~Later That Night, Hidden Workshop~
The fifteen mutated Pieces floated above the table.
Soutarou sat beneath them with a file opened across his lap.
Genshirou Saji’s photograph rested on the left page.
Issei Hyoudou’s rested on the right.
The increased supernatural activity from ten years earlier had eventually produced answers…
‘So that increase in Devils really had been because of Cleria Belial…’
Human lover…
Bael and the Great King Faction’s politics…
A stolen King Piece…
An attempt to erase everyone connected to the incident…
Soutarou had never recovered every detail.
He didn’t need them…
The facts were Cleria was dead, her peerage had never been formed, and now the full mutated set now rested in Soutarou’s laboratory.
‘Good to know my wiki memories were accurate for once…’
He closed Cleria’s file and returned his attention to the two boys…
Saji first…
Sixteen…
Hardworking…
Protective of his family…
Occasionally hotheaded…
Currently ordinary in every way except for the Sacred Gear buried inside his soul.
Absorption Line.
The fourth Vritra Gear.
The final missing component.
Soutarou felt no hatred toward him.
After all, Saji had done nothing to earn it.
Unfortunately, that sliver of morality didn’t change the fact that extracting the Gear would kill him.
Nor did it change the future Soutarou remembered.
Saji would become one of Sona’s Pawns…
One of her most loyal servants…
A young man whose entire life would eventually center around supporting her dream.
Soutarou stared at the photograph.
‘Wrong power…’
His finger moved across the page.
‘Wrong place…’
The file closed.
‘Wrong future.’
Issei was different.
Soutarou opened the second file.
Even in an ordinary school photograph, Issei Hyoudou looked painfully unimpressive.
Messy brown hair…
Average build…
A grin that somehow managed to appear both vacant and irritating…
No training…
No discipline…
No awareness of the immense power sleeping inside him.
And yet…
When Soutarou extended his senses toward the Hyoudou residence from several streets away, something subconsciously answered beneath the surface.
Not at all awake, even a smidge conscious wasn’t there, but it was very present…
Dragon Aura.
The memory alone made Soutarou’s expression darken.
In canon, women with pride, intelligence, trauma, standards, and completely different personalities had gradually become irrationally devoted to Issei.
Rias…
Akeno…
Koneko…
Asia…
Xenovia…
Irina…
And so, so many more.
Soutarou remembered Issei’s behavior toward women.
The constant staring…
The perversion…
The invasive fantasies…
The shameless obsession…
The complete absence of anything that should’ve earned that level of devotion, except faintly lucky situations guiding him to the slightly open doors.
‘Dragon Aura.’
A wonderfully convenient explanation…
A supernatural influence wrapped in the language of attraction…
A disgusting plot device that turned women into satellites around a worthless worm who could never have earned their love without it.
Perhaps Soutarou’s interpretation was harsher than reality, but he didn’t care.
Even the possibility was unacceptable.
Lavinia had become family before either of them understood what he was.
Irina had promised to remain beside him forever before moving away…
And Soutarou…
Soutarou would never allow Issei’s draconic presence to touch any of them.
Not now, nor when Irina eventually returned….
‘Even a fraction of a chance is still too much.’
Boosted Gear itself provided an equally compelling reason…
Twice Critical was a minor draconic amplification Gear.
Boosted Gear was the super-duper-pro-max version…
The concept taken to its highest natural conclusion and stuffed with one of the Heavenly Dragons for good measure.
A true Longinus…
A god-slaying weapon…
An amplification engine capable of repeatedly breaking limits…
Exactly the foundation the Devouring Gear required.
The four Vritra Gears would provide the methods…
Absorption…
Binding…
Suppression…
Draining…
Control over what was devoured and how it was processed…
The Boosted Gear would provide the engine and vessel while Apophis would provide the nature.
And Ddraig…
Soutarou’s eyes rested upon Issei’s photograph…
Ddraig would provide a complete Heavenly Dragon soul.
He’d originally planned to take the Gears and send both boys away from Kuoh, maybe even Japan all together…
But then the first stolen Vritra Gear killed its host during extraction.
With the second confirming the rule.
There was no version of the operation where Saji and Issei survived.
Once that became certain, leaving them alive stopped being an option because it had never actually been an option at all.
The only remaining decision was how they died.
Soutarou placed Saji’s file beneath Issei’s…
Saji’s family deserved a body…
Despite the slight pity Soutarou felt for Issei’s parents…
Issei would leave nothing behind.
The school opened in seven days and so Soutarou quietly said, “Let’s clear the board.”
