Rias Gremory stood on the villa's terrace, looking down at the training ground below.
One of the Gremory family's properties in the human world — a European-style villa buried deep in the mountains, its grounds absurdly vast. The main building rose three stories, stone walls crawling with ivy, the back garden opening directly into a stretch of old-growth forest. Two kilometers further back ran a river, and beyond the river, a cliff face.
A perfect, isolated training ground.
"Ten days."
She murmured it to herself, fingers tapping lightly against the stone railing.
Ten days until the Rating Game. Her opponent was Riser Phoenix — a scion of the Phoenix bloodline who had fought countless Rating Games, his peerage complete, experienced, and perfectly coordinated.
And on her side —
A Pawn reincarnated less than two months ago, who still couldn't use his Sacred Gear properly. A Bishop reincarnated just days ago, who hadn't even mastered basic demonic power manipulation. A Rook who was completely uncontrollable and was probably asleep on the roof of Kuoh Academy right now.
The corner of her mouth twitched.
"Akeno."
"Yes, President."
Akeno Himejima stepped up onto the terrace from behind her, carrying two cups of tea. She handed one to Rias and stood beside her, her gaze drifting down toward the mountain below.
"Is the training plan ready?"
"It is." Akeno smiled and drew a neatly folded sheet of paper from her pocket. "I've designed targeted drills for each person's weaknesses."
Rias took the paper and opened it.
**Training Plan**
**Issei Hyoudou (Pawn ×8):**
Five in the morning. The riverbank.
Issei wore shorts and a tank top, four stones strapped to his back, sprinting upstream through the current.
"Don't — stop — moving —"
Koneko stood on the bank, expression blank, throwing rocks into the river. Every single one landed precisely where Issei was about to plant his foot.
"Koneko — you're doing that on purpose — !"
"Training."
Issei's training had three priorities: physical conditioning, sustained control of Boosted Gear's consecutive multiplications, and most critically — how many boosts he could maintain.
His current limit was seven. By the eighth, his body gave out, his power circuits overloading.
"Your Sacred Gear is one of the most powerful dragon-type Gears in existence." Rias stood at the edge of the training ground, arms folded. "The problem isn't that it isn't strong enough. It's that your body can't keep up."
"I — I know —"
"So for the first five days, you have one task. Push your physical limits higher. No technique. No tactics. Just your body."
Issei ran through the river with his teeth clenched. The current battered his shins, stones rolling under his feet. Every step felt like a fight against the entire river.
Koneko threw another rock.
"…Koneko, are you really sure you're not doing this on purpose?"
"No."
Her voice was perfectly flat. But if Issei could have looked back, he would have seen the white-haired girl's mouth curve upward — barely, maybe half a millimeter.
**Yuuto Kiba (Knight):**
In the forest.
Kiba held a holy sword, facing the magical targets Akeno had set up — twenty light spheres floating in the air, each moving in irregular patterns, reappearing at a random position within 0.3 seconds of being struck.
The Knight piece's core was speed. Kiba was already fast enough. But —
"Your problem isn't speed." Rias stood beneath a tree, watching his movements. "It's the type of sword."
Kiba's Sacred Gear was Holy Sword Creation — capable of generating any attribute of blade without limit. Ice swords, flame swords, wind swords, he could produce them all. But in actual combat, he habitually defaulted to ice.
"Riser's Knight piece is also a swordswoman. If you trade blows with her using a single attribute, you won't get an edge."
"So —"
"Practice switching sword attributes mid-fight in real time. First strike, ice. Second strike, flame. Third strike, wind. Make it impossible for your opponent to predict your next move."
Kiba closed his eyes. The ice sword in his hand shattered into motes of light. An instant later, a blade wreathed in crimson fire appeared in his grip.
He opened his eyes.
Charged.
First sphere — flame sword. Destroyed.
Second — the sword shattered in his hand, reformed — wind sword. Destroyed.
Third — the wind sword dissolved, ice condensed —
His movement stalled for 0.2 seconds.
