In the grand office of Sirzechs Lucifer, the air was heavy with tension.
The gathered individuals stood in solemn silence as Grayfia delivered her report.
Her silver hair cascaded elegantly over her shoulders, and her tone was measured and professional.
"We have completed our investigation of the area," she began.
"The findings are as follows:"
"A residual presence of ominous energy was detected, specifically death energy. Based on our analysis, it matches the energy wielded by Grim Reapers and other entities associated with death, such as Hades of Olympus."
"Multiple scythes were discovered at the site, likely belonging to Grim Reapers. However, we also noted peculiar markings on the surrounding trees. Given that Sona Sitri's second Rook primarily employs close combat and magical attacks, these markings suggest the Reapers were actively engaged in battle using their scythes."
"Additionally, we identified multiple piles of dust concentrated around the abandoned scythes. These remnants are likely the result of excessive exposure to death energy, causing complete bodily decay. There are no documented Grim Reaper techniques capable of such an effect. However, it is possible that this is either a classified technique or a previously unknown ability."
Sirzechs furrowed his brow, contemplating the implications.
"Grayfia, are you saying Grim Reapers turned against their own? There's more than one pile of dust and multiple abandoned scythes. It doesn't add up."
Grayfia remained composed.
"Our intelligence on Netherworld affairs is limited. However, given the evidence, the most probable conclusion is that this was a planned execution. While internal conflict cannot be entirely ruled out, the circumstances make it an unlikely scenario."
Serafall's voice wavered as she clenched her fists.
"W-Wait… are you telling me that Noel-kun was just caught up in this mess by accident? Just… just some meaningless casualty?!"
Grayfia's tone remained steady.
"At present, that is the most rational conclusion. Unless new evidence suggests otherwise, we have no reason to believe Noel was anything more than collateral damage."
Sona sat silently, her head bowed, her hands clenched in her lap.
The weight of the words hung over her like a storm cloud.
"That's ridiculous!"
Rias protested, her crimson hair swaying as she stepped forward, anger flashing in her eyes.
"Rias." Sirzechs' voice was firm, a silent reprimand.
He gestured subtly toward Sona, signaling for restraint.
Serafall, noticing, immediately moved closer, gently pulling Sona into a soft embrace.
"Sona-chan…"
Rias gritted her teeth before taking a deep breath.
Lowering her head, she muttered, "I… I apologize for my outburst."
As Rias looked at Sona, who remained silent but visibly shaken, guilt settled in her chest.
She had let her emotions take control when Sona was the one who needed support the most.
"I understand," Sona murmured, her voice barely above a whisper.
She never lifted her gaze from the floor, her hands still clenched tightly.
The pain in her voice was evident, and once more, the room fell into a heavy silence.
—————✗—————
Twice.
I've been imprisoned twice now.
And I've managed to escape on my own… both times.
Unfortunately, it seems my brain refuses to learn from experience.
Am I—what they call—an idiot?
Sure, I got away.
But now I'm stuck in the middle of nowhere.
All I can see are scattered pine trees, endless snow, and a pale, distant sky.
I should've kept one of those Reapers alive—maybe then I could've asked for directions.
Now? I don't know where I am, or even if I'm headed the right way.
Haaa.
I exhaled, a soft white mist forming with my breath.
This is really…
"Ho? A devil?"
A voice. I heard a voice.
Relief bloomed in my chest.
I turned toward it—and just like that, my mood dropped to absolute zero.
There he stood.
Tall, radiating an aristocratic air, his long silver hair fell in disheveled waves past his shoulders—a chaotic contrast to the cold, predatory gleam in his crimson eyes.
His face was handsome, unnervingly so, with sharp cheekbones and a near-androgynous beauty.
A smug, ever-present smile curled his lips—self-assured, condescending, and unsettling.
Rizevim Livan Lucifer.
What the—
"Are you lost, perhaps?" Rizevim's voice dripped with condescension.
His crimson eyes flicked over me, amusement dancing in their depths, a faint smirk tugging at his lips.
"No. Who might you be? It's not easy to find another devil here in Antarctica," I replied, trying to steer the conversation.
"So you are lost," he said, that amused disdain twisting his features ever so slightly.
"Wh-why would you think that?" I struggled to keep my voice calm.
"This is Cocytus. The Underworld," he said, smooth as ever, a hint of mockery in his tone.
His eyes gleamed.
