It was night time as a meeting was happening between two of the three kings of Kuoh. Sona was looking at Rias with an impassive gaze as she spoke.

"... You are not wearing your cloaking jewel." ??

Rias huffed indignantly.

"And why should I? I have no reason to hide from some little stray exorcist who provoked me like that. If he wants to come then he is welcome to, I am ready to fight him." Rias said with a bravado Sona wish was fake, but knew it wasn't.

Since young Rias had a rather high opinion of herself and this time it was no exception. Sighing Sona shook her head.

"I advise you against this plan, Rias, but I won't force you to do otherwise. Whatever happens, it is in your head, just make sure that if someone does come to send a signal for me or Riser so we can help at least cover up any damage made to the surroundings. I, and our race, don't need another fiasco."

Rias rolled her eyes at this knowing Sona has always been very controlling and far too careful about her every step, in Rias' eyes she barely even acted like a devil as she refused to be even influenced by her emotions or sin. Devils are creatures of sin and emotion, refusing it like Sona did sometimes could not be a truly positive thing.

"Fine, fine, not that calling for Riser would be really needed." Rias said with exasperation. "That actually ties up with why I came here."

Sona raised a brow and asked.

"Explain to me please."

"As you know, thanks to what happened I now have a 'minder' in the form of Riser. But, and I quote 'babysitting all the time is not my style', so he exchanged with me one of his Peerage members until the engagement ceremony so she can watch over me and inform him in case anything happens while he would be in town together with the rest of his peerage playing around."

Sona just stared at Rias in surprise that Rias actually accepted such a deal since Riser couldn't really force her to accept it.

"Why did you accept this deal? This would mean you have one less piece than you should since that piece's loyalty would still be with Riser. I thought you were planning to introduce that other boy in your peerage instead." Sona said and Rias looked at the teacup in her hands and wished it was something heavier, perhaps whiskey or something (she has never drunk it, but it felt appropriate).

"Because it was either I take this deal or Riser would push his way to enters the school with him being a teacher and his whole peerage being either teachers or students." Rias said and Sona winced. Knowing Riser he would make sure to inform everyone they were engaged and then proceed to charm and fuck all available girls of the school he could get his hands on. Better to sacrifice one potential peerage member than this sort of humiliation and troubles, especially if said recruit would be someone that gave off so many negative signs as that boy.

Rias would lose all possible freedom with that and she would be known as a girl who could not keep her 'man' and had him running around and doing nothing as she was cheated on. Whatever dreams she had of a 'normal' school life would be completely ruined then and there with that.

"So, who did he make you get?" Sona asked and Rias sighed.

"He made me take Ravel. I guess it was because she is also a high-class devil of a noble family just like us so I can't really order her around as much as I would if it was any other member of his peerage and, according to him, 'without her I can get another hot ass to fuck in my peerage since incest is a bit too much for me ... beyond eye candy, of course'."

Sona nodded, she didn't really understand some other devils' ways of thinking with their genitals, but maybe that was because she was still very young for her race.

"So, you want me to put set things up so she can be in highschool, right?" Sona asked, already being used to using her influence to set these sorts of things up, even if the paperwork she had to do was still very much unappreciated.

"Actually, could you put her in middle school? It could be the last year, her age would be appropriate enough anyway and I would rather not have her around during class period. She will be around for club activity but, at least during class, I would rather she not be around watching over my shoulder. If possible be done with that by the morning." Rias said and Sona sighed and nodded her head, with her absolute control over the school something like that was quite simple, but her face stiffened slightly since she heard 'middle school'.

Rias, after a moment paying attention, noted this and looked quizically at her.

"What is wrong, Sona? You don't normally show a face like that, the last time I've seen you looking like this was in that chess tournament you participated and your sister shown up with an entire cheerleader squad dressed as slutty magical girl cosplays to cheer for you."

And, just like that, Sona's expression looked even more troubled since those memories were one of those that she would rather forget ever happened, to say the absolute least.

Sona, after much deliberation, decided to say something she would rather never admit to anyone, ever.

"I lost a chess match."

And with that Rias' mind froze, her eyes widened since even the concept of Sona losing was hard to comprehend since, for the last 5 years, she has never lost a single match in chess despite all the tournaments she went to and how experienced the other side might be.

"... Does that mean you are also engaged now?" Rias asked, not knowing how to feel about it.

On one side she would be sad if her friend was being forced to be with someone she did not like. On the other hand, well, Rias was always quite jealous of being the only one being forced to go through with this sort of thing so her friend being in this position as well almost made Rias gleeful, almost.

