Sora's life was fine, at least that's what he would tell you. But inside, he was absolutely seething.
It had been weeks since he resolved to train seriously, and train he did. His progress was steady, and his power skyrocketed over the last few weeks. However, his efforts to figure out where he had been sent were stagnant.
He actively sought out others like Aramaki, but every encounter ended the same: they refused to provide any information and tried to kill him. Not always in that order.
On top of that, a few weeks before the new school year, all these powerful individuals seemed to vanish, and the few who remained were holed up as if hiding from an impending apocalypse.
"Did my information-gathering initiative scare them that much?" Sora questioned, his irritation spiking dramatically. There was no way they were this afraid of his potential questioning.
Even the confirmed yokai in the area bolted at the sight of him. Whether that was due to Old Man Nura's warning or their desire to be left alone constantly nagged at Sora.
In a fit of desperation, he threw himself deeper into his training and discovered he could sense people's life force. It wasn't perfect. Far from it, and focusing on it was extremely difficult. But it was enough to detect some signatures far more powerful than any normal human around.
It still took time, mainly because his sensory ability wasn't very precise, but Sora believed that with more training, he could improve it.
Truly, his isekai protagonist luck was at play once more.
He arrived at an old abandoned storage area on the outskirts of town and concentrated on his newly acquired sensing ability, detecting one decently strong life force nearby.
Just as he was about to start searching, one of the larger storage units was suddenly eviscerated, frozen completely, then shattered in an instant. Sora's instincts screamed at him to dodge, and he barely managed to evade being frozen himself.
He glanced toward where the attack originated and spotted a figure hovering in mid-air.
After studying the figure for a moment, he realized it was a woman in her mid-twenties, wearing a rather revealing magical girl uniform.
"Ah, fuck, she's hot…" he blurted out, torn between the urge to run or to run faster. "What in the actual fuck? Am I in some kind of Magical Girl anime?" Sora silently questioned while glaring at the woman, who descended to the ground with practiced ease.
She wasn't much taller than Sora her hair arranged in twintails, and her piercing blue eyes looked at him with a mix of curiosity and confusion.
"Eh… good magical girl?" Sora asked, tilting his head, still unsure how to proceed. "You just blasted my source of information…" he accused, though there was no heat in his voice.
"Oh, you knew the stray?" she asked, reaching theatrically behind her back.
"Fuck, please tell me it's not a gun…" Sora prayed silently, recalling gun-wielding magical girls from a particular anime.
Just the thought of being in THAT world made him shiver.
To Sora's immediate relief, she pulled out a rather generic-looking magical-girl wand with a star at the top. However, his relief vanished the moment his instincts flared again, and he barely managed to form a bubble shield around himself to block the next blast of ice.
The shield popped right after the attack, and Sora wasted no time, immediately shooting exploding bubbles toward the undoubtedly powerful woman. She countered with more ice blasts, and while the bubbles completely disintegrated the ice, they exploded before reaching her.
"Oi! That's not very magical girl of you! What happened to love and happiness and all that?!" Sora called out loudly, already sensing that this woman was way too strong for him to fight. "Seriously… she's definitely stronger than even Nurarihyon…" Sora cursed his luck internally, but the woman actually stopped and giggled.
Her tone shifted to a playful one, leaving behind the flat delivery from before.
"Oh yeah… that's a very good point, young man," she chirped while striking a dramatic pose that looked suspiciously like a Sailor Moon pose.
"Now that you're not trying to kill me, what are you doing here? I've seen yokai before, but never a magical girl." Sora asked, grasping at the chance to gain some information.
"I'm only hunting some vermin. Little So-tan will live here soon, so I have to make sure it's safe," she explained with a cheerful smile, as though obliterating a good portion of the storage yard was part of her normal business.
"Oh… I see…" Sora said slowly, still unsure if she really was a magical girl or just a lunatic with superpowers and a hobby.
"Now, young man, explain why you were meeting that stray, or I, Levia-tan, will have to punish you," she said, mixing her bubbly attitude with what was probably intended as a threat.
