It was at this moment, Rias realized that she made a blunder. She watched as Issei was nervous around a rather miffed Sona who was glaring at the poor boy, as if he had done something wrong.

The children were silent as tension rose between Sona and Issei, one of agitation while the other in confusion and nervousness.

Deciding she should disperse the tension, Rias intervened between her friends. "SO!" Rias squeaked out which got both of their attention. "Sorry… I got nervous. Anyway… maybe both of you can introduce each other?"

Issei, understanding the situation of the atmosphere, introduced himself first. "Me first. I'm Issei Hyoudou, but you can call me Ise if you want to. Nice to meet ya!" He kept a cheer in his demeanor, trying to be as friendly to Sona as possible.

Unfortunately, the girl didn't reciprocate in kind. "Sona Sitri. Good to see you too, Ise-kun." The girl coldly greeted, earning a small flinch from the boy by her unmasked aggression.

This earned the ire of Rias, who frowned by the behavior of her friend. Even though Rias knew she made a blunder, she had no idea what it was. Even so, she has to try to fix the situation. "Sona, are you mad?"

The blue haired girl scoffed. "Hardly." Rias was about to speak, only to be immediately interrupted by standing and shouting at the other two children. "I am completely LIVID!"

Both children were shocked by the outburst of the girl. For Issei, it was just his first meeting with this girl and he was already dealing with an explosive introduction. For Rias, it was unnatural and odd that the girl was livid at all, not frustrated or annoyed.

She has to put her feet down this time. "What's wrong with you Sona?! You barged in just now, then you acted grumpy, and now you are mad at Ise-kun!" She wanted to understand the situation for good this time, wishing maybe there was something they could compromise on.

"I should be asking you that." Sona retorted to the redhead. "You have been spending more quality time with him-" she pointed at Issei, who flinched at how close the finger was. "- than me."

Rias immediately showed her confusion and Issei quickly stood between the girls. "I don't know how you think like that, but Rias only spends time with me on the weekends."

Rias felt warmth by Issei's defense, and nodded along with the boy. She knew she spent more time with Sona than Issei, so she tried her best to make it as memorable as possible.

"Has she talked about me?" Sona immediately questioned, only to gain a hesitant shake of his head. "Has she told you anything about how we spent time together? The times we read stories together, play, and even have trips?"

No, none of it. Issei knew that in his mind when Sona finally mentioned it. The pieces slowly fell into places, and a clearer image was given to the confused children.

"Is this what it's about Sona?" Rias softly asked, feeling guilty about what she had accidentally done. "That… I never introduced you to Sona?" She knew she couldn't introduce Sona to Issei due to many reasons. But for as much as she wants to justify it, guilt still ridden in her heart as she knew she could've done better as a friend.

"You're obsessed with him." Sona gritted her teeth, sneered at the last word as if it was poison. "Every time we talk over the phone, or even meet up during our free time, you always talk about Ise-kun this, Ise-kun that. When will you stop?!"

Realizing the truth of the matter, Rias expressed horror as, looking back, she did indeed do so. In her haze of love struck excitement, she showed herself to be some sort of obsessed cultist.

Well, her family has cultists who worshiped them but that's besides the point. Now she knew the mistake she had made, she had to make it right quickly.

With a shaky tone, she gripped her heart at the angry gaze of Sona. "I-I… I'm sorry Sona."

For a few seconds, Sona stared at Rias before turning away from her. Her rage was still present despite her demeanor having calmed considerably. "Maybe being your friend is a mistake."

With that, the bispecticle girl marched out of the room without a care despite Rias's protest and objection. Issei quickly appeased Rias to not walk out of the room, calming the girl down.

"But I made a mistake, Issei! I don't want to lose Sona's friendship with me." Issei could feel the redhead was begging him to let her go, to make her wrongs right. But the boy stood his ground.

"Let her calm down. For now… let me talk to her?" He was unsure about the last part, hoping that he could succeed in that. But otherwise, he was determined to help Rias.

Rias, clearly not on board with Issei's intention, but was considering it. She wanted to talk to her friend, to clear the issue and discuss it. But this time…

'I guess I really failed as a friend.' She would have to sit down and ponder about her mistake pointed out by Sona. The Sitri always was the more analytical and, mostly of the time, right about things that Rias had missed. She was the mind to Rias's heart.

She nodded and Issei took it as a sign of approval to his intention. He quickly let go of the girl and dashed out of the room, trying to find the missing Sitri.

Rias believes in God, as without him devils wouldn't exist, but she never prayed.

But this time, she prayed to him.

"Please let Sona come back."

A small headache made her flinch. Ouch.

It wasn't easy to find a blue haired girl in a mansion, Issei concluded. Sweat formed around his body while breathing to regain his stamina. He had been frantically looking for Sona for the past few minutes.

At first, he thought the girl would immediately leave the mansion as soon as she stormed out of the room. But asking some maids who happened to attend the mansion told him that she never left the mansion.

So he tried to look for her at various places of interest. The garden was the first, but the gardener, who was taking a break, said he hadn't seen the girl. No luck.

"The ballroom? No luck. The dining room? No luck either. Not even the library was a viable place after looking in there." Issei ranted to himself before going to a small balcony, where he finally found a tuft of blue hair.

With a sigh of exhaustion and relief, he made his way towards Sona, who seemed to not notice his presence in her sulking state.

"Finally found you." He announced his presence, which earned a yelp and a gut punch. The girl realized what she had done and nearly apologized before noticing who she assaulted, which she turned away with a renewed hatred.

"Leave me alone."