"Not quite." Sona admitted and seeing Rias' confused expression Sona continued. "My situation and yours are similar in that we both are being pressed to be married so as to help repopulate our race, but besides that our two situations are fundamentally different. In your case, Rias, your engagement was set before you or Riser were even born seeing as a child of you both would be a decidedly powerful boon to the devils, especially the New Satan Faction, no matter what."

"I still say it is unnecessary, I can become a 'boon' to our race without needing to work as a breeding mare." Rias said in irritation at this argument she heard so many times before, but Sona shrugged at her friend's outburst.

"Be that as it may, even you have to admit that a child between you and a Phenex would easily become amongst the strongest in terms of potential. The strongest offensive power from the house of Bael, the greatest magic reserves from house Gremory, both of those matched together can produce absurdly powerful devils like your brother. Now if you also mix in the regenerative powers of house Phenex then that would make any child of this mix be a great terror in a battlefield and, seeing as we still are technically in a state of war, the creation of such a child would be seen as an undeniable positive thing going forward.

"And that is all without even considering binding together the house of Gremory, which is one of the highest in terms of nobility ranks, with house Phenex which is the richest house in the Devil race by more than twice over compared to the next in line and able to produce the one thing that our race can leverage to virtually any negotiation with other Pantheons or factions and still have a good effect."

Rias just grunted, having heard these sort of words for so long she just wanted to bang her head against a wall whenever someone spoke of it. She knew all of that, but why did SHE have to be the one to go through with this? She was to be the next head of House Gremory so shouldn't she have at least a say in these sort of talks? Why not make Milicas marry Ravel then if such babies were so important, the two were close in age anyway and Milicas also has the Power of Destruction and everything.

As Rias was disgruntled about her situation made all the more permanent than she wanted after what happened recently, Sona continued talking.

"In my case, there were several candidates selected as options for me since the day I was born, but there was no single contract signed. Thanks to that I could set a condition that I can only consider marrying someone with sufficient standing and that can defeat me in chess."

Rias, understanding what was said, felt irritation and spoke.

"So you can just say no even IF someone beats you in chess? How is it fair that you are so free while I don't even have a single option?" Rias said and Sona shook her head.

"Not as free as you might think." Sona said. "There is no limit to how many times someone can challenge me, there are some that challenged me over 50 times already and I am not allowed to say no to any challenge in chess. And, if someone who can be considered in the barest of standards as a suitable partner beats me, then I have to at least truly try my best to make a relationship work out, and only if it is judged to be completely hopeless can the engagement not happen. If I actively try to sabotage the union then my parents can choose the partner for me freely and I lose any and all rights to opine about it all. I have been facing challenges to my hand since I was 12 almost every night and sometimes couldn't even sleep properly since I have to accept any challenge and those matches can happen even late in the night. Some even try to go for that time hoping I would be too tired and make a mistake."

Rias winced slightly, not knowing her friend was going through that. She always thought her friend had it very easy, but Rias could tell that Sona had problems of her own as well.

"So, who is the lucky one that managed to defeat you? Is it Zepar? Berith? Maybe Dantalion, I've seen how he wanted to be with you." Rias said, her 'gossiping' mode activated.

Sona shook her head.

"Hanakai."

"Huh? But there are no devil families with the name Hanakai." Rias said and Sona sighed.

"Not devil, human."

This time Rias gaped. The mere thought of marrying a human of all things being completely ludicrous for her, and in fact for most devils. Devils and humans had relationships, true, but normally devils treated such things as casual dalliances that were not important or, in more extreme cases, as convenient holes and dicks that one can use. This was due to the sheer natural difference in power and lifespan between the two races, no serious relationship between equals could even potentially come about between such a match.

Sona then proceeded to explain.

"This match is only possible due to the Hanakai industries being the closest and most influential contact between house Sitri and the human world. About 70% of our imports and exports to the human world happen through the Hanakai family, even my own Bishop being the current heiress is precisely due to how relevant the relationship between house Sitri and the Hanakai family is. Seeing as Momo is now a devil, though, she can't truly inherit the position as next head of the family so the most likely person to take over the position would be this person who beat me in chess."

Rias nodded, she still thought that such a match was ludicrous, but she could understand it somewhat. Besides, it would mean Sona would only have to be married for a period of a few decades at most which, for a devil, didn't truly mean that much seeing as they all could leave for ten thousand years or longer.

