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The crack of splintering wood echoed through the Student Council office like a gunshot.
Saji Genshirou, who was filing folders two meters away, let out a strangled shriek and hid behind the filing cabinet. Tsubaki Shinra closed her eyes, swallowing hard, while the temperature in the room dropped to Antarctic levels.
Sona Sitri had just broken her third fountain pen of the day.
The Student Council President, the heiress of House Sitri, the coldest and most calculating mind in Kuoh, was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Her gaze was fixed on the desk, with an aura of water magic so dense and frigid around her that frost was beginning to climb up the room's windows.
"Tsubaki," Sona called. Her voice was not a shout; it was a whisper so sharp it cut through the air. "Has the history professor reported his attendance?"
"N-No, Kaichou," the Queen replied tensely. "Hano-sensei did not show up for his morning classes. He also hasn't been seen at the Saturn convenience store. According to Ruruko's report, Miss Asia opened the store alone with the three... cashiers. Our Pawn has disappeared from the radar."
Sona closed her eyes. The image from the previous night replayed in her mind with the clarity of a nightmare in high definition.
Her fiancé. The man to whom she had given her pieces. The monster who had sworn to protect Kuoh, rolling around in bed with Rias Gremory, half-dressed, while the Princess of Ruin sobbed into his neck.
And then... the escape. That cowardly and brilliant escape. When he found himself cornered by her, by Grayfia, and by a tearful Asia, Yugo did not try to make excuses. He simply transformed into a sonic manta ray, blew out his own window, and fled at hypersonic speed, leaving her with the humiliation and the bill for the broken glass.
"Damned slippery human!" Sona screamed in her mind, clenching her fists until her knuckles turned white. "I'm going to find you, and I swear Four Arms' gravity will feel like a massage compared to what I'm going to do to you!"
"Keep searching," Sona ordered aloud, adjusting her glasses with a trembling finger. "Rias has clan matters to attend to today. But the moment Hano-sensei sets foot in this academy, I want him brought to me. Alive, preferably."
...
What Sona Sitri and her efficient trackers did not know was that the most wanted man in Kuoh had not left the academy. In fact, he was hiding in the very epicenter of enemy territory.
In the dusty, forgotten attic of the old Occult Research Club building, concealed behind several layers of soundproofing seals and magical distraction barriers, Yugo Hano was sitting on an old Victorian sofa.
He was still wearing the gray sweatpants and black T-shirt from the night before. His arms were crossed over his chest and his eyes were closed, listening to the creaking of the old wooden beams.
"I have to admit you have a talent for tactical evasion... Jose."
Yugo opened one eye. In front of him, pouring a cup of tea over a wooden crate improvised as a table, was Akeno Himejima. The Priestess of Thunder was not wearing her uniform, but her casual club clothes. Her smile was a perfect mix of sadistic amusement and deep devotion.
She had intercepted him in the middle of the night. When Yugo landed in the woods near the school, fleeing the disaster in his bedroom, Akeno was there, patrolling. Seeing him exhausted and on the verge of a bureaucratic stress attack, she simply smiled, took him by the hand, and hid him in the only place where Sona, Rias, and Grayfia would never think to look: the attic of Rias's own club.
"That wasn't tactical evasion, Akeno," Jose sighed, accepting the steaming cup of tea. "It was pure survival instinct. If I had stayed in that room one more second, Sona would have drowned me, Grayfia would have decapitated me by protocol, and Asia... Asia would have looked at me with that betrayed puppy face that hurts more than a light spear."
Akeno let out a musical laugh, sitting beside him on the sofa.
"Ara, ara. Buchou can be very impulsive when she's cornered. But were you really about to...?"
"No," Jose cut her off immediately, looking at her seriously. "It was a grotesque misunderstanding. She wanted to collect my favor by demanding that I take her purity to ruin her fiancé's pride. I refused. I offered to break the engagement another way, she got emotional, hugged me, I lost my balance, and I fell on top of her right when the death squad opened the door."
Akeno rested her head lightly on the professor's shoulder. Knowing that he had not touched her filled her with a secret relief she did not want to admit.