To Sora, it came across more like a poorly delivered pickup line from a Hentai game. The way she exaggerated her pose didn't help at all
To avoid bursting out laughing at the obvious double meaning she seemed to miss, he decided to play along with her eccentricity. He immediately struck the famous Killer Queen pose and grinned like a madman.
"Is that so? I'd like to see you try! Now stop making Sailor Moon poses like a child and start making JoJo poses like an adult!" He declared with as much seriousness as he could muster, staring directly into her eyes.
She physically recoiled at the thought of not posing like she was now.
"Never! Magical girl all the way! And who do you even think you are to talk to me like that?" she cried in protest, actually pouting.
"Maybe she just is a magical girl. No way a Yokai would be this... this." Sora thought for a moment before collecting himself.
"Name's Gábor Székesfehervárbalatonszavadisóstó, magical girl... remember it well because you'll be hearing it a lot." Sora grinned, delivering the definitely real name with a serious look on his face, already preparing for his next attack.
Dozens of bubbles surged around him, flying at the magical girl with a speed much greater than before.
"Let's get you bathed, Magical Girl. No convention I've ever been to had cosplayers with even basic hygiene!" he taunted her as the bubbles flew.
However, she flew up into the air again and snapped her fingers, causing all of the bubbles that tried to track her to explode due to a massive drop in temperature around her that disrupted the spin that formed the bubbles.
Sora frowned and decided to create more distance, he didn't feel like rushing closer to someone who could freeze him in an instant. The life force around him surged, a pale white aura coming to life.
"Touki? Even though you're clearly not a Yokai, you're full of surprises, Gábor Whatevertherestwas," she said with a smile, clearly catching on that the name was obviously fake.
"Székesfehervárbalatonszavadisóstó... It's really not that hard, you know," Sora shrugged as he repeated the fake name.
"At least if I die, it will be because a hot girl killed me. There are way worse ways to go," he thought, assuming another exaggerated JoJo-inspired pose to distract her. There were still a few bubbles circling around her, away from her field of view.
"You think you can win in a battle of posing? You couldn't possibly beat me with power, and yet you still try to beat me at my strongest discipline?" She grinned, already sure she'd won.
She posed even harder, using her ice to create sparkles around her in an attempt to win on aesthetic.
Sora seized the moment, hitting her in the back with a bubble when she wasn't paying attention, trying to remove her magical powers.
The bubble flew right through her, and she fell to the ground, landing on her feet but stumbling to regain her balance. Sora already felt the bubble trying to return to her; the difference in their power was too great.
"I guess this is my cue, Magical Girl..." Sora declared in a serious tone.
"Your cue to what?" she asked, looking wary and assumed a defensive stance.
"TO FUCKING BOOK IT!" Sora yelled and abandoned his pose. Instead, he enhanced his body as much as he could and took off.
The concrete beneath him cracked as he fled, sure he couldn't win this fight. He barely got out of the complex before he felt the bubble return the magic to the crazy woman.
"Only five seconds... she was just playing. There's no way I would survive her if she decided to actually kill me," Sora grumbled and continued running at full speed, reaching home safely, with no crazy magical girl in sight.
"That fucker... he said he wouldn't send me to Grimdark World, and yet... that woman was crazy enough to be some magical girl from Madoka," he seethed internally. "I swear if I see Kyubey, I'm removing myself from the census expeditiously." He sighed, a mix of fear and anger on his face.
He didn't remember much about the Madoka world; he wasn't even sure if Yokai were a part of it, but just the thought of being sent there made his stomach flip.
"I guess it's better than Berserk or something..." he sighed, trying to compose himself and praying to any deity he could think of that the magical girl wouldn't find him.
—
Serafall was shaken after her encounter as she returned to the Underworld. The fact that the boy could completely remove her Demonic Power was absolutely terrifying. The only thing preventing her from hunting him down was that he clearly didn't want to kill her and the effect was only temporary, lasting just a few seconds.