"Not exactly the paradise you imagined, hmm? But then, expectations rarely match reality."
His smirk deepened, savoring the irony.
He continued without missing a beat.
"Charon is truly giving me a headache," he said with a lazy chuckle.
"Begging for research cooperation... and then losing the test subject. How utterly incompetent."
That's when it hit me.
Experimentation? Again?
This world is supposed to be one of magic…
Why do I keep getting caught up in sci-fi nightmares?
Suddenly, pressure.
Crushing.
An overwhelming force slammed me to the ground, chest-first.
I immediately conjured black threads, hurling them at him—
But they bounced off an invisible field.
"Hm? That's it?" he said, frowning.
Disappointment laced his tone, but his smile only grew crueler.
He stepped closer.
"Let's take a little journey, shall we?"
Before I could react—
The world collapsed.
Darkness peeled away—
Not all at once, but in slow, agonizing waves, like ink bleeding from a torn veil.
What it revealed was a battlefield.
A city, once proud, now reduced to ruin—its spires broken, its streets drowned in blood.
Ash fell from the sky like snow.
The wails of the dying echoed endlessly, their cries swallowed by smoke and silence alike.
I stood at the epicenter.
Sword in hand.
Breath ragged.
Chest heaving as if I'd run for days.
Around me, bodies.
Piled upon one another like discarded dolls.
Limbs twisted at unnatural angles.
Eyes wide open, mouths frozen mid-scream.
The air was thick—choked with the iron stench of blood, the stink of rot and burning flesh.
Flames danced in the distance, casting long shadows across the carnage.
I looked down at my trembling hands.
My sword—slick with fresh blood.
My arms—coated in red, all the way up to my elbows.
Was it their blood?
How many had I cut down?
This…
This isn't real.
I stumbled back—legs weak.
But the moment my foot hit the blood-soaked ground—
The scene shifted.
The battlefield disappeared in a blink—
Replaced by a throne room.
Regal. Ornate.
Bathed in gold and ivory.
Sunlight poured in from stained glass windows, giving it the illusion of divinity.
But the light only made the horror more vivid.
Kneeling before me were faces I knew.
Friends.
Comrades.
People who had trusted me—followed me through fire and war.
They looked up, eyes brimming with belief.
My hands moved.
Not mine. Not truly.
A subtle flick of the wrist—
And heads fell.
They tumbled across polished marble like grotesque offerings.
Blood pooled, mixing with the golden reflections on the floor.
A laugh rang out.
I turned—
Only to see myself.
Standing at the far end of the hall.
Smiling.
A twisted, radiant grin stretched across my face.
Bathed in a mockery of holiness, a false halo crowning my head.
I looked divine.
I looked monstrous.
Then—
The world shattered.
Again.
A home.
My home.
The walls were familiar.
The scent of old books and cooking spices filled the air.
Family surrounded me.
Their faces—warm.
Their eyes—gentle.
Their smiles—real.
And then—
My hands reached out.
I screamed for them to stop—
But they obeyed something else.
Flames erupted from my palms.
The warmth turned searing.
Screams erupted.
Skin blistered.
The house went up in an instant—
A funeral pyre.
I choked—on heat, on smoke, on disbelief.
On guilt.
This isn't real.
It can't be.
But every detail felt real.
The weight of the blade.
The stickiness of blood.
The crackling fire on my skin.
My heartbeat thundered in my ears.
But what crushed me wasn't pain.
It was guilt.
It gnawed at me.
In every second, I had ended lives.
Thousands.
And not in grand battles.
In moments.
Moments where I was the executioner.
I tried to run.
Tried to scream.
Tried to close my eyes.
But every time I blinked, the world changed.
Again.
And again.
New horrors.
New deaths.
New sins.
Each one more personal than the last.
A child I once saved—now crying as I held the blade that pierced her.
An old mentor—his back turned, trusting me until my magic turned him to ash.
Entire villages wiped out in flashes of light.
Years passed.
Or it felt like they did.
Time bent and broke here.
I watched empires rise and fall, only to see them crushed beneath my hands.
Faces changed.
But I remained.
A constant in an ever-shifting nightmare.
Decades, maybe centuries.
Until I couldn't stand anymore.
I dropped to my knees, fingers clawing at my scalp, trying to rip the
memories away.
My breath hitched—sharp and shallow.
My chest ached from crying.
Tears had long run dry.
I was hollow.
A broken shell.
