CHAPTER 33: CHAPTER 33: ARCHITECT

Toshio Perspective

I met the movers at the curb four weeks into the new term and walked them through the plan. The Gremory manor filled most of the lot next door, all red brick and high windows, while my place sat smaller by design. I pointed out rooms, signed the delivery slips, and had them stage boxes in the entry until I could sort what went where. Most of the furniture was new, because the old stuff was well, old, and didn’t match the aesthetic of the new construction and decor.

Between trips I ran the last month in my head and checked it against reality. Classes moved at the same pace as last year. The tests felt like they always did, wrote memorization for the most part. Something interesting did happen though. I heard from Akeno that Sona put up a ninety‑eight on one of her exams.

She overheard Sona and Rias talking about it in the clubroom while everyone else was busy, and she told me later with the kind of smile that says she knows I keep score even when I pretend I do not. That single score put me ahead of Sona on the term by a hair. She invited me to play chess again that afternoon. I said no, giving her an excuse that I thought was humorous. I told her I had to go study. She clearly, did not believe me.

Rias had not been the same since the start of the year. She stopped walking with me to school altogether. During lunch she stayed at her desk more often than she joined us on the couches, and the desktop became a line she preferred to keep between herself and the rest of the room, mainly me. I noticed it, and so did everyone else, even if no one wanted to say it out loud. I tried once or twice to ask how she was and got courteous answers that did not invite follow up. The distance bothered me more than I liked to admit.

Shinjūka said she looked sad or unsettled. When I asked Rias directly, she deflected or said devil work had stacked up but that she could handle it. When I asked Akeno, she stayed warm but vague and steered the talk away, which only frustrated me more. Rias hadn’t hugged me once since the night with Ghom. I missed her warmth and the way our connection had been building.

I made a note to ask Shinjūka about it again tonight. The one place that still felt clear was my bond with her. Soul Resonance had climbed to 60%, and I felt it in how the Sanctuary pulled at me and how quickly she answered when I reached for her.

"Kitchen pieces in the back, living room on the pads," I told the foreman when the first truck emptied. He relayed it to his team and the pace picked up. The new sofa cleared the entry without scraping paint. The rug rolled out clean. The study took shape with the old desk centered under the window and the bookshelf opposite.

None of it was overly fancy. It didn’t need to be. What mattered was that it worked and was quality, and that I could move through the space without thinking about it, and that the house felt like something I could live in comfortably without much maintenance.

Akeno was the same as before, just a little less intent on provoking me. Most days at the ORC she slid onto the couch beside me after serving tea, let her shoulder rest against mine, and traded small jokes instead of setting traps. The change felt deliberate, because she’d still toss out a line when she wanted a reaction, but she usually kept friendly dialogue and banter, let the quiet sit when it settled in, and seemed content to just be there with me. But she absolutely still grazed my face with her boobs just about every time she served me tea.

I found myself enjoying the sensation a little more each day. I pushed against the motion one with my face one day, causing her to release a surprised moan. I gave her my most innocent smile and asked if she was okay.

The teasing I received the next couple days were much more intense than usual.

Koneko warmed up to me a lot after I apologized again while her arms were still in casts. She let me feed her when the cast made chopsticks a chore, gave a small nod, and ate until she was satisfied.

The casts came off in a few days, but she kept almost demanding them at lunch in the clubroom, so I kept making them. Chocolate became the favorite, which made me laugh because Kuroka hoards my chocolate like treasure whenever she isn’t devouring it, and now the sisters share the same weakness.

These days Koneko gives me a short hug when we meet at the ORC, and I ruffle her hair or tap the top of her head, and it feels natural. I’ve only ever had an older sister in my previous life, so treating someone like a little sister was novel, and we both seem to enjoy the dynamic. We’re alike in more ways than I expected—quiet by default, food‑motivated when our guard is down, and happier doing things than talking about them.