In that 0.2 seconds, the fourth sphere came in from his right rear and struck him in the back.
"A 0.2-second gap." Akeno noted it from a distance. "In a Rating Game, 0.2 seconds is enough for your opponent to kill you twice."
Kiba wiped the sweat from his forehead.
"I know. Again."
**Koneko Toujou (Rook):**
Below the cliff.
Koneko stood before a boulder. Roughly three meters tall, rough-surfaced, estimated weight upward of two tons.
"Pick it up." Rias's voice carried down from the top of the cliff.
Koneko walked to the boulder, crouched, and hooked both hands under its lower edge.
Her arms went rigid. Veins rose along her forearms. The ground beneath her feet compressed into two deep prints.
The boulder left the ground. One centimeter. Five. Ten.
Then —
"Not enough. Carry it to the other side of the river."
Koneko walked toward the river with two tons of stone in her arms, one step at a time. Each step shook the ground. Water exploded around her ankles.
The Rook piece's core was attack power and defense. Koneko's foundation was already solid, but what Rias wanted wasn't someone who could hit hard — it was someone who could hold the line.
"In the Rating Game, your role is the forward bulwark. You have to absorb attacks while protecting Asia behind you. You cannot go down."
Koneko set the boulder on the far bank. Turned around.
"…Another one?"
"Three more."
**Akeno Himejima (Queen):**
The open ground behind the villa.
Akeno's training was different from the others — she didn't need physical conditioning, didn't need basic reinforcement. As the Queen piece, she combined the Knight's speed, the Rook's strength, and the Bishop's magical power.
Her problem was precision.
"Your lightning-type power is strong enough." Rias stood at a safe distance — fifty meters. "But in a Rating Game, you can't go all-out with every strike. There are teammates on the field. Your area attacks will hit your own people."
In front of Akeno stood ten wooden figures — five painted red, five painted blue. Red meant enemy, blue meant ally. They were mixed together, less than a meter apart.
"Hit only the red ones."
Akeno raised her right hand. Violet arcs of electricity crackled at her fingertips.
Lightning fell.
Five bolts struck simultaneously —
Four red figures were destroyed. A small patch of one blue figure's shoulder was scorched black.
"One friendly hit."
Akeno lowered her hand. The smile at the corner of her mouth dimmed by a degree.
"Again."
**Asia Argento (Bishop):**
The villa's living room.
Asia's training was the quietest, and the most unusual. She didn't need to learn combat — her role was healer. But a healer's survivability in a Rating Game often decided the outcome of the entire match.
"Asia, your Sacred Gear — Twilight Healing — is one of the finest healing-type Gears in existence." Rias sat across from her, voice gentle. "But it has two weaknesses."
"Weaknesses…?"
"First, you need physical contact to heal. On a battlefield, you won't always be able to reach an injured teammate."
Asia lowered her head. It was true — at the abandoned church, if Issei hadn't fought his way to her side, she wouldn't have been able to heal anyone in time.
"So the first thing you need to practice is expanding your healing range. See if you can heal without contact — projecting the power through pure magical output."
"And the second weakness?"
"Second — your total magical reserves aren't enough. A Rating Game can last over an hour. If you burn through your power in the first half, we have no healer for the second."
Rias reached out and gently took Asia's hands in hers.
"So for the last five days, you'll practice conserving and distributing your power. Not healing at full strength every time, but using the minimum amount of magic to achieve the maximum effect based on how serious each injury is."
Asia nodded, serious. There was a quiet resolve in her green eyes.
"I'll do my best, President. I don't want to be — "
She paused.
"I don't want to be a burden anymore."
**Akeno's Visit**
Day three. Late afternoon.
Kuoh Academy. The Disciplinary Committee office.
It was a room at the far end of the fourth floor of the main building. A sign reading "Disciplinary Committee" hung by the door, but every student in the building knew — outside of class hours, the five meters in front of that door were off-limits. Not officially off-limits. Off-limits in the sense of "if you value your limbs, don't go near it."
Three knocks at the door.
"Excuse me —"
"Not here."