What Sona didn't say was that, in fact, she did not like Soma at all. If anything her first impression of hims was that he was the rudest, crudest, most brutish person she has ever met, he showed no respect for her whatsoever and, if anything, he was seemed to look down at her. Sona would only entertain the idea of actually truly trying to get closer to him for one reason.

... She wanted to make him bow to her.

Sona may not be controlled by her desires and sins as much as other devils, but she was still a devil with one very pronounced sin. She was a devil of pride, and she would make Soma bow to her and apologize for acting like if she was anyone else! She was Sona Sitri and she deserved respect, not to be aimed eyes like those he shot at her.

Looking outside the window of the mansion Sona wondered what should she do to make this man bow to her in reverence. She already made the entire school do that by just walking around and being herself, that was normal for devils who could naturally charm humans, but he was different. He was immune to it all and the worst part is that he had humiliated her in that chess match. She never ONCE suffered such a humiliating defeat, being treated as if she was an amateur as he barely seemed to pay attention to the game while he was still eating his lunch. No, after that her pride would accept no less than him bowing to her. Plans forming on her mind to accomplish just that as she wondered what he might be doing right now.

///---///

"You know, you are quite lucky I think Aya would not be pleased if you died right now. Isn't it good that you can only keep alive because someone you consider 'trash' doesn't want me to slowly dissect you while you are alive and make you eat every single piece that comes off?" Soma spoke quietly as he stared down at the sleeping figure of Kaname Asagiri.

Soma had just read all the memories of the sleeping boy using some 'basic' mind-related magecraft he learned. He had seen through all his memories as he wanted to confirm if the little 'punishment' he has set up would be good enough.

It so happens, it WOULDN'T be enough. Not at all.

Seeing this Soma looked at Kaname with a degree of pity knowing just how much this teenager was going to suffer in the near future, but this pity was dulled immensely by the satisfaction of knowing how much he was going to suffer in the near and immediate future.

"I guess I could just give you this extra push." Soma said as he put his hand over Kaname's head. Soma's understanding of the human body and brain was probably the highest in the current world and with a normal human having no defense against magic energy it was child's play to make Kaname have what could only be seen as several small issues in his body that would start to take effect one after the other in the future.

Inability to hold in urine, loss of all hair, feeling itchy at all times all over the body, eyesight worsening to the point that in one year he would go blind, every time he gets a hard-on he would feel unbearable pain, all bones becoming as fragile as glass, Alzheimer within a two years at most with signs starting by the next day, allergy to sugar and gluten that will make him vomit everything if he ever eats anything that has them in it as well as needing immediate medical assistance due to the swelling, and several other big and small things.

Kaname's body would be a hell to live in soon enough, but that alone was not the most immediate thing Soma did. No, his first action that would take effect soonest was making his body show signs of chemical dependency to several drugs, including several spots underneath his shirt that would look like marks of drug usage, and he would from this day on suffering from night terrors as bad as possible to the point of having strong PTSD and need medication to just TRY to have a decent night sleep.

"From now on your dreams will be hell, and so will your body be hell. But this alone is not enough a punishment for being such a piece of shit so I will make sure that you will be firmly planted on the seat you deserve, loser." Soma said with a dark smile worthy of Morgan LeFay and Moriarty. He wouldn't kill him, if he did that then Aya would know he intervened without her saying so and she might lose faith in him or something. Better to make a believable lie instead, and what a play Soma would be planning out soon enough.

Thinking for a bit Soma made a few other modifications to Kaname's body, changing some cells to be more suitable to where he would be going soon enough.

As he was doing so Soma felt something strange in Kaname. He felt something slightly similar in Aya that time he treated her but he was far too worried about her physical health and state to pay attention to details that were not relevant for her well-being at the time.

Feeling it closer he found it was as if there was something 'connected' to Kaname's soul. A foreign entity that was connected to Kaname's soul as if the two were artificially stitched together. For most this would be impossible to mess with, but for Soma...

"What sort of shady work is this? Did the person who make this connection even understand the basics of soul manipulation or did he just threw things around and when something barely worked he waved it off as a success? This has 'shitty work' written all over it." Soma said and shook his head.

After his many years studying the Third Magic (Heaven's Feel), the Materialization of the Soul, Soma could be said to be extremely knowledgeable about souls. For him what he saw in Kaname's soul was a messy work that he could only scoff at since it was ridiculous in his eyes.