"I believe you, Jose. But the Underworld is boiling right now. Riser Phenex will arrive in the room below at any minute."
Jose nodded, taking a sip of tea. His mind, pulled away from the romantic chaos, returned to the coldness of his duty.
"I know. That's why I stayed here. Rias Gremory collected her favor. And I never break a deal."
...
On the main floor of the Occult Research Club, the atmosphere was radically different.
Asia Argento was sitting on one of the sofas, clutching her skirt with both hands. The little golden nun had a perpetual pout on her lips and a slight frown on her face.
She was worried, of course. Yugo-san had disappeared. But above the worry, there was a strange and unprecedented feeling of jealousy bubbling in her chest. She remembered the image of Rias beneath him. Her rational side told her that Yugo was not that kind of man, that he would never betray his promise to protect her or play with Rias that way. "He ran away because he didn't know what to do," she had told herself all morning. "He wouldn't leave me." Even so, insecurity stabbed at her heart.
The sepulchral silence of the club was interrupted by the appearance of an enormous magic circle wrapped in orange flames.
Heat filled the room at once, consuming the oxygen. From the fire emerged Riser Phenex, the third son of the House of the Phoenix, wearing an extravagant red suit and displaying a smile that dripped pure arrogance. Behind him appeared the fifteen members of his peerage, a harem of women willing to fulfill any whim of their master.
Grayfia Lucifuge watched from a corner, maintaining neutrality as the official referee of Demon King Sirzechs.
Rias, standing in front of her desk, kept her head held high, but her hands trembled imperceptibly at her sides. The fear of losing her freedom clashed with the spark of hope that Sitri's Pawn's promise had lit the night before.
"Rias, my beloved Rias!" Riser exclaimed, opening his arms as if he owned the world. "Riser has come to fetch his bride. And I see your small, pathetic club is still as depressing as ever."
The fire noble swept his contemptuous gaze over the Gremory peerage. He laughed when he saw Kiba and Koneko, dismissing them instantly. Then his eyes stopped on Issei and Asia.
"Well, well. A low-class reincarnated human Pawn and an ex-renegade nun?" Riser let out a mocking laugh, snapping his fingers. "Rias, your talent for picking up trash from the street is fascinating. Don't worry, once we're married, I'll take care of purging these useless things from your life."
Issei Hyoudou felt his blood boil. The fear he had of Yugo Hano was paralyzing, but in front of this arrogant guy who insulted his President and Asia, anger overcame reason.
"Shut up, you damn fire bird!" Issei roared, taking a step forward, the Boosted Gear materializing on his left arm. "Buchou isn't going to marry you! She's our president, and I'll become the Harem King to protect her!"
Riser erased his smile. His eyes sharpened with murderous contempt. A simple low-class Pawn daring to raise his voice at a pure Phenex?
"What a noisy fly," Riser murmured, sighing in boredom. He raised a hand and pointed at Issei without looking at him. "Mira. Teach this filth how one speaks to a noble."
From among Riser's entourage, a small girl armed with a heavy combat staff, a bo, jumped forward. It was Mira, one of Riser's Pawns.
Issei raised the red gauntlet, ready to block, but his inexperience was obvious. Mira moved with overwhelming speed, spinning the staff through the air with the intent to shatter his ribs and knock him out with a single critical blow. The weapon descended like a flash of steel and wood toward the brown-haired boy's unprotected side.
Rias choked back a scream. Asia covered her mouth.
But the blow never arrived.
Just as Mira's staff was millimeters away from Issei's ribs, the air in the center of the Occult Club seemed to distort.
A projectile of pure energy, a torrent of white-blue plasma, pierced through the room's ceiling, shattering the wood and striking the floor exactly between Issei and Riser's Pawn.
KRA-BOOM!
The impact was not a magical explosion. It was an absolute thermal detonation. Mira's staff, upon touching the edge of the flame, melted instantly, turning into liquid slag in her hands. The shockwave of heat repelled Mira backward, throwing her into Riser's other servants, while Issei fell on his butt to the floor, sweating buckets from the sudden increase in temperature.
