- Hey guys, new arc starting, things are gonna get hot. Thanks for reading. Authors Out. -
The first quiet morning felt wrong in my bones, like a song that forgot its chorus. Three days with no assignment, no coded ping from Kalawarna, no late-night coordinates from the Grigori. Silence hung over the city like a sheet, and under that sheet we remembered how to breathe without checking the windows. We called it rest because we needed the lie. Kalawarna called it "training," because she hates wasted air. I called it "teaching Asia not to break every time she trips," because somebody had to.
The old warehouse I'd claimed as a base didn't look like a crime scene anymore. We fixed windows, scraped floors until they stopped complaining, repainted lines on concrete until it felt like a gym that forgave sweat. Ropes hung neat, mats lay in rows, and a battered sound system insisted on playing soft jazz because the radio wouldn't pick a side. Morning light spilled in through the tall panes and turned the dust into honest sparkle instead of aftershock.
Kalawarna stood across from Asia with her wings half-unfurled and her hands on her hips, the picture of a coach who'd learned patience by choosing it every day. "Again," she said, voice sharp enough to find edges. "You lose focus every time you pray before casting."
Asia's cheeks puffed as she concentrated, a little saint trying to wrestle light that had opinions. "S-sorry! It just feels wrong to use the gift like this."
"Wrong?" Kalawarna's eyebrow climbed, skeptical as a cat. "You're healing bruises, not burning sinners. Get over it."
"That's mean," Asia said, but her hands steadied anyway.
"Good. Then you're learning."
I watched from the sidelines, arms crossed, a smile I didn't approve of tugging at my mouth. Asia had come far in two days — farther than most exorcists clock in two months. Her light healed faster and more reliably than the tools the Church issued; she could pull a sprain's heat out with one breath and re-knit micro-tears with the next, as long as you gave her fifteen seconds of quiet and didn't yell while she was doing it. She didn't like hurting anyone. She didn't like hurting things. She apologized every time she accidentally stepped on a beetle during outdoor drills and held a funeral a beetle didn't attend. But she practiced. God help me, she practiced.
[That girl has a pure soul. It's… unsettling. And she have this aura that confuses my senses and make me be more gentle to her...]
Yeah, I thought, tracking the way her aura flared and settled like a candle learning to be a lantern. The kind of purity that doesn't get self-righteous. The kind that gets up and does the dishes.
[Do not let purity and affinity with dragons fool you,] Ddraig rumbled, not unkind. [It is strong, but it breaks loud when it breaks.]
That's why we're padding the corners.
Kalawarna clapped once, and Asia stopped mid-prayer like a kid caught sneaking sugar. "Again. Faster. No apology halfway through. If you need to talk to my father, God, do it with your pulse, not your mouth."
Asia nodded, forehead creased, then set her palms over a bruise she'd let me put on my own forearm as a demonstration judo throw. Heat hummed, soft and clean; pain left like a guest who got the hint. She brightened. "It worked!"
"It did," Kalawarna with a faint smile, and said. "Now pretend he's bleeding and do it twice as fast."
Asia's color drained. "Oh..."
"You're not on a battlefield," I said, stepping closer to soften the blow. "But if you were, slow is a kind of wrong. You'll learn speed by being right a lot. Not by rushing. We'll build you up."
She nodded, resolute now, and did it again — faster this time, the light a little tighter, the finish a hair messier. "I'll keep trying."
"That's the job," I said. "We train here so we don't panic out there."
We ran drills until the sun decided late morning was as far as it could morally go without becoming noon. Asia healed what we gave her — cuts, bruises, the angry swell from a twisted ankle Kalawarna faked well enough to fool an X-ray. When Asia flagged, I made her sit and drink water and chew something with salt in it. Kalawarna rolled her eyes and handed me a towel like a nurse who has opinions about doctors. When we were done, I reset the mats and swept, because peace is what you build when your hands aren't busy cutting throats.
Later, when the warehouse had gone quiet and the jazz had decided to be rain noise, I found Asia perched on the steps outside with her shoes off, feet swinging, staring at a sky that had remembered how to be orange. I sat beside her and let the cool air rinse the heat from training out of my lungs.
"Your control's improving," I said.
She smiled shyly without looking over. "Because of Kalawarna-san. She's strict, but kind."
"Strict is her love language," I said. "She yells because she likes you."
Asia giggled, then tucked her chin, serious. "Issei-san… can I ask something?"
"Sure."
"You're so strong. And calm. And serious. Why do you fight?" She folded her fingers around her ankles. "You could just live normally."
