust motes dancing in the slanted beams of light.
Koneko Toujou sat in the center of the bare floor, her small form folded into a precise meditative posture. Her eyes were closed, her breathing measured and deep.
But peace was a distant shore. Inside, she was trembling. It scared her. The act of gathering her ki, of delving into the deep well of her own power, terrified her to her core. The fear was an old, familiar monster: the fear of the madness that had claimed her sister.
The fear that the same destructive potential, the same terrifying power, lay dormant within her, a beast waiting for a moment of weakness to break its chains and consume her.
But a newer, sharper fear had now superseded it: the fear of helplessness. The searing image of Kiba and herself defeated by Sothillis. The heart-stopping moment when Akeno had been pierced by Kazan's blade, her lifeblood staining the street.
In both instances, she had been there, but she had been unable to change the outcome. Her strength, the power of a Rook, had been insufficient.
That was unacceptable. No matter how much the inner darkness frightened her, the thought of failing her family—her real family, the one she had found in the Occult Research Club—was infinitely worse.
So she sat, alone, because this was a fear she had to face by herself. She would master this. She would be useful against Riser Phenex. She would not just be the "little Koneko" anymore.
She breathed in, visualizing her ki as a calm, contained pool of light. She breathed out, imagining the fear and doubt leaving her body. In. Out. The battle was silent, internal, and utterly exhausting.
In another repurposed room, the air crackled with a different kind of energy—the fizzling, unstable discharge of nascent magical power. Akeno Himejima, usually the picture of serene control, wore a faintly conflicted expression.
Before her, Irumi Ito stood with her hand outstretched, her face screwed up in concentration. A few pathetic sparks of demonic energy flickered at her fingertips before sputtering out with a sound like a wet firecracker.
"I don't think I'm suited for this, Senpai," Irumi complained, lowering her hand with a sigh. Her determination to become stronger was immense, but it seemed to have no bearing on her magical aptitude.
"Don't worry," Akeno said, her voice softer and more distant than usual. She offered a smile, but it didn't quite reach her eyes. Her mind was elsewhere, preoccupied with the heavy secret she and Rias carried.
"Hey, Senpai," Irumi said, her keen eyes noticing the shift in Akeno's demeanor. "Is something wrong? Now that I think about it, I haven't seen the President at all today." The absence of Rias's vibrant presence was unusual.
Akeno's smile became a touch strained. "It's... better if it's Rias who tells you herself," she answered evasively, the weight of the unspoken news about the marriage pressing down on her. She couldn't be the one to shatter Irumi's newfound resolve with that bleak reality.
"If you say so," Irumi replied, though her expression remained curious and slightly concerned.
Meanwhile, the President in question was herself on a mission. Rias Gremory moved through the hallways of the main school building with a purpose that made underclassmen instinctively step aside.
Her usual confident stride was laced with a new, anxious energy. She was searching for Ryoji Mochizuki.
She had wanted to corner him the moment classes ended, to ask him the delicate, impossible questions burning in her mind. But he had vanished, slipping away with an almost supernatural ease before she could intercept him.
'Where has Mochizuki gone?' she wondered, a flicker of irritation crossing her features. Her reason for seeking him out was both desperate and logical: from what he and Elizabeth had revealed, Ryoji was essentially... Death, the God of Death incarnate—Thanatos.
Who better to advise her on how to confront and potentially overcome a foe whose defining trait was immortality? It made a twisted kind of sense.
After a fruitless ten-minute search that covered the main courtyards, the library, and even the roof, Rias sighed in defeat. He was gone. A part of her then thought of seeking out Makoto. He was powerful, enigmatic, and a friend. But she immediately quashed the idea.
'No. We are friends. I will not drag him into the cesspool of my family's political machinations. This is a devil's problem. Our burden.'
With a final, resigned shake of her crimson hair, she turned and headed back toward the sanctuary of the Occult Research Club, her questions for Death left unanswered for now.
April 14th, 2012, Whisper in the Breeze, Afternoon
The bell above the door of 'Whisper in the Breeze' was silent, the sign on the door clearly turned to "Closed." Ryoji and Makoto stood on the quiet street, the afternoon sun warming the cobblestones.
