The three of them emerged back in Max's apartment and the three of them immediately let out a breath of relief when they noticed that no one had followed after them and the gate had already closed itself off, without leaving anything that anyone could use to follow them.

Max heard the Nail of Helena fall next to him and he immediately picked it up and placed it into his pocket along with the other three sacred nails.

"Do you guys want something to eat or do you want me to take you home?" Max said to his two companions who had already made themselves at home.

"I want pancakes," Serena said to Max before opening the living room drawer and taking out her pajamas and a towel, and immediately heading to the bathroom.

Max watched the blond girl that had been raised in Japan disappeared and he only turned to look in Mineta's direction when he heard the shower turn on.

"I'll have whatever you're making" Mineta answered Max as he changed the channel on the television.

"I know I piked you kids up when couldn't control where I ended up, so I am responsible for you guys but aren't the two of you getting too comfortable?" Max asked Mineta who just ignored him and kept changing the channel.

"Guess not," Max said to himself as he started cooking for himself and his new roommates.

"Hey, I know we aren't heroes, I mean I'm not considering I failed the test, but can you tell me why did you do that to those girls?" Mineta asked Max with an oddly serious tone in his voice.

"Why do you ask something weird like that, you have seen the things we ran into up until now, I mean I could just go back and kill all of them to make sure they don't hurt anyone else" Max answered Mineta who stopped changing the channel.

"That's just the thing, Max, normally we would have killed the demons to make sure they didn't kill anyone or hurt anyone after we left the dimension, but you let them all go. So why did you do that?" Mineta interrogated Max.

Max stopped cutting the bacon and answered Mineta.

"Because I didn't know who and what was watching us"

"Yeah between the three of us we can deal with most threats, but we've lost before and badly."

" So I chose the option that allowed us to escape, I figured that whoever was watching would be interested in the bite marks I left on those girls and be distracted long enough for us to escape. So I guess I was right" Max answered Mineta

The two didn't say anything after that, so max continued cooking and it was only after a few minutes did Mineta seak again.

"Sorry for not trusting you," Mineta said to Max who was already placing the plates on the table.

"Don't worry about it, besides look at the calendar, tomorrow it's going to be a year since the three of us began to travel together" Max answered Mineta who just walked up to the table pulled himself a chair, and sat down to eat.

'So do you think she's doing okay?" Max asked Mineta who had already noticed how long Serena was taking in the shower.

"I don't know, tomorrow is the day we picked her up from the streets when her mom kicked her out because she had bad grades, don't you remember she practically froze to death before you teleported us out of her world" Mineta answered Max.

"So how are you holding up?" Max asked Mineta who just smiled at him

"I wanted to be a hero, so I could be popular and meet hot girls, now I can meet hot girls and do things most heroes can't so I'm good" Mineta answered max, however, he would be lying if he said that it didn't still hurt knowing that he had failed at his dream

The two of them stopped talking and watched Serena walk out of the bathroom, she had already changed into her bright pink pajamas that had yellow moon drawings on them.

Her long blond hair was uncombed so despite it hanging behind her back, it was already starting to take odd shapes.

She held her dirty clothes with her left hand, and Max was surprised to find that she had a basket already set up for her dirty clothes, that already had some clothes in it.

"What's for dinner?" Serena asked Max but Mineta quickly answered her.

"Pancakes -bacon, and eggs, with cold orange juice or hot coffee"

"The perfect late-night breakfast" Max added to Mineta's explanation.

The three of them ate together and began to tell each other what parts of their journey they liked the most and which parts scare them the most, soon the three of them were laughing as they remembered each other embarrassing moments.

Like the time Mineta nearly married an Orc after he defeated her and her entire clan in combat, namely because he managed to get them \stuck together and keep them in place until they agreed to surrender.

Or the time Serena accidentally managed to take control of all of the dead Eldar space ships and hand them over to Mankind as a peace treaty between their group and the Imperium of Mankind.

Max was forced to lie and say that they were still unable to finish the second part of the order the God-Emperor of Mankind had given them.

The only reason they weren't killed back then was because Max said that the only reason they had even returned to the Imperium was that the Emperor's son had returned.

Then there was the time Max tricked Sonic the Hedgehog and beat him in a race.

The truth was Max had only given two steps and Sonic had left him behind, but the rules of the race said that they had to reach one of the two finish lines, that were connected to each other.

Needless to say Sonic was shocked when he saw Max crossing the finish line before him.

Granted Max did cheat, but no one had managed to beat sonic before even if they cheated, so the hedgehog shook Max's hand and said he eagerly awaited the next time they raced each other.

The three of them soon went to sleep, Max slept on the sofa while the two teens slept in separate rooms.

[DXD Univers ]

Rias tried to wash away the feeling inside her, the strange vines had entered her body, she could still feel them in every nerve when she took a breath even when she tried to move.

The rest of the girls tried to hide that they were going through the same thing she was and as such tried to stay strong in front of her, but she could see it in their eyes.

That man had tainted them, the bite marks on their shoulders meant that they were his property and nothing could change that anymore.

They had tried to remove the man's mark, but nothing worked, cutting off their shoulders and growing them back with the combination of healing magic and demonic power, did nothing as the mark instantly formed on their shoulders.

It wasn't like if one moment it wasn't there the next it was.

No even as their shoulders grew back, the mark formed itself on them again and when they simply didn't regrow their body parts, the mark just appeared somewhere else.

Poor Asia cried and called out Isseis's name, and he had tried to comfort her, but as the two tried to embrace each other, the bite mark forced them apart.

Rias replayed the final moments of the previous day and she remembered how her friends screamed in pain and how that man stood over them before walking away.

She remembers how he and his two companions looked at her and her friends as they stood over them, they looked at them as if they were trash and she remembered that man's cold words.

"You belong to me now"

That was it, wasn't it, she had just ended up trading one cruel master for another, instead of Rizer she now belonged to that man.

She was nothing more than a thing now, something for that an to use whenever he had an urge and her friends were the same now, things for him to enjoy whenever he wanted.

Rias felt herself begin to cry, but she couldn't cry because she had to remain strong, not just for the girls in her group but also for the men who had been easily crushed by that man and his team.

Rias promised herself that when that man summoned them she would serve him so well that he would forget about the rest of the girls and focus on her, that way she could spare them from the man's urges, at least she hoped she could.