I watched the horizon burn down into dusk. Somewhere past the buildings, the old church sat in quiet wreckage. Somewhere beyond that, the factions played chess with broken pieces. "I fight so my parents never have to know what I've known," I said. "So they never have to learn the names I know. I want them safe. Proud. And when this is over, I want peace."
She rolled the word in her mouth. "Peace?"
"Yeah. The kind you don't negotiate at a table full of corpses." I meant it. "The kind where you wake up next to someone you love and your kids sleep without fear. The kind where the day feels small and that's the best part."
Asia's eyes softened. "That sounds… nice."
"It's simple," I said. "Simple's good. The world's complicated enough."
"You're like an older brother, Issei-san," she whispered. "A strong one."
I chuckled. "Guess that makes you my little sister."
She smiled like I'd given her a present a child knows to be careful with. "I like that."
We sat there until the light got shy and the moths got bold. When I stood, she stood. When I turned back, she bowed. "I'll do my best," she said. "To be helpful. To heal fast. To not… break."
"You're allowed to break," I said. "Just not alone."
The next morning I put on the bravest face I own and stood in our living room like an employee preparing to pitch a new, expensive piece of office equipment to a budget-minded manager. My parents sat close together on the couch, curious and relaxed because the house hadn't learned to shake yet today. Asia stood a half-step behind me, in a simple white blouse and a pleated skirt, hair combed until it couldn't get any smoother, hands knotted in front of her like prayer, eyes the kind of wide that can disarm a firing squad.
"So, this is Asia, Asia Argento," I began, because there are scripts you can't improve. "She's from Italy. Her parents…" I paused, because lying to your mother is a craft. "They passed away. She needed a host family because of the foreign program. I thought we could help."
My mother had already fallen in love halfway through "Italy." She pressed a hand to her chest. "Oh, the poor thing! Of course she can stay!"
My father nodded, glasses coming off for a wipe that secretly collects tears. "You're a good kid, Issei." He said it the way people say "weather's nice today," like he knows it and believes it and wants it to stay true.
Asia bowed so hard it nearly took her to her knees. "Thank you very much, Gorou-san, Miki-san!"
"Just call us Mom and Dad, dear," my mother said, voice going warm enough to bake with.
Asia's face went scarlet. "M-Mom?"
Kalawarna, or just Kala for my parents, leaned against the wall like a professional bodyguard at a sitcom taping and barely contained her grin. "You fit right in, kid."
Asia moved into the spare room like someone laying claim to hope. She unpacked two dresses, a cardigan, a bundle of underthings she was mortified to let anyone see, a handful of religious trinkets that hummed like quiet bells, a well-worn Bible, a small photo from the orphanage that had become a ghost behind her smile. She lined two books up on the shelf and made the bed with hotel neatness. Then she stood in the middle of the room and turned toward me. "Thank you, Issei-san. For everything."
"You don't have to thank me," I said. "You're family now."
She closed her big green eyes, just for a heartbeat, and breathed like that was something she'd been waiting to hear longer than anyone should. "Then I'll do my best to protect you, too."
"Protect each other," I said. "And don't get hurt doing it."
Kalawarna walked past with a mug of coffee, eyebrows waggling, the smirk of a person who enjoys secondhand emotional sincerity but will die before admitting it. "You sound like a dad already."
"Someone has to keep you two alive."
"Sure thing, Saint Draco," she teased, and escaped around the corner before I could weaponize a dish towel.
Asia laughed, quiet and delighted. "It suits you."
"I hate it," I muttered, mostly to satisfy the part of me that resists gifts.
We added routines to the house like stitches. Asia learned where the bowls lived and where the good chopsticks hid. She learned to fold the dish towels my mother pretends aren't judged. She learned which stairs creak, where Dad hides the fancy soy sauce, how to navigate the dangerous social labyrinth of "No, you shouldn't do all the chores," and "Yes, you should accept help." At dinner, she asked good questions and answered with care. She watched our family move and matched the rhythm. Peace isn't silence. Peace is noise you chose.
A two days later I walked with Asia to school. The Grigori had made a good work enrolling her at Kuoh Academy. The uniform fit her like it had been built to make innocence legal. She clutched her book bag like it contained sacred treasure and an instruction manual on how to become a person. At the gate, the tide of students parted around us without realizing it; Asia's aura gently said "please," and the crowd unconsciously said "of course."
"Hyoudou-kun."
