Rain had drifted east before sunrise, leaving the streets washed and shining as if the city had been polished overnight. A faint mist curled off the river; school banners along the lane hung heavy and damp. Kuoh felt quieter than usual, like a town holding its breath.
In the old western wing of Kuoh Academy the windows of the Student Council office glowed before the rest of the building woke. Sona Sitri was already at her desk, posture perfectly straight, reading a column of ward-readings on a thin glass tablet. Every few seconds her finger traced a spike in the data where the barrier around Kuoh had fluttered as though something large had brushed against it.
When the door opened behind her she did not lift her head."Close it, Rias," she said evenly.
The crimson-haired Gremory heir obeyed, stepping inside. For a moment the two young devils simply regarded each other — childhood friends, co-rulers of this small town, each carrying the weight of a House name.
"You felt it," Sona said at last.
"Everyone with a working barrier felt it," Rias answered. "My brother already has my report."
Sona's eyes shifted to her at that. "Serafall called me. Twice. She never does that unless she's worried. She asked if I was safe… and whether you'd lost control of the balance we keep here."
"Balance." Rias allowed herself a small ironic smile. "It's an unusual word for a Leviathan to choose."
"It's her word for peace," Sona replied. "What happened last night threatened it."
Rias crossed the room and rested a hip against the desk, lowering her voice."I traced the source. It wasn't a rogue devil or a foreign exorcist. It sits in my peerage's homeroom today. Looks like Hyoudou Issei. Talks little. But the weight in the air when it moves… it's nothing we've recorded before."
Sona put down the tablet, folded her hands before her."Is it hostile?"
"That's the problem. It's not. And it isn't safe either. It feels like a weapon left unsheathed in a classroom."
They exchanged a long look that needed no words. They both knew that if an outright enemy had appeared, they could have drawn lines, summoned allies, acted. Unclaimed power was more dangerous than declared war.
"Serafall will want a full briefing," Sona said finally.
"I'll give her one," Rias replied. "But first you and I should agree on what we'll tell her. Kuoh only works because the two of us stay on the same page."
Sona inclined her head slightly, a sign of rare accord.
—
While the two heirs of Kuoh were making their quiet pact, the boy-shaped figure they discussed was finishing his breakfast in silence. Aatrox could hear the city waking: bicycles rattling on wet asphalt, shop shutters rolling up, distant temple bells shaken dry after the rain.
He flexed Issei's human hands once, then deliberately called forth the Darkin shape. Black-red carapace slid over one arm like a tide of living iron, claws tapering, the muscles beneath tightening with remembered strength. Satisfied with the response, he let the plates retreat back under the skin.
Ddraig: "After you merge with the host's body your physique did something to mutate the body giving it peak human strength. Four Boosts come easy to it, a fifth if you pace the breath. The armour of your true self will take the rest of the strain."Aatrox: "Then I will wear the armour whenever I mean to fight. Studying prey is best done in one's own skin."
The dragon rumbled a sound that might have been amusement.
Ddraig: "Just remember the lesson of rhythm. Power without timing is a blade swung blind."
Aatrox did not answer; he was already sliding the school jacket on, adjusting the collar with the reflex of a soldier checking the sit of a breastplate.
The barrier at the academy gate greeted him as it had the previous morning — a brief probing pressure like a sparring partner's palm. He allowed it that much acknowledgement and strode past. The drizzle had drawn a hush over the schoolyard; the other students hurried beneath umbrellas, eyes lowered, never quite looking at him for long.
From an upper window, Rias noticed that too. She stood behind the curtain as the boy crossed the quad with the poise of someone who had once marched at the head of an army. Akeno, beside her, poured tea with her usual grace but her violet eyes lingered on the figure below.
"No adolescent slouch in that walk," Akeno murmured.
"No," Rias agreed quietly. "Every step is measured. Like he expects the ground to betray him."
Neither said more. Names were fragile bridges; neither of them wanted to say his aloud just yet.
—
Far below the surface of the world, in obsidian-walled chambers of the Underworld's capital, Sirzechs Lucifer read his sister's midnight letter in silence while Ajuka Beelzebub scrolled through the attached data-crystal. The energy-wave signatures were unlike anything in their archives: chaotic in shape, yet pulsing in a disciplined rhythm, as if forged rather than born.
"It looks less like a soul and more like a weapon-core," Ajuka remarked.
Sirzechs folded the parchment carefully."Rias has good instincts. We watch. No provocation until we understand what we'd be provoking."
—
At Grigori headquarters Azazel stood before a bank of half-functional scry-screens, rubbing at his temple with nicotine-stained fingers.The latest field report lay on the console: Target presents as human male, aura surges coincide with heartbeat; observed four sequential power-spikes consistent with Boosted Gear release. No visible strain on host.