A cold voice from inside.
Akeno smiled on the other side of the door. She wasn't deterred — she was Akeno Himejima, Queen piece, the strongest member of Rias Gremory's peerage. A high school boy's indifference registered to her roughly the same as a cat's threat display — charming, but not dangerous.
She pushed the door open.
The Disciplinary Committee office held only one person. Kyoya Hibari lay on the sofa by the window, his jacket draped over his face, posture suggesting a nap. But Akeno knew he wasn't asleep — his heart rate was running at waking levels.
"Sorry to intrude, Chairman Hibari."
"I said I'm not here."
"But you are here."
Akeno walked into the room and settled herself into the chair across from him without being invited. She looked around — the room was clean to the point of obsession. The desk held only a stack of documents and a single pen. The windowsill was free of even dust.
"I came to extend an invitation."
Silence.
"The President took everyone to train in the mountains. For the match ten days from now."
Silence.
"Everyone's pushing themselves. Issei's running through the river, Koneko's carrying boulders, Kiba's drilling his swordsmanship —"
"That has nothing to do with me."
Hibari pulled the jacket from his face. His gray-blue eyes fixed on the ceiling.
"I'm not playing that game."
"I know." Akeno's smile didn't waver. "So I'm not here to ask you to join the match."
Hibari's gaze shifted to her.
Akeno met it. She didn't flinch — not because she wasn't afraid, but because something stronger than fear was driving her.
"I was just thinking —" She tilted her head, tone as casual as if she were commenting on the weather, "aren't you curious?"
"About what."
"The power of a high-ranking demon."
Silence.
But the quality of this silence was different.
Akeno caught the shift immediately. Hibari's heart rate didn't accelerate — this man's pulse probably never quickened at anyone else's words — but something passed through his eyes. A faint, brief light.
Like a predator catching the scent of blood from a long distance away.
"The President is the daughter of the Gremory family. A pure-blooded high-ranking demon. Her Power of Destruction can erase any form of existence — matter, magical energy, even space itself."
Akeno stood and moved toward the door.
"You saw her Power of Destruction during the stray demon fight in chapter four. But that was only the surface. When she's serious —"
She glanced back over her shoulder, violet eyes carrying a particular, dangerous amusement.
"She's probably the closest thing to 'unbeatable' you've ever encountered."
She gave a small bow.
"Sorry for the interruption, Chairman Hibari. I've left the villa's location on your desk. If you —"
"Get out."
Akeno left, smiling.
The door closed behind her.
Silence returned to the room.
Hibari lay on the sofa, staring at the ceiling.
A long time passed.
Maybe a minute. Maybe an hour.
Then he sat up.
A slip of paper had appeared on the desk. Written in elegant script: an address, and a hand-drawn map.
Hibari looked at it for three seconds.
Then he crumpled it into a ball and dropped it in the trash.
But the following evening, he appeared at the front door of the mountain villa.
**The Beast in the Mountains**
Day four. Three in the afternoon.
The training ground behind the villa.
Issei was on his hundred and twentieth set of push-ups. His arms were shaking, sweat soaking the dirt beneath him into a patch of mud. Koneko sat on his back for added weight — and ate crackers, expression blank.
"Ko — Koneko — are you heavier than yesterday —"
"No. It's the crackers."
Kiba was drilling nearby, switching sword attributes fifty times in succession. His speed was improving — the gap had narrowed from 0.2 seconds to 0.12.
Asia sat in the shade of a tree, both hands raised in front of her, attempting to heal a small bird with an injured wing without touching it. Green light flickered between her palms and the bird in unsteady pulses.
Akeno stood at the edge of the training ground, electricity arcing at her fingertips, preparing for the next round of precision drills.
Rias drank tea on the terrace, watching everything below.
Normal. On schedule.
Then —
Everyone felt it at the same moment.
A presence. Coming from the direction of the mountain path. Not a demon's aura. Not an angel's. Not a fallen angel's.
Something more primitive than any of those.
Like the sudden drop in atmospheric pressure before a storm arrives.