Souna Shitori's voice came like a bookmark sliding into a chapter you knew you'd re-read. The student council president's black hair was combed neat, glasses catching light with weaponized restraint, her composure balanced in a way the rest of us only manage by accident.
"Good morning, President," I said, polite to the exact degree required by social physics.
Her gaze measured Asia with quick warmth and long caution. "So she is the new student... she seems okay."
"Yes. Exchange from Italy. She's staying with my family."
Souna's mouth described a faint smile. "Then I'll make sure she's well looked after." She turned slightly, offering Asia the full focus of her authority. "Welcome to Kuoh Academy, Argento-san."
Asia bowed so deeply the sidewalk blushed. "Thank you, Shitori-senpai!"
Souna adjusted her glasses; the glint did a small, deliberate thing. Her eyes flicked back to me. Sharp. Analytical. "Have a good day, Hyoudou-kun."
"You as well," I said, and we passed into the spill of morning announcements and chalk dust. Rias watched us from the distance the important keep when they're deciding how important you are. Akeno's smile had too many meanings to count and the kindness not to make me count them. Kiba gave me a nod three degrees deeper than last time. I was still ordinary here, and it was important that this remained true for now.
Asia took the placement test and the test took one look at Asia and decided to be kind. She landed in a gentle class with girls who flock easily and mean rarely. I walked her to the door without hovering. "You'll do fine," I said, and meant it.
"Will you… be here after school?" she asked.
"I'll be around," I said. "If I'm not, Kala will be to accompany you home."
"Okay." She squeezed the strap of her bag like a ritual and went inside to become a student because the world needed her to be something smaller than a miracle for a few hours a day.
I did my own hours like a man counting without numbers. Took notes. Answered questions with average speed. Smiled the same amount of times as yesterday so no one would write a drama. Ate lunch next to two idiots I would die to keep stupid. Glanced at the windows when the wind changed. Kept my aura down so low I could have borrowed money from Lucifer itself.
When the day let go, Asia came out flushed with the kind of victory that doesn't punch. "I made three friends," she said, breathless with the bravery of it, and told me their names like handing me small birds to hold.
"Good," I said. "Make ten."
"I will."
We walked home through a golden slant that made old neighborhoods feel new. We stopped at a bakery that knows my mother by her first name and my father by his order. Asia picked a roll like she was choosing a planet. The shop lady took one look at her and added a free cookie like she couldn't help it. On the way out, Asia bit into the pastry and made a noise that tried to define "bliss" with jam. "It's so good," she said, like discovery hurts a little.
At home, she set her bag down in her room with the care of someone laying a foundation. She arranged her trinkets on the dresser and stood back. "Thank you, Issei-san. For everything."
"You don't have to thank me," I said from the doorway. "You're family now."
She inhaled, closed her eyes, and smiled like a dawn. "I'll do my best to protect Mom and Dad too."
"Just don't get hurt doing it."
Kalawarna passed with her second mug of the afternoon, smirk turned default. "You sound like a dad again."
"Someone has to keep you two alive 'again'," I said. "And teach Asia not to trip over her own kindness."
"She'll learn," Kalawarna said, casual surety. "She's tougher than she looks. Like some people I could name."
"Saint Draco," Asia murmured, happily trolling me in my own house.
"Don't start," I groaned, and failed not to smile.
That night, the house did what houses are supposed to do: it kept us. I cooked and Dad tried to help and ended up chopping onions in a rhythm jazz would envy. Mom set the table and told me about a neighbor's dog that had adopted a pigeon, because the world refuses to stop being strange in small ways. Asia said grace in a language that sounded like good manners and we ate like civilians. After, I washed dishes while Asia dried and Kalawarna ranked the forks for usefulness and murderous potential. The radio played a song that meant nothing and therefore meant peace.
[Enjoy this,] Ddraig said, not softly, but not loud. [Do not rush through it on your way to war.]
I'm not. I'm memorizing it. So I know what I'm fighting to come back to.
[Good.]
Later, after lights were down to halls and bad habits, I took Ashdod from its place and sat with it wrapped across my lap. The lance thrummed under the cloth, patient as old stone. It wanted work. It agreed to wait. That made two of us. I rested my hands on it until the heat in my palms met the cool under the wrap and they learned each other again. I didn't unwrap it. I didn't need to. The fact of it was enough.