Shaking his head Soma decided he might as well take a closer look at what exactly it was. With great ease he manipulated his magic energy inside Kaname's body and with practiced ease he removed the 'stitches' connecting the item to Kaname's soul. There was some sort of leakage that happened whenever one of the 'stitches' was severed, but, for Soma, it was simple enough to close them and make it where Kaname's soul was in perfect condition as if no problems had ever happened.

After doing so Soma had the object removed from inside Kaname and looked at it. It was an orange bow that made Soma raise a brow but after a moment understand what it was.

"I see, so you had a Sacred Gear. Would you look at that, you really were a chosen one, good for you. But, now you are just like everybody else who wasn't blessed by birth and, within a few days, you will not even be that. Your body itself will become trash that would be hard to find a worse example of a human body and I have my doubts over how long your mind will last with you unable to sleep. Good luck being a pathetic loser for the rest of your life, whatever long you last. At least I will be nice and send you to a place I believe you will fit in quite nicely."

After finishing with this Soma got out of the room and went to the room of the parents of Aya, he could study more of this bow later on. Looking at the two he could see that the mother was curled up in a small ball as far away from her husband as possible while said husband was sprawled over the bed as if there was only he there. Seeing this scene and remembering the memories of Kaname in regards to them Soma nodded to himself.

He first went to the father's side, putting a hand over his head he wanted to hypnotize him into thinking that life was only worth living if Kaname was there and was the winner he envisioned, but Soma shook his head in disgust seeing as that was not necessary. Jirou Asagiri already saw himself AS Kaname and already thought that, if Kaname fails, then he would kill his son and then kill himself as well. Truly a pathetic excuse for a man.

"Well, since I am already here." Soma said as he put a hand over the man's chest and used some magecraft to give the man testicle cancer that would be in a salvageable state if he had them removed and went to a very intensive and lengthy chemotherapy that would make him suffer for months, if not years. A person like that didn't deserve to be a 'man' anymore and losing his ability to BE a man in the most basic sense should be a good first step.

But, Soma couldn't quite just let him have this cancer and hope he would notice. If treatment took too long to start then the cancer could advance further and be lethal which was unacceptable. Soma wanted him to suffer for a long time and him just dying like that would be too easy.

To ensure the man would have to go to the hospital Soma made sure he would be suffering from appendicitis within the next few hours (timed so Aya would already be in school, no point in losing class time over someone like this) which would make him need to run to the hospital to get treatment at once (as a bonus he also changed the nerves around the area to be extra sensitive, just to make sure he would feel even greater pain from it).

While he would have to go to the hospital he would be identified as having cancer. Even if he doesn't kill himself after Kaname 'fails' the man would be interned in the hospital for a long time and wouldn't be able to make Aya, or his wife, suffer anymore.

With the right persuasion the two should also leave him then, since he is a piece of trash and can no longer hurt or force them to obey, and, after they leave him behind to suffer alone, Soma could easily enough kill the man or go to the hospital to make him suffer much worse with even worst diseases that would make him waste away while suffering every step of the way until his slow and agonizing death alone in a hospital bed where no one would mourn him. A fitting end, but that was, of course, if Jirou didn't just kill himself.

Fingers crossed he did not do that, someone like that deserved to die more slowly and in a much more humiliating way than just by hanging himself or inconveniencing others by jumping out a window.

Feeling satisfied with this Soma went to Monoko's side of the bed and used structural grasp on her, and he sighed at what he saw. This woman had gone through almost as much physical abuse as Aya and at a closer examination, he could see she was quite baren. Furrowing his brows Soma examined this further and found signs inside her that indicated she did have kids but, during a previous pregnancy, she was hit in her stomach extremely hard and the baby died inside her in a brutal way.

The removal of the said fetus was clearly done in a very sloppy way and when it was over she completely lost the ability to have more children. Seeing this Soma decided that he might as well fix that.

Using a considerable amount of magic energy he began to heal her injuries and, after a while, he healed her in that aspect as well. While examining Kaname's memories he never saw her doing anything to hurt Aya and even tried to protect her at times, but she was too afraid to take more serious actions. Soma could understand that and did not dismiss it, she didn't manage to do much, but she was the closest thing to a proper parent this family had, and helping her this much felt right.

Nodding to himself he left the room as if he was a shadow and moved without making any noise until Aya's room, seeing her sleeping there he checked to see if there were any new injuries and noted with some surprise that there were no new ones. He expected her to be in a worse state but this was the first day since she came back to her house so maybe nothing happened because of that.