Issei stopped his push-ups. Koneko dropped from his back, fists clenching. Kiba's hand moved automatically to his sword hilt. The brightness of Akeno's arcs tripled.
Rias set down her teacup and stood.
At the end of the mountain path, at the edge of the tree line, a figure stepped out.
A black jacket worn over the shoulders. Uniform tie knotted without a single crease out of place. Gray-blue eyes swept across the training ground, across every person present —
And stopped on Rias.
Kyoya Hibari.
The training ground went silent.
"…Hibari?!" Issei was the first to react, pushing himself up from the mud. "What are you doing here —"
Hibari didn't look at him.
His gaze never left Rias on the terrace.
He crossed the training ground. Passed Issei — didn't look. Passed Koneko — didn't look. Passed Kiba — didn't look. When he passed Akeno, the corner of her mouth curved upward, but Hibari didn't register even that.
He stopped directly below the terrace.
Looked up.
Rias looked down at him from above. Surprise crossed her green eyes — but it lasted half a second before something else replaced it.
Wariness.
Because Hibari's eyes were not the eyes of someone who had come to train. Not the eyes of someone who had come to help. Not even the eyes of someone who had come to argue.
They were —
The eyes of a predator that had found its prey.
"Fight me."
Two words. No preamble. No explanation. No context.
The same way he pushed open doors — direct enough to leave no time to react.
"…What?" Issei's mouth fell open again.
"I said —"
Hibari drew his tonfa from his pocket. Metal caught the afternoon light in a cold gleam.
"Fight me. Rias Gremory."
He said her full name for the first time.
**Rook vs. King**
Rias dropped from the terrace.
Her movement was effortless — the physical capability of a high-ranking demon made three stories feel like a single step. She landed on the training ground, her skirt billowing open and then settling, like a red flower blooming and closing.
She stood before him.
Three meters between them.
"You came." Her tone was calm, the way someone confirms a fact they already anticipated.
"Akeno said your power is the closest thing to 'unbeatable' I've ever encountered."
Hibari rotated the tonfa in his hand. Once. Twice. The sound of metal spinning through his fingers was like a metronome.
"I'm here to verify that myself."
Rias looked at him.
Then she smiled.
Not mockery. Not politeness. A genuine smile, the kind that surfaces naturally when you see something genuinely interesting.
"All right."
She extended her right hand, palm up.
A mass of dark crimson light gathered in her palm — the Power of Destruction. The bloodline ability of the Gremory family, capable of erasing any form of existence.
The air began to distort. Not from heat — from space itself becoming unstable in the presence of her power.
"One condition, though."
"I don't accept conditions."
"Hear it first." Rias's smile deepened. "I won't hold back. You want to see what a high-ranking demon's power looks like — so I'll show you. But if you're seriously injured, you will not refuse Asia's treatment."
"This isn't for your sake. It's because Asia will cry."
Hibari was silent for one second.
Then he moved.
Fast.
The full acceleration of a Rook piece — faster than when he had struck at Riser in the Occult Research Club in chapter seven. Three meters of distance was swallowed in 0.2 seconds. The sound of the tonfa cutting through air was a short, sharp shriek.
Target: Rias's right shoulder. Not a vital point — not out of restraint, but because Hibari's combat instincts had chosen a probe for the first strike.
Rias didn't dodge.
She raised her left hand.
The Power of Destruction formed a thin dark-crimson barrier between the tonfa and her body.
The tonfa struck the barrier —
The sound vanished.
Not absorbed — the sound waves themselves were partially consumed by the barrier. Hibari felt the feedback through the tonfa — not the vibration of metal striking a hard surface, but a strange pull. As if the tip of the tonfa was being eaten away by something.
He pulled it back instantly.
Looked at it — a thin layer of corrosion had appeared at the tip. The metal surface had gone rough, as if soaked in acid.
One strike. A single defensive contact. His weapon was already damaged.
"The Power of Destruction." Rias's voice came from three meters away. She hadn't moved — hadn't even taken a step back. "It breaks down the constituent elements of any form of existence. Matter, magical energy, space, even concepts."
