"Now that everything's ready, let's start talking."

As if presiding over some kind of session, Mio spoke those words.

In Chisato's apartment right now were Mio, Maria, Zest, Yuki, Kurumi and Chisato herself. Celis and Anna, at the other girls' request, just took Basara outside with the pretext of buying some stuff they'd need for their daily lives (even though Zest had gone out to buy those things just this morning).

The reason why the girls asked them to take Basara outside for a little bit was so that they could talk with Chisato. After all, just hearing Basara wasn't enough. No matter if they were thinking of accepting or rejecting Chisato into their group, they would need to hear what she had to say.

"I guess I have to answer all your questions, so ask away."

Chisato didn't seem bothered by this. Likely because she herself wanted to talk to them. Now that it had come to this, Chisato had to show she had just as much feelings for Basara as any one of them.

Maria then excitedly raised her hand, as if she was in a classroom.

"Then, I'll start. Since when has your relationship with Basara-san started?"

"If you're talking about since when do I know him, then I'm probably the first one here. But if you're talking about since when we got intimate, well…"

Chisato told them everything. About how she knew Basara's mother, Rapheline, how she took care of him for some time. And how they met again at school until they got to how they are now.

They had already heard it from Basara, but confirmed it once again through Chisato's version of the story. Basara and Chisato's relationship developed really quickly, to the point where, before Basara noticed, he had already lost his chance to properly tell the other girls. After that, he kept delaying it more and more, and the rest is history.

"I see. Like I thought, it's hard to really fault them for not saying it earlier after knowing what happened."

"Yeah, I also think so. Though the matter about how far they went, there's no excuse for that."

Yuki and Mio, respectively, voiced out. Mio had the chance to look into Basara's memories, while Yuki only heard about them, but they both arrived at the same conclusion that it would be hard to fault Basara for not telling them at the right time, since there was no right time for that.

"That reminds me. Basara-sama said that you two have already had sex. I'm not trying to find something to place blame on but… when was that?"

Zest asked. Although it was on everyone's minds, no one had thought about asking until then. Depending on the answer their trust in Basara could be even further harmed.

"It wasn't too long ago. You girls remember the crystal I made, right? It was right after it stopped working. I'm not trying to make excuses, but maybe doing it with the crystal was the last drop, or something like that. But before that, no matter how much I tried to tempt him, Basara didn't give in because of your girls."

Obviously, the girls remembered the crystal Chisato was talking about. Considering that they also got a lot more "aggressive" after using the crystal and the incident on the day Celis went to live in the Toujou household, they couldn't exactly point fingers at Chisato.

A few seconds passed in silence. Just when everyone thought they were done, Kurumi decided to ask the last question.

"So… what do you plan to do now?"

It was a vague question, but Chisato understood the meaning behind it. After a deep breath, Chisato spoke with as much sincerity as she could.

"Honestly, the ideal scenario would be for me to join you girls in Basara's harem, but I understand that that might be asking for too much right now. For now, I think it's fine as long as we manage to live and fight together and maybe, as time passes, I'll be able to clean this bad impression you girls have about me."

Chisato's words came directly from her heart. If nothing else, it was hard to disagree with her. There was no way for them to be best friends right now, even if a bond might form as time goes on, so for now just being able to live and work together is fine.

And with that, their discussion ended. The girls decided to accept Chisato for now and see where that takes them as time goes.

/

"Now that we're all here, I think it's important that we talk about what we know about our enemies."

"Eeh? More talking?"

"What is it?"

"N-nothing, Basara-san."

Mio informed Celis that their talk with Chisato had ended, so she and Anna brought Basara back to Chisato's apartment.

Maria was tired of talking, but what Basara said really was important. Besides, he didn't know about their talk with Chisato just now, so she couldn't use that as an excuse.

"Well then, I'll start. Mio already knows this, because she was with me when my father told me, but basically…"

Basara started telling them what Jin told him about these new enemies. But Maria was finding it hard to pay attention, so she tugged Chisato's sleeve and whispered in her ear.

"I actually have one more question. Since you've been having sex with Basara-san for a little while now, how come you aren't pregnant yet?"

"Oh, that. To put it simply, because Basara has hero, divine and demon blood in his veins, there is a very thin balance between the three of them. Because that balance is easily broken, it's hard for him to impregnate a female that is purely of one species. On the other hand, if the female is also a hybrid, it's a lot easier for him to get her pregnant, since that balance will be achieved easier. Well, even if it's hard to get pregnant, it's far from impossible since we can make that balance easier to reach, so it's more like a convenient natural contraceptive."

"Eeh, that's really interesting."

Maria had gotten worried for a second that it would be impossible for her and the others to eventually get pregnant from Basara, but that didn't seem to be the case. Since getting pregnant isn't the ideal thing right now, it really feels like this balance is convenient.

