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Motohama and Aika opened their eyes, Mark had decided that the two of them had gone through enough for one ay and so he sent them both home, neither of them had any strength to do anything, so they didn't eat- take a bath or even do their homework, luckily for the two of them their parents just assumed that both teens were exhausted from their job and so they didn't question their son\ daughters actions.
Motohama didn't bother trying to get to sleep, to him it was pointless, after all, every time he closed his eyes, the images of the cages just kept on coming back.
He looked down at his sword and closed his eyes, he didn't try to do anything with the sword, he just liked knowing that he had it in his hands.
Aika remembered the roles upon roles of pregnant women and newborn infants, and she didn't want to remember what she had seen before them.
She buried her face into her pillow and struggled to keep the sound of her voice from being loud enough that her family could hear it.
She cried until she couldn't cry anymore, she never noticed that the ring on her finger had begun to glow with a gold light, that soon covered her completely.
It was only after a few seconds that the light died away and Aika finally fell asleep.
Motohama for his part closed his eyes once more and to his surprise he found himself covered in chains, in front of him was a massive beast that looked at him with eyes filled with disgust.
"Look at you, how pathetic," the creature said to him.
"What do you want!" Motohama screamed to the creature
'Did you know any of them?" The creature asked Motohama yet Motohama didn't answer
"Humans- devils - angels die every day, don't pretend they don't."
"So tell em why arent you constantly feeling what your feeling right now?" the creature asked him, yet Motohama couldn't find the answer, he knew the creature was right, but he couldn't ignore what he had seen
"I am you and you are me, after all, you're holding me right now"
the creature said to him and Motohama found that he was suddenly free from the chains but his hands were fused into his sword.
"Your the dragon that's inside the word," Motohama said to the creature who just laughed at him
"Fool, I am the sword itself, I am not inside it, I am it," the dragon said to him
"before the Humans, you saw didn't matter, just like every other being I just mentioned didn't matter"
"Here is my truth perhaps not your truth, but it is mine"
"I am an Emperor and everywhere my eye meets and my feet step is my kingdom."
"The matter because I could see them nothing more, cruel it might be but it is the truth because they did not exist until I was aware of them," the dragon said to him
Motohama tried to argue with the beast, but he knew it was right, he never knew about the ages before tonight, and had Mark not shown the women and children to him, he would have never known what was done to them.
Motohama knew the creature was right, but it didn't mean it didn't feel wrong.
"You can't be everywhere at once and those you willingly follow made sure that those responsible suffered for their acts, your duty is to make sure those same acts don't repeat in your/my kingdom," the dragon said to him before it vanished and Motohama found himself on the floor of his room next to his bed.
The sun was already up and Motohama slowly turned his head and he let out an ip sound when he noticed how late it was, luckily for him he hadn't bothered changing so he could just go to school in the same clothes he was wearing yesterday.
His breakfast was waiting for him on the table, but his family had already left to do their usual thing, his mom was probably helping out with the morning clean-up of the neighborhood.
It was something the housewives in his part of the city did once a month to keep their street clean.
As he ran he passed several women some elderly, others not so much, in fact, Motohama was surprised to see that some of those women were wearing clothes that showed everything whenever they knelt down.
He was tempted to stop and take pictures with his phone, but if he got to school late then he would be forced to wait outside of the school until one of the teachers opened the door, even then after the role-call had passed and he was in class.
He would still be marked as absent.
luckily for him however he wasn't the only one late for school he soon found himself smiling when he found Aika running ahead of him and they were soon met with issei.
Motohama and Aika wanted to stop and talk to him but issei just said hello to them and kept on running, different classes meant that they wouldn't see each other until their off period so they were forced to watch Issei run past the front gate and enter the school, as he left them behind.
Aika and Motohama looked at one another and laughed, Issei was still Issei, he wasn't a devil despite having been turned against his will into one.
That meant he was still the same kid they had grown up with.
They walked past the main gate and changed their shoes for indoor slippers.
Motohama felt the hairs on the back of his headstand and as he turned his head to see what his instincts picked up, he found not just the student council walking pat them but the occult research club as well.
He didn't know why, but he instinctively made his way to Aika's side, he never knew it but Aika stepped closer to him and tried to hid behind him.
The problem with this was, that just because Motohama didn't notice this, didn't mean everyone else didn't see it either.
Aika's friend looked at Aika and the look of pure rage in Motohama's eyes, they noticed how he seemed to act smaller than he ever did before, yet they mostly looked at the frightened reaction Aika had towards the beauties of the school.
They wnted to ask her what was wrong, but they knew that the school had a hierarchy and if they went against it they would suffer whatever cruelty Aika was going through.