Akari Hayashi had barely slept, her mind buzzing with the implications of Multiverse Travel and Transform. Three pregnancies, four permanent powers, and a growing hunger—not for food (that was solved forever), but for more.
More strength, more security, more control. The rumors had reached her ears the previous evening while she lingered at the convenience store counter: whispers from late-night customers about an abandoned church on the far western edge of town.
People—mostly curious teens or homeless drifters—had been seen entering over the past weeks. None ever came out. Stray devils, most likely. Or something worse. In canon, stray devils were opportunistic cannibals, former pieces discarded or runaway from their masters, and they loved isolated places like ruined churches.
Akari stared at her reflection in the bedroom mirror, naked except for the silk robe she'd summoned the night before. Her fingers brushed her flat stomach, feeling the quiet presences inside. If I go in blind, I die. If I go prepared… I might walk out with another Sacred Gear.
She closed her eyes and focused on Transform. Her body shimmered like heat haze—height shrinking slightly, hair bleaching to stark white, ears elongating into feline points, tail manifesting with a soft flick, golden eyes sharpening into slits.
When the change settled, Koneko Toujou stared back from the mirror: petite, expressionless, school uniform perfectly replicated down to the ribbon and skirt. Even her scent shifted—clean cotton, faint milk, and the subtle wildness of a nekomata.
Perfect disguise. If anyone sees me enter, they'll assume it's just the Occult Research Club's mascot poking around. And if things go wrong… She flexed her small hands, feeling the Boosted Gear's dormant power coil tighter in her soul.
Ddraig's voice, still faint and watchful, rumbled once in acknowledgment but said nothing. Akari—no, "Koneko"—slipped out the back door of her average house and headed west on foot, keeping to back alleys and side streets to avoid drawing attention.
The abandoned church stood on a low hill at the town's forgotten periphery, its steeple cracked, stained glass long shattered, vines choking the stone walls like green veins. The front doors hung ajar, creaking in the wind.
No wards, no demonic signatures she could sense—yet. She stepped inside, kitten-heeled shoes clicking softly on cracked marble. Dust motes danced in the weak light filtering through broken windows.
Pews lay overturned; an altar at the far end had been smashed, its cross missing. The air smelled of mildew, old incense, and something metallic—blood, faint but recent.
A few minutes passed in tense silence as she moved deeper, pretending to explore like a curious student might. Then it hit her: the prickle at the back of her neck, the sudden shift in air pressure. Something was watching. Multiple somethings. Her golden eyes narrowed. Here we go.
She raised her right gauntlet instinctively. The Boosted Gear materialized in a burst of crimson light, the red dragon-scale armor snapping over her small arm with a mechanical hiss. Ddraig's voice echoed low in her mind for the first time since the transfer:
Boost.
Boost.
Boost.
Boost.
Four boosts stacked in rapid succession. Her body thrummed with unnatural power, muscles tightening, senses sharpening to razor edges, speed and strength quadrupled beyond her base civilian stats.
The petite nekomata frame now moved with predatory grace amplified to monstrous levels. She stood ready in the center of the nave, tail flicking once.
From the shadows behind the broken altar and collapsed balcony, four figures emerged. Stray devils—two males, two females.
Their eyes glowed sickly red; horns, claws, and patches of blackened scales marked their fallen state. The first male, tall and lanky with jagged teeth, leered at her.
"What is a cute nekomata doing here, huh?"
The first female—curvier, with bat-like wings folded against her back—licked her lips, voice dripping venom.
"Does it matter? She is nothing but food for us. Her kind has been almost wiped out anyway."
The second female, shorter and more feral with clawed hands already dripping acidic ichor, snarled.
"Enough. Let's not waste time and finish her off."
The other three growled in unison.
"Agreed."
They lunged.
Four bodies moved in a pincer—two from the front, two flanking. But Akari (in Koneko's form) was already four times faster, four times stronger.
She sidestepped the first male's claw swipe with effortless precision, the boosted reflexes making his attack look comically slow. The second male tried to tackle her from the side; she twisted mid-air, planting a foot on his shoulder and vaulting over him like a gymnast on springs.
As they stumbled to recover, she thrust her gauntleted right arm forward.
"Dragon Shot!"
A concentrated sphere of crimson draconic energy erupted from her palm—brilliant, roaring, unstoppable. The blast struck the first male square in the chest, vaporizing him in a flash of red light and charred ash.
The shockwave caught the two flanking females; their bodies disintegrated mid-scream, reduced to smoking husks that crumbled before they hit the ground.
Three down in a single attack.
The last stray—the first female, the one who'd called her "food"—froze for a heartbeat, horror replacing hunger in her glowing eyes. She spun, wings flaring, and bolted toward a shattered side window, desperate to escape.
Akari didn't allow it.
With boosted speed she crossed the nave in a blink, small hand clamping around the stray's ankle and yanking her back mid-leap. The female crashed to the marble floor with a pained yelp.
Akari straddled her waist, pinning her arms with one boosted hand while the other tore through the stray's ragged clothing like paper. Fabric ripped away, exposing pale, scaled breasts.
For ten long minutes, Akari indulged.
She lowered her head—Koneko's small, white-haired head—and latched onto the first breast, sucking hard. Teeth grazed just enough to draw a gasp, tongue swirling over the nipple in slow, deliberate circles. The stray writhed, half in pain, half in unwilling confusion, but the boosted strength kept her immobile.
Akari switched to the other breast, sucking with equal force, drawing out faint whimpers as she worked methodically, almost playfully. Ten full minutes—marking, claiming, toying—before she finally lifted her head, lips glistening.
The stray's eyes were wide, terrified.
Akari raised her gauntlet again.
"Dragon Shot."
The final crimson blast punched through the stray's chest at point-blank range. The body convulsed once, then went limp, life extinguished in an instant. Ash and embers drifted upward.
Silence returned to the ruined church.
The boosts faded one by one—Reset—leaving Akari's body trembling. Four Dragon Shots in quick succession, combined with sustained 4× boosts, had pushed her untrained frame far beyond its limits.
Exhaustion crashed over her like a wave; legs wobbled, vision swam, muscles burned. She dismissed the Boosted Gear with a shaky thought, the gauntlet vanishing in red motes.
Too much. Way too much.
She didn't waste time. Raising her free hand, she focused on Multiverse Travel. A small, precise portal tore open directly beneath her feet—no larger than necessary, leading straight into her bedroom. The edges shimmered violet-black. She stepped through without hesitation.
The portal snapped shut behind her.
In her average two-story house, the portal closed with a soft pop. Akari—still in Koneko's form for another heartbeat—let the transformation unravel.
White hair darkened back to plain brown, ears and tail vanished, height returned to normal. Her own clothes reappeared around her body: the white crop top, denim shorts, everything as it had been before the disguise.
She stumbled the last two steps to her bed and collapsed face-first onto the mattress. The room spun gently. Exhaustion pulled at her like gravity.
Four strays dead. No witnesses. No traces.
And her womb remained unchanged, still 3 children, still 4 powers.
Sleep claimed her almost instantly, deep and dreamless.