"Sir? It's Mochizuki," Ryoji called out, rapping his knuckles gently but firmly on the old wood of the door.
They waited in a comfortable silence. After a minute, the sound of approaching footsteps came from within, followed by the click of a lock being turned. The door opened to reveal Chomei Kegawa in his elderly human disguise. His eyes, sharp and knowing, found Ryoji first.
"Mochizuki," he said, giving a slow, acknowledging nod. His tone was a complex mix of wariness and a strange, reluctant respect.
He was still deeply conflicted on how to address the boy—as the terrifying Shinigami he suspected him to be, or as the cheerful young man who had shown him kindness.
The old man's gaze then shifted to Makoto, standing quietly beside Ryoji.
"This is Makoto Yuki, my best friend," Ryoji said, his smile genuine and warm.
"A pleasure to meet you," Makoto said with a polite, slight bow of his head.
Inside Makoto's mind, a voice of ancient arrogance and pride sneered. 'What is this pathetic glamour? This creature dares to deceive us with this wrinkled facade?' It was Lucifer, his disdain palpable.
'What do you mean, Morning Star?' Orpheus Telos's harmonious voice inquired.
'He is not attempting to deceive us, Lucifer,' a new, chillingly calm voice interjected telepathically.
It was Thanatos, Ryoji's true self, speaking directly into the shared space of Makoto's consciousness from his proximity. His mental voice brooked no argument, and Lucifer's presence subsided into a sulky silence.
"Come in," Kegawa said, ushering them inside the cluttered, dim shop. The scent of antiques and incense was strong.
"How is your apprentice, sir?" Ryoji asked as they followed the old man toward the stairs leading to the second floor.
"He woke up," Kegawa replied, his voice gruff. "But he still needs considerable rest. The daughter of Sitri hasn't come yet. I expected her to arrive before you." As they climbed the stairs, the old man glanced back at Makoto, his eyes narrowing slightly.
"Are you a devil, boy? I feel something... peculiar about your aura. It reminds me of them, yet it is distinctly different."
Ryoji burst out laughing, a bright, unexpected sound in the solemn atmosphere of the shop. The question, combined with Lucifer's indignant, sputtering reaction in Makoto's mind, was too much for him.
'Not a devil, you senile fool! The Devil!' Lucifer's mental shout was a masterpiece of offended pride, audible to both Ryoji and Makoto.
Makoto, maintaining his usual stoic composure, simply answered the question he'd been asked. "No, I'm not. I'm human."
"What's so funny?" Makoto asked, turning to his laughing friend.
"Nothing," Ryoji managed to say between chuckles, wiping a tear from his eye.
The sheer absurdity of the King of Hell being mistaken for a common devil by a disguised tanuki, and Lucifer's subsequent outrage, was comedy gold.
The other Personas, particularly Apollo and Fafnir, joined in the mental laughter at Lucifer's expense.
'You are all utterly childish,' Lucifer grumbled, his voice a low growl of irritation.
Surprisingly, a faint smirk even touched Kegawa's lips as he watched Ryoji's infectious laughter. The sight was so disarmingly normal.
'I never imagined I would see a Shinigami laugh like such a carefree boy,' the tanuki mused, looking between the two friends.
They were a study in contrasts: Ryoji, all vibrant energy and easy laughter in a dark coat; Makoto, a pool of calm silence in a school uniform. An unlikely duo, bound by a friendship that seemed to transcend the bizarre realities of their lives.
They reached the door of the back bedroom. "Tosen," Kegawa called out as he pushed the door open. "You have visitors."
The room was empty. The bed was disheveled, the sheets thrown back. The window was slightly ajar, the curtain fluttering gently in the afternoon breeze. There was no sign of the injured shisa.
"Tosen!?" Kegawa's voice lost its careful, human rasp, sharpening with alarm and frustration. His form shimmered momentarily, the illusion of the old man flickering to reveal the grizzled tanuki beneath before he reasserted control. He strode into the room, his eyes scanning every corner.
"Where has he gone?"