Issei
Mom called up the stairs that my friends were here, and I nearly tripped getting down to the living room.
Considering who was waiting downstairs, I think that was fair.
I hit the bottom step, turned toward the room, and stopped for a second anyway.
A room full of beautiful girls.
I must have done something great in a past life.
Buchou was there.
That part should have been obvious.
She had moved into the house last night, after everything that happened in the Underworld, but it still didn’t feel real yet. Rias Gremory, the beautiful crimson-haired devil girl I’d gone to the Underworld for, the girl who kissed me beneath that purple sky, was now sitting in my living room like she belonged there.
Actually, no. Not like she belonged there.
Like the room had decided it should have been hers all along.
Asia was beside her, smiling softly.
Akeno-san stood near the sofa with her usual graceful smile.
Yuuto-san sat with perfect posture, as elegant as always.
Koneko-chan was quiet in her chair, looking as expressionless as ever.
And beside them stood Kusari-san.
She was back with us.
My eyes caught on her immediately.
Not because she was hurt.
That part was gone.
Between a Devil’s recovery and Asia’s healing, the damage from the Rating Game was no longer obvious.
Her arm wasn’t in a sling anymore. She stood straight. No staggering. No pallor that looked like it belonged to someone who should still be in bed.
But she looked different anyway.
The seal release had changed her.
It was more apparent now that she was healed and we weren’t in the middle of a rating game.
She looked healthier than she had before the match. Stronger.
Less like a gust of wind would knock her over. But still frail.
At the same time, the strange beauty she already had felt sharper now, harder to ignore. It wasn’t just that she looked better. It was that she seemed more fully there than before, like something in her that had been pressed flat had finally pushed back.
Mom came in from the kitchen with tea and snacks as if having a room full of dangerous supernatural beauties in our house was an everyday thing.
Which, lately, it kind of was.
“There you are,” she said. “Don’t just stand there staring, Issei. Say hello properly.”
Akeno-san smiled at me.
Buchou’s red eyes warmed.
Asia looked happy that we were all together.
Koneko-chan looked unimpressed.
Yuuto-san gave me a small nod.
Kusari-san lowered her gaze as soon as she noticed me looking at her.
That bothered me more than it should have.
“Sorry,” I said, stepping into the room. “I didn’t mean to keep everyone waiting.”
“We didn’t wait long, Issei-kun,” Buchou said.
Akeno-san tilted her head. “You did freeze in the doorway though.”
“That was nothing.”
“…It wasn’t,” Koneko-chan said.
Asia covered her smile with her hand.
Mom sighed in mock disappointment. “He really has no composure around pretty girls at all.”
“Mom!”
Dad’s voice carried from deeper in the house. “He got that from me!”
“Dad!”
That got a laugh out of the room, and some of the strange tightness in my chest eased.
Then Akeno-san made it worse.
“Fufufufu, and Asia-chan was just telling Kusari-chan and I that you had an exciting morning before we arrived.”
Asia blushed and quickly buried her face in her hands.
Mom gave me a look but didn’t say anything as she walked out of the room.
Rias-buchou blushed faintly and tried to look composed.
“I was just sleeping next to Ise as I was having trouble sleeping in my own bed.”
Akeno-san’s eyes lock onto Buchou.
“Is that so? Asia-chan told us that you were nude in his bed. And that she got jealous and got naked before trying to get in too. How exciting.”
Asia makes a flustered sound and looks like she wants to crawl in a hole.
I was embarrassed but didn’t know how to interfere.
Akeno-san continued.
“It’s very bold of you on your first night at his home. I wonder if Ise-kun likes that kind of thing from a girl?”
Buchou blushes harder and points at Akeno-san and Kusari-san.
“Ise is mine and I can sleep next to him however I want! D-Don’t even think about trying anything!”
Akeno-san hides her mouth behind her hand chuckling.
“Ara, Is that so?”
Kusari-san has a blank look as she looks between Buchou and I for a moment.
“Ok Buchou.”
….At least pretend to protest….
The room quickly went back to normal discussions.
Things still felt unreal.
That was the only way to put it.
Yesterday I had been in the Underworld, fighting Riser in front of a crowd of nobles.
Yesterday I had dragged Buchou back from an engagement hall, declared what I wanted in front of the whole room, and somehow won.
Yesterday Kusari-san had been standing beside Sirzechs Lucifer in servant's clothes, and just seeing her there had made something in me burn.
Today, Buchou and Kusari-san were in my living room.
Life was insane.
And somehow that insanity had turned into something warm.
After Mom came back and set down a tray of tea and snacks, everybody settled in.
Buchou sat with that effortless dignity of hers.
Asia took the seat nearest her.
Akeno-san moved like a [Queen] even while doing something as simple as reaching for tea.
Yuuto-san sat in a way that somehow made good posture look elegant instead of stiff.
Koneko-chan took her usual small corner of space like it belonged to her.
Kusari-san chose the edge of the room.
Not hiding.
Just… not taking the center.
Mom handed her a cup the same way she did for everyone else.