Issei shook his head, denying her demand. "No way, I took time to look for you!"

"Well you wasted your time." She turned away from Issei, ready to leave only to find him taking a stronghold on her wrist. She tried to pry it off, only to find the boy, despite his exhausted state, had a solid grasp on her.

"I won't let you go until you and Rias make up." At the mention of her friend, no, former friend, she faltered slightly. "I know Rias seems to make a mistake, but give her a chance."

Sona did consider giving Rias the chance. After self reflecting, she realized that she had blown her frustration out of proportion and had to apologize to Rias for that. Yet her ingrained pride as a devil would only allow her to give the chance once Rias had reflected on her action and apologized for it.

So she will follow her pride right now to push Rias away. "If she wants a chance with me again, she should've come to me instead." She coldly replied, tucking the prickling feelings in her heart away from her mind.

"Maybe." Issei agreed. "But then it would still end up with both of you arguing. We can't have that can we?"

Sona bit her tongue from lashing out once more, trying to deny the boy's accusation. Yet her mind agreed with him. She lashed out on Rias, and if Rias chased after her, she would lash out more at the redhead to kingdom come and the bridge would be burnt.

Then again, wasn't Sona the one who started the fire? All she had to do was go back to Rias with a calm demeanor and salvage what was salvageable.

Yet she decided to add fuel to the fire.

"Then why did she always talk about you?! What did you do to her that she likes you more than me?! ARE YOU JUST A REPLACEMENT OF ME?!" She spilled out her inner frustrations to the boy, trying to use her loud voice to deter the boy from interacting with her further.

Yet it yielded the opposite result.

"Are you seriously that stupid?" Issei asked her, who was stunned by his reply. "Was Rias so callous about both of your relationships that it will break just because she got a new friend?"

"No…" She replied meekly. She knew Rias was not that callous about relationships. Afterall, both of them began their bond over loneliness due to their high status in their world. The constant feeling of criticism due to their sibling's action for the betterment of the devil society, the wish to walk among the common folk, and their aspiration to follow their sibling's noble footsteps; those were the things they had in common.

Despite some differences, they still held their friendship over the years and were growing overtime.

She faulted herself for burning the bridge as soon as she let her hate overtook her. But she still held Rias accountable for the redhead's obsession over the brunette.

"But I still think it's Rias's fault for constantly talking about you."

"Then let her say sorry." Issei spoke softly, his touch gentler than before as he loosen his grip on her. "My parents always told me that it's better to forgive than holding a grudge. You don't have to forget, just understanding where they come from is better than breaking things down."

Sona didn't react for a while, digesting the boy's words. Eventually, she nodded with a saddened expression. "Take me to her then."

With a bright smile and an imaginary pat on his back, Issei led Sona back to Rias's room.

Hopefully. He didn't memorize the layout.

When Issei entered the room, Rias didn't hesitate to approach Sona and made a thousand apologies to her. The bispecticle girl quickly broke out of her stunned state by the gesture before doing the same to Rias.

"It's my fault for always talking about Ise-kun when we're spending time together instead of really spending time with you." She hiccuped as she cried while waiting for Sona's return. "I'm sorry for being such a bad friend."

"Yeah… you are a bad friend." Sona replied, but it held no heat nor malice, just a reprimanding feeling behind it. "It's frustrating that you're so passionate about it. I don't want to interrupt you so I kept my mouth shut… I should've let you know what I feel instead of letting it fester. So I'm sorry too."

The girls looked at each other with a heartwarming gaze, showing their forgiveness through it. Before long, Sona held out her pinky finger in front of Rias. "Promise me that you really make time for me?"

Rias's pinky curl around Sona's, both girls held a smile over her face. "Pinky promise. And you tell me how you feel so we don't let misunderstanding make us argue."

Issei, on the side, smiled at the happy conclusion that happened. He was glad that both of them made up and were salvaging what was left, or maybe even strengthening their existing bond.

"But I still want to make up for you." Rias still felt guilty over her own mistake even if things became better. "It mostly started from me anyway."

Sona was about to retort Rias with being fine with not being made up, as fixing their relationship was the best thing for her. But then an idea invaded her mind and she pondered over it.

'Yeah. That would work.'

With a nod, she looked at Rias with a stern gaze and pointed at Issei.

"If you want to make up for me, then both of you should agree that we all should hang out together on the weekends instead of Rias sharing time between him and I!" She declared her idea to both of them.

Rias blinked owlishly for a moment before turning to Issei, who shrugged his shoulders. "I don't see any problem."

With a smile, she turned to Sona. "Then it's settled. All of us should hang out together! Starting with today with a sleepover."

Zeoticus walked in the hallway of his mansion, patrolling on the reason of making sure the children slept in time. His wife tried to do that job but the man, thank lady luck, managed to convince her otherwise.

When he arrived at Rias's room he saw there was still light through the gap of the door and opened it, thinking that the children were not sleeping.

Only to find Sona, Issei, and Rias cuddled together on his daughter's bed sleeping peacefully. The sight was so wholesome that Zeoticus sneakily manifested his camera through his magic and took a picture.

Once done, he switched off the light and left the children in their peaceful dream.

Merry (belated?) Christmas everyone! Finally able to make this chapter after so much and I am glad to get it done. Drama and conflict is not my strong suit, but I tried my best to flesh out the conflict that I set up in the previous chapter. Despite being a simple thing, I'm quite satisfied with the conclusion that I come with. Afterall, children's drama sometimes are quite simple in hindsight.

Other than that, I'm glad that you guys continue to read this story. I wish a Happy New Year to you all and have a nice day! See you next year.