Still, Soma checked her more thoroughly and noted she too had an item stitched to her soul, but this object was not quite as 'stable' as the one he extracted from Kaname. It was as if it was once a weapon of considerable power, but it turned into a mud structure of it and was trying to fix itself. He also felt its connection with Aya's soul was even less well done than the one Kaname's gear had with his, and that was already a terrible half-assed job at best.

"... It is good I found out about this before anything bad could have happened." Soma said as he proceeded to use his energy to better and more stably connect the gear to Aya's soul. As he did so he noted how it was now draining what Soma could only imagine as Aya's magic circuits of energy in an efficient manner as if it was trying to supply itself with energy to fix its issues.

He was worried for a moment there but the energy being pulled was not really damaging her circuits nor her body, if anything it would force the energy from her surroundings into her and this energy would have a positive aspect on her health as it was pulled in. It wouldn't really make her be a superhuman or anything, but it would certainly help her be much healthier in comparison to normal.

"Don't worry, soon enough things will change for you. Very, very soon." Soma said as he put a hand on her head and used some hypnosis on her, not do anything bad but just a trick Merlin taught him to make people have nice dreams. It wasn't much, but, with this, she would at least sleep better from now on.

Having done his part Soma left the house and looked at the time on his phone. It was three in the morning so he could go to sleep now to have at least a few hours of sleep... Or-

"It should be better to sleep in class and eliminate those stray devils in town. Besides, who knows when they might move or attack innocent civilians?" Soma said as he began to move.

Considering everything and that he had two available targets Soma thought for a bit before deciding he might as well go and kill those two and study their corpses. There was far too much Soma did not know about supernatural creatures and learning about them, and how to better kill them, was more important than some hours of sleep. He could always just sleep in class anyway.

///---///

Next day Soma was sleeping soundly during the class time making the teacher very irritated and Aya feel flustered since her friend was being scolded in class and did not seem to care at all about it.

This could not be avoided, however, since Soma even being in class today was something he was pushing himself for. The stray devils he had found were not particularly hard to deal with, neither taking more than 5 minutes to kill and most of that time was him studying their movements and ways of attack. What really ate up his time was something else, the dissecting of the corpses he had to do on the site since their bodies were far too large.

He only was satisfied with what he got of information, and finished collecting his samples, when it was around 5 in the morning. Returning home he had begun another experiment, he had obtained two items from those stray devils that were quite interesting and he was still trying to counter engineer them to understand them better.

A Rook and Queen pieces.

They were even more fascinating than the honestly incomplete bow he 'obtained' from Kaname. Soma didn't spend much time studying it, only around twenty or so minutes so it could only be called as a quick inspection, but that was enough to make it damn obvious that the bow was more like a piece of an item that was reforged to work independently, not the full thing.

On the evil pieces he obtained, after careful examination, he could tell some aspects of the method by which the evil pieces had the ability to change the race of a person and give them several boosts too. To be able to make such an item, and make it be mass-produced no less, was most interesting, to say the least.

But most of these aspects did not interest Soma in the slightest. Being mass-produced and changing races were just annoyances for him, the first because just mass-producing something, if you had enough materials for it, was relatively simple in his eyes, and the second because changing his race had no appeal to him.

If he wanted to live for centuries, even millennia, he could do so without much issue and had several ways to do just that. No, what interested him was actually the boost the pieces would give BEYOND the race change.

As a human Soma was of a mindset that he should always look for ways to improve himself. Those pieces could increase a person's natural potential and capabilities in certain areas, if he could take those boosts alone for all the five types of pieces he could increase his own and any other potential ally of his' potential exponentially.

Soma only had a theory for now and would need more time and samples to study the possibilities, but it was definitely interesting.

As for the bow, Soma used a technique like that used to input a conceptual item inside one's body to carry it around. He had decided to keep it with him because he wanted a viable weapon for long-range in case there was a need and it would be far less conspicuous to have it inside him than walking around with a light gun. As he did not bind it with his soul as it did with Kaname then he could remove it from inside himself simply enough and its usage was ridiculously simple.

It was a great bow, very easy to pull and its drain of energy was much less than the output of power so it would be a great weapon, even if the bow was decidedly incomplete.

As the teacher stopped trying to bother to wake up Soma he turned to the rest of class to speak and Aya pushed Soma for a bit to make him wake up in time for the announcement.

Much to the teacher's irritation, Soma opened his eyes quite easily when she did so. Taking a deep calming breath the teacher spoke up.

"Uhum, class today we are having two additions to class. Th-->>

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