Speaking of nekos, Kuroka was basically glued to me whenever I was at home or out training. The way she sniffed my sleeves after club meetings and parked herself between me and the door made it clear she could smell her sister on me and had decided to keep an eye on me; it also felt like she just wanted to be close.

Once school started she wasn’t around as much during the day (my energy sense could pick it up), but she still made it to my place four or five nights a week, and she’d curl up on my chest and fall asleep in minutes.

Her purring made it easier to drift off, and I found myself sleeping more because of it. The extra rest helped my recovery and my focus, and I enjoyed it. On training nights she followed me to the forest clearing and lounged on her earthen throne while I worked through drills, then always paying a little more attention when I worked on magic.

Kiba had gotten more friendly this year, not just with me but with everyone. He was already popular with the girls, and the boys treated him like a benchmark they measured themselves against. I found out a few of them envied me too, which I didn’t know how to feel about, but spending time with the two queens of the school will do that I guess.

There were more boys enrolled this year, but the ratio still leaned hard—about eighty‑five percent girls to fifteen percent boys—which was a long way from me being the only one at the start of year one.

We’d sparred a few times with real swords behind the Gremory manor, and he’d gotten noticeably better. If I didn’t lean on reiryoku enhancement and Shunpo, I’d probably lose after a few exchanges. That settled something I’d been putting off. I needed a real teacher and a proper style. Basic kendo wasn’t enough anymore. Speed and power were great, but technique was arguably more important. Kiba’s sword master clearly knew what he was doing if Kiba had improved this much already.

A second mover team showed up halfway through the afternoon once the others had left and said they were here for the basement items. I took them down the exterior stair to the secondary double doors and had them stage the power rack over the anchor marks I’d set in the slab. The platforms, cable unit, specialty bars, and the dense plates followed.

The gear was built to push supernatural bodies; a casual drop would’ve spider‑webbed a normal floor, which was why I’d gotten the concrete reinforced with seals and steel. They set the heavy bag mount into the embedded plate, checked level, and tightened everything down while I called out placements.

"Damn kid, you training entire peerages in here?"

"Something like that." The burly guy with pointed ears shrugged and continued working.

While they worked, my thoughts went to the kendo club. The team was in a good place. Murayama and Katase had jumped into the top group despite being younger than the seniors. Their footwork was cleaner, their timing sharper, technique better, and they’d started running warmups and partner drills without being asked.

They basically became my main leadership members. As the club grew, it would make it easier when I couldn’t always be there. The respect and awe I commanded was nice, but I was just glad I could guide them all to become better. The sensei title stopped feeling weird like it did at first last year. Between the club and a fan group that kept growing, I didn’t worry about anyone trying to harass me.

The boys who might’ve tried something usually kept their distance because of my closeness with Rias and Akeno, and both clubs made it clear they’d step in if someone pushed. It was nice that my fan club was more reserved in their adoration of me in comparison to Kiba. My resting neutral face in comparison to his pretty boy smile discouraged direct confrontations. And because I hung out with Rias and Akeno (just Akeno lately really), I didn’t have to deal with love confessions. Kiba got one at least one a day. I gave him a hard time about it at times with particularly flamboyant attempts.

"Go ahead an install the mirrors here, then set the weight sets in front of them." I instructed, gesturing to a particular wall.

Watching them finish the plates and bolt the rack into place pulled my head back to training. Most of the last month I’d buried myself in magic. I pushed every Tier Two series I’m using to rank ten and kept grinding the Acetylene line toward the same mark. Tier Three took more patience and control, so gains came slower but they came.

After Ghom, Kuoh stayed quiet—no strays anywhere near town—so when I wanted live practice I shunpō’d to the surrounding cities and industrial edges. Even then, they were harder to find than I expected, which made me wonder if Ghom’s presence had been the reason this area was so saturated before.

Kido was the other project. Hadō Four refused to click no matter how I shaped it, so I reset to basics and worked Hadō One, Shō. The Fus Roh Dah of Bleach. The lack of an incantation helped. I could actually project the reiryoku—enough to thump the air and scoot papers off a desk—but it still felt like my body was holding something back, like the channels weren’t conditioned yet. It was progress, but frustratingly slow.