She looked at the corrosion on Hibari's tonfa.
"Your tonfa is ordinary metal. A few more contacts and it will simply cease to exist."
Hibari said nothing.
He was analyzing.
During the stray demon fight, he had seen Rias's Power of Destruction — projected at range, one-shot elimination. He had assessed it then as a powerful long-range spell. Now he knew better — it wasn't only ranged. She could coat herself in the Power of Destruction and use it as a defense. Offense and defense unified.
And the barrier she had just deployed was less than a centimeter thick. That thin a layer had corroded steel. If she released it at full strength —
"Second strike."
Hibari charged again.
Faster this time. The angle more treacherous. He didn't move in a straight line — the instant his left foot hit the ground, his center of gravity shifted sharply, looping from Rias's right side to her left, the tonfa cutting in from an angle her barrier couldn't reach in time.
A good angle. Good speed. Good judgment.
Against any of Riser's peerage members, that strike would have connected.
But Rias wasn't a peerage member.
She didn't even use the barrier.
She simply — turned.
The movement wasn't fast. It could even be called slow. But the timing was precise enough that Hibari's tonfa passed through her red hair with less than two centimeters to spare.
Not speed superiority. Experience superiority.
She had read Hibari's body language.
"Your fighting style is fascinating." Rias's voice carried a note of genuine admiration. "Pure close-range technique, no magical augmentation whatsoever. In the demon world, fighters like you are nearly extinct."
Hibari's answer was the third strike.
Fourth. Fifth.
The tonfa's trajectories grew faster, the angles increasingly unpredictable. He was using each strike to collect data — her reaction speed, the deployment time of the barrier, the habitual direction of her turns, the blind spots in her field of vision.
On the sixth strike, he attacked straight on deliberately. Rias raised the barrier — Hibari pulled back an instant before the tonfa made contact, slid his body beneath the barrier, and swept the seventh strike upward from ankle height.
Rias moved for the first time.
Not a dodge — a jump. Her body hung suspended in the air for half a second, demonic wings spreading behind her and then folding back.
Then her expression changed.
The smile was gone.
Not from anger. Because —
She was getting serious.
"You're analyzing me." Her voice no longer carried the ease of a tea party. "Every strike isn't meant to hit me. It's meant to force my next movement."
Hibari didn't answer.
Because she was right.
"Then — let me show you something that can't be analyzed."
Rias raised both hands simultaneously.
Dark crimson light surged from her body — not condensing into a barrier, not forming a sphere, but spreading outward like a tide.
The domain of the Power of Destruction expanded.
With her at the center, the ground within a five-meter radius began to break down. Grass withered. Soil cracked. The surface of stones fractured into spider-web patterns. The air filled with a smell that belonged to no element — like the scent of existence itself being burned.
Hibari stood at the edge of the domain.
He felt it.
Not pain. Something more fundamental — the cells on the surface of his skin were dying at an accelerated rate. Not a burn, not frostbite, not any category of damage he recognized. The constituent elements of his body were being stripped away, layer by layer.
If he stepped forward — into the core of the domain —
How long would his Rook's defense hold?
One second? Two?
Not enough. His instincts told him: not enough.
But his feet didn't move back.
"Well?" Rias stood at the center of the domain, red hair drifting in the dark crimson light. Her eyes were glowing — not a figure of speech; actual light moved through her green irises. "This is the power of a high-ranking demon."
Hibari looked at her.
Three seconds.
Then he put the tonfa away.
"Giving up?"
"No."
His voice was level. The tone of someone stating a fact they have just confirmed.
"I've finished verifying."
He turned away.
"I can't beat you right now. But 'right now' is all that means."
He walked toward the mountain path. His jacket caught the residual edge of the dissipating domain and snapped behind him.
"— Hibari."
Rias's voice came from behind him. She had withdrawn the Power of Destruction; the domain dissolved. The training ground was left with a barren circle five meters across — all the grass dead, the soil turned to dry, cracked gray-white.