And still—
I couldn't wake up.
Then, a voice.
Slithering.
Soft.
Mocking.
"How long do you think it's been?"
Rizevim.
I looked up—
Eyes wild.
Vision blurred.
He stood there—perfectly composed.
Hands behind his back, as if observing an exhibit.
He hadn't been there before.
Had he?
Was he always watching?
Was he real?
My thoughts unraveled further.
"How many centuries have passed for you?" he mused aloud.
"How many lifetimes have you lived in agony?"
I couldn't answer.
I couldn't breathe.
The years felt real.
My body ached as though they had happened.
Every wound.
Every death.
Every betrayal.
Etched into me.
Etched into my soul.
Each memory clung like rusted chains—
The screams of those I failed,
The warmth of blood I never wanted to spill,
The weight of guilt that never lessened.
I wanted it all to stop.
I wanted everything to go back.
To before the killing.
Before the nightmares.
Before him.
I wanted it all to end.
But no matter how many times I screamed—
No matter how many times I broke—
The world kept spinning.
Until now.
Something inside me stirred.
Not a scream.
Not a plea.
But a decision.
This time…
Time.
Something inside me snapped.
A thread, once taut and strained, finally broke.
No.
I wouldn't accept this.
I wouldn't let it define me.
A new pulse surged through me—deeper than blood, deeper than bone.
It wasn't fire.
It wasn't destruction.
It was something older, something constant.
Time.
The very concept trembled beneath my fingertips.
It beat like a second heart, steady, absolute—an eternal drum hidden within existence itself.
I reached out—
And the world shook.
Cracks spiderwebbed across the void.
The illusion trembled, its seamless design unraveling.
For the first time, I felt it—
Time bending under my will.
The endless cycle, the torment, the suffering—
They were bound to this force.
And now, for the first time, I held the reins.
The battlefield began to flicker.
The throne room collapsed like ash.
The burning home faded, a memory lost to wind.
Then—
With a blink—
I was back.
The frozen wasteland welcomed me again with biting cold, a cruel yet comforting return.
Snow whispered around me.
The wind cut deep.
But I was standing.
Shivering.
Breathing.
Alive.
My chest heaved, heart still racing, as if I had truly lived centuries inside that twisted dream.
My hands trembled—not from cold, but fear.
And still…
I stood.
Across from me, Rizevim tilted his head.
His crimson eyes sparkled with intrigue, though his smile still curled with cruel amusement.
"Oh?" he mused, voice like velvet over glass.
"You actually broke free?"
I exhaled—slow, steady.
The air shimmered around me.
Time warped—
The snow beneath my feet melted, refroze, melted again, confused by my presence.
I met his gaze.
The weight of something ancient pressed against my shoulders—newfound power, overwhelming in its silence.
Confidence?
No.
That still felt... far away.
But I didn't have the luxury of hesitation.
I chuckled bitterly at the thought.
There was no choice.
I raised my hands.
Rizevim watched, clearly unimpressed.
I remembered—
Sacred Gear Canceller.
Supernatural attacks would be useless.
So...
Time, again.
I tried to call on it, but the effort nearly buckled my knees.
My demonic energy drained fast, like trying to dam a flood with paper.
Not enough.
In a better world, I'd never consider what I was about to do.
But this wasn't that world.
So I dove into the dark.
I reached inward—
To the Death Factor within me.
"Use it," I commanded.
"Fuel time with it."
The response was immediate—
A roar, primal and wrong.
The kind of thing that should never be commanded.
The kind of thing that didn't want to be used.
Pain lanced through the back of my skull.
My eyes burned as if set ablaze, vision blurring with each breath.
But I stood my ground.
It was fine.
The pain was real.
The pressure unbearable.
But all it would do was—
Fracture my sanity.
And if I survived this?
A long sleep would fix it.
Hopefully.
Time.
I looked to the falling snow.
My mind, raw and feverish, latched onto a single, chaotic idea.
Sublimation.
The process of turning solid to gas without ever becoming liquid.
If I could force it quickly enough…
Turn every snowflake around me into vapor—
Into instant, explosive force—
Maybe I could get a hit in.
Maybe.
Not like I had another idea.
I stared at the snow.
So peaceful.
So fragile.
Each flake now looked like a tiny bomb, trembling under the weight of potential.
I began to walk—
Slow, deliberate.
Each step focused.
Channeling everything—
Everything—
Into a concentrated bubble of time distortion.