I also had another pet project; coming up with a energy beam attack like the Kamehameha. But one beam attack stood out to me, from Interstellar Battleship Tamato.

They called it the Wave Motion Gun—the most iconic superweapon in the series. Fiction, sure. But fiction with just enough theoretical backing to scratch at reality’s edge. As a prior physicist, I used to think of it as a fun mental exercise—a weapon that used extra-dimensional physics to collapse mass into micro black holes, triggering a cascading release of energy via Hawking radiation. The destructive scale was mind boggling. This was one of the few things I really got into simply because of the science fiction application of physics. Plus, the beam looked sick as hell. But in reality, using pure science, it was impossible to replicate.

But now... magic changes the game.

I’m calling it the Dimensional Wave Motion Cannon. I don’t have a battleship. I don’t have Tamato’s Wave-motion Core. But I do have reiryoku, a Gamer System that can fuse magic with scientific logic, and access to formulation-based spellcraft. That might be enough to build something like

it.

The theory is insane, but hear me out.

If I can construct a spell matrix that expands localized Calabi-Yau manifolds—those tiny extra dimensions curled up at the Planck scale—I could forcibly unfurl them within a limited field. The expansion itself destabilizes reality, like stretching plastic wrap until it tears. As those dimensions collapse, they’d generate micro singularities. Not long-lasting black holes—more like pinprick implosions, each one evaporating near-instantaneously and releasing raw energy as Hawking radiation.

Chain the process. Loop it. Reinforce the cycle with reiryoku compression and layered spell circles. Each collapse becomes the seed of the next. A recursive self-feeding implosion cascade. The energy builds, folds inward, and is finally unleashed forward as a high-pressure wavefront of pure annihilation. A cannon not of matter, but of failure—where reality simply stops cooperating.

The startup required at least 72 Terapascals (TPa) of compressed plasmatic energy, an absolutely ludicrous metric. The center of a neutron star was only around 10 TPa. In my previous life, the highest pressure humanity had ever achieved was 5 TPa, in a lab setting, and only very briefly.

The type of plasma required would likely have to come from the elements carbon and oxygen, fused into iron, nickel, and cobalt. The rapid neutron capture would form heavy elements like gold, platinum, and uranium. This was the same kind of thermonuclear reactions and detonations that came from supernovas.

Even a small-scale version—say, with a width of a few inches and the destructive yield of a high-tier magic nuke—would be enough to erase most enemies I’ve encountered.

Of course, there are problems.

First, stability. You don’t control singularities. You just beg them to form where you want and end where you hope. Second, energy cost. Even with fused skills and perfect memory, just constructing the base framework gives me headaches. And third... well, I don’t know what it would do to the world. Magic is woven into this reality like threads in a tapestry. What happens if I tear too many of them at once?

Needless to say, I was in the theory building stage. Rather than pay attention in classes, I often wrote out the magic formulas, the math, and possible interactions of runes and sigils to create something like this. I was a long way from a working theory to experimentation with magic circles, but my inner physicist was having a great time.

I had thought I didn’t want anything to do with physics or things that related to my previous life’s circumstances. I had forgotten how much fun theoretical physics and its applications were to play with. My science-sensei choked on her own spit when she looked over my shoulder and saw what I was working on. She didn’t tell me to pay attention anymore and let me do my own thing from then on.

Outside of that, I spent most of my spare time in the Sanctuary sparring with Shinjūka. I worked to understand my shikai and, just as much, to understand her. We drilled until my shoulders ached and my breathing evened out, then she pulled me into a steady embrace that quieted the rest of the world. It grounded me and, lately, it stirred reactions I hadn’t dealt with in a long time.

Akeno’s habit of threading my arm against her chest hadn’t changed. I thought I was used to it. I wasn’t. My body started to respond before my head weighed in, and I kept a straight face because I was pretty sure she hadn’t noticed. On nights Kuroka didn’t sprawl across my ribs and purr me to sleep, I started the practice of, relieving, myself, lest my lust build up and become uncontrollable.