"And that's about it. Now, I think we should hear from Chisato about the man we met today."

"Alright. Since Basara already explained about the Reapers, I'll just focus on Ress himself."

Maria's expression showed nothing but surprise. She hadn't listened to a single word Basara said, but Chisato was apparently listening to him at the same time as she was talking with Maria. That was just incredible.

"Again, his name is Ress. He was once a member of the god's race, but he was exiled long ago. He's more of a scientist than a warrior, though it's not like he can't fight at all. His experiments are what got him banned in the first place. Those boys you all fought, they're likely the results of one of his oldest experiments. Can a single soul be divided into multiple bodies? Although that's already pretty inhumane, it's one of the lightest researches of his."

Although there was a lot of disturbing things, Chisato didn't hide anything while she explained what she knew about Ress. If they wanted to survive, they couldn't afford to be grossed out by some stories.

Eventually, Chisato got to the part where she explained why Ress' body was different from most gods'. In short, he was researching about the demons' powers. At some point, he got so excited with his research that he decided to experiment on himself, bringing his body closer to a demon's than a god's.

Well, that's the story Chisato knows about anyway. She didn't doubt he had experimented on himself many other times.

"Really now, is this guy insane or something?"

Celis voiced out, but it wouldn't be wrong to say similar thoughts were going through everyone's minds.

"Well, that's about it for Ress and there's not nothing I can really tell about the 'brothers' that you all don't already know."

So what they know about these new enemies is basically:

They're called Reapers. They were an unorganized force during the war between gods, demons and heroes. In general, they were composed of exiled members of each faction, along with those with no clear alliance. They were once banished, but now they have come back and seem more dangerous than before.

One of the members is a god called Ress. He is a "mad scientist" and is, presumably, the one responsible for creating the "brothers" that attacked the Toujou household, or at least making them become as they currently are.

It wasn't much, but it should help Basara and the others. Unlike their previous battles, they didn't seem to be the target this time, so, as long as they play it right, they might be able to get through this avoiding as much damage as possible.

"The other thing we have to discuss, how about your memories, Anna?"

Basara asked the green haired girl, Anna. She used to be an enemy, but teamed up with Basara and now can be considered an ally. She has divine blood on her veins, but most importantly, Jin was the one to guide Basara to an unconscious and weakened Anna when they met recently, that by itself was a pretty big mystery.

"No, nothing yet. The last thing I remember before waking up here is parting ways with you, Basara. But I don't feel like those memories were erased, more like they are sealed, though I don't know how to unlock them."

"Not just that. I was doing some tests and, as strange as it might seem, it looks like this girl lost her powers. No, that's not right, her DNA is still the same, so she still has her powers, but it's like something, or someone, is feeding off of them, so that's why she's on a weakened state," Chisato added.

Because of her divine blood, Anna was actually a force to be reckoned with. She once fought and beat Yuki, which goes to show how strong Anna was. But right now, according to Chisato, Anna isn't much stronger than the average girl and can't seem to access her divine powers.

Although mysterious, Anna's situation was low on the priority list thanks to everything that's been going on, but it looks like they should start looking into this as soon as possible.

"… Well, there isn't much we can do for now. Let's rest for now and decide what to do tomorrow."

Everyone agreed to Basara's suggestion. For the first time ever since the "brothers" attacked the Toujou household, they would all properly rest.

Though they found out pretty quickly that, with the sheer amount of people in this one apartment, getting comfortable was kinda hard. As a makeshift solution, Chisato used her powers to temporarily divide her room into multiple smaller rooms for them to spend the night.

Room division would also be another topic for discussion tomorrow since, to not place too much of a burden on Chisato, they all had to sleep in pairs so that there wasn't a need to bend the space too much. To decide on Basara's pair, the girls decided to leave it to luck. To everyone's surprise, the winner was Anna.

"How come did this happen? I'm not sure I want to be here, you know? After the whole thing with you cheating on them and whatnot, I feel like, if I act the least bit suspicious, the others are just going to employ the 'shoot first, ask later' policy on me."

"I-I think it'll be fine, probably. It's not like anything will happen anyway."

When the time to sleep came, Anna seemed a bit worried, but Basara decided to interpret it mostly as a joke. Though Anna really did mean it.

The space Chisato created was small. As in "two people can fit in here as long as they're basically glued together" small. Thanks to that and the thin nature of sleepwear, Basara and Anna got a good feeling of each other's body.

But, wanting to avoid a repeat of what happened because of Chisato, both of them were in a zen-like state that would put most monks to shame. It was actually quite admirable.

"Anyway, let's just sleep and hope that enough rest will get you back into shape."

After Basara said that, they both tried their best to fall asleep, which actually wasn't that hard. Thankfully so, because there was a surprise awaiting them as soon as they woke up the following day, so it was for the best that they rested properly.