Aria's POV
"Where are we going?" I ask as Azrael leads me through the dark academy grounds.
"Somewhere private." His crimson eyes glow in the darkness. "Your awakening isn't complete yet. The soul bond broke the sealing ritual, but your full power is still locked inside you. We need to finish what we started."
My heart skips. "What do you mean, finish?"
He stops walking and turns to face me. "The contract we made in the Abyss was rushed. Survival first, details later." His chains ripple across his skin. "But if you want to truly destroy your enemies, you need access to your complete SSS-rank potential. Right now, you're running on maybe ten percent."
"Ten percent?" I stare at him. "This is only ten percent?"
"You held your own against those weaklings with borrowed power." Azrael's smile is sharp. "Imagine what you could do with everything."
I think about Kenji's face when the chains wrapped around his throat. The fear in Master Sato's eyes. The way even the clan elders dropped to their knees.
That was only ten percent.
"What do I need to do?" I ask.
"Trust me completely." Azrael steps closer, and I have to tilt my head back to meet his eyes. "The full awakening is painful. Your body, mind, and soul will be restructured to handle demonic power merged with your bloodline abilities. Most people break."
"Will I break?"
"No." His voice is absolutely certain. "You're stronger than you know, Aria Nakamura."
The way he says my real name—with respect, with certainty—makes my chest tight.
"Okay." I take a deep breath. "I trust you."
Something flickers in his crimson eyes. Surprise, maybe. "Just like that?"
"You could have let me die in the Abyss. You could have enslaved me." I meet his gaze steadily. "But you didn't. You offered me a choice. You gave me power when everyone else took it away." My voice drops. "So yes. Just like that."
Azrael studies my face for a long moment. Then he reaches out and touches my cheek—gentle, like I'm something precious.
"You're remarkable," he says quietly. "I've made contracts with hundreds of beings over the centuries. None of them trusted me. Most feared me." His thumb brushes my skin. "But you... you look at a Demon King and see an ally."
"Aren't you?" I ask. "My ally?"
His smile becomes something warm. "Yes. Always."
He pulls back and gestures to an empty training courtyard. "Sit in the center. Cross your legs. Hands on your knees."
I do as he says, settling onto the cold stone. My heart pounds.
Azrael circles me slowly. "When I release your full power, you'll remember everything. Not just the massacre—EVERYTHING. Every moment of your real life before the Satos found you. It's going to hurt."
"I can handle pain," I say.
"This isn't physical pain." He stops behind me. "This is remembering who you were and realizing who they forced you to become. This is seventeen years of stolen memories crashing into you at once."
My hands tremble slightly. "Will I... will I still be me after?"
"You'll be MORE you." His hand rests on my shoulder. "Ready?"
No. But I nod anyway.
"Then let's begin."
Azrael's chains erupt from the ground and wrap around me—not restraining, but connecting. They link to the marks on my wrists, creating a complete circuit. His power flows through them and into me.
It starts as warmth in my chest.
Then it becomes FIRE.
I gasp as power floods my body—raw, overwhelming, unstoppable. My back arches. My fingers dig into my knees. Every nerve lights up like it's burning.
"Don't fight it!" Azrael's voice cuts through the pain. "Let it in! Let it AWAKEN!"
The memories hit me like a tsunami.
I'm five years old, laughing as my father lifts me onto his shoulders. "Look, Aria! You can see the whole estate from up here!"
My mother's voice, warm and gentle: "She'll be the strongest Nakamura in generations. I can feel it."
A boy with violet eyes like mine—older, protective. "Don't worry, little sister. I'll always protect you."
Kaito. My brother's name is Kaito.
More memories flood in. Training sessions where spirits bowed to me. My mother teaching me how to form contracts. My father explaining our bloodline's legacy.
"We don't enslave spirits, Aria. We partner with them. That's what makes Nakamuras different. That's what makes us powerful."
Then the night everything burned.
Screaming. Fire. The smell of blood.
Master Sato's younger face appearing through smoke. "Found her. The girl."
My mother's desperate cry: "Run, Aria! RUN!"
A needle stabbing into my neck. Darkness. Pain.
Waking up with no memories. No power. No identity.
Seventeen years of lies.
Seventeen years of being told I was worthless when I was BORN TO BE EXTRAORDINARY.
The rage that explodes through me is nuclear.
Power erupts from my body in a shockwave that cracks the stone beneath me. My eyes snap open, and I KNOW they're glowing crimson now. Not borrowed color from Azrael—MY color, my power, MY BIRTHRIGHT.
The chains around me shatter as my own power surges to meet Azrael's.
"YES!" Azrael's voice is triumphant. "There it is! Your true potential!"
I stand, and it feels like standing for the first time. Energy crackles around me—black lightning mixed with silver light. My own chains materialize, flowing from my hands like extensions of my will.
"I remember," I breathe. "I remember EVERYTHING."
My parents' faces. Their love. Their pride in me.
The Satos murdering them for research notes.