Even then, such power was something she had never encountered before. Most likely, it was a new Sacred Gear, and a powerful one at that.
She sighed and decided to inform Sirzechs. Her sister would be in the city too, and in Serafall's mind, that boy could be a great recruit for both Rias and Sona.
"At least I dealt with the maneaters and such… The girls can handle the rest on their own." Satisfied with her work, she entered the door leading to Sirzechs' office without bothering to knock, just as she always did.
"Sirzechs-chan~" she called out to the red-haired man. "Mission accomplished! The city is free of dangerous supernatural beings." She reported while striking another Magical Girl pose, not bothering to act official in front of her old friend.
"But there was a situation…" she admitted, letting go of her over-the-top delivery and becoming slightly more serious.
"A situation?" The tall red-haired man asked, raising an eyebrow, clearly curious.
"I ran into a young human near where one of the strays was hiding," she began explaining. "I'm not sure why he was there, but he most likely wasn't a friend of the stray… I think…" She trailed off, feeling sheepish due to the lack of actual information she had gathered.
"Anyway, we got into a little scuffle where he accused my poses of being childish! Can you believe that? Slander, I tell you, slander!" She sidetracked, still a bit annoyed by the boy's opinion.
However, her playful smile faded, replaced by expressions of slight fear and mild astonishment.
"Sirzechs-chan... he removed Demonic Power from my body... and then he ran off. But that's not the point! He genuinely could've killed me during those few seconds before my power returned…" she said quietly, revealing what truly unsettled her.
Sirzechs' eyes widened briefly before he composed himself.
"Did you get his name or anything to track him by?" he asked, sounding almost frantic. Someone who could actually threaten Serafall, even when she wasn't being serious could be a major threat.
"Apart from the obviously fake name? No…" she admitted with a sigh. "But at least I know he's not one to kill on a whim. He could've killed me when I didn't have my power, but he left instead," she explained, though it hurt her pride to admit it.
"His power alone was lower-end of High Class… possibly reaching the upper end if he knows how to use Touki at a decent level. But I only saw him use it to enhance his escape as he ran away," she recalled the encounter, trying to think of anything she could use to find him easily.
"And his knowledge? You don't stumble upon this sort of power randomly," Sirzechs asked, growing simoltaniously more curious and alarmed.
"He had no idea who I am, but he did did mention knowing of Yokai… so his knowledge seems to be limited at best," she recalled, the mystery surrounding this boy, who appeared to be around Rias' and Sona's age, deepening with each sentence.
The silence stretched on, and Serafall found the pause to feel almost infinite.
"Find him and observe him. I want to know what he's like in his everyday life before deciding anything," Sirzechs decided, opting for a careful approach.
—
Sora was very happy that the Magical Girl seemed to be gone and unable to find him, unaware that he had just barely escaped being hunted down by the most powerful devil of all time.
The rest of the holiday passed without incident. The only change in his routine was his decision to take a break from gathering information; he simply didn't want to risk running into that pink-wearing maniac again.
"At least she proves that pink truly is the color of warriors..." Sora muttered with a hollow smile as he headed to Tokyo for his new school. There were new classmates to corrupt and new alcohol to distill.
He continued his training and even found a decent place to learn swordsmanship.
Not kendo or anything like that. Kendo was merely a sport, not practical for self-defense or any real-world situations. Instead, he found an honest-to-god Kenjutsu master and decided to give it a try. He already knew how to handle a traditional Polish saber from his past life, but he needed to train his body to effectively utilize that knowledge.
Having a sword to fall back on was never a bad idea if his other tricks failed.
A full year went by without any incidents, although he felt like he was being watched almost every day for the last few months. He never spotted anyone nearby, even when trying to sense for an intruder, but that did little to ease his mind.
One piece of good news came his way, though: starting the next school year, Kuoh Academy would open its gates to male students as well. He had one year of high school to prepare for entrance exams, which he suspected would be quite challenging.
While this might cut into his training time, it would save him hours of travel every day for the rest of his high school experience. For Sora, it wasn't a hard decision to make.