"Four Boosts clean," Azazel muttered. "That shouldn't be possible without training… or without something else compensating."
He lit another cigarette, ignoring the ash-tray already full beside him. "Keep watching," he told the unseen agents. "And for the love of peace don't spook him. Wolves test fences; don't stick your hand through the wire."
—
Evening slid down Kuoh's streets in long copper slants of sunlight, then gathered blue along the river's edge.Aatrox preferred the riverbank at dusk: the wards grew thinner with distance from the school, the noises of the town muffled by running water.
Tonight he let the Darkin form emerge fully. Carapace rippled up over shoulders and spine, claws curved from his fingers, horns grew from his head; in the river's surface a stranger's war-scarred silhouette looked back at him.
Ddraig: "That shape costs you nothing. The flesh stays fresh because the armour takes the load. Hunt in it."Aatrox: "I wear it because the eyes of my enemies tell me truths when they first see it."
The Boosted Gear beat in time with his pulse: Boost… Boost… — steady, patient.
From the reeds near a derelict boathouse crawled two strays, lean and grey-eyed, pulled by the scent of lingering devil wards. They halted at the sight of the figure that turned to face them; instinct made them hesitate, as though they had run nose-first into an old nightmare.
Aatrox moved. One step forward, a sweep of the armoured claw — the first stray fell in two parts.Boost — the dragon's power surged into his arm and spine — his palm speared the second through the chest before it could slip between folds of space.
The carapace ebbed back beneath the boy's skin as easily as water into sand. His breathing never changed.
Ddraig: "Eight clean boosts and no tearing. Not many of my hosts managed that on their second night."Aatrox: "The margin will be useful. The strong ones haven't shown themselves yet."
He stood still a moment longer, listening to the river's endless hymn.
—
The first to arrive from the Occult Research Club was Kiba, sword half-summoned but held at his side; he took in the scene — the ash, the claw-marks in the dirt — and quietly let the blade dissolve again.Koneko padded after him, crouched to press a sealing talisman to the remains without speaking.Akeno descended last, hair stirring in the evening breeze, the edge of a smile curving her lips though her eyes stayed thoughtful.Rias followed, crimson hair catching what little light the street-lamps offered.
"You prefer that shape when you fight," Rias said at last, her tone more statement than question.
"It shows me how enemies break," Aatrox answered simply.
They studied one another across a small gulf of gravel and shadow.Rias finally gestured to the ground where the fight had taken place. "We'll mend the lattice here. No need for you to linger while we work."
"I go where I choose," he replied, but stepped aside a few paces, allowing them the ground. It was the closest thing to compromise they were likely to get from him.
Their exchange felt less like dialogue and more like two borders acknowledging each other's line on a map.
—
Later that night Sona Sitri waited alone in the Student-Council office, a set of ward-maps spread across the table like a general's campaign charts.When Rias entered, Sona didn't look up at once.
"You confronted him," Sona said finally.
"Questioned," Rias corrected. "A confrontation implies the chance to win."
"And?"
"He isn't malicious. But he speaks as if he's buried kingdoms and wouldn't mind burying more. We should prepare, not provoke."
Sona folded the maps with deliberate care and slid them into a leather case."Then we strengthen barriers and we watch. I'll speak with Serafall before she decides to act on her own."
"She's already asked about you," Rias said quietly.
Sona's fingers lingered on the case-clasp a heartbeat longer than necessary. "She would."
The two young rulers of Kuoh stood a moment in silence, sharing the unspoken knowledge that their tenuous peace rested on their cooperation — and on the unpredictable intentions of the new arrival.
—
Back in the small rented room that still smelled faintly of Issei's soap and old textbooks, Aatrox sat cross-legged on the floor and let the Gear's inner world rise to meet him.The spectral battlefield stretched away beneath a sky the colour of cauterised iron; shredded banners dragged themselves listlessly in a phantom wind.Ddraig loomed across from him, wings mantled like a red wall of living flame.
Ddraig: "Eight handled with ease, Nine if you time the exhale right. We train for control before we reach for more. Strength without discipline topples even giants."Aatrox: "Control is the first weapon. Power follows."
The dragon's low rumble vibrated through the dream-soil — approval without sentiment.
Ddraig: "That war-shape of yours frightens lesser foes, but use it too freely and even your allies will start seeing a monster instead of a shield."Aatrox: "I need them to survive, not worship."
For a long while they sat in silence, two predators who had seen empires burn, sharing a single heartbeat's space.
Beyond the window the moon traced a silver blade across the river's skin.The city's wards shifted minutely, recalibrating to a presence they could neither welcome nor reject.