“Here you are.”
Kusari hesitated for the smallest instant, then accepted it. “Thank you.”
Mom smiled. “Of course.”
That was it.
Nothing special.
Nothing awkward.
Nothing that needed translating into polite noble language or careful peerage etiquette.
Just tea.
She seemed unsure of what to do or how to act in my home.
Kusari’s fingers tightened once around the cup, then relaxed.
Buchou noticed.
Akeno-san noticed.
Koneko-chan definitely noticed.
Yuuto-san probably did too.
I noticed because I’d been watching her without meaning to.
And then, because Mom was Mom and Buchou was sitting in our house like a dream that had somehow become furniture, I got hit all over again with the memory of last night.
When we came back from the Underworld, I don’t think my brain worked right for hours.
How could it?
I had beaten Riser.
Buchou had kissed me.
And then she had come home with me.
There was no way any normal guy’s mind could keep up with that.
By the time we reached the house, I was exhausted enough that my body kept trying to remember all the places it hurt. L
My left arm still felt strange when I moved it too quickly. I could stand, but not the way I usually did. I’d run on stubbornness and Ddraig’s power for too long and my body knew it.
That didn’t matter.
Not when Buchou was there.
Mom had accepted the whole thing with terrifying ease.
“Oh my,” she’d said, smiling like a beautiful devil noblewoman deciding to stay in our house was the most natural thing in the world. “Then we should prepare a room properly.”
Asia had looked happy enough to cry again, though she also kept stealing little glances at Buchou in that way of hers when she was both relieved and jealous at the same time.
Dad was delighted, because of course he was. He practically looked ready to declare me the greatest son in history just for bringing Buchou through the front door.
Me?
I barely knew what to do with myself.
Every time Buchou looked at me, my heart did something stupid. Every time she moved through the house like she belonged there, it got worse.
Then there was the fact that Asia was there too.
The Hyoudou house had become way too dangerous for my health.
At some point during all of that, I’d found myself thinking about Kusari-san too.
Not because she was at the house. She wasn’t. Even after everything, she still had her room in the old school building, and that was where she went back to.
I would have wanted her here to make sure she was alright, but she probably wanted to be alone. More than that, Kusari didn’t seem like someone who’d know what to do with herself if she was pulled too suddenly into the kind of family chaos my home had.
Asia told Rias and I that Akeno-san, Koneko-chan, and Yuuto-san were still with her, at the old school building.
Asia had come home to wait for us and when we arrived she told us we should rest instead of going to see the others.
Still, even if she didn’t come here, I couldn’t stop thinking about the way she had looked in the hall.
The wrongness of it.
The way she had stepped back to us the second the rematch ended.
The way she still thanked people too formally when they helped her, as if being brought back to the peerage had made her relieved but not secure.
I didn’t like that.
I’d fought too hard to bring everybody back together for that.
This morning had made things even stranger.
I woke up in my own bed and remembered Buchou was here now.
That alone was enough to nearly kill me.
Then Asia came into the room as Buchou laid next to me naked.
Asia looked so upset seeing Buchou naked in bed with me and Buchou decided to hug my arm to her chest and make things both better and worse.
I still can’t believe that the innocent and sweet Asia decided to strip and jump into bed with us after that.
Then breakfast happened, and it felt like the universe had decided to test the limits of my self-control. Buchou sitting at our table. Asia there too. Mom smiling. Dad acting like he’d somehow won at life by proximity. Every ordinary domestic thing felt ten times more powerful just because they were the ones doing it.
At one point I caught myself staring at Buchou while she drank tea and almost choked on my rice.
A great start to my new life.
By the time the morning settled down, I had just barely convinced myself that maybe I could survive this arrangement.
Then Mom called up the stairs and told me the rest of the peerage had arrived.
Buchou had decided to hold a meeting for the Occult research club in my home.
So apparently survival was off the table after all.
“Issei-san?”
Asia’s voice pulled me back into the living room.
“Huh?”
“You stopped moving again,” she said.
Akeno-san laughed softly. “It seems Issei-kun has been overwhelmed twice in one afternoon.”
“N-no I haven’t.”
Buchou gave me a small smile. “You have.”
“That was a normal pause!”
“It wasn’t…,” Koneko-chan said again.
Yuuto-san’s mouth twitched.
Mom looked much too pleased by the whole thing.
The room felt easy in a way I hadn’t expected so soon after everything that happened in the Underworld.
Maybe that was because all of us were still holding the memory of it somewhere under the surface.
Maybe that was why the ordinary parts of this felt so good.
Mom asked Yuuto-san about tea preferences and immediately decided Yuuto-san had excellent manners.
Asia helped arrange the snacks without even being asked.
Akeno-san somehow made standing near the sofa and talking look more seductive than it had any right to.
Buchou handled conversation with Mom so naturally it made my brain hurt.
Koneko-chan stayed blunt.
Kusari-san seemed unsure of what to do with herself in my home and spoke the least. But she answered when spoken to and didn’t look like she was trying to disappear.