Riser Phenex took a step back, covering his face with his arm, stunned. The fire that had just fallen from the sky was not the demonic fire he was used to. It was so hot that it made his own immortal flames look like those of a cheap lighter.
The smoke and dust from the broken ceiling began to dissipate.
In the center of the room, blocking the path to Issei and with his back to Rias Gremory, stood an imposing figure.
A colossus of living magma and dark volcanic rock. His shoulder plates resembled small erupting volcanoes, and the fire crowning his head burned with a bluish ferocity, indicating temperatures that defied the laws of thermodynamics.
Heatblast. Pyronite.
The silence in the Occult Club was total. Grayfia narrowed her eyes, recognizing the anomaly's energy. Issei nearly fainted from combined relief and terror. Asia's eyes opened wide, her jealousy evaporating instantly at the sight of her guardian's imposing back.
Riser Phenex lowered his arm, frowning deeply. His pride did not allow him to retreat before a creature with no recognizable demonic aura.
"What the hell is this thing?" Riser hissed, igniting his own orange flames in his hands. "Another one of your stupid familiars, Rias? Get out of my way, stone monster, or I'll turn you to ash!"
The magma colossus slowly turned his flaming head. His cold white eyes, devoid of pupils, fixed on the arrogant aristocrat.
The creature's voice did not resonate with magic; it resonated like old wood splitting in the middle of a forest fire, deep, monotone, and icy despite the heat.
"If you're going to play with fire in this building..." Heatblast growled, taking a heavy step forward that withered the red carpet beneath his rocky feet, "...make sure you don't burn my history books, flammable bird."
The heat in the Occult Research Club room had reached a level that defied sanity. The curtains closest to the center of the room began to scorch, and the varnish on Rias's desk slowly bubbled.
In front of the Gremory peerage, who were staring at the broad and imposing back of volcanic rock with a mix of relief and reverent terror, stood Heatblast. Pyronite.
For Issei, Kiba, Koneko, and Akeno, this was not the first time they had seen the magma titan. They knew exactly the kind of apocalyptic destruction that body could unleash. But for Riser Phenex, his harem of servants, and the inscrutable Grayfia Lucifuge, the creature was an absolute and bewildering first.
Grayfia narrowed her cold silver eyes. The strongest maid in the Underworld scanned the colossus. He emitted no conventional demonic energy. There were no traces of runic magic. What radiated from him was simply raw thermal energy in a state of such violent purity that it altered the atmospheric pressure of the room.
"Is this the source of Kuoh's fluctuations?" Grayfia thought, maintaining her unbreakable composure, though her combat instincts were at their maximum.
Riser Phenex, having recovered from the initial surprise, took a step forward. His noble face was twisted with fury. That an unknown beast had humiliated his Pawn and interrupted his moment of glory was an insult that House Phenex would not tolerate.
"What the hell are you supposed to be?!" Riser roared, while orange-yellow flames, the immortal fire of the phoenix, began to burst from his shoulders and hands. "A stray golem?! You are interfering in matters of pure-blood nobility!"
The magma colossus slowly turned his body, now facing Riser completely. The blue-white flames crowning Yugo's head crackled, illuminating the club walls.
"I told you a moment ago, flammable bird," Heatblast replied, his cavernous and crackling voice sounding with a calm that bordered on absolute contempt. "I'm just making sure you don't burn the furniture. And, while we're at it... I've come to make you a proposal."
Yugo crossed his enormous arms of volcanic rock over his armored obsidian chest.
"I'm not a stray golem," the professor continued, using the same monotone voice from his history classes, but amplified by a rib cage full of magma. "My name is Yugo Hano. And, for your information, I am a formally registered devil. Sona Sitri's Pawn, who consumed two pieces due to... heavyweight issues."
Silence fell over the room again. Riser blinked, confusion momentarily replacing his anger.
"A Pawn?" Riser let out a shrill laugh, throwing his head back. His laughter echoed throughout the club, quickly followed by the mocking giggles of his female entourage. "Are you telling me this lump of burning rocks is nothing but a pathetic low-class devil?! And here I thought Rias had summoned some legendary monster! Sitri House trash, get out before I turn you into ashes!"