Shinjūka noticed, of course. She teased me once—do you think of me when you do it?—and I told her no. There’s no point lying to the part of me that can feel the answer. She smirked anyway. Admiring her body and what it represented—my soul given shape—and sharing a kiss that made me feel whole wasn’t the same as wanting more. Anything beyond that, anything sexual toward her, felt a little too weird. It was my own soul after all. If I had the desire or lusted after her, would that make me a narcissist? I asked her and her response was to shove my face into her cleavage, laughing loudly.

The rational part of me blamed chemistry and a younger body. The other part didn’t want to blame anything and just let it be. I wasn’t interested in becoming Issei or the other two by accident, so I kept my boundaries, kept my browser closed, and put the extra energy back into training.

"Alright that’s the last of it!" I heard the mover yell out to me from his truck as I walked up from the exterior stairs.

"Thank you. You guys work fast," I replied as I handed him 4 10,000 Yen notes to disperse to his team.

"Reach out if you move again!" They packed up their moving gear and left, leaving me standing outside of my new home. I turned to look at it.

Up close, it still surprised me. Blackened concrete and steel, three levels stepped into the slope, all clean rectangles and deep overhangs. Floor‑to‑ceiling windows wrapped the corners and threw warm light onto the stone path and the low uplights along the steps. A small balcony sat off the second floor, and the entry was tucked to the side.

Hidden shudders could come down and shield the windows, made from a titanium alloy mixed with steel and tungsten. Once closed, the house would be a veritable fortress. That, on top of the magic barriers and reinforcements I had put in, it would be nigh impenetrable to any enemy.

Now I just had to figure out anti-teleportation arrays. There was a tall privacy fence around the property too that concealed it from unwanted spectators. It was smaller than the manor next door, but it looked solid, quiet, and mine.

I locked up, and walked over to the entrance gate. I had one more errand to run. But now why were they here? Curious about the new neighbor maybe?

The motion sensor gate opened automatically and I almost walked straight into Rias and Akeno waiting on the sidewalk. "Hey," I said. "Good timing." They were in casual clothes for once. Akeno wore a very short black, pleated skirt and a pink top. Rias wore a red striped tank top with white shorts.

"Good afternoon," Akeno said. "We’ve been wondering who was building a house right next to ours," and then she pouted at me, "and you didn’t tell us."

"I wanted it to be a surprise," I teased.

Rias gave me a small smile that did not quite reach her eyes. "I’m glad the new neighbor isn’t a stranger or a creep. I’m happy it’s you."

"Thanks. Perk of the location is we can walk to school together now," I said.

"That’s a great idea!" Akeno said, bright and immediate. Rias just nodded once.

She was still acting strange. Part of me wondered if Grayfia had said something to her, probably about the engagement I knew was hanging over Rias’ head. I still expected her to recruit Issei, but I wasn’t sure if he’d have that same romantic drive to save her that steeled his resolved to lose his arm in canon.

Regardless, I would intervene to make sure it didn’t happen. With luck, I could join the rating game as a guest or outside ally to make sure Rias won. If I needed a reason, I could point out that Rias’ peerage still wasn’t full while arrogant chicken’s was. I would ask when the time came. Worst case, I had an engagement party to crash.

I started to step through the gate. Before I closed it, Akeno and Rias peered in to look at the new build.

"Wow Toshio, who was your architect? That house is totally gorgeous!" Akeno exclaimed. I gave a half smile and glanced behind me at it.

"I was. I’m pretty good at drawing designs and schematics, as you both know." This seemed to briefly stun them both.

"It’s like a modern version of the ORC, gothic and imposing," Rias commented with a finger on her chin.

"I’ve always liked dark houses. I like the rigid structure and sleek designs of modern brutalism. So I combined them, and here we are. Plus, it should withstand quite a bit of damage should I ever be under attack." Watching the curiosity cross their faces was really cute. Akeno walked up to me.