"The Rating Game in ten days — will you —"
"No."
He didn't look back.
"I only fight the fights I choose. I don't play games arranged by other people."
He walked into the trees.
**Those Who Remained**
Five people stood motionless on the training ground.
Issei was covered in mud, mouth open wide enough to fit a baseball. He had watched the entire fight — Hibari, using nothing but his body and his tonfa, had exchanged seven rounds with Rias. No magic. No Sacred Gear. No supernatural augmentation of any kind.
In seven rounds, he hadn't been hit once.
The domain expansion at the end had been what finally pushed him back — but that was the Power of Destruction's domain expansion. Even high-ranking demons didn't dare force their way through something like that. The fact that Hibari had stood at the edge of the domain for three full seconds without retreating was already abnormal.
"…Is he really just a Rook piece?" Issei murmured.
Koneko stood beside him, golden eyes fixed on the direction Hibari had disappeared. Her fists were clenched tight — as a fellow Rook, she had felt Hibari's physical output clearly during the fight.
That wasn't normal Rook-level output.
That was the result of stacking the Rook piece's attack bonus on top of a human baseline that was already not normal.
"He's strong," Koneko said quietly. "Much stronger than me."
Kiba slid his sword back into its sheath. His smile was complicated.
"He didn't come to train."
"Hm?"
"He came to assess the President's strength." Kiba glanced toward the terrace. "Every strike was data collection. Attack angles, reaction times, barrier deployment speed — he treated the entire fight as a reconnaissance mission."
"Reconnaissance? Why would he be scouting the President?"
"Because he doesn't accept the existence of anyone stronger than himself."
Akeno's voice came from nearby. The smile at the corner of her mouth was the smile of someone whose prediction had just been confirmed.
"He didn't come to find out whether he could win. He came to find out how large the gap was. Then he'll go back —"
Her gaze moved to the mountain path.
"And figure out how to close it himself."
Rias stood in the center of the training ground. Beneath her feet was the barren circle the Power of Destruction had left behind. She looked at her own hands — in that fight, she had deployed the domain expansion.
The domain expansion.
She had used the domain expansion against a Rook piece reincarnated less than two months ago.
Not because she needed to — with her strength, there were any number of ways she could have ended the fight without the domain.
Because he had forced her to use it.
Those seven strikes. Each one had landed precisely in the gaps of her defensive system. He was extracting maximum information from minimum contact. If she hadn't deployed the domain expansion to create an overwhelming, unanalyzable gap — he would have kept going. Until he found a way through.
"President." Akeno came to stand beside her. "You got serious just now."
Not a question. A confirmation.
Rias didn't deny it.
"He said, 'I can't beat you right now, but right now is all that means.'"
The corner of her mouth lifted slightly.
"He's giving himself a deadline."
She looked toward the mountain path. The sun was going down, golden light threading through the trees, casting long shadows across the ground. The dark figure had already vanished into the forest.
"President —" Kiba stepped forward. His expression was more serious than before. "That person — he really won't join the Rating Game?"
Rias was quiet for a moment.
"No."
"How can you be sure?"
"Because he said it plainly — he only fights the fights he chooses. The Rating Game is my battlefield, my rules, my reasons." Her green eyes looked into the distance. "For him, it isn't his war."
"Then why did he come?"
Rias looked down at the barren circle beneath her feet. The soil scorched by the Power of Destruction looked like a massive scar in the evening light.
"Because that's the kind of person he is."
Her voice was quiet.
"He doesn't care about my engagement. Doesn't care about the Phoenix family. Doesn't care who wins or loses the Rating Game. But there's one thing he does care about —"
She raised her head.
"His own strength."
Wind moved across the training ground, lifting ash from the scorched earth.
"A person who only ever cares about how far he himself can go. Not bound by any obligation, not moved by any feeling, not fighting for anyone."
Rias picked up the tea she had left on the terrace, now gone cold.
"So he's freer than anyone. And lonelier than anyone."
She took a sip.
"But that's exactly why he's impossible to ignore."