I was just starting to think I might survive the afternoon after all when Mom made a fatal mistake.
“Oh!” she said suddenly. “That reminds me. I found some old photo albums while I was cleaning.”
Every muscle in my body locked up.
No.
Absolutely not.
“Mom,” I said as carefully as I could, “there’s really no need to—”
But she was already walking off toward the other room.
Asia blinked. “Photo albums?”
Akeno-san’s smile deepened at once. “Ara.”
Buchou’s red eyes gleamed.
Koneko-chan’s expression didn’t change, which somehow made the situation worse.
Yuuto-san looked mildly curious.
Kusari-san looked between all of us, clearly not yet understanding the disaster that was about to happen.
“Photos?” she asked quietly. Confused.
Mom returned carrying two albums like a warrior bringing back spoils from the battlefield.
My dignity died the second she put them on the table.
“Oh, these should be wonderful,” Akeno-san said.
“No, they should not!”
“Ise,” Buchou said, smiling, “sit down.”
There was no escaping.
Mom opened the first album.
“There!” she said happily. “Look at him.”
Asia leaned in first. “He was cute.”
“Asia you’re not helping…”
“You were,” Asia said with total sincerity. “Very cute.”
Koneko-chan looked down at a photo of me as a little kid with chubby cheeks and said, “…Round…”
“I was not round!”
“You were round Ise-kun,” Akeno-san said.
Buchou laughed.
A real laugh. Bright and amused and absolutely fatal to my heart.
Yuuto-san looked down at another photo of me grinning in a ridiculous shirt and smiled faintly.
Even Kusari-san, standing just behind the others, was watching with a look I couldn’t quite place.
Not exactly amusement.
Not only that, anyway.
She was looking at the album, at Mom, at the way everyone crowded in close around the table. Like she was trying to understand the whole shape of the thing at once.
Mom kept turning pages.
“And this is Ise when he was in grade school.”
“Ara ara, so he went into the beach naked.”
“Hey Akeno-san! Mom! Please stop showing her embarrassing things!”
Koneko looked at the photos while looking pleased.
“......Ise-senpai’s embarrassing past.”
“You also can't look, Koneko-chan!”
Me crying. Me sleeping with my mouth open. Me making faces. Me holding up bugs like they were treasure. Me in a kiddie pool. Me with a scraped knee looking like the world had ended.
Every page was more ammunition for teasing.
Asia made these soft little noises of delight every time she found something I thought was embarrassing and she found cute.
Akeno-san took open pleasure in my suffering.
Buchou took an album of photos herself and started muttering quietly to herself with red cheeks.
Koneko-chan only commented every so often, but when she did it was always lethal.
Even Yuuto’s quiet amusement hurt because she was usually too polite to enjoy my humiliation this much.
Asia and Buchou began to bond over the photos.
At least my suffering is helping them.
Then I caught it.
The smallest movement at the corner of Kusari’s mouth.
I pointed at her immediately. “You were about to laugh at my suffering too!”
Her expression smoothed out in an instant. “No.”
“You were!”
“I wasn’t.”
Akeno-san leaned toward her. “Kusari-chan, I’d like to hear that.”
“From you, that sounds unsafe,” Kusari-san murmured.
“It is,” Yuuto-san said dryly.
That made Asia smile into her hand and got another laugh out of Buchou.
Mom, oblivious to all of us, turned another page.
“Oh,” she said. “Here’s one with that boy you used to play with all the time.”
I looked down automatically.
The photograph was old enough that it took me a moment to place it.
I was little, standing beside the childhood friend I used to run around with all the time.
Short hair. Big grin. Scrapped knees.
The two of us standing close together like we’d just been dragged into place by our parents.
I scratched my cheek. “Wow. I haven’t seen that one in forever.”
“You were always together back then,” Mom said fondly.
“Yeah,” I said. “He moved away a long time ago.”
The room had been warm a second before.
“Ah! We need more tea. I’ll be right back.”
My mom got up after gathering the tea set and headed back to the kitchen.
Then I noticed that the atmosphere had shifted.
Yuuto-san had gone still.
Only slightly, but I saw it.
Her gaze wasn’t on me or the other kid in the photo.
It was on something in the background.
I followed her eyes.
At the edge of the picture, partly behind us, there was a sword.
Long. Straight. Cross-shaped guard.
It didn’t look like a toy.
Not in the way festival decorations or cheap replicas did.
I frowned faintly. I’d never paid attention to it before.
Yuuto-san had.
Her expression didn’t change much, but her eyes narrowed just a little as she looked at it.
Across the table, Akeno-san noticed the same thing a heartbeat later.
Buchou’s gaze shifted toward Yuuto-san.
Kusari-san, quiet as ever, stopped watching the photo and watched Yuuto instead.
“Do you remember this?”
Yuuto-san asks me seriously.
“Hmm…. Sorry but I can’t, it was too long ago.”
“To find it in an unexpected place......”
She laughed to herself, but her eyes were dark with anger.
“This is a Holy Sword.”
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