"I know I shouldn’t be surprised that you have skills as an architect, but I certainly didn’t expect that," she said smiling. "Though, I must say, I like more traditional Japanese styles." She put a finger to her cheek.

"Well you should see the inside then. It’s a modern twist to the traditional Japanese style. Darker colors of course. The ORC should come over soon and have dinner after school one day." I offered.

"That sounds like a wonderful idea! Don’t you think Rias?" Akeno looked over to her King. Rias nodded her head once.

"That sounds nice. We wouldn’t be imposing on you and your new home would we?" she asked. Overly formal too.

"Best way to break in a house is to have good company over." This got Akeno to smirk.

"Would you like some help breaking in your bedroom, too? With some good company~?" she asked sensually, her hand coming up to touch my chest, trailing down and stopping above my waist.

"I do have a pretty good place to play board games in there. Chess, Scrabble, Risk... pick your poison," I replied dryly. I obviously knew what she meant, but teasing her back like this was fun. Her sultry expression cracked a small amount.

"Not, quite what I had in mind, but I’m sure it would still be a fun time." She pulled back her hand.

"But I’m sure we could find other ways to have fun in there too to ’break’ it in." Her eyes lit up in surprise before I my words came crashing down on her.

"There’s so much room for activities. We could do aerobics in there, do step class, play army man. Makes my head spin on how many activities we can do." I couldn’t stop the smirk that came to my face. Rias snorted in amusement. Akeno quickly recovered.

"Toshio~ you shouldn’t play with a girl’s emotions," she said playfully.

"I don’t know what you’re talking about, Akeno. I was just listing some fun activities we could do." I tried to turn my smirk into an innocent smile. My guess, it could use some work, because I could tell she didn’t buy it. I chuckled to myself.

"I’ll see you both at school on Monday. Thanks for stopping by." I turned to leave when Akeno called out. "Where are you off to?" I faced her fully again.

"My old dojo," I said. "I want to ask the master something."

"If you don’t mind, can I tag along?" she asked. "I don’t have anything important to do."

"Sure," I said, then looked to Rias.

Akeno did too. "Is that alright?"

Rias hesitated for a breath and then nodded. "Of course. Meet me at the ORC when you’re done. We have contracts tonight."

"Understood, Rias!" Akeno gave her a playful salute.

We split there, Rias heading toward the manor while Akeno fell in at my side.

After a block I bumped her shoulder with mine. "So why’d you want to come with me?"

"Do I need a reason to hang out with a dear friend?" she said, eyes sliding my way, her shoulder rubbing against mine.

"I suppose not. But I do think this is the first time we’ve spent time together in public like this."

"Maybe we should make it a more regular thing then, don’t you think?" she asked with a cheerful smile, leaning forward a little, giving me a good view of her cleavage. I snorted in amusement.

"Maybe we should." I gave her a small smile in return.

We walked in quiet for a few steps. I glanced at her hand. It had been a while. Rias was the last actually. Before I could overthink it, I slipped my fingers into hers and laced them. She stopped short, which put me a step ahead. I turned back, our hands the line between us.

"You’d better be careful," she said softly with a small smile, her eyes unreadable. "You’ll give a girl the wrong idea."

"Who says it’s the wrong one?" I said.

Her eyes widened a fraction, then warmed. She smiled fully and started forward again, still holding on. "When did you get so smooth?"

"Maybe I just like your warmth," I said, and we kept walking toward the dojo.

Her hands, surprisingly, were softer than Rias’.

Perspective Shift: Akeno

His fingers slid between mine before I realized what he was doing. I stopped in surprise. Toshio had never been the one to initiate like that. I’ve held his arm, pressed his arm further into my chest than necessary, teased him up and down, and was almost always the one to initiate contact, but this was him reaching for me. I schooled my face, let the smile sit in my eyes, and warned him about giving a girl the wrong idea while my pulse did its own little dance.