Akeno Himejima, behind Yugo, covered her mouth with her sleeve to hide her sadistic smile. "You fell right into the trap, Riser," the Priestess of Thunder thought.
Yugo's calculating mind had already anticipated that reaction. Riser's ego was colossal, fragile, and incredibly easy to manipulate. Yugo was not going to barge in and break the rules of the Underworld by force if he could use the Phenex's own arrogance to legally open the door.
"If I'm only low-class trash..." Heatblast murmured, taking a heavy step forward that made the floor creak. "Then you won't mind me joining the game."
Riser's laughter stopped abruptly. "What stupidity did you just say?"
"I said let me participate in the Rating Game," Yugo declared, raising his flaming chin. "Rias Gremory owes me a favor. And I have decided to collect it by temporarily joining her side for this match. If your peerage is so invincible, and your immortality is so perfect, crushing one extra 'pathetic Pawn' should not require any effort from the great Riser Phenex."
Rias's eyes widened. Her heart skipped a beat. He was really doing it. He was using the favor he had promised her in the darkness of her room to destroy the engagement on the official battlefield.
Grayfia took a step forward, her voice cutting through the heat of the room.
"Hano-dono. The rules of the Rating Game are strict. A servant from another clan cannot..."
"Oh, do rules matter when a noble wants to prove his superiority?" Heatblast interrupted her, ignoring Grayfia and fixing his empty eyes on Riser, aiming straight at his masculine pride. "Or is it that the heir of House Phenex, the master of fire, is afraid of a low-class spark?"
Riser clenched his teeth. His orange flames intensified, licking the club ceiling.
"Riser fears NOTHING! Especially not a piece of talking charcoal!"
Yugo tilted his flaming head slightly. He knew exactly which button to press to seal the deal.
"Then prove it," the Pyronite challenged, lowering his voice to a deep, defiant tone that made the air vibrate. "Let me enter the Rating Game. A direct confrontation. The immortal fire of the Phoenix against the fire of my watch. Let us see which flame burns hotter... and who is truly worthy of claiming the virginity and purity of the Gremory heiress."
Rias felt her cheeks burn, remembering her humiliating proposal from the previous night. Yugo was using that very humiliation as bait.
The effect was devastating. Mentioning Rias's "prize" and questioning his fire in the same sentence made the little sanity Riser had left evaporate.
"YOU DARE QUESTION MY FIRE AND MY RIGHT OVER MY WOMAN!" Riser roared, completely losing his temper.
The Phenex's flames exploded with uncontrollable fury. The orange heat expanded through the room in the form of a shockwave, burning the edges of the furniture and forcing Issei and Asia to step back, coughing from the lack of oxygen.
"I ACCEPT!" Riser bellowed, pointing at Heatblast with a finger wrapped in flames. "Grayfia, I want this damned Pawn on the battlefield! I'm going to melt his stones and then make Rias watch as I scatter his ashes across the entire Underworld!"
Grayfia Lucifuge looked at Riser, and then at the immovable figure of magma. As referee, her duty was to maintain impartiality, but if both parties agreed to a modification under the honor challenge system, she could not refuse.
"If Sir Riser Phenex accepts the challenge and Rias Gremory allows it, an official exception will be made for this Rating Game," Grayfia ruled, in a formal tone, though a spark of intrigue appeared in her silver eyes.
Yugo did not celebrate. He simply released a puff of smoke through his nose.
His own thermal aura responded to the Phenex's aggression. Yugo's flames did not expand in a loud display like Riser's; instead, they condensed. The fire running through the cracks in his rocky body shifted from bright red to blinding white and deep blue.
The difference in heat was instant and terrifying.
Riser's orange aura collided directly with Heatblast's wall of thermal energy.
The center of the room became the epicenter of a clash of hells. The phoenix flames, proud and immortal, licked the air as they tried to consume the rocky figure. But Yugo's pure plasma, with temperatures rivaling the surface of the sun, began to devour Riser's fire. Literally, Yugo's blue flames were evaporating the high-class devil's orange flames.