Finding five-year-old me and deciding I was worth more alive than dead.
The sealing ritual that locked away my SSS-rank potential and made me forget who I was.
Seventeen years of carefully orchestrated abuse to keep me broken and obedient.
All of it designed to prepare me for tonight. For the sacrifice that would give them demonic power.
"They didn't just steal my memories," I say, and my voice echoes with power. "They stole my LIFE."
"Yes." Azrael appears in front of me, his crimson eyes burning with approval. "And now you'll take it back."
I look down at my hands. Silver-white lightning dances between my fingers. When I summon chains now, they're different from Azrael's—thinner, faster, edged with light instead of pure darkness.
"What rank am I?" I ask quietly.
"SSS-rank." Azrael's smile is fierce and proud. "One of maybe twelve people in the entire world at that level. At age twenty-two." He steps closer. "The Satos tried to use you as a battery. Instead, they created their worst nightmare."
I meet his eyes. "I want to destroy them completely. Not just embarrass them at the ceremony. I want the Sato family ERASED."
"Careful." His voice carries warning. "Revenge is delicious, but—"
"They killed my parents." My voice cracks. "They murdered my family, stole my childhood, and tried to sacrifice me like I was NOTHING." Tears stream down my face—not from sadness, from FURY. "I don't want them humiliated. I want them GONE."
Azrael watches me cry angry tears. Then he does something unexpected.
He pulls me into his arms.
"I know," he says quietly, one hand stroking my hair. "I know that rage. I know what it's like to be betrayed by the people who should have protected you." His voice drops lower. "Three hundred years ago, my own brother tried to kill me. Succeeded, almost. Threw me into the Abyss and told everyone I'd become corrupted."
I pull back slightly to look at him. "Your brother did this to you?"
"My twin." Pain flickers across his face. "We were celestial princes together. I trusted him with my life." His smile is bitter. "He wanted my throne more than he loved me."
Understanding crashes through me. "That's why you understood. In the Abyss, when I told you about the betrayal—you KNEW."
"I knew." He wipes a tear from my cheek. "And I know that right now, you want to burn everything to the ground. Believe me, I understand that impulse."
"But?"
"But revenge done in rage is sloppy." His crimson eyes lock onto mine. "You want the Satos destroyed? Fine. I'll help you do it. But we're going to be smart about it. Calculated. We're going to take everything from them piece by piece until they BEG for mercy we won't give."
The vicious satisfaction in his voice matches the feeling in my chest.
"How?" I ask.
"First, tomorrow's ceremony. We announce who you really are." His smile turns predatory. "Then we start dismantling their empire. Their reputation. Their power. Their legacy." He touches my face gently. "And when they have nothing left, when they're broken and desperate like they made you—THEN we finish them."
It's perfect. It's cruel. It's exactly what they deserve.
"Teach me," I say. "Teach me everything I need to know to destroy them."
"With pleasure." Azrael steps back and summons his chains. "But first, you need to learn to control your awakened power. Because right now, you're leaking energy like a broken dam."
I look down and realize he's right. Silver lightning still crackles around me, and the ground beneath my feet is cracked and smoking.
"How do I stop it?"
"You don't stop it. You CONTROL it." He demonstrates, his own chains flowing smoothly around him. "Power without control is just destruction. What you want is precision."
For the next hour, Azrael trains me in the courtyard. Teaching me to call and dismiss my chains. To channel power without breaking things. To feel the connection between us through the soul bond.
By the time the sky starts turning gray with pre-dawn light, I can summon and control my chains without cracking stone.
"Good," Azrael says. "You're a fast learner."
"I had a good teacher." I dismiss my chains and they fade into nothing. "What happens at the ceremony?"
"You walk in as Aria Nakamura. Last daughter of the greatest spirit taming family in history." His smile is sharp. "With me—a Demon King—as your contracted spirit. And you challenge the Sato family's right to exist."
My heart races. "The council won't like that."
"The council," Azrael says with deadly calm, "can try to stop us. It won't end well for them."
I should be scared. This is insane. We're about to declare war on one of the most powerful families in the region AND potentially the tamer council.
But all I feel is anticipation.
"When does it start?" I ask.
Azrael checks the lightening sky. "Five hours. Enough time for you to rest, shower, and find something appropriate to wear." His eyes gleam. "You're going to be making your grand debut, after all. Might as well look the part."
I glance down at my academy uniform—still miraculously clean despite everything. "I don't have anything else."
"Leave that to me." He snaps his fingers, and a portal opens. "Go through. There's a safe house on the other side. Everything you need is waiting."
I hesitate at the portal's edge. "Azrael? Thank you. For everything."
His expression softens. "Thank me after we've won, little contractor."
I step through the portal and end up in a luxurious apartment I've never seen before. And hanging in the bedroom is a dress that makes my breath catch.
Black as midnight. Elegant. Powerful.
A dress for someone who's about to change the world.
I smile.
Tomorrow, the Satos will learn what it means to create a monster.
And they'll regret ever hurting me.