When he answered, Who says it’s the wrong one, it landed differently than his usual dry deflections. There wasn’t a dodge hiding inside it. I started walking again because standing there any longer would have made me obvious, and I like being obvious only when I choose to be. His hand stayed with mine, steady, callused in the right places from swords and training, not just practice. He said he liked my warmth, and for once I didn’t try to turn it into something bigger. I just let him have the point.

I’d been patient with him since midway into last school year—gentle provocation, light teasing, the kind meant to invite rather than corner. He’s always composed, always careful, and that’s part of why I like him. I don’t have the best history with men, so I tend to avoid anything past surface level. But there’s something about this guy.

He looks at me when I speak, not just my body (as much as I wish he would sometimes). He listens. He doesn’t chase every breath I take like a prize, and he never treats affection like a transaction he’s owed. I’ve stolen little touches and a few forgiving "accidents" to test the space between us, but he never pushed or pursued in retaliation. At first I thought he just wasn’t interested, but he never looked at me or treated me in a way that said he wasn’t. And I was determined to get a rise out of him.

And when I did in that secluded room at school, the victory had been glorious. I hadn’t felt that happy in a long time. Plus, he had the audacity to start teasing me back! That meant war. Most of the time it was playful and fun. But he never initiated contact except for occasional hugs.

Being alone like he is, I image that’s moreso to feel ’human’ connection that he’s likely been starved of since the passing of his parents. I also didn’t count that time where I got my victory, because he was leading me away. He probably just thought it was the most efficient way to get me to a spot to talk, the literal dork. Never had any of his touches felt romantic or meaningful beyond friendship.

Today was the first time I felt him decide to close that distance himself. Simply holding my hand, and it told me more than anything he’s said in words. For some reason, it quickened my heart faster than any previous touch we’d shared.

We passed under the shade of the street trees and I let my thoughts catch up. Rias had been distant. I’d noticed it, of course; it’s hard to miss when the room’s gravity shifts. I won’t pull him away from her. She’s my king, and I love her. But I’m also not going to pretend my own feelings don’t exist.

Toshio sits in a very small category for me—someone I want to know beyond the mask and the performance, someone I trust to hold a line when things get ugly. He’s done that already, with scars to prove it. Well, scars that would prove it if his injuries didn’t always miraculously heal every night.

I squeezed his hand once and felt him squeeze back. He was headed to the dojo to ask his old master something. I’d ask him why later. For now, I kept pace with him on the sidewalk, matched to his stride, and allowed myself to enjoy the delicate moment, one I didn’t want to push: he reached for me, and I wanted him to keep holding on. I know he had done this with Rias more than a few times, but not lately. It made me think back to the conversation we had the day after Ghom was killed.

Flashback

That night, after the Ghom incident, I sat with Rias in her chambers in the Underworld. She had just gotten back from a meeting with her Brother and Grayfia. Koneko had been taken away for healing, and the weight of the day hung heavily in the crimson glow of the bedroom. Rias stood by her window, her silhouette sharp against the otherworldly landscape beyond. I could see tension in the line of her shoulders, a brittleness I rarely witnessed.

"Rias," I said softly, approaching her. "What’s really going on? This isn’t just about Koneko’s injuries."

She didn’t turn right away. When she finally did, her eyes held a storm I hadn’t seen before.

"Grayfia and my brother..." she began, then paused, as if the words themselves were painful. "They’ve forbidden me from pursuing anything romantic with Toshio. I sure my father’s authority was laced within it too."

I kept my expression carefully neutral, though something inside me shifted at her words. "Because he’s human?"

"Precisely." Her voice cracked slightly. "They said a human consort would undermine everything—the clan’s standing, our alliances, my reputation. That I’d be inviting ridicule and giving our enemies leverage."

I moved closer, settling on the edge of her bed. "But you care for him."

It wasn’t a question. I’d seen how she looked at him, how she found excuses to touch him, to be near him. She was always at least a little happier whenever she was with him.