~Five Days Before Kuoh Academy Opens, Outskirts of Kuoh~
Genshirou Saji never saw Soutarou approach.
One moment, he was walking home along a quiet side road with a grocery bag hanging from one hand…
The next, the street disappeared beneath a layered barrier.
Sound vanished.
The houses beyond the road blurred.
The afternoon sky darkened into a colorless imitation.
Saji stopped.
His brow furrowed as he looked around.
Saji nervously called, “Hello…?”
Soutarou stood several meters behind him.
Saji began turning.
Soutarou raised two fingers.
A tiny pulse of magic crossed the barrier and instantly Saji’s eyes rolled backward and his body collapsed.
Soutarou caught him before his head struck the pavement.
There was no fear, pain, nor any understanding of what had happened.
Soutarou lowered him gently onto the road.
For several seconds, he watched the unconscious boy breathe.
‘You didn’t do anything wrong.
If anything…
I’m the one in the wrong…
But I’d rather be wrong than let the ones I love be hurt from my lack of power from trying to be right.’
The Devouring Gear formed around Soutarou’s arm.
Black plating spread from his wrist toward his fingers…
White-gold lines flickered beneath the surface…
The purple gem opened like an eye.
Soutarou placed the gauntleted hand above Saji’s chest.
The connection appeared immediately.
A Sacred Gear buried inside a human soul.
Thin spiritual threads stretched between the host, Heaven, and the ability sleeping within.
Soutarou’s eyes sharpened…
He’d done this twice before, but it didn’t become any easier.
The black claws closed.
*THUMP.*
Saji’s body jerked once…
As a dark line emerged from his chest…
Then another…
The Devouring Gear pulled.
The gear resisted, but Soutarou knew the Sacred Gear was merely following the laws that bound it to the host and the Heaven System.
Soutarou increased the pressure…
The threads snapped and a black serpentine shape tore free and condensed above the gauntlet…
Absorption Line.
Saji exhaled, but his chest didn’t rise again.
Soutarou caught the Gear before its energy could escape and sealed it inside a prepared isolation crystal.
The crystal turned black.
Silence filled the barrier.
Soutarou dismissed the gauntlet and looked down at Saji.
A young man who’d been alive less than a minute earlier…
A future Pawn…
A future fighter…
A future brother and son who would never understand why his life ended.
Soutarou crouched.
He placed two fingers against Saji’s neck.
Nothing.
Exactly as expected.
Soutarou quietly murmured, “I’m sorry.”
He didn’t ask forgiveness…
He had no right to expect anything like it, but he didn’t let sentiment and humanity chain him much longer…
And within moments Soutarou stood and began the second half of the operation…
Thin magical threads entered Saji’s limbs…
The corpse rose…
Not like a puppet dragged awkwardly by invisible strings…
Soutarou’s control was far too refined for that.
Instead the spell recreated even minute muscle tension…
Maintained body temperature…
Forced the heart to beat…
Moved blood through the vessels…
And preserved the appearance of life long enough for the physical evidence to align with what came next…
Beyond the barrier, a delivery truck moved toward the intersection.
The driver had already received Soutarou’s magical suggestion that the road was clear and that maintaining speed was perfectly safe.
Two pedestrians stood near a storefront.
A cyclist waited at the crossing.
A security camera watched from a building corner.
Soutarou lowered the barrier in layers.
Reality returned.
Sound rushed back.
The animated Saji stepped toward the road.
The grocery bag slipped from his hand.
An orange rolled across the pavement.
Saji followed it.
The truck entered the intersection.
The driver’s eyes widened.
Brakes screamed.
*SCREEEEEECH!*
The truck struck Saji at killing speed.
*CRASH!*
His body flew across the road and struck the ground.
The artificial heartbeat stopped at the exact instant of impact.
The magical threads dissolved.
The driver stumbled from the truck in horror.
The pedestrians screamed.
The cyclist dropped his bicycle.
Soutarou stood within the blind point between their attention and the camera.
His eyes glowed faintly.
Memories shifted.
The witnesses remembered Saji stepping suddenly into the road.
The driver remembered seeing him too late.
The camera’s recording showed the same sequence because Soutarou had physically altered the signal before it reached storage.
No illusion remained to be dispelled, no demonic energy remained in the street, not even a trace of the extraction clung to the corpse…
Only an accident.
A terrible…
Ordinary…
Completely explainable accident.
And soon enough Sirens began in the distance.
Soutarou looked toward Saji one final time.
‘Your family will have a body…
They’ll know where you are…
That’s more than I’m giving the next one.’
He turned and disappeared before the first ambulance arrived.