The next day, the warehouse became a school again. Kalawarna set a circuit of cones and chalk marks and strung a length of tape at ankle height because the world loves ankles. "We're doing balance," she said. Asia groaned and then smiled because she is who she is. We taught her how to fall without making it a story. How to tuck and roll and come up already moving. How to breathe when fear wants to lean on your chest and call itself God. She cried once when she scraped her knee harder than expected, and then she laughed because pain is proof you get to try again. I taught Kalawarna three ways to break a hold without breaking a wrist, and she taught me a low aerial turn that would let me shave seconds off a rescue someday. We all got better. We all got tired in the good way.
At lunch, we sat on the loading dock and ate from bento boxes like we had the whole world sorted into neat compartments. Asia told us about a classmate who had a pet turtle the size of a soap dish. Kalawarna told us about a mission years ago that had ended with a demon noble throwing a tantrum and a chandelier that had to be apologized to. I told them nothing worth a jail sentence. The sun warmed the concrete. Somewhere a train sounded like memory. For a few bites, no one was a soldier.
When we broke, Asia took a call from Sona Shitori's office about exchange student paperwork being officially accepted, even if she was already going to classes, and returned with a form held like a relic. "They're so organized," she said, awed.
"They are," I said. "Don't let them enlist you to fix the world through forms. That's my job."
"You and your forms," Kalawarna said, teasing. "You fight monsters at night and bring snacks to student council meetings by day."
"It's called range," I said.
We kept a quiet watch even on a rest day. Kalawarna and I took turns circling the neighborhood from a polite distance, aura down so low birds didn't bother to comment. The only signature that pinged my attention was a low devil about two blocks over who took one look in our direction and decided the other block had better vending machines.
At dusk, we walked Asia to a small park. Kids were still playing tag on the grass; an old man did tai chi with the kindness that keeps cities from going rotten. Asia sat on a bench, closed her eyes, and practiced concentrating without the crutch of words. When she opened them again, her light ran over a scraped elbow and made it a past event. The kid looked at her like she was magic and ran off without saying thank you because kids should not have to understand miracles.
"You're getting faster," I said.
"Because of you guys," she said.
"Because of yourself," I corrected.
That night, I lay on my back on my bedroom floor and stared at the ceiling. Through the wall I could hear the faint snore of my father doing his part for weather patterns. Down the hall, Asia turned in her sleep and the floorboards answered softly. Across town, devils rearranged chairs around a table so they could pretend they weren't worried. In the underworld, a scientist who was also a general underlined a sentence twice and wrote "test again" in the margin. In the sky behind my eyes, a dragon settled, and the weight of his presence felt like a roof I could choose to lift.
[Peace is not the absence of enemies,] Ddraig said. [It is the presence of boundaries they respect.]
I want both, I thought. The kind you can wake up inside, and the kind you can defend without burning your hands off.
[Then train your hands,] he said, meaning Asia, meaning Kalawarna, meaning mine. [And teach them all to quit only after the last good thing is safe.]
"I will," I said aloud, just to make sound a witness.
For the first time in a long time, the quiet wasn't a trap. It was a room we'd built on purpose. It wouldn't last. I knew that the way bones know weather. But tonight the house was a house, the warehouse was a gym, the school was a school, my parents were my parents, and my team was under one sky. I took it. I memorized it. I slept like a person who had decided peace was not a vacation but a practice.
Morning came with the routine I'd always wanted to deserve: rice steaming, miso humming, Dad reading headlines and mispronouncing the names on purpose to make Mom smile. Asia tried to help with the eggs and ended up making a mess polite enough to be endearing. We ate at a table that had seen better days and chose to be one of them.
On the way to school, Asia slipped her arm through mine without thinking and then froze like she'd touched ritual. "Sorry!"
"It's fine," I said. "You're family."
She brightened and forgot to be careful for the second it takes to heal a world.
At the gate, Sona watched us again and gave the same small nod that meant "I'm not blind" and also "I'm not hostile." Tsubaki's eyes were a longer, slower question. Rias pretended to be interested in a club schedule and succeeded. Akeno smiled like a bell and lightning both. I put my head down, foolishly proud of the nothing I was doing in public, and went to class.
We got our first mission back the day after that. But for one more day before the coin flipped again, the peace we'd made wore our names. I cooked dinner again. Asia folded laundry in a way a general would respect. Kalawarna stood at the back door and watched the street with a professional's boredom and a guardian's fondness. We laughed at a show too dumb to deserve us. I held the lance until it hummed and then set it down because the night didn't need a weapon to prove it could be gentle.
When I finally slept, it was with the warm, unsettling certainty that I was building something the world would try to break — and the absolute refusal to let it.
[Do not bargain your peace away,] Ddraig said as I drifted. [Make them pay retail.]
With interest, I thought.
[With interest.]