"It doesn’t matter," she said, her voice hardening. "My brother made it clear. As a Gremory heiress, my life isn’t solely my own."

"Do I have the same restriction?" I asked carefully.

Rias’s eyes met mine, surprise flashing across her features. "No. They said nothing about you or anyone else in or that may be in my peerage."

"How convenient," I murmured, unable to keep the edge from my voice.

"Akeno..." She crossed the room, standing inches from me. "You can’t tell him about this. Any of it. That’s... that’s an order from your King."

I stiffened slightly. Rias rarely pulled rank like this. "You’re really struggling with this, aren’t you?"

"Yes." The word came out as barely more than a whisper. "It would be so different if he weren’t human. If he were a devil, then we’d have a chance. But even with his power..." She shook her head. "He’s impressive for a human, certainly. But he couldn’t hope to measure up to what he’d need to impress the devil leadership—at least not enough to have any impact on devil politics."

"Like arranged marriages," I finished for her.

"Exactly. And I can’t get him to be reborn as a devil, and I won’t force him. I won’t coerce him into either. Telling him that I want him to become one of us just so I can be with him is selfish and hardly fair to Toshio." She began pacing.

"I need to find alternatives to get out of my engagement with Riser. Something that doesn’t involve dragging Toshio into this mess."

I watched her move, the familiar rhythm of her anxiety. "Toshio has relied on you, like when you saved his life," I said carefully. "Why not rely on him for once?" I said.

Rias froze mid-step, her shoulders tensing as if I’d struck her. For a moment, she didn’t move at all. Then slowly, she turned away from me, her crimson hair falling like a curtain between us.

"You don’t get it, Akeno," she said, her voice barely audible.

I watched her retreat into herself, the way she always did when something cut too close to the bone. Oh, I understood perfectly. Better than she knew. Rias wasn’t just worried about politics and propriety—she was terrified of the consequences. Of loving someone with a lifespan that would flicker and fade while she remained unchanged. Of building a life with him only to watch it crumble beneath the weight of time.

Not to mention the wrath of her father and clan, the coldness of Grayfia, and the mockery of the devil aristocracy. The truth was, Rias had never defied her family in anything that truly mattered. She’d always found ways to bend without breaking, to negotiate without rebelling. This was different. This was a line she’d been told not to cross.

But if she wouldn’t cross it...

"Well," I said, my voice lighter than I felt, "I suppose that means there’s nothing stopping me from claiming Toshio for myself."

Rias whirled around, her eyes flashing with something dangerous and possessive. For a heartbeat, I thought I’d pushed too far—that the King in her would lash out, that our friendship might crack under the strain.

Then her face softened, the fire dimming to embers. She turned away again, but not before I caught the resignation in her eyes.

"Do what you want," she said quietly. "I won’t use my authority to deny a potential relationship for you, unlike some other devils."

The words hung between us, bitter and heavy. I’d won our little competition, but the victory tasted like ash.

"Rias—" I started, regretting the provocation.

"I mean it," she cut me off. "If you care for him, pursue him. At least one of us should have a chance at happiness, however brief." That last part she had said in a mocking tone, a shot at how Toshio was a human with a limited lifespan.

I wanted to take it back then, to tell her I was just trying to shake her out of her resignation. But the truth was, I did want him. And if she was determined to push him away...

End Flashback

"Akeno?" Toshio’s voice pulled me back to the present. "You okay? You got quiet, seem a little zoned out."

I smiled, genuine but tinged with something he couldn’t possibly understand. "Just enjoying the walk, with good company." He gave a half smile at my callback to our earlier joke.

His hand was still in mine as we approached the dojo, and I savored the feeling, knowing it might not last. Toshio had grown more expressive lately, more willing to engage rather than observe. It suited him. There was a new energy about him, something vibrant and alive that made his usual composure seem less like a wall and more like a choice.

We stopped in front of an old looking dojo.

"This is it. Want to come inside?" He didn’t let go of my hand.

"Of course!"

Scene to be continued...