A space I wouldn't escape from either.
I knew that.
But that didn't matter.
Today was the worst day of my life.
Facing Rizevim was like sailing a little wooden boat only to learn krakens were real—
And their favorite toys were boats.
'I never thought I'd seriously have suicidal thoughts,' I mused.
And yet, here I was.
Rizevim looked at me.
That familiar look of disdain carved into his face.
A smirk pulled at the corner of his mouth.
His crimson eyes glinted with mockery.
"Oh? Trying to mix time magic with close combat?" Rizevim's voice oozed with disdain, smooth and poisonous.
Each word was dipped in mockery, his tone dancing between amusement and contempt.
He stood effortlessly tall, untouched by the tension in the air—his arrogance growing as I braced myself against the crushing pressure of his presence.
But he's wrong.
One meter.
That's all that separated us.
I stopped.
Our eyes locked. I grinned—wide, unstable, wild.
He frowned.
"Accelerate."
The world bent.
Time magic rippled through the air, a distortion that made the very atmosphere thrum.
Snowflakes—once gently drifting—froze midair, twisting violently in spirals as if time itself had rejected their natural path.
The temperature plummeted.
Then the impossible happened.
Each flake began to sublimate—turning to vapor in an instant—then condensed again, this time as unstable cores of raw, volatile magic.
Bombs.
Hundreds of them.
Suspended in a fractured moment.
And then—
Detonation.
One by one, the snowflakes exploded, not in linear time but in chaotic bursts—simultaneous and staggered, all at once and yet impossibly out of sync.
Time itself stuttered with every blast, creating shockwaves that tore through the landscape like the roars of a dying god.
Blinding white.
Deafening thunder.
The earth cracked beneath the strain.
Reality bled at the seams.
In the heart of it all, Rizevim stood, his composure finally breaking.
His red eyes widened—just for a breath.
A flicker of recognition.
Of danger.
The explosions crashed into him with the weight of collapsing dimensions.
His body hurled backward, swallowed by the violence.
He struck the ice with bone-shaking force, a twisted cry torn from him as the frozen world erupted around him.
Even he—he—couldn't walk away untouched.
His coat was scorched, burn marks crawling across its once-pristine fabric.
Blood traced fine lines across his skin, his left sleeve in tatters.
A faint bruise bloomed along his forearm, his aura momentarily flickering.
But he stood.
Rizevim exhaled slowly, brushing the ash from his shoulders with an irritated sigh—less wounded, more annoyed.
Then the scent reached him.
Death.
He turned.
A black-haired devil lay motionless in the snow, limbs splayed like a broken doll.
Whatever soul had once burned in that body was long gone, consumed in the fractured heartbeat of the blast.
Snow clung to the corpse, already beginning to bury the evidence.
Rizevim's eyes narrowed, the smirk dying on his lips.
The snow fell steadily around him, but it did nothing to cool the rage that now boiled just beneath the surface.
—————✗—————
"I'm going—"
"Take care!"
The voice was bright, teasing, carrying the weight of a smirk that the speaker didn't bother to show.
The girl stepped onto the wet pavement, the raindrops drumming a soft rhythm against her transparent umbrella.
The world around her was painted in hues of gray, the sky heavy with an unspoken melancholy, but her steps?
Light.
Playful.
Almost dancing.
She twirled the umbrella once, the water droplets scattering like tiny diamonds in the air.
Each step was deliberate, exaggerated even, as if she were the protagonist in a whimsical play only she could see.
Then, she stopped.
A dead dog lay on the sidewalk, its fur soaked and clinging pitifully to its frail frame.
A pitiful sight, one that should stir a pang of sadness.
She tilted her head.
"Hmm~ what a sad day."
But her voice held no real sorrow, only that same playful lilt, almost as if she were testing the words on her tongue.
Was she talking about the dog?
The rain?
Or something else entirely?
She let out a soft hum and twirled on her heel, spinning in place before stopping abruptly.
Her eyes flickered upward, locking onto the endless gray canvas of clouds above.
With a slow, almost theatrical exhale, she whispered:
"Let's see if you're a good boy, senpai."
Her lips curled—not quite a smile, not quite a smirk.
Something softer.
The words slipped from her lips like a secret meant for no one and everyone at the same time.
And then, as if nothing had happened, she hopped forward, splashing through a puddle, the giggle that followed swallowed by the endless sound of the rain.