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The private training field was immersed in a tactical chaos that Rias Gremory would never have imagined in her worst nightmares.
What was supposed to be a "friendly match" to measure strength had turned into a one-sided exhibition of the brutal efficiency of the Sitri clan. The ten lessons from hell to which Yugo Hano had subjected Sona's servants had rewritten the way they fought. They no longer relied solely on their raw magical power; now they fought with the clinical desperation of those who had survived alien monsters.
The first clash was between the Knights. Kiba Yuuto charged with his characteristic speed, summoning swords from the ground with his Sword Birth. But Tomoe Meguri did not try to block him. Remembering how XLR8 had disarmed them by predicting linear trajectories, Tomoe used her own agility to intercept Kiba in his blind spot, throwing him off balance and sending him out of the ring with a precise kick to the back of the knee.
Then came the Rooks' turn. Koneko Toujou, confident in her immense physical strength, charged with a devastating punch. Tsubasa Yura offered no resistance; instead, she used the inertia of Koneko's strike against her—a technique learned after being repeatedly crushed by Cannonbolt—redirecting the white-haired loli's weight and making her crash face-first into the grass.
But the greatest and most humiliating massacre occurred in the Pawn category.
Issei Hyoudou stood in the center of the field, activating his newly discovered red Boosted Gear. In front of him stood Saji Genshirou and the new member, Raynare.
Issei thought he might have a chance. However, he did not count on the accumulated stress level of a Fallen Angel forced to work in customer service.
"THIS IS FOR THE OFFICE WORKER WHO YELLED AT ME YESTERDAY BECAUSE THE SCANNER WOULDN'T READ HIS BARCODE!" Raynare roared, her eyes bloodshot with capitalist fury.
The ex-assassin lunged at Issei without using magic, landing a right hook to his jaw that made him spin through the air. Saji simply used his Vritra line to bind the brown-haired boy's foot, keeping him in place while Raynare kicked him on the ground.
"YOU DON'T KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO FAKE A SMILE EIGHT HOURS A DAY, YOU DAMN PERVERT!" Raynare shrieked, kicking Issei mercilessly. "AND THE GREEN UNIFORM MAKES ME LOOK FAT!"
"I'm already deaaad!" Issei whined, spitting dirt.
In the middle of the Gremory disaster, there were two notable exceptions.
The first was in the Bishop category. Reya and Momo positioned themselves in the arena, ready to face Asia Argento. The little golden nun stepped onto the field, nervously clenching her fists, closing her eyes and expecting the worst.
"I-I'll do my best!" Asia announced, trembling like a fawn.
Reya and Momo raised their hands, gathering magical power. But just before casting the spell, an icy chill ran down the backs of their necks.
Both devils slowly turned their heads toward the edge of the field.
There stood Yugo Hano. The professor had lowered his glasses slightly and was looking at them with his gray wells. He did not move a muscle. He did not say a word. He simply slid the thumb of his right hand across his own neck in a slow, universal, and absolutely terrifying gesture, promising a slow, painful death full of blue fire if they put even a single scratch on the nun.
Reya and Momo paled until they became translucent. The image of the magma colossus and the nightmare of the one-eyed ghost crossed their minds.
Both immediately lowered their arms, turned toward Sona, and knelt on the grass, crossing their arms over their heads.
"We surrender!" they shouted in unison.
Asia opened her eyes, blinking, completely confused. "Eh? D-Did I win?"
"Victory for Asia Argento!" Tsubaki announced, coughing into her fist to disguise it.
The second Gremory victory occurred in the Queen and King match.
Tsubaki Shinra managed to keep Akeno Himejima at bay for quite a while, using her mirror shields. However, Akeno, with a flirtatious smile and her gaze fixed sideways on "Jose," released such a massive torrent of lightning that it ended up overwhelming Tsubaki's defense, knocking her out of the ring.
Immediately afterward, Rias Gremory and Sona Sitri clashed. Sona was a tactical genius, creating water dragons and flawless traps, but Rias was the pure embodiment of destructive talent. After an intense exchange, an immense sphere of Rias's Ruin evaporated Sona's water defenses, pushing the President outside the boundaries.
Rias panted, resting her hands on her knees. She was covered in sweat, but a victorious smile appeared on her face. She had won her match. Her Queen and her Bishop had as well.
"A very instructive match, Sona," Rias said, trying to regain her aristocratic composure and hide the fact that the rest of her peerage was on the ground. "Your team has improved monstrously, I admit. But the strength of my clan remains intact."
Sona adjusted her glasses, dusting off her uniform. Her expression was not one of defeat, but of calculating calm.
"There is still one match left, Rias."
Rias tensed. The festive atmosphere of the Gremory side—or at least, of the three who remained standing—froze instantly.
All eyes turned toward the edge of the field.
Yugo Hano stood there with his hands in his pockets. It was obvious from miles away that he did not want to be there. His expression screamed that he would rather be restocking toilet paper inventory at the Saturn than wasting time in this exhibition of demonic egos.
Issei, who had barely managed to crawl to the safety line after surviving Raynare's cashier fury, hugged Kiba's legs.
"Buchou... don't make me fight him. I'm begging you. He's going to eat my soul."
Rias swallowed, but kept her head held high. "Hano-sensei. You are Sona's last Pawn. I suppose it is your turn. My entire remaining peerage is ready to face you."
Yugo let out a sigh so long and deep that it seemed to drag along all the exhaustion of his existence. He separated himself from the tree he had been leaning against and lazily walked toward the center of the field.
"Gremory, if I wanted to massacre your team, I would have done it months ago," the professor said, in a gray tone devoid of emotion. "I don't have time to send all of you to the infirmary, and I definitely won't stain my suit with Hyoudou the pervert's sweat."
Rias frowned. "Then what do you propose? Are you surrendering?"
Yugo looked at her as if she had just said the greatest stupidity in the universe. He raised his right hand and pointed toward the sky.
"Look up."
Both peerages looked up. High in the afternoon sky, floating several kilometers away above the mountains surrounding Kuoh, was a huge, dense cumulonimbus cloud. It was a grayish formation, massive and heavy, loaded with water.
"That cloud," Yugo announced, in his history-class tone, "represents the entirety of your peerage together, Rias Gremory. Including your Power of Ruin and your Pawn's gauntlet."
Yugo rolled up the left sleeve of his shirt. The black plate of the recalibrated Omnitrix came into view, glowing with a lethal and silent emerald green.
"And this... is the time it would take me to make you cease to exist."
Without hesitating for a second, Yugo turned the dial and slammed down on the core.
FLASH!
The explosion of green light swept across the training field, blinding the devils and making the air lose every trace of humidity. The temperature skyrocketed in less than a heartbeat.
When the light dissipated, the professor's stoic figure had disappeared. In his place, the colossus of magma and dark volcanic rock rose above the grass, which immediately began to wither and turn to ash beneath his feet.
Heatblast—adult Pyronite—exhaled a cloud of superheated smoke. His flaming face showed no mercy whatsoever.
Rias instinctively took a step back. The heat was so suffocating that she felt as if her skin would blister just from standing ten meters away.
The magma titan raised his right arm. Instead of firing a conventional blaze, Yugo fully extended his arm, aiming directly at the massive cloud in the stratosphere. He opened his rocky palm and, with a movement that made Issei's eyes bulge out of their sockets, placed his left hand on his right wrist to stabilize the recoil.
"N-No way...!" Issei shrieked, instantly recognizing the pose thanks to his otaku culture, feeling his mind explode. "That pose...! Is he going to do Vegeta's attack?!"
In the center of Heatblast's palm, a sphere of thermal energy began to condense.
It was not orange or red fire. It was pure plasma, white and bluish. The heat concentrated in that small point was so absurd that the air around Yugo's hand began to distort violently, creating a soundless vacuum. The hum of the energy resembled the cry of a newborn star.
"The Big Bang Attack."
The crackling, cavernous voice of the Pyronite delivered the sentence.
Heatblast fired.
The blue-and-white plasma beam shot from his palm. The recoil sank Yugo's thick rocky boots half a meter into the earth.
The beam crossed the distance toward the sky at supersonic speed. When it struck the immense grayish cloud kilometers above, there was no simple explosion of heat.
The thermal "Big Bang Attack" detonated in the center of the cloud formation.
KRA-BOOOOOOOOM!
An expanding ring of fire, pure and deafening, split the afternoon sky. The shockwave evaporated millions of liters of water in a millisecond, creating a white explosion that lit up the horizon as if a second sun had burst over the mountains.
The sonic shockwave took a couple of seconds to reach the training field, shaking the trees, whipping Rias's crimson hair, and forcing the devils to cover their faces from the sudden hot gust of wind.
When the wind died down and the Gremory opened their eyes, the sky was unrecognizable.
The immense cumulonimbus cloud had been erased from existence. In its place was a huge and perfectly circular hole of clear blue sky, with the edges of the surrounding clouds still glowing from the residual heat.
The silence on the training field was sepulchral.
Kiba released the breath he did not know he had been holding. Rias Gremory was petrified, eyes wide open, absorbing the fact that all her pure-blood arrogance had just been reduced to a microscopic statistic. If that attack had been aimed at her, not even ashes would have remained to put in an urn.
Heatblast lowered his arm, the rock of his hand still red-hot, smoking slightly.
The colossus brought his left hand to his chest and pressed the Omnitrix.
FLASH!
The green light compressed. Yugo Hano was once again in his human form. His tie was perfectly knotted, and he adjusted his glasses with his characteristic bored gesture.
He turned toward the stunned Princess of Ruin and her terrified peerage.
"As I said," Yugo murmured, his monotone voice breaking the silence like an iceberg. "A waste of time."
Without waiting for the official declaration of victory for the Sitri clan, Yugo turned around and walked toward the benches, where Asia was looking at him with pure admiration and Raynare was still trying to fix her clothes.
"Raynare," the professor ordered, without stopping his steps. "Pick up Tamal. We have to return to the convenience store. There's a two-for-one instant noodle sale at six in the evening, and I'm not going to let Kalawarner handle the cash register alone."
"Y-Yes, manager!" the Fallen Angel replied, hurriedly lifting the fat three-headed dog that, in some miraculous way, had slept through the sonic explosion.
Sona Sitri, recovering her aristocratic composure but with a gleam of immense pride—and undeniable attraction—in her eyes, looked at her devastated red-haired friend.
"I believe the match has concluded, Rias," Sona said, adjusting her glasses elegantly.
Rias could only nod, feeling strangely empty, as she watched the back of the man who had just erased the sky, walking away to manage instant noodles in a convenience store. The illusion of her strength had been shattered, and Riser Phenex